Find out what is really happening in the Real Estate Market. Stay ahead of everyone else by following our Monthly Market Snapshot of the Calgary Real Estate Market. This shows what’s really happening! The market is driven by supply and demand so here we show the inventory (supply) and sales (demand) and most importantly the relationship between the two and how it affects the price of Calgary Real Estate. A simple way to keep up to date and ahead of most! Below are the details along with a few comments, all numbers were taken from the Calgary Real Estate Boards Stats package for Realtors.
Calgary Listing Inventory In December our total inventory of listings in Calgary declined in all 3 categories. This is very typical for this time of year as people are focused on the holiday season and wait until the New Year to list.
| Inventory | Nov 2015 | Dec 2015 | Change |
| Detached | 2680 | 2138 | -542 |
| Attached | 1287 | 1078 | -209 |
| Apartment | 1349 | 1120 | -229 |
| Total City of Calgary | 5316 | 4336 | -980 |
Calgary Sales: Sales in all categories decreased in December. Again this is typical for us to see a decrease in sales in December with the holidays. We are down from 2014 (2014 was a huge year) and are down from the long term average. What is interesting is the decline from November was approx. 30% in 2015 and the drop from November to December in 2014 was 39%.
| Sales | Nov 2015 | Dec 2015 | Change | % Change |
| Detached | 799 | 533 | -266 | -33.3% |
| Attached | 269 | 194 | -75 | -27.9% |
| Apartment | 195 | 151 | -44 | -22.6% |
| Total City of Calgary | 1263 | 878 | -385 | -30.4% |
Calgary Real Estate Sales Prices: Prices for all categories decreased this month. All the decreases were modest with the largest being in the detached home sector. I think the reason this sector took the largest drop is that it has been relatively stable for the last year while we have seen decreases in the other sectors. The overall price decrease for December was .42%
| Sales Prices | Nov 2015 Benchmark Price | Dec 2015Benchmark Price | Change |
| Detached | 510,700 | 508,700 | -2,000 |
| Attached | 352,400 | 351,400 | -1,000 |
| Apartment | 287,000 | 285,500 | -1,500 |
| Total City of Calgary | 450,700 | 448,800 | -1,900 |
Sales Prices “Year to Date” Year to date prices – The numbers here speak for themselves. As you can see the largest decrease is in the apartment sector. Overall I am surprised at how well Real Estate has held up so far with the oil prices, unemployment rate and all the uncertainty in Calgary. If you compare how much the prices have changed with the Absorption rate below there is a direct correlation.
| Sales Prices | Dec 31, 2014 Benchmark Price | Dec 2015Benchmark Price | Change$ | % Change |
| Detached | 510,900 | 508,700 | -2,200 | -.4% |
| Attached | 357,000 | 351,400 | -5,600 | -1.6% |
| Apartment | 300,300 | 285,500 | -14,800 | -4.9% |
| Total City of Calgary | 459,000 | 448,800 | -10,200 | -2.2% |
Absorption Rate (Months of Inventory) (the inventory divided by the number of sales in the last month). What does this mean you might ask?
| Buyer’s Market | >4.0 | Drives prices down |
| Balanced Market | Between 2.8 to 4.0 | Prices typically remain stable |
| Seller’s Market | <2.8 | Drives prices up |
*** Absorption Rate*** In my opinion this is the most critical number to look at. December saw detached homes move from a balanced market just into a buyers’ market putting all housing sectors into buyers’ a market position. Based on this I would have to predict further price easing in the upcoming months especially in the attached home and apartment condo sectors.
| Absorption Rate | Nov 2015 | Dec 2015 | Change |
| Detached | 3.35 | 4.01 | +.66 |
| Attached | 4.79 | 5.56 | +.77 |
| Apartment | 6.91 | 7.42 | +.51 |
| Total City of Calgary | 4.21 | 4..94 | +.73 |
Price Sensitivity It is also important to note that homes in the lower price ranges are still moving much quicker than homes in the higher price ranges. **Please note that these numbers do change on a community basis and more so for towns. This report does not include rural properties. If you would like to find stats on your community just let me know. If you have any questions about this summary or Real Estate questions please feel free to contact us.