Archive for August, 2022

Legal and Illegal Basement Suites in Calgary

Friday, August 19th, 2022
As a Realtor, I often get questions about Legal and Illegal Basement Suites in Calgary.
I have been through the process of converting an Illegal Suite to a Legal suite and want to share my understanding of what is happening with Basement Suites in Calgary.
In Calgary, I would estimate that 90% of suites are illegal.  The City of Calgary previously had a strategy that they would not ever shut down an illegal suite unless there was a complaint.  Complaints typically came from a neighbour and were most often about parking or noise.
A couple of years back the City changed their position and started to encourage people with illegal suites to convert them to legal suites.  They said at that time they would make it easy for people to convert to legal if the existing suite was built before March 12, 2018.  To convert you would  need to:
a) Re-designate that Land use if not already allowed
b) Require the suite to meet all current fire code.
What they will not look at is meeting building code which is what makes it very expensive to meet.
At that time they gave people a couple of years grace and then the plan was to shut down the rental of all illegal suites. In December 2021 the City identified a large majority of suites had not made the conversion.  In December 2021 City Council extended the amnesty program until December 2023 so suites need to be converted prior to this.
The additional risk to buying an illegal suite is during conversion the City will post a notice to change Land Use and there is a  possibility that neighbours  complain about it and if the City does not approve the land use change then you have a home without a suite.  I have never heard of this happening but it is a possibility.

Calgary Real Estate Market Snapshot, Aug 1, 2022

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2022

What is really happening in the Calgary Real Estate Market?

PS: The sky is not falling!

 

Following is a graph that shows the months of inventory for each housing sector. Looking at a one year trendline gives you an indication of where things are really heading.

Months of Inventory Trendline

Months of Inventory Trendline

 

Gord’s commentary for the month (just my opinion).

July 2022 Highlights

  • The sky is not falling
  • We are seeing a decrease in Inventory and a slight decrease in sales.
  • Overall market is still in a Sellers Market position
  • Overall, we saw a marginal decrease in prices.

 

Calgary Listing Inventory

Listing inventory increased in all Semi-detached and Apartment sectors while Detached homes and Row homes saw a decrease in inventory.  Overall inventory is 67 listings less than last month. Typically in July we see inventories start to rise.

 

Calgary Sales:

All sectors saw a decrease in Sales in July.  Overall sales in July were 2254 down from 2842 in June.  Seeing sales decrease in July is what we would typically expect for July.  People are focused on summer and vacations.  We will likely see this trend until the end of the year.

  

Sales Compared to 2021: 

Calgary home sales for July were just slightly lower than July of 2021. July sales this year were down by 60 over 2021 or 2.7%.  This is telling me that our reduced sales are more seasonal and less to do with higher interest rates.

 

  Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July
2021 1207 1831 2903 3204 2981 2914 2314
2022 2009 3305 4107 3401 3071 2842 2254
Change + 802 1474 +1204 +197 90 -72 -60
% Change + 66.4% +180.5% +141.5% +1.06 +1.03% 2.5% 2.7%

 

 

  Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec
2020 1574 1702 1763 1438 1199
2021 2151 2162 2186 2110 1737
Change +577 +456 + 423 +672 +538
% Change 136.6% 126.7% 123.9% 146.7% 144.9%

 

 Calgary Real Estate Benchmark Sales Prices:

The benchmark price for all sectors combined decreased by $3900 for the month.

It is interesting that even though we are technically in a seller’s market we are seeing price decreases.  In my opinion this is being driven by the national media stating housing is falling and therefore buyers are acting cautiously and acting like it is a buyer’s market.

 

Calgary Real Estate Benchmark Year to Date Sales Price:  See chart below.

Year to date all sectors have seen substantial increases with the highest increases being in the detached sector. See chart below for details.

 

Current Months of Inventory (Absorption Rate): 

The months of inventory continues to increase at a slow rate. Over all sectors, the months of Inventory increased by .47 so twice as fast as in June. We are still in a sellers market position in the Detached, Semi-detached and the Attached Row sectors while the Apartment Condo sector has now moved into balanced market territory.

 

What might the last half of 2022 bring: (again just my opinion)

Based on what I am seeing we are on our way towards a more balanced market. As noted above apartment condos have already entered balanced territory. If we keep up at the same pace, we will move into an overall balanced market by mid September.  What is interesting is this is after mortgage rates went up which seems to be having little affect on the market so far.  Time will tell, but Alberta’s economy seems to be doing much better and lots of people are moving to Calgary which may keep our market relatively strong compared to other parts of Canada.

Below is a summary of numbers in chart form. All numbers are taken from the Calgary Real Estate Boards monthly Stats package.

Calgary Real Estate

Key Stats from the Calgary Real Estate Boards Stats Package.

If you would like to find out how the Market is fairing in your community please contact us.