REALTOR Association of Edmonton Radio Spin

The REALTORS Association of Edmonton put out a Radio Ad discussing market conditions from the first quarter. I found it interesting enough to duplicate most of it below:

With three months of data to back it up I think we can safely say the market is stable.

And what do you mean by stable?
We had two years of unpredictable prices and sales volumes. By contrast this year we had slight fluctuations but no wild jumps. Prices are trending upward.

How have prices changed?
Since the start of the year single family homes are selling for an avergae of $5600 more and there is about a $10,000 difference in the average condo. So again, stable. Those are normal increases over a three month span.

And sales volume?
So far in 2008 we are seeing higher than normal sales. Keep in mind the two prior years were anything but normal and the first quarter is generally slower than the rest of the year so we expect sales to increase at a stable pace.

Your REALTOR will help you figure out how this stable market effects you....

1. "Prices are trending upward."

The only way to reach this conclusion is to look at only the numbers over this specific time period. It is my opinion that this is a shallow and disingenuous take on the situation. Are same home comparable sales actually increasing?

2. "So far in 2008 we are seeing higher than normal sales"

Absolutely amazing. I do not remember REALTORS ignoring strong 2006 and 2007 sales when pumping the boom. I stole the charts below from Sheldon and Sara at the Edmonton Real Estate Blog:

Sales are low when compared to listings as shown by the sales to listing ratio.
Sales are low when compared to inventory.
Sales are "about par" when comparing to prior years of 2003-2005.

3. Whats really telling is what is not discussed: Record high inventory, very low sales to listing ratio, large number of price reductions.

Edmonton Real Estate Bord June Press Release

Look at the June press release from the Edmonton Real Estate Board from their 2007 Archive.

Sales remained strong as buyers took advantage of a wider selection of homes available. At the midpoint for the year 13,282 residential properties have been sold through the MLS® valued at almost $4.5 billion. That is 1,712 more properties than the same time last year. Single month sales in June were up 20% from last month and 15% from June 2006.

The reference to increasing sales was false. Single month sales in June were down 20% from last month and up 1% from June 2006. They pulled this sentence from their online press release without issuing a correction as seen in their previous stats page.

Sales remained strong as buyers took advantage of a wider selection of homes available. At the midpoint for the year 13,282 residential properties have been sold through the MLS® valued at almost $4.5 billion. That is 1,712 more properties than the same time last year.

If they would have put an official correction instead simply removing the wrong information it wouldn't have come back to damage their credibility. That's it for this dead horse.