The Canadian housing market continues at a healthy and balanced pace. Many areas have registered record sales in April as buyers continued to take advantage of affordable home ownership opportunities.
"This spring market is one of the best we've had," said REALTORS® Association of Hamilton-Burlington's (RAHB) President Joe Ferrante. "The number of residential sales is the highest in any April on record, and we broke last month's new record for the number of listings taken in a month, ever."
Demand levels continue to be strong with the number of sales occurring being above long-term historical levels. A rise in the number of new listings coming on to the MLS® System in March and April has added to supply, especially in cities, adding further balance to the market and generally keeping any significant upward pressure on prices in check.
This strong market is expected to last through the spring, but it will probably be at the expense of the second half of the year, when the HST kicks in for Ontario and British Columbia and mortgage rates go up again.
Alberta - Housing Market Continues at a Healthy and Balanced Pace Calgary, May 3, 2010 - Calgary's housing market continues at a healthy and balanced pace, according to figures released today by the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB®). The number of single family homes sold in April 2010 in the city of Calgary was up 5% from the same time a year ago, while condominium sales saw an increase of 10% from the same time a year ago. April 2010 saw 1,352 single family homes sold in the city of Calgary. This is a decrease of 3% from 1,396 sales in March 2010. In April 2009, single family home sales totaled 1,290. The number of condominium sales for the month of April 2010 was 639. This was an increase of 5% from the 609 condominium transactions recorded in March 2010.
"Continued economic optimism, improved choice and price stability are all contributing to a healthy and balanced housing market in Calgary," says Diane Scott, president of CREB®. "Calgary's housing market is set to simmer, not sizzle in 2010. We can be grateful that we are not facing any real danger of a housing bubble here in our market." "There has been some talk about a bubble in some parts of Canada but the rapid price increases seen in Vancouver, Victoria and southern Ontario have not been seen in Calgary," Scott acknowledges.
"Single family house prices are coming back nicely compared to 2009," says Scott. The average price of a single family home in the city of Calgary in April 2010 was $460,378, showing an decrease of 2% from March 2010, when the average price was $471,269, and showing an increase of 8% from April 2009, when the average price was $426,311.
The average price of a condominium in the city of Calgary was $289,588, showing a 2% decrease from March 2010, when the average price was $296,660 and a 4% increase over last year, when the average price was $277,953. Average price information can be useful in establishing trends over time, but does not indicate actual prices in centres comprised of widely divergent neighbourhoods, or account for price differentials between geographical areas.
"Calgary didn't see the impacts of the very low interest rates the way other areas of Canada did," says Scott. "Calgarians are also not rushing out to beat the rate increases as they are seeing less risk of rising prices squeezing them out of the market. In fact financially, Calgarians are in a very healthy position. Just over 37% of our median pretax household income was needed to service the mortgage on a typical detached bungalow in Calgary that's below the national average," says Scott.
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