Upward-sloping supply curve

Listings have been running higher because the price sellers think they can get is inflated. In addition to low interest rates the market improved in 2009 because sellers understood that they needed fairly substantial discounts off peak price and buyers could find better value (relatively).

It no surprise that listings have increased as asking prices have. Consider a benchmark house I have previously covered. Approximately 1700 sqft 2-story house with double attached garage and bonus room in a newer south east Edmonton community of Ellerslie. In October 2009 I did a comparison of one that was priced at $374,900. I noted that the price to rent ratio was high at 220, but with the financing available at the time the buy vs. rent was closer.



Now the least expensive house that matches the same criteria is this $410,900 1701sqft two story. In this environment people are coming out of the woodwork to sell.



There are other similar houses asking more. Asking prices in general will need to fall to move the inventory that is accumulating.

Edmonton: Seasonally adjusted sales/listings and 2010 benchmarks

Official numbers of Edmonton were released today by the REALTORS Association of Edmonton. I made up some historical charts, seasonally adjusted charts and benchmarks similar to what was done for Calgary in this post.

The first chart is non adjusted historical data. These charts are similar to Calgary except it looks like listings in Edmonton have been even more volatile. See the listings in red went ballistic half way through 2007 and have come back close to normal since.


The yearly pattern is fairly clear in the above chart and using the same method as the previous post I created charts that have been seasonally adjusted. See how new listings peaked in the second half of 2007 and have come down ever since. This may have recently bottomed similar to the trend in Calgary where the six month average has formed a bottom. The 2010 benchmarks I use are marked points on the six month average.

Seasonally adjusted sales charts are shown below. The bottom on the 6 month average represents sales during the financial crisis between October 2008 and March 2009 or "scorched earth". The most recent 6 months is called "it's all good" and the time period between October 2006 and March 2007 is the peak of the boom.


These benchmarks are shown as dashed lines in the charts below. We will see how 2010 progress by updating the actual values in these charts. The adjusted sales/list ratio over the last 6 months in Edmonton has been 70% and 69.5% in Calgary. So for a balanced or declining market sales will need to drop below and listings above the green benchmarks.


Next I will post seasonally adjusted sales/listing ratio but that is enough charts for today.