Edmonton

New Home Market

After exceeding 11,000 units for five successive years from 2002 to 2007, total housing starts across the Edmonton Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) declined by nearly 56 per cent in 2008. Housing starts across Metro are forecast to decline by 51 per cent this year to 3,250 units.

Resale Market

Following a 15 per cent decline in 2008, existing home sales will fall by another 16.5 per cent this year before staging a moderate come back in 2010.

Rental Market

Edmonton's rental apartment vacancies will trend higher in 2009 despite few rental starts. CMHC's fall 2009 Rental Market Survey is expected to find an overall vacancy rate across the Edmonton region of close to four per cent compared with an average 2.4 per cent reading in the October 2008 survey. New rental supply is arriving in the secondary market rather than from traditional sources of purpose-built apartment units. Supply in the secondary market is coming from investors who have decided to rent out their units rather than sell them at reduced profits (or losses).

Many statistics, especially real estate statistics, seem to being thrown around in the media, by realtors, brokers, economists and the like, and particularly in this apparently declining market place. Since statistics can be strongly swayed from one view point to another depending on the time frames you use, currently, mainly because it ‘sells’, the majority of reports and conversations seem to be dwelling on the current economic crisis and how this has substantially impacted housing prices in a negative way.

I recently stumbled across an extremely useful, detailed and interactive spreadsheet that not only provides the user with the actual numbers behind the statistic but also allows you to analyze and gage the numbers to your specific needs and criteria. The spreadsheet incorporates the historical price data from the Edmonton Real Estate Board, EREB, and runs off the monthly trailing averages. Chris Davies, who has a great real estate blog that’s updated daily, then put all this data into a Google Docs spreadsheet for “cool investors like us to use” he says.