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Calgary Real Estate Board Statistics Febuary 2011

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Calgary Real Estate activity levels show substantial increase. 

Whenever I look at the housing market I always look at some key numbers – Inventory, Sales and the median Price .  Looking at these 3 areas in my opinion give us a great snapshot of the market.  Below you will find this information along with a few comments.  Information below is taken directly from the Calgary Real Estate Boards Stats Package for realtors.

Calgary Listing Inventory:  As shown below our inventory in Calgary Metro increased by 547 listing this month.   As suggested before this number will very likely continue to increase as it does every spring.  

Inventory Jan 2011  Feb 2011 Change
Single Family Home 3073 3504 431
Condo’s 1634 1750 116
Total 4707 5254 547

 

Calgary Sales: 

Wow, Need I say anything more – the numbers below speak for themselves.  In certain communities we are even starting to see the odd competing offer.   

Sales Jan 2011    Feb 2011 Change
Single Family Home 791 1169 378 or 47.7%
Condo’s 302 468 166 or 54.9%
Total 1093 1637 544 or 49.8%

 

Calgary Real Estate Sales Prices :   For this summary,  I only  focus only on the Median Sales Price as the average can be skewed by How long could treatment at a 7 Day Detox Rehab Program take? Treatment at a detox rehab program can take as little as one week for an alcohol dependence, and two weeks for a drug dependence. Realtors selling more of less million dollar homes and shows a better reflection of the market.  Prices for both Single Family homes and Condos showed increases this last month.  Truly a reflection of supply and demand – our supply (inventory) is still fairly low while demand (sales) increased substantially.

Sales Prices Jan  Median Price Feb    Median Price Change
Single Family Homes $390,000 $400,000 $10,000
Condo’s $255,000 $267,000 $12,000

 

**It is important to note that some of this demand may be due to mortgage rules changing as of March 17th where people can now only amortize a mortgage over 30 years instead of 35 years.

In other news:  The Bank of Canada announced today that it will not be changing it’s overnight rate.  Therefore the Prime lending rate remains at 3.0%

If you have any questions about this summary, the attached stats package or any Real Estate questions please feel free to contact us anytime.  

Gord Piper and Brent Wilcox

Century 21, The Professionals

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TD’s Mortgage Gamble

Friday, February 25th, 2011

The statement that not all mortgages are created equal came up again recently with regards to TD and how they register their residential mortgages. Effective October 11, 2010, TD started registering all their residential mortgages as collateral mortgages. These changes make it easier for homeowners to tap into their equity and harder for them to switch to another lender upon renewal. Here are some highlights with my comments:

1) Mortgages will be reported to Equifax

This is interesting since traditional mortgages in Canada do not report on your credit history. Lines of credit ( which are registered as collateral charges ) do appear on the credit history. So does this mean that these mortgages will?

2) Collateral mortgage can be registered up to 125% of the borrower’s home value upon close.

This allows you to borrow more money ( if you qualify and your home goes up in value ) in the future and avoid legal costs ( $600 to $900 savings ) – this might be okay but read on. One further issue with this practice is that Realtors will often pull title on a property prior to listing it to see if there is enough left over from the sale to pay their commissions. With a mortgage registered at 125% of the home value this could create concern in the eyes of the realtor.

3) The collateral mortgage is assignable

This means that TD will allow you to transfer this mortgage to another lender at maturity – here is the big negative – there are no lenders at this time that will accept a collateral mortgage for a mortgage transfer. This is important because these mortgages will not qualify for a NO-FEE transfer to a new lending institution – so the borrower must now pay legal and appraisal costs to move to another bank. Currently mortgages that are registered normally can be transferred to a new lender upon renewal at NO COST to the borrower. With TD’s collateral mortgage you will incur these costs to switch to get a better rate.

4) TD will not accept another lenders collateral mortgage charge for transfer

This pretty much confirms it – TD will not accept this type of mortgage at this time and no other lender will accept them either.

So, in summary, in my mind, these changes are more negative than positive because if you loose leverage to negotiate, it could cost you a lot in the form of higher interest rates upon renewal. This move again reinforces why mortgage clients should deal with a qualified Mortgage Broker to help consumers decide what mortgage product is best for them.

Canada Mortgage Direct

Bob Alexander, B.Comm, CMA, AMP

Phone: 403-875-5270
Email: bob@mortgagedoctors.ca
www.mortgagedoctors.ca

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Housing Market Outlook, First Quarter 2011 by CMHC

Monday, February 21st, 2011
Looking for excellent information on Canada’s Housing Market.  Here’s information you should not pass up.
C a n a d a M o r t g a g e a n d H o u s i n g C o r p o r a t i o n produces a quarterly report  broken down by provinces.  In these reports you will find:
  • National Outlook
  • Trends at a Glance
  • Provincial Outlooks including housing starts, resale homes and prices
Charts showing history and predictions on Housing starts, Resale numbers, Prices, Employment, Unemployment, GDP, Key Market Indicators including Rental Vacancy rates.
To view the latest report see CMHC.  If you like what you see you can also subscribe to receive this report directly from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
If you have further questions about the local Calgary Real Estate Market please contact us.
This entry was posted in CMHC Housing Market Outlook and tagged Business/Finance, Calgary, Canada, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Bookmark the permalink.

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Calgary Real Estate Board 2011 Market Forecast

Monday, January 24th, 2011

The Calgary Real Estate Board has released their market forecast for 2011.  Below I have highlighted some key areas you may find of interest.

MLS RE-SALE HOMES

MLS RE-SALE HOMES 2009 2010 2011 Forecast Change Forecaster
Single Family Sales 14,400 12,095 14,500 19.9% CREB
Single Family Listings 22,459 25,709 25,000 -1.6% CREB
Single Family Average Price $442,327 $461,144 $480,000 4.1% CREB
Condo Sales 6,328 5,181 6,000 15.8% CREB
Condo Listings 10,323 11,423 10,000 -12.5% CREB
Condo Average Price $283,734 $289,697 $295,900 1.8% CREB
Town sales 3,943 3,525 4,000 13.5% CREB
Town Listings 8502 8828 9,000 2.0% CREB
Town Average Price $352,704 $359,327 $368,500 2.6% CREB

 

New Homes

New Homes 2009 2010 2011 Forecast Change Forecaster
Starts – Single Family 4,200 5,600 6,000 7% CREB
Starts – Multi Family  1,350 3,600 4,000 11% CREB

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

Economic Indicators 2009 2010 2011 Forecast Change Forecaster
GDP -2.8% 2.7% 4.15 1.4% Govt of Alberta
Calgary Net Migration 12,920 -4,154 10,000 340% CREB
1 Year Mortgage Rate 4.05% 3.83% 3.5% -.33% CMHC
5 Year Mortgage Rate 5.5% 5.75% 5.75% 0 CMHC
Oil Price (USD) $60/BBl $79.BBL $90/BBL 13.9% Govt of Alberta
Gas Price (USD) $3.75/NMBTU $4.00/NMBTU $6.00/NMBTU 50% Govt of Alberta
Calgary Employment Growth -1.4% 1.3% 2.0% .7% City of Calgary

 

The entire package with detailed explainations is availiable at CREB FORECAST. COM

If you have specific questions about this report or about the Market today please contact me directly.

Brought to you by Gord Piper and Associates.

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CMHC’s Calgary Housing Market Outlook

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

We are pleased to announce that the Fall 2010 edition of CMHC’s Calgary Housing Market Outlook is now available. 

CMHC stands for Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation and every quarter they publish a new report.  CMHC is a government organization and therefore the content should not contain any bias.  This report gives you information on the following areas:

  • New Home Market
  • Resale Market – MLS Listings Information
  • Rental Market
  • Economic Overview
  • Mortgage Rate Overview
  • Forecast Summary

To view the full report click CMHC Housing Market Outlook.

While we report the monthly stats from the Calgary Real Estate Board every month on our website we think this is just another source of good information. Have a read and let us know what you think.

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Calgary Real Estate Stat’s October 2010

Sunday, October 31st, 2010

Welcome to our new Blog! 

Within our blog it is our intention to share news and information related to Real Estate in Calgary.   Today we have for you a summary of some important stat’s taken from the Calgary Real Estate Boards October 2010 monthly Stats package.   These key areas give you a good snapshot of the Calgary real estate market.

Calgary Listing Inventory:  Inventory showed a decrease again this month.  We have seen steady inventory decreases since June when we peaked at 9080 listings within Calgary.

Inventory  Sept  October Change
Single Family Home 4880 4528 – 352
Condo’s 2204 2042 – 162
Total 7084 6570 – 514

 

Calgary Sales:  Sales are very similar to September Sales but are again down from last year’s sales.  

Sales September October Change
Single Family Home 958 999 + 41
Condo’s 366 310 – 56
Total 1324 1309 – 15

Calgary Real Estate Sales Prices :   For this summary,  I will focus only on the Median Sales Price as the average can be skewed by Realtors selling more of less million dollar homes and should be a better reflection of the market.  As you can see below single family homes dropped by $2100.00 and Condo’s dropped by $10,000 – It is important to note that in August Condo prices increased by $5,000 so this is partly just a bounce back.

Sales Prices Sept Median Price October Median Price Change
Single Family Homes $390,000 $387,900  $2,100.
Condo’s $265,000 $255,000  $10,000

Personally we have noticed that in the last couple of weeks the activity has increased and the sales in the last week of this month  showed that with sales of 354 listings compared to the previous week with sales of 275 listings. 

If you have any questions about this summary,  or have any suggestions to other information you would like to see here please Contact us. 

Gord Piper and Brent Wilcox are Realtors with Century 21, The Professionals which is conveniently located within the Northland Village Professional Centre in Northwest Calgary.

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