Another month flew by. It's my birthday month guys. I'm here to offer market stats for May as a party favour (ha!). Calgary real estate market breaking records again for the month of May. Tight market conditions continue to give sellers the upper hand during negotiations. Sales levels are improving from the beginning of the year while new listings coming to market are still not enough to keep up with buyer demand. Compared to other major Canadian cities, Calgary is benefitting from population growth & pretty healthy employment rate. This keeps the housing demand strong across all property types. Apartment sales carried the team on its shoulders this month. The high interest rate environment + rental rate gains are pushing consumers to hunt for apartment condos. Unlike the other property types, apartment inventory improved this month and helped support the sales growth. Let's dive into how each property type performed in May.
DETACHED
Remember when pricing peaked in May 2022? Well here we are again - and then some. Benchmark price of a detached home this month rose to $674,000, almost 2% higher than the previous month, and surpassing our peak last year of $647,000. New listings & inventory levels continue to fall. It was especially challenging for buyers looking for homes priced below $700,000 because there are very few options available and it is becoming more & more common for them to get into competing offer situations. Every district in the city saw new record high prices this month, with the biggest gains recorded in the East District.
SEMI-DETACHED
Benchmark price of semi-detached homes breaking through the ceiling this month. Market conditions were incredibly tight, pushing the benchmark price over $600,000 for the first time. This is the 7th month in a row where prices have trended up. Sales levels picked up almost 20% compared to April. However, with 279 recorded sales and only 269 new listings, inventory levels are still lagging behind the growing demand. The months of supply fell below one month, the sales-to-new-listings ratio pushed to nearly 104%. Similar to the detached homes, every district in Calgary reported record high prices this month. East district taking the cake again, with strongest Y/Y gains of almost 12%.
ROWS & TOWNS
Same same, but different. Townhomes have been very sought-after as consumers shift their focus towards more affordable options - the demand just keeps growing! Sales saw a monthly gain of almost 20% compared to April. At 497 sales, we are 10% lower than what we saw last year but this can be attributed to the lack of new listings coming to market. There were nearly 52% fewer townhomes for sale this month compared to May 2022, keeping the sales-to-new-listings ratio high at 89%. Calgary districts all saw price gains this month. The leaderboard consists of the city's South, East, and NE districts that showed Y/Y price gains of of more than 15%. Districts that had more modest gains hovering around 7% were recorded in SE and NW districts.
APARTMENTS
The light at the end of the tunnel that many apartment condo owners have been waiting patiently for. Stronger sales were possible thanks to more new listings coming to market. To give you an idea of how strong, May reported 858 apartment sales. This is almost 17% higher than April, and 36% higher than last year. The shift towards more affordable property types, positive new migration rate, and increased investor attention are a few catalysts for recovery in the apartment market. The unadjusted prices are bringing us back to some 2014 levels. Calgary's North, West, NW, and SE districts reported a "full recovery" this month. Not all areas in the city made a full recovery though. The City Centre district with higher density of supply reported more modest price gains of about 10% .
Source: creb.com
