Just a blip

Diane Scott, president of the Calgary Real Estate Board, called the May MLS data "just a blip."

"We still expect a steady market for the balance of the year," she said.

Calgary Home Sales take May hit
Monthly data viewed as 'just a blip'
June 17th, 2010

Increase that 'blip' to 5 months because sales have been weak since January. This is what I had to say about sales several months ago:

Calgary stats for January have been posted by Bob Truman and it is clear they have deteriorated on a seasonally adjusted basis. Normally we could expect a 27% increase from December to January, but instead sales were flat. They have moved closer to a rate equivalent to the six months of the financial crisis labeled scorched earth on the chart below.

Even Gregory Klump is less delusional about the sales slowdown.

Greg Klump, chief economist with CREA, said the combination of changes to mortgage regulations in April and rising mortgage rates pulled forward a number of sales into April that would have otherwise taken place at a later date.

"From the standpoint of afford-ability, we see sales activity softening going forward because of marginally higher interest rates as well the strength of activity in the first half of this year will be at the expense of sales activity in the second half of this year," said Klump.

From Mike Fotious site June sales look really bad yet again, as in another month of "scorched earth". Make that sales blip six months and counting.

CREB: Motivational Analysis

The Calgary Real Estate Board provided some analysis of 2007 sales in their December report.

“As we can see from the final numbers in 2007, sales have definitely held steady. In my opinion this can only point to two things; consumer confidence and stability in the market place. Calgarians continue to have confidence in our economy and real estate market”, remarked CREB® President, Ron Stanners.

Consumer confidence and stability? The chart below show the difference in total sales each month when compared to 2006. For both condos and homes sales become weaker as the year went on. By comparing to the same month in the previous year it shows a decline that is independent of seasonality.

Radley77, a regular bubble poster, contributed some Calgary charts. These really show how unprecedented the recent boom has been. Thanks!

Typical Spin

Typical season slow down comes to the MLS(R) during the month of November 2007, according to figures released by the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB(R))

Single family Calgary metro sales for November 2007 were 1,103, a decrease of 21 per cent from the 1,397 sales recorded in November 2006...

link

Sales in November 2007 21% less than November 2006.
Sales in November 2006 11% less than November 2005.
CREB Nov 2006

It's getting cold out there.

Edmonton Comfree Sales

Comfree recorded 146 sales for the month of October in Edmonton. There is currently 21 months of inventory on Comfree with 3108 active listings at current sales rate.

21 months.

Compared with September's total of 201 sales are down 27%.
Compared with last October's total of 354 sales are down nearly 60%.

Comfree moved less than half the homes as they did the same month last year.

October Report

With current inventory at 3108 Comfree has over a BILLION dollars of inventory and 52 million dollars of sales in October.

Note that they do not include the mystery stats "sold to listing" or "sales success".

CREB: The glass is full

The Calgary Real Estate Board reports on October sales. Their interpretation of the monthly 4.3% increase is quite the stretch.

“As we move through the fourth quarter of 2007, we are seeing a normal amount of market activity. The good news is that our October sales have increased somewhat over September sales, showing consumer confidence in the real estate market as well as in Calgary’s over all strong economy,” remarked CREB® President Ron Stanners. “This is also a reflection of Albertan’s belief in the strength of our energy industry. With the broad selection of properties available today, buyers can select their dream home through the MLS®. Home owners, by pricing their homes competitively with the guidance of their REALTOR®, can anticipate a quicker sale,” Stanners continued.

However sales are down 9.1% when compared to last October. Those October 2006 sales were down 19.7% when compared to 2005.

Here is the data:

Oct 2007
SFH: 1113
Condo: 501
Total: 1614
MOM: 4.3%
YOY: -9.1%

Sept 2007
SFH: 1064
Condo: 483
Total: 1547

Oct 2006
SFH: 1241*
Condo: 535*
Total: 1776
YOY: -19.7%

Oct 2005
SFH: 1512
Condo: 699
Total: 2211

*These number in the October 2006 under 'City' report were 1245 and 537. The 2005 stats are from this report as well.

Update: The Balanced Market label is still outside the range as covered in an earlier post.