2010 February

Archive for February, 2010

Friday, February 26, 2010

Payroll employment update

On Thursday Statcan released the December payroll employment survey results. Sort of the less heralded cousin to the labour force survey (which includes the much hyped unemployment rate). It’s been a couple months since we looked at this last, and there is good stuff in there, so I figured it was time to take another peak at it.

First up we have the average weekly earnings for Albertans. As we can see, it’s been pretty much stagnant for the last year after some fairly healthy growth during the boom years. No surprise given the economic climate… but earnings holding is only part of the story on the payroll front…

Because as we can see here, the number of people employed took a real nosedive last year, dropping over 100,000 from peak to trough. It’s since bounced back a little, but those jobs are going to be slow in returning. So, between losing all those jobs, and earnings going flat, that equals a pretty significant drop in cash coming in from corporate sources in Wild Rose Country.

To fully grasp just how significant that drop is to the economy as a whole, we must also figure in the effects of the overall population. So to do that I took the number of payroll employees, and divided it by the total eligible populations (basically Albertans 15 and older, from the labour force survey) and plotted over time we get a graph that looks like so.

Payroll Employees as a proportion of working population

Not a rosy picture painted… an over 5% drop in just a few months. The effects of that on the economy will be felt going forward and they won’t be pleasant… and figuring in all the spin offs of all that lost income no longer flowing through the economy, it only gets worse. Though, historically we’re still around a fairly normal level, so it’s not all bad news. We’ve still got to reign it in from the recent boom years and start living within our means again… and all those figuring we had entered a new paradigm have been yet again proved wrong.

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Monday, February 22, 2010

New Construction Update

Filed Under: New Constrution

Decided to peel my ass off the sofa tonight and actually do something. I found my way over the Howe Street to see if they had any podcasts worth listening too. They didn’t, but I clicked on Mish’s latest to kill time. For those unfamiliar with him… you remember that kid back in junior high, kind of short, scrawny, who was relatively bright, but not nearly as smart as he thought, and always VERY obnoxious. The kind of kid that you didn’t necessarily condone people kicking his ass… but it didn’t necessarily disappoint you when it happened, and it was no mystery as to why it happened… except to him.

Well, Mish is that kid all grown up… and even when you agree with what he has to say, he still rubs you the wrong way. Anyway, he briefly touched on housing starts, and I figured I haven’t too a look at those in a while, so no time like the present. And yes, I do realize that was a very long segue that really went nowhere, but lets face it, you aren’t here cause I’m a good writer.

So, lets start with prices. That seems to be all anyone worries about anyway, and I also included the resale median just for comparative purposes. Seems we’ve had a lot of spikes in the last year, but the general trend has been down. This isn’t really a surprise, as because of the nature of the transactions new construction prices tend to lag the resale market, and for the most part the resale market largely only held after a brief spring increase. There was also a lot of excess inventory in their ranks, so it’s not a recipe for rapid price escalation even with the historically low interest rates.

Moving on… lets do sales. This is interesting. Obviously new construction sales are smoothed (again, by the nature of the transaction) compared to resale tallies, but even so, sales were very low all year. According to the resale numbers we were seeing record numbers for SFH sales, even exceeding those rung up during the boom (and yeah, that is terribly troubling going forward from a debt/macroeconomic sense, but is a subject for another day)… yet new sales hardly had a pulse. As we were going into the spring with very high levels of unsold inventory, this would seem to indicate that perhaps the interest rate induced binge didn’t do much to clear it out.

And this would seem to confirm that. Unabsorbed inventory appears to be somewhat range-bound in 1,500-1,750 territory. I’m a little surprised by this, I admit. I thought that the spring/summer would have been a god-send to the builders and allowed them to clear out a lot of the inventory… evidently, not so much.

Graph is a bit of a mess, I apologize. But I wanted to included starts, and completions just cause the former in particular gets a lot of hype. Starts kind of took off in the summer, but have slowed going into the fall. Some find them to be a good economic indicator, but I’m kind of luke warm to them. I think the under construction stat is probably a more valid indicator.

Speak of the devil. Whodathunkit? A segue that went somewhere! This is a look at the number of units under construction at any given time going back to 2003. As we can see, while low by historical measures, we’re still close to normal and have leveled off after a big drop. For those, like me, who think the city is significantly overbuilt, that leveling off is actually not a good thing as we need to flush out the excess inventory before we start building more units. On the bright side though, at least we don’t have 16,000 and change under construction any more… and for those in construction on the other hand, I’m sure it’s very welcome news though.

I think that is pretty good for today. Now I’m off to watch ice dance… a statement I never thought I would utter, and an act that I believe will also result in the revoking of my “Man Card.” Tak’er easy all!

3 comments

Saturday, February 20, 2010

December Mortgage Arrears

Filed Under: Foreclosures

The CBA released the mortgage arrears numbers through December on Friday, and guess what? Yeah, they’re up! Hard to believe, I know, it’s only the 27th consecutive month. As we surpassed the previous record high with the November figures, obviously that record has been reset, now sitting at 0.75% (up from 0.72% in November, and 0.40% a year prior).

That’s a rather scary trend line isn’t it? And is showing no sign of slowing down… and considering what went on this past summer with the defacto teaser rates that the central banks of the world prompted, and house lusting young people only concerned with carrying costs and who couldn’t even spell amortization much less understand it, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. For those of us patient and informed though, it will be highly entertaining at least.

Nationally the rate was up just slightly, now sitting at 0.45% (up from 0.33% a year ago). Most of the other provinces fluctuated within a mere 0.01%, except Saskatchewan, where it climed 0.02%, but is still a national low, 0.29% (up from 0.23% a year prior). The Atlantic provinces continue to have the second highest rate (a distant second behind Alberta), sitting at 0.51% (up from 0.42% a year prior). BC will remain the province to really watch going forward though, especially now that the Olympics will soon be in their rear-view… they continue their slow but steady climb, and sit at 0.40% as of December, up from 0.23% a year ago.

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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Rental Market Update

Filed Under: Rental Market

Seeing as Boardwalk announce their quarterly financials later this morning, I figured it’s a good time to do an update on the rental market. Fortunately they make a habit of posting their numbers online the night before, so for you early birds you can read the good stuff here before it’s even officially announced. You guys may recall I did a post using their numbers back in November, this one won’t be nearly as elaborate. We’ll just touch on the sexy numbers, rents and vacancies.

First up average rents. As we can see, rents are still trending down, but only slightly. But if you read through their full quarterly report you will note that incentives continue to increase significantly (page 20), which is hiding some of declines, particularly in regards to market averages. And from last time around, we also know that increased incentives are the last step before rent decreases really take hold. So, we’ll watch these numbers going forward.

Vacancy rates aren’t looking too bad. Their increased incentives in the last six months seem to have had their desired effect, and gotten them back in the a stronger range. These numbers don’t necessarily always reflect in the entire market numbers produced by the CMHC, which are a more complete look at the market… but Boardwalk is by far the biggest player in Edmonton, and a major one in Calgary. So these are a decent indicator in their own right.

4 comments

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Shot across the bow

Filed Under: Canada

So, after months of trying to talk down the market, this morning Dim Jim fired the first actual shot across the bow of the housing bubble (not that one exists… according to him… on the record…). On April 19th three new rules will take effect:

1. Qualifications will be based on 5-year fixed rate

2. Refinancing will be limited to 90% LTV (down from the current 95%)

3. Properties purchased for investment purposes will require at least 20% downpayments to qualify for CMHC insurance

For the most part this appears far too little, and MUCH too late… but to be gracious, I guess it’s at least a step in the right direction.

As per the first change, qualification using 5-year fixed rate, it’s a small step to saving first-time buyers from themselves by limiting the amount of financing they can qualify for. So even if they are planning to opt for a variable rate mortgage, and/or a different term, the maximum amount of financing they can qualify for will be based on the current 5-year fixed rate (which is generally a higher rate than VRM’s or shorter terms). Still rife for abuse, but a slight tightening.

Change #2 is aimed at limiting those who borrow against perceived equity in their homes. We saw all kinds of this in Alberta the last few years as with the rapid run up in prices, as soon as they figured they had a little equity, many people would immediately borrow against that and treat their home as something of an ATM. This not only greatly increases their respective debt loads, but also leaves them dangerously exposed to a market downturn, and negative equity. This might save some people out east from repeating the same mistakes made here, but it won’t do much for us in Alberta.

Finally, change #3 takes aim at those buying investment properties. Frankly, I don’t think the CMHC should have been in the business of offering this kind of insurance in the first place. Their mandate was to allow people to own their own homes, not subsidize the speculative activities of others. Not to say I have any issue with people engaging in real estate speculation, I’m all for it… but if one is going to reap the rewards, they should bear the full risk, and that includes obtaining financing on the free market, not via taxpayer backed guarantees.

On the whole I don’t think these changes will do much, but might save a few from over extending themselves. Ultimately the damage to the market is already done though, especially here in Alberta where the horse was out of the barn four years ago. When the market turns again, and the crash ensues I imagine we’ll see changes with actual teeth in the aftermath (or at least one can hope) to keep it from happening again… but for now it’s an issue of politics, and even acknowledging, much less doing something to pop, the bubble would be too damaging for the bureaucrats to risk, even if it is in our long term interest.

One thing about the last few months that has been immensely entertaining is witnessing the sheer hypocrisy and gall coming from groups like CAAMP… one minute their trumpeting how wise and conservative Canadian borrowers have been, and there is no way they are overextended and that first-timers are really eminently qualified… and the next screaming that raising downpayment requirements by a mere 5% or capping amortizations to 30 years would destroy the market in one fell swoop. Apparently blissfully oblivious to that the two positions are pretty much mutually exclusive, as if the former was actually true, the latter would be manageable.

But apparently being eminently qualified and being capable of saving 5% more to put down are different things to the mortgage brokers of Canada… and realizing such would really put a damper in their cognitive dissonance.

6 comments

Friday, February 12, 2010

Fight! Fight!

Filed Under: Canada

You may recall a few months back we talked about the Competition Bureau declaring that the CREA’s has some rules that are anti-competitive concerning their MLS system. At that point the CREA did a lot of posturing and pumped out some bravado, but said they’d seek something of a settlement with the Competition Bureau.

Since that time evidently they’ve been in negotiations, to some extent anyway… but earlier this week the Competition Bureau dropped the hammer on them again and announced that there would be no settlement reached, and thus, they’re taking the CREA to tribunal. Where both sides will argue their side, and then the tribunal make there decision and the results will be binding.

In the wake of this, the CREA does what every company with a PR department does… that being twist some arms in the media, feign indignance and posture. They also issued another internal memo to their members laying out the changes they were willing to offer the Competition Bureau. That can be read via this link.

I’ll spare you reading through that moaning, and just show you the amendments. The italics represent new language, and crossed out represents the old language. So lets take a look.

RULE 17: OPERATION OF A BOARD’S MLS® SYSTEM

17.1: Acceptance of Listings

17.1.1: The Three (3) Pillars of the MLS® Mark
Only listings that comply with the following three (3) pillars of the MLS® Mark can be placed on a Board/Association’s MLS® System.

17.1.1.1: Membership
Only REALTORS® may place a listing on a Board/ Association’s MLS® System.

17.1.1.2: Agency
A listing REALTOR® must act as agent for the seller to sell the property and to assist the seller throughout the entire time of the listing contract in order to post, amend or remove a property listing in a Board’s MLS® System. The nature of any additional services to be provided by the listing REALTOR® is determined by agreement between the listing REALTOR® and the seller, subject to applicable regulatory requirements and the Rules of CREA and Boards/Associations.

17.1.1.3: Compensation to Co-operating Broker
The listing REALTOR® agrees to pay to the co-operating (i.e. selling) REALTOR® compensation for the co-operative selling of the property. An offer of compensation of zero is not acceptable.

17.2: Interpretations of the Three Pillars of the MLS® Mark

17.2.1: The listing REALTOR® shall receive and present all offers and counter offers to the seller.

17.2.21: The listing REALTOR® shall be available to provide professional advice and counsel to the seller on all offers and counter offers unless otherwise directed by the seller in writing.

17.2.3: The mere posting of property information in an MLS® system is contrary to CREA’s Rules. A “mere posting” occurs when the listing agreement relieves the listing member of any obligations under the Rules, including the obligation that the listing REALTOR® remain the agent of the seller throughout the term of the listing contract.

17.2.42: The listing REALTOR® is responsible and accountable for the accuracy of information submitted to a Board/Association for inclusion in the Board’s MLS® system, and the Board/Association is responsible for ensuring that the data submitted to it meets reasonable standards of quality.

17.2.53: Only REALTORS® are permitted to display the MLS® trademarks in signage, advertising, etc.

17.2.64: Only the listing REALTOR® name(s) and contact information may appear on REALTOR.ca. Where the seller directs the listing REALTOR® in writing to do so, the seller’s contact information may appear in the REALTOR® only remarks (non-public) section of a listing on a Board/Association’s MLS® System. The seller’s name or contact information shall not appear on REALTOR.ca or in the general (public) remarks section of a listing on a Board/Association’s the MLS® System. The listing REALTOR® may include a direction in the General Description section on REALTOR.ca or on websites operated by CREA or a Board/Association to visit the REALTOR® website to obtain additional information about the
listing (but the nature of such additional information shall not be specified).

17.2.75: In cases w Where a Board permits listings in which the seller has reserved the right to sell the property himself/herself, that fact shall be specified in the Board/Association’s MLS® database System.

The change in 17.1.1.2 basically makes it so a seller could just employ an agent to list their property on the MLS, and could pick and choose whatever other services they wanted (open houses, representation in negotiations, none of the above, etc)… whereas before the rules stated a seller must take ALL the services, whether they want them or not. Which would seem to largely satisfy what the Competition Bureau was requesting. So, so far, so good.

So we work our way down to section 17.2… and the first thing we notice is they strike a couple rules. First, the section stating the agent must receive and present all offers is struck. This would go hand-in-hand with the first amendment giving the seller options as to what services are offered, as well as lending them the ability to accept offers directly. Again, good. The former 17.2.3 suffers the same fate, as to allow sellers that ability to acquire ala carte services, in this case merely getting listed on MLS and nothing further.

Then we get down to the last two, and things start going off the rails, and is quite likely where the Competition Bureau took issue. In 17.2.64 it formerly stated that none of the sellers personal information may appear in the listing… this was changed to say that if the seller puts it in writing that they want their contact info included on the listing that it may, but would only be available on the listing agents own website. But nowhere else.

So if someone was looking on realtor.ca, the sellers information would not be available. At most there could be a vague allusion to there being further information available on the listing agents website, but not what information. This one strikes me as quite a chintzy amendment, and designed to make it sound like they’re cooperating, when they’re really doing nothing.

The final one, 17.2.75 actually seems like a decent concession. Whereas before before their could feign ignorance and say it was up to the various boards to set the rules regarding whether the seller can represent themselves, here it states that the seller can do so anywhere. So, that’s good.

As far as their “pillars” go, other than the one I think their amendments are fair… but I think an even bigger issue isn’t really broached in that discussion, and that is access to the MLS database itself. They had a battle similar to this in the US back in ’05/’06… the Justice Department went after the NAR and won. Since then innovation has really taken hold and even with their real estate market collapsing after the bubble of their own, innovation has still revolutionized the offerings (eg. Zillow) to the consumer. In just four years, they’re now lightyears ahead of we Canadians.

That’s not to say this is a cut and dry case though. After all, this is their database. They’ve spend a lot of time and money developing and maintaining it, and within that should have the right to govern it’s use as they please. The problem though, is that in this case they could ultimately fall victim to their own success, or more specifically, that of the multiple listing service. As 90% of all transactions go through it, they have established themselves as a de facto monopoly… and when that happens, the rules change. Particularly when such a large population is effected, and such large sums of money are involved.

Arguments along those lines would be interesting to hear… on the other hand, many of the arguments trotted out by agents publicly though seem to vary from the laughable to the completely absurd. One of the most common talking points seems to surround skill and professionalism… which is really quite ridiculous.

This is an issue of database access, and to get access to that database the requirements have nothing to do with the aforementioned qualities. Taking a couple classes, passing a test and writing a cheque does not a professional make (in fact, from what I’ve read it’s little different than what it takes to sell insurance door-to-door, which BTW, are pretty much pyramid schemes if you ever wondered).

That’s not to say there aren’t ones that are great at what they do… just that the entry requirements does nothing to separate the competent from those that can’t find their ass with both hands and a compass. As opposed to say actual professions, like doctors, lawyers or even CA’s where the barriers to entry are vastly greater, and professional associations actually act like professional associations and not glorified lobby groups.

Anyway, enough of that for today. We’ll touch on this again when there are new developments… but for the next couple weeks I’ll have my ass firmly entrenched on the couch watching the Games. I’m an admitted Olympic junkie. I’ve got PVR’s hooked into DVD recorders hooked into old school VCR’s, determined to not to miss a second of it… even sprung to send the girlfriend on a cruise to make sure she wouldn’t be around to hassle me. I’m going to try to keep up with the updates, but if they’re slow coming don’t worry, I’m not dead, just binging on junk food and biathlon!

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Government Revenues

Filed Under: Commodity Prices, Macroeconomics

If you’ve been in the province at any point this week, I’m sure you’ve heard all about the 2010 budget coming out. I’ll leave it to you guys to parse the spending side and get into all the nuts and bolts, should you be so inclined… I’m just going to take a quick look at historical revenues and estimates going forward as I think that’s an interesting barometer of how the economy will do going forward.

We’ll ease our way into this just looking at total revenues. Doesn’t look like the government is expecting the economy to come roaring back, as the forecast for the next year is calling for revenues just slightly higher than what we’ve had over the last year. Well below the “boom” years, but well above what we were getting early in the decade. Judging from the deficit that’s being run it’s as tough for the government to start living within their means as it seems to be for much of the populous, but it’s a wise lesson to learn in any case.

Now we’ll break those totals down into some of their components. Lets keep it simple and just break it down into resource, income tax, and a catch-all category of “other”. Here we see resource revenue has taken a real hit, but we knew that already. We’ll take another look at those in a minute. Income tax revenues held up fairly well, all things considered. Obviously slipped a bit, but didn’t fall off the table.

The “other” category had their biggest year every last year. For those curious, that includes stuff like consumption taxes, gaming, registries, licensing, and investments… though they actually lost almost two billion on their investments in the crash, according to the forecast they more than made that back last year. Might break that down further next time I look at this topic, but for now if want to explore that further you can check that out on your own.

As oil and gas is always the topic du jour in Alberta, lets take a quick look at that before we wrap. As we can see from the graph, even though gas gets all the press, historically it’s really been gas that’s been the money maker. That’s come to an end in the last year though, and natural gas revenues has tanked. Now oil is doing the heavy lifting, particularly synthetic crude/bitumen, which has really risen to prominence recently.

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Monday, February 8, 2010

Quarterly Sales

Filed Under: Sales

Thought we’d take a look at the 2009 sales tallies from a little bit different angle, and see how the parts played into the whole. As we know, a year ago, before central banks really cut their prime rates to the bone, all the news was that sales were really quite dismal… but as soon as rates crashed, suddenly sales took off right across the country (as did prices in many markets). Hell, it even seemed to breathe a little life into the spiraling US market.

Anyway, without any further ado, lets see how things played out here in Edmonton.

On an annual basis, we can see 2009 actually had the 3rd highest sales total of the decade (and in all likelihood, all-time). Easily outpacing more balanced years like 2000-03, and even the scalding real estate market witnessed in 2004-05. Last years tally was only surpassed by the totals put up during the two years when the lending floodgates were thrust open, and the entire Alberta real estate market went totally off the rails. Not bad for the worst recession in generations, huh?!

Like I mentioned in the intro though, sales this time last year were considered dismal. So how can we end up with boom level sales? Or were sales just not that bad to being with?

So, here we break the annual tallies up into their quarterly components… and we see, that yeah, a year ago sales were that bad. The worst first quarter in a decade in fact. There had been a couple years in the early part of the decade that were nearly as low, but on a whole it was a fair bit worse than average. And if we browse up to Q4 ’08, we note that we were coming off the worst quarterly tally of the decade, period. Things were pretty rough.

So, once the financial crisis took hold, sales dwindled and we witnessed two brutal quarters. The worst in at least a decade, and since a time when the population was noticeably smaller… then interest rates plummeted… and even with the recession still taking jobs and halting earnings, sales took off again. Third highest Q2 on record… then second highest Q3… and second again in Q4. Obviously we saw a lot of disproportional sales on both ends of the spectrum, though at least one could argue that the low Q1 numbers were justified given the economic climate. The last three quarters have seen boom level sales, all the while the economy has actually been getting worse, or at best holding.

Doesn’t seem to pass the sniff test (unless you work for the CREA or CAAMP of course). It was so obvious even the Bank of Canada and the Feds started firing off flares… hell, now we’re even hearing the big banks have been begging the government to save them from themselves. You know it’s bad when Bay Street is screaming for more tighter regulation.

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Friday, February 5, 2010

Price to Rent Ratios – Western Canada

Filed Under: Canada, Rental Market

Back in the spring we took a look at historical price-to-rent ratios in Edmonton and Calgary, so we’re about due for an update. Rather than a simple regurgitation, I figured we’d expand on it a little more and add in some more markets and see how we all stack up. I would have liked to have had some eastern centres, but unfortunately I’m lacking good resale data on them… so maybe next time around.

First up we’ll do condo prices to rent ratios, since they are the most comparable from a rent vs buy perspective. I only had long-term condo data for Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver so that’s why we only have the three for this one. We know from the first time we covered this topic that historically, Edmonton has a ratio of 11-12 years (or 130-140 months), while Calgary has a ratio of around 14-15 years (or 170-180 months).

You probably note this graphs looks a little different than the prior time this was covered. That is because in I included the spring numbers that CMHC started to report in ’07, and I did not include that the first time, so the highs are a little bit higher in light of the inclusion of new data. On this graph we’ve also included both monthly (price/monthly rent) and yearly (price/yearly rent) ratios. They are both often cited, so I figured I’d just include them both even though they’re easily convertible.

We can see that ratio wise, Vancouver was trending right with us in Alberta until we topped out in spring of ’07… and they continued rocketing up for another year before peaking in spring of ’08. Edmonton topped out at 298 (24.8y), Calgary at 318 (26.5y), while Vancouver reached 363 (30.3y). Usually anything from 120-180 (10-15y) is considered relatively healthy, and anything above 200 indicates a serious imbalance (i.e. trouble)… so, obviously we in the far west have blew well past that mark.

All three markets had been in decline through last April, but have again started rising since central bank rates plunged and sales and prices started to again rise. Though in Alberta rents have been dropping over that period, in BC rents conversely have continued trending up the last year. Interesting factoid, rents in Calgary from mid ’07 through the end of ’08 were the most expensive in the nation. Previously they had been most expensive in Toronto (dating back until the early ’90′s)… and since then Vancouver now holds the distinction.

Now we’ll look the other direction, and compare our situation to our Prairie brethren. Don’t have condo data for these guys, so we’ll use the respective residential averages instead. So these are more not so good for rent vs buy calculations, at least not directly. And sorry to our Saskatoon readers, I’m not trying to slight ya, but I just don’t have resale data going back very far for your fare city.

For Edmonton and Calgary we see very similar patterns, just shifted up to reflect the change from condo average to residential average. We can see that before prices started to accelerate in ’02/’03 that those cities actually enjoyed extremely favorable ratios. In fact, if we compare it to the earlier graph, that back then they actually enjoyed a better ratio to residences than Calgary historically does to condos. Neither Regina nor Winnipeg’s residential average eclipsed the $100,000 until 2003… obviously very different than Calgary, though they’ve both since more than doubled.

We can see the effects of the Saskatchewan boom in the Regina numbers there, as by 2008 it had actually surpassed Edmonton’s ratio, and actually remained higher until this last reporting period. Winnipeg, in contrast, has had a much more gentle upward curve… but none the less, is still much higher than their historic norms.

In conclusion, it appears that throughout the west we’ve experienced disproportional run ups in price relative to rents, and thus are out of whack with fundamentals in that regard. Though from market to market the degree to which varies wildly. We know obviously that Vancouver is the mother of all bubbles, but Alberta appears to have a fair bit of comeuppance due our way too, and Saskatchewan has jumped in the boat with us. Manitoba is a bit out of line as well, but look to be laughing compared to the rest of us.

5 comments

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

January numbers are in…

Filed Under: Monthly Stats

The EREB released the January resale numbers yesterday. All things considered it was about what we’d expect, something of a mixed bag. Sales numbers were rather low compared to the record fall, but not unheard of for January historically. Prices moved marginally, and inventory started it’s annual change of course.

Movements were small, but interesting on the price front. Single-family-homes remain the strong segment of the market… median price was up $4,650 (and is now at it’s highest point since July ’08), but the average was only up $986, indicating we’re seeing most of the SFH activity right in the mid-price range.

Condo prices continue their roller coaster ride, down $5,168 from December. The overall residential average was also down significantly $4,418 from December… this would indicate a shift in sales mix back to condos (or, more accurately, away from SFH’s).

Once again, sales were rather low for January, but not unusually so. Much has been made about the January numbers being lower than Decembers, but that isn’t entirely uncommon in Edmonton either. This is likely due to SFH sales returning down to earth after a rather torrid nine months.

Inventory took a big time bounce in January, gaining over 800. While a jump from December to January is normal, this is the largest we’ve ever seen (nominally, the previous high was 480). This is likely just a response to the massive wave of delistings in the fall. It’ll be interesting to see how the spring and summer play out… as when the market does again turn we can expect another flood of listings.

With the decline in sales and rise in inventory, obviously the absorption rate is up. We see we’re again quite high historically, but lower than the prior two years right after the market turned the first time.

Finally, and as always, here are the hard numbers:

Sales = 884
Since two years ago = -28.0% (-343)
Since one year ago = +21.1% (+154)
Since last month = -6.8% (-64)

Active Listings = 4,864
Since two years ago = -33.8% (-2,488)
Since one year ago = -26.0% (-1,709)
Since last month = -20.5% (+827)

Single Family Homes Median= $356,000
Since peak (May ’07) = -11.0% (-$44,000)
Since one year ago = +7.9% (+$26,000)
Since six months ago = +1.7% (+$6,000)
Since last month = +1.3% (+$4,650)

Residential Average = $314,783
Since peak (July ’07) = -11.3% (-$39,935)
Since one year ago = -0.7% (-$2,266)
Since six months ago = -3.1% (-$10,064)
Since last month = -1.4% (-$4,418)

Single Family Homes Average = $367,747
Since peak (May ’07) = -13.7% (-$58,271)
Since one year ago = +4.3% (+$15,058)
Since six months ago = -1.3% (-$4,994)
Since last month = +0.3% (+$986)

Condo Average = $239,006
Since peak (July ’07) = -12.1% (-$32,902)
Since one year ago = +0.2% (+$471)
Since six months ago = -2.2% (-$5,259)
Since last month = -2.1% (-$5,168)

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