The Edmonton Listing Blog - courtesy of Century 21 Reward Realty

Edmonton, St. Albert and Area December, 2009: Single Family Dwellings faring far better than Duplex and Condominium style properties … In November, the average price of a single family dwelling went up 1.2% to $368,018*, reversing a 2% drop in the previous month - thumbs up to that one! Another plus is that the total sales through the Edmonton, St. Albert and Area Multiple Listing Service® system to the end of November have surpassed total yearend sales of 2008! There have been 20,35 ... Full Article...

A fresh, young 26-year old named Raj Dhunna is the project manager for for Regency Developments.  The local real estate development firm is headed by his father, Rakesh.  Raj, a young MBA student, does not live the life of a normal grad student.  Instead, he oversees three major downtown condo projects of his father's business. The largest of the three projects is a 116-unit, 22-storey high rise being built corner of 104th Avenue and 105th Street.  The condominium property, called Quest, mimic ... Full Article...

November 3rd, 2009: Edmonton St Albert and Surrounding Area Although we had experienced a welcomed but yet unexpected upward spike in Resale Home Prices and Sales Volume for the Month of September 2009, the seasonal fall trend is back in the saddle again for October 2009. Subsequently, current Market Trends are experiencing a slight decline in sale prices and sales volume since last month. See statistics and commentary see below: The average price for a single family dwelling began its slight ... Full Article...

The strong September sales have boosted prices of both single family and condominium properties. Prices dipped slightly in August after showing steady gains all year but bounced back to mid-summer levels in September. The average price of a single family dwelling moving into October 2009 was $371,947 and condos were priced on average at $245,546 (both up 1.4% over August prices). The Higher prices reported have not resulted in greater listing activity! That is great for an owner looking to be ... Full Article...

Downside: * Residential sales through the Edmonton and Area Multiple Listing Service® in August were lower than the number posted in July * There were a total of 1,673 sales last month as compared to 2,277 in July (a monthly record) * The average* SFD sold for $366,788 in August, down 1.6 percent from the previous month (July). * Condominium prices were down in August; dropping less than one percent Upside: * The Good News is that the 1,673 sales total for August 2009 was an increase up ... Full Article...

So far we are liking what we are seeing moving into August 2009. We anticipate the market to cool slightly into September onward as it usually does in the seasonal cycles historically...see graph below: But, July 2009 Sales were still strong in the overall Edmonton Market for the Single Family Homes – pushing up the Average Sale price of a home from $369,859 tpo $ 372,741 (up 3/4 of a percent but still down from 2008 see below) - Duplex and rowhouse prices were up 1.8% from a month a ... Full Article...

Today is the beginning of the rest of their lives for four Edmonton families and a milestone for Habitat for Humanity. The 100th Edmonton family is getting the keys to their Habitat home today. President and CEO Alfred Nikolai says the organization and the families owe everything to the generous spirit of Edmontonians. He says says last year Habitat built more than 20 homes and this year more than 30. "We started building homes in 1991 sort of one home a year and then two homes a year," he ... Full Article...

JUNE Market Update STATISTICALLY SPEAKING - Prices coming back a bit and Properties are beginning to selling faster... We had strong sales that drove the sales to listing ratio to 80% from 68% last month. Prices continue to climb with one month increases of 0.6% for single family dwellings and 1% increases for condominiums. The average days on market was 60 days or more early in the year ...

The striking home that Les Wold has built in the west-end neighbourhood of Edmonton isn’t just another pretty face. There’s nothing wrong, of course, with the fact that the two-storey dwelling, nestled between a pair of ravines in the mature community, is a head-turner. But Wold wants people to know that beauty runs more than skin deep in the Craftsman-style house, with its welcoming front veranda and gracious interior that echoes the great homes of decades past. The Canadian Home ... Full Article...

The Edmonton Humane Society has 43 new canine residents who made the long journey from California on a private jet. The small puppies, including Chihuahuas and Yorkshire terriers, flew in Friday as part of the society's Operation California Canine Cuties. The goal is to save dogs that were to be euthanized and put a dent in the puppy mill industry. "It's also to help with the Alberta-born animals here, because …when they went up for adoption … our numbers overall for animals in o ... Full Article...

Province's delinquency rate rises for 19th month in a row. Growing unemployment and the home-price slump are leading to more defaulted mortgages in Edmonton and across Alberta. Lenders began foreclosure proceedings against 1,571 Edmontonarea homeowners in the 11 months ended February 2009, up from 1,013 in the previous 12 months, according to the most recent statistics available through Alberta Justice. Albertans have fallen at least three months behind on payments on 2,579 mortgages from maj ... Full Article...

A $9-billion proposal to build LRT lines to Edmonton's boundaries over the next 30 years won tentative support Tuesday from residents, community and student groups. Grovenor Community League representative Christopher Spencer told a public hearing on Edmonton's LRT network plan that his area would welcome low-floor LRT along Stony Plain Road if the move avoided expropriation, reduced car traffic and ensured family-friendly homes along the line. The plan includes using modern low-floor LRT veh ... Full Article...

In the trenches, I have noticed a marked difference moving into June 2009. April and May were good months with buyers and sellers. A greater percentage of Sellers are pricing their properties strategically in the market place to Sell them not just List them and fish for an uneducated Buyer. I have been involved in numerous multiple offers once again. The difference at this juncture is that there is a more balanced market. A 68% List to Sales ratio is back to the numbers of 2003/2004. So its n ... Full Article...

POSITIVE MARKET INDICATORS: * The Average Price of Single Family Home in March was $349,716, up 0.7% from February's $347,309 * March Month end Listing inventory was 7,476 residential properties (down from 9,464 in March 2008) * Average days-on-market was 56 days (down five from February) * Condo prices increased 1.6% in March to $230,469, after a 5% drop in February * The average price of a duplex/rowhouse was $276,776. * The sales-to-listing ratio was 48% versus the 30% we have been ex ... Full Article...

City hikes taxes on apartments; homeowners to see little change A controversial proposal to start charging a $3 daily fee to park at LRT lots was shelved by city council on Tuesday. And under 2009 rates approved by council, property taxes will reach new heights for Edmonton apartments this year, while most homeowners won't have to dig much deeper at all. Officials wanted to impose a levy at the three LRT lots in northeast Edmonton --which are now free -- part of dozens of measures introduced ... Full Article...

Downtown residents given credit for growing revitalization Friends and family of Chris Buyze were incredulous when they heard he was planning to move into a condominium in downtown Edmonton. "People thought I was crazy," Buyze laughs. "They said you're moving where? And you're moving that close to the Greyhound (bus station)?" Buyze, president of the Downtown Edmonton Community League, says the reaction was not totally unjustified when he took up residence 10 years ago in a loft in the histo ... Full Article...

Edmonton’s City Hall has received a national environmental certification thanks to recent renovations which make the 17-year old building more energy efficient. The City achieved the certification by converting to low-energy use lighting, replacing old carpet with more environmentally friendly carpet, using green products in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems and having custodial staff use green cleaning products. “City Hall is a showcase and it’s importan ... Full Article...

We find that the Sellers have begun to understand that in order to sell a property in a decent amount of time, they will have to listen closer to their REALTOR's and allow them to set the fair market price. There is still the tendency to ask more than required for the property just in case an unsuspecting Buyer may just happen to bite. Not so today. The Saavy Buyer has started to jump off the fence but the momentum of the pendulum has swung a little to far over (in my estimation) and now the Bu ... Full Article...

The Edmonton flood of 1915 is our local version of Winnipeg's Red River perennial inundations. Reports that Manitoba's relentless Red River is threatening to flood once again harkens me back more than a decade to the Flood of the Century. I was covering the Oilers in their gritty 1997 playoff battle with Dallas and had been advised by my boss that if the Oilers took the Stars to Game 7 in Texas, I would be heading south to cover the action. But the call that came from my editor on the eve of ... Full Article...

First-time homebuyers are being lured into the real estate market by falling prices, lower interest rates, more selection and new government incentives, a new report says. Preliminary figures show house sales were up in February, after a terrible January, driven by more first-time buyers entering the market, the ReMax real estate company said yesterday. ReMax said lower prices and record low lending rates are prompting many first-time buyers to "get off the fence, out of rental, and into the ... Full Article...

From the "It Was Bound To Happen Eventually" File. Peter H. Pocklington, a Canadian businessman who once owned the Edmonton Oilers hockey team, was arrested in the U.S. on charges he concealed assets during his bankruptcy. Pocklington, 67, a resident of Palm Desert, California, is accused of making false statements and false oaths when he filed for bankruptcy in August, U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien in Los Angeles said today in a statement. Pocklington faces as long as 10 years in priso ... Full Article...

National Geographic magazine’s current article on Alberta’s oil sands is little more than a glossy, seven-colour smear job on behalf of the environmental movement. No effort is made to offer any balance. From the article’s title -- "Scraping Bottom" -- to its exclusion of any positive images or comments about the sands, it is clear from the outset that the editors are interested only in hardening their 50 million readers against Canada’s largest energy project. There&rs ... Full Article...

Prices for resale homes in Edmonton will continue slipping in 2009, but the end to the slide is in sight, says a new Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation forecast. Multiple Listing Service home prices for 2008 fell by 1.5 per cent to $332,853, said the CMHC’s Prairies Housing Market Outlook, released Thursday. It said a buyers’ market pushed prices downward on a month-over-month basis for much of the second half of 2008. “As such, sale prices will begin 2009 well below t ... Full Article...

An irate group of northeast Edmonton House and Condo owners hopes a city pledge to take a second look at property assessments will reduce massive tax hikes they are facing. While the value of the average local single-family home dropped 12.9 per cent last year, people in the Quarry Ridge subdivision were shocked to find substantial increases for their houses on assessment notices sent out in January. “We’re in a recession. Property values have gone down around the city,” h ... Full Article...

Landlords will be busier in 2009 — buying and selling properties and competing for tenants, predicts a new report by Avison Young. After 2008, which saw Edmonton sales volume for apartment transactions fall by 80 per cent year-over-year, the pace will continue to be slow but pick up in the latter half of 2009, said the commercial real estate firm’s Edmonton Multi-family Market Report released Monday. “In the first month of 2009 we are seeing a lot of interest from purchasers ... Full Article...

Strip away the cape, tights and the hordes of female fanfare from a superhero, but retain the inner qualities, and you have the makings of an EMS worker. With Edmonton growing larger and its population growing older, the city is looking for more emergency medical service (EMS) workers to be heroes and help meet some of the health-care demands. “The population is growing older and they have more medical needs,” says Stu Williams, deputy chief of program development for Edmonton EMS ... Full Article...

Edmonton house sales will be down this year compared to 2009, the Realtors Association of Edmonton predicted in its annual forecast released Thursday. The association predicts 15,500 homes will be sold through the Multiple Listing Service in 2009, compared to 17,317 that were sold in 2008, a drop of 10.5 per cent. "The Realtors Association expects that the continuing global uncertainty and buyer reluctance will continue through the first part of this year," association president Charlie Ponde ... Full Article...

For three years, Champ Cars splattered the City Centre Airport race track with rubber and red ink and Edmonton's taxpayers were free to enjoy the cacophonous spectacle, knowing they wouldn't have to clean it up after the checkered flag flew. Enter the Indy Racing League, which in Year 1 saw new event owner Northlands host an entertaining July 2008 race that left an unruly and unexpected $5.3-million mess in its wake, with another $1.5-million deficit projected for an ethanol-fuelled weekend th ... Full Article...

When buying Edmonton Condos, consider this.  Century 21, RE/MAX, Coldwell Banker and Prudential are among the leaders in real estate brand awareness, according to the results of an online consumer survey. They survey, which is based on 875 online interviews between March 3 and Aug. 10 with U.S. adults who bought or sold a home in the past two years or plan to purchase or sell a home in the next two years, was conducted for Century 21 by Millward Brown, a market research company. About 97 pe ... Full Article...

With the unraveling of the month of November 2008, here is the Greater Edmonton MLS Statistics: * The average price of a single family residence still hovering at the $362,000 range * Condos are still continuing to slide to an average price of $231,531 (at the height of the market back in June 2007 it was at $266,100 - about a $35,000 difference or a 12.9% Drop) * Overall the Average residential Sales price (includes all types of property) was up a quarter of a percent * Listing Inventory ... Full Article...

To get a house today at 2006 Single family home average prices, we would have to slip down to average prices of $292,829 - is that possible? In my opinion, NO. We actually only have 20% increase in housing prices in the past 2 years - 10% a year return - that sounds like a reasonable return and hasn’t the land always given reasonable return? * At December 2008 year end the statistics are in: Condo prices, which had dropped over 8% in October and November, were up 1.2% over the previou ... Full Article...

Canada has begun 2009 with a financial crisis, a global economic slowdown, political unease at home and the emergence of a new ideology in the United States. Amid the uncertainty, the National Post and Canadian Club's 32nd Annual Outlook, presented by Scotiabank, Monday brought together an economist and three Financial Post columnists to present their thoughts on what the year might hold. None expects 2009 to be easy, and while there is a high risk of more market shocks to come, there is an equ ... Full Article...

Afternoon fire destroys two homes, damages third in Sherwood Park April Hunter was sound asleep Friday when her roommate’s mother pounded on the bedroom door, shouting about a fire next door. "I thought at first she was joking," Hunter said, as she stared at the melted vinyl siding of the rented Sherwood Park house she and her roommate had recently moved into. "I opened the door and I smelled smoke." Hunter, 18, and her roommate’s mother ran out of the home at 63 Orchid Cres. to s ... Full Article...

Land sale Council approved a reserve bid for a parcel of land, which is in arrears for property taxes. The section of land - a proposed road allowance between NE 07 and NW 08 54 W4M - was overlooked during an initial sale of a larger portion of land, which surrounded it. The piece of land will now be offered for sale at public auction, as per the rules of the Municipal Government Act. The reserve bid was set at $23,500 for the parcel of land. Proceeds will first reduce tax arrears, and then ... Full Article...