The December stats for Calgary’s real estate market just rolled in and the numbers certainly don’t look like a typical December!
The number of detached homes on the market was 898. There hasn’t been a number that low in the last 10 years of stats and I’m not sure how much farther back you would need to go to find it.
With over 1,000 sales, this means there is less than one month of inventory – basically sold out!
As recently as June of 2021, there were 3,262 listings. But with unusually strong demand in the last half of the year, even a pretty normal amount of new listings hitting the market just couldn’t keep up and inventory levels plummeted.
To put this in perspective, the number of detached house listings at the end of December for the five years previous were:
2016: 1,778
2017: 2,087
2018: 2,633
2019: 2,257
2020: 1,566
The semi-detached and townhome markets also have tight inventory, with 215 semi-detached listings (representing 1.6 months of inventory) and 439 townhomes (representing 1.5 months of inventory).
The apartment condo market is more balanced, with 1,056 listings and 307 sales in December, representing 3.4 months of inventory. Between 3 and 4 months is what we consider a balanced market, with anything under 3 months being a seller’s market.
The apartment market has spent years fluctuating between 5 and 10 months of inventory – strong buyer’s market conditions. So this is the tightest it has been in a while! This is good news for condo owners that have been underwater for some time.
Prices rose in all categories month-over-month as well as year-over-year, with the biggest jump being detached houses rising 11.85% year-over-year. Apartments were up 2.94%.
We are in a sticky situation right now with many would-be sellers waiting to list their house until they find something to buy. But finding anything to buy right now is a challenge so those listings aren’t hitting the market in large enough numbers.
We typically see the number of new listings rise significantly between January and May and I do anticipate the same happening this year. But with such tight inventory to start the year, I wouldn’t be surprised if we stayed in seller’s market conditions for the foreseeable future.
The Calgary Real Estate Board’s forecast will be coming out later this month and we will be sure to report back. The forecasted numbers for 2021 were WAY off. It was a year nobody could predict for many reasons!
CREB’s forecast was for a 1.5% increase in detached prices and 10,457 sales. The detached price increase turned out to be 11.85% and the number of sales was over 17,000!
No matter the market conditions, we are here to give expert advice and up-to-date market conditions to help you navigate the world of buying or selling in Calgary & area this year. Reach out anytime if you’d like to set up a phone or in-person real estate chat!
-Amie
