Persistently Low Supply Levels Keep Prices Elevated 📈
The August 2023 newsletter highlights the dynamic real estate landscape in Calgary and area.
Overall, sales activity has slowed compared to the previous year's record-breaking pace but remains stronger than long-term trends. Surprisingly, there is robust demand in higher-priced segments of the market despite higher lending rates, likely due to an influx of migrants from Ontario and British Columbia seeking relative affordability.
Strong demand is met with a shortage of supply across resale, new home, and rental markets. New home starts have not been enough to address the strong demand of this influx of migrants, and higher lending rates have deterred existing homeowners from selling. This supply shortage has led to tight market conditions and stronger-than-expected price growth, resulting in continually strong prices and even some new record-highs.
In Cochrane, the unadjusted benchmark price* hit $516,300, showing an almost 5% increase ⬆️ from the first quarter of 2023 and remaining relatively steady compared to 2022 prices. Months supply of inventory remains just above 1 month.
In Canmore, with just under three months of supply, the unadjusted benchmark price* reached a new record high ⬆️ of $905,333, up 4% from the first quarter and nearly 6% higher than $856,933 in 2022.
Going forward this Fall, limited supply choices continue to be the trend and are anticipated to keep prices elevated.
* An unadjusted benchmark housing price is a basic measurement of property prices. It represents the average or median price of homes sold in a given area or market over a specific period, typically based on criteria like location and property type. Unadjusted benchmark prices provide a straightforward way to understand the basic movement of property prices
