Are you feeling the spring vibes lately? I bought some flowers, and deep cleaned my home. And the days are getting longer - I am loving evening walks with Cosmo and still seeing sunlight past 6PM lately. Real estate? April actually cooled down a tad. March was a tough month to follow as an all-time record high month of sales. This month the total number of sales dropped a smidge compared to March but are still considered a very strong level of sales. Rate increases may have swayed some buyers to back out of their home searches but there were also fewer new listings this month; these shifts cancelled each other out and the supply choices are still slim for buyers that haven't given up yet. The overall benchmark price in Calgary reached $526,700 which is 2% higher than last month, and 17% higher than last year. It's slim pickings out there and the prices keep being pushed up. Let's see how different property types performed this month!
DETACHED
Well, well, well. We haven't seen sales decrease for detached homes drop in a long time. For the first time since spring 2020, total sales decreased for this segment. That being said, I want to be very clear that with 1,851 sales in April this is by no means a "low" month. The pullback is likely due to the very few selections left for buyers looking for homes priced under $600,000. On top of that, there were fewer new listings this month causing the benchmark price to rise to $628,900.
SEMI-DETACHED
This property type usually follows in similar footsteps as detached homes. There were a total of 304 sales in April, slightly lower than the previous month but on a YTD basis we are still almost 30% higher than last year.
There were fewer reported sales but the prices continue to be pushed up another 2% compared to last month, bringing the benchmark price for semi-detached homes to $487,900 for the month of April, and more than 16% higher than the same time last year. The market is tight and the seller's market looks like it's sticking around.
ROWS & TOWNS
In other news, townhomes actually saw an increased number of new listings in April! This helped encourage over 42% more sales than last year and set a new high for sales in April. The boost in new listings trended up and helped with the supply challenges that we have been seeing over the last few months but it wasn't enough to pull us out of the seller's market. The market conditions continue to run tight for buyers and resulted in price grains across all districts in the city; the benchmark price is almost 17% higher than April 2021 and reached $343,000.
APARTMENTS
Condos have been facing the opposite kind of supply challenge for quite some time now. The market has been saturated with oversupply but seeing 642 sales in April, this is a huge improvement! This month's apartments sales were 46% higher than the same time last year. Listings in this property type are also selling quicker than they were before; on average listings are on the market for 34 days before they sell. In other words, they are selling 40% faster than they were last year. Thanks to the strong sales activity, the benchmark price rose to $272,600 and counts as another step towards closing the gap from the 2014 record high.
Sales activity seems to have simmered ever so slightly for the month of April but benchmark prices continued to rise for all four property types. So even though it looks like there were fewer transactions in April, it does not seem like prices are going to see a significant drop this summer. Fewer sales, but also fewer new listings coming to the market so the supply challenges that we have been talking about are still prevalent. The market continues to favour the sellers. What do you think the summer will be like?
Source: creb.com
