Not surprisingly, when the Calgary Real Estate Board came out with their market forecast for 2019, the numbers don’t look too strong.
There are some slivers of hope… net migration has improved in Calgary and is forecast to continue increasing in 2019. There were 11,000 more people that moved to Calgary than that left in 2018 and that number should be closer to 14,000 this year.
The amount of listings on the market (supply) has started to balance out. This can help prices stabilize but it’s likely not going to improve enough in 2019 to keep our real estate prices from continuing to fall.
The employment market is the biggest factor working against our real estate recovery and it doesn’t show any big signs of improvement at the moment. Although unemployment is forecast to drop slightly, it likely won’t dip below 7% or make any substantial impact on housing demand.
The amount of new construction happening in all areas of the city is not helping with the oversupply and could continue to impact prices negatively.
Apartment condo prices have been hammered over the last few years but this year, they are only expected to drop about the same amount as detached houses.
The transition to a more balanced market will likely take most of the year to play out but, fingers crossed, we are nearing the bottom of our market drop and can look forward to sunnier days ahead for Calgary!
Overall CREB is predicting:
- prices in all housing categories will fall about 2.3%
- overall number of sales will drop only 1.7% from 2018 but still well below 10-year averages
- number of listings will be 0.4% lower than 2018 which will help balance the market
Don’t forget that we live in a big city. Overall predictions may not be true for your specific property type or location. Bob and I are here to help you navigate the statistics and come out with a plan for your life, whether buying or selling.
-Amie
