Soaring costs show signs of levelling off

smalltown

Real-estate board believes half-million mark is ceiling
$ d' X( e  ^# E2 P/ _1 FMario Toneguzzi, Calgary Herald
/ h# L8 ?" b/ HPublished: Tuesday, June 26, 2007
* Z5 m2 o/ J9 y$ ?# U- xThe average price of a single-family home continues to rise -- now within striking distance of the $500,000 mark -- in the hot Calgary real estate market.

/ e+ k0 X- n% c- A1 y1 tAccording to the Calgary Real Estate Board website Monday afternoon, the average sale price of single-family homes here in the past 30 days was $496,991 -- an increase from the $487,523 recorded at the end of May.
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3 X( ]5 B) ]/ o- X2 SRon Stanners, president of the Calgary Real Estate Board, said: "We're at the point where we're going to see it level off."
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"I still don't believe that we're going to go above ($500,000) and, if we do, it will be just marginally in the balance of this year," said Stanners. "I know some other people are predicting otherwise, but I think our inventory (is high) and the market is gradually slowing down at this time of the year. It always does in June going into the summer.

"And, with the inventory we've got, I just can't see prices continuing to creep up. I think we're going to see a levelling off. It may even soften a little bit or the average may drop a little bit because the high-end stuff may not sell as much."
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9 O' B0 e2 U8 T! Q4 r, C1 GA website by local realtor Bob Truman, of First Place Realty, says, as of Sunday, the average sale price of a single-family home in the city over the past seven days was $499,135. As of Saturday, it had actually cracked the half-million-dollar mark with the average during that seven-day period being $500,809.
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Currently, active listings for the single-family home market in Calgary sit at 4,344 and 1,775 properties have sold in the past 30 days, according to CREB.
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5 @/ z" c0 R0 a* I7 pThe median sale price in the past 30 days is $440,000.
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"I really encourage people to start looking at the median price because that's really the number that makes the most sense," said Stanners. "It's the middle price. It looks like the average homeowner has to pay $500,000 for a house. The reality is you don't have to pay that much for a house. You can get into a pretty nice house for $450,000. And, in fact, half of the people who bought houses so far this month paid less than $440,000 for it. So, to me, the median price is far more indicative of what's happening in the marketplace."
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- Z6 m+ k& a1 C: v- gLai Sing Louie, senior market analyst for Calgary for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., said there is still plenty of demand in the local real estate market and the increase in the number of houses for sale "should modify price growth" in the coming months.

! m; R; B2 o- K5 A"There's still a lot of demand in the housing market," said Louie. "Year-to-date we're at a record pace for sales. So that tells us there's still a lot of demand.
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"People are buying. There's a lot more listings on the market, so that should modify some of the price growth in the short term because there's lots of supply so people have a lot of time to decide. People have more time to look around. So that should modify some of that price pressure."

At the end of May, the single-family home average sale price had risen 17.25 per cent compared to May 2006's average price of $415,815.

"From month to month, there's always variations," said Louie. "It's best to look at it at least a quarter or two before you start building longer-term trends."

He said the CMHC forecast for the average MLS single-detached home sale price is $521,000 by the end of 2008 in the Calgary Census Metropolitan Area.
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9 A+ j3 ]2 L2 ^& `9 h- ?2 qThe Calgary CMA includes the city, Airdrie, the Municipal District of Rocky View, Chestermere, Cochrane, Irricana, Beiseker and Crossfield.
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; P4 M% D# s! ?- t7 Z"We're expecting prices still to rise. We're not expecting them to shoot up like they did last year, but there is still price pressure in the market," said Louie.
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3 h/ U+ [  x- m8 h4 _© The Calgary Herald 2007