Some of the region’s top realtors painted a grim picture for the real estate market earlier this year, predicting that residential sales would drop two per cent in 2016, after experiencing a nine per cent drop last year, and that prices would follow suit.
But St. Albert realtor John Carle, who posts weekly real estate updates on the Community of St. Albert Facebook page, says there’s no need to panic.
While some properties are slow to move off the market – the longest standing listing for a mid-priced home in St. Albert is currently over 280 days – the average length to sell in the last 30 days is closer to 60 days.
This is a marginal increase over the usual numbers, said Carle. Typically it takes around 55 days to sell in St. Albert.
“There’s certainly not a sense of urgency among the buying population because they know that time isn’t against them, that prices aren’t spiking on them and they’re not in a bad position in terms of waiting,” said Carle.
As for listing prices, Carle said they are stable, but that it’s no longer possible to ask beyond market value.
“‘Let’s try it at a higher price and see what happens,’ that’s not a conversation we can have anymore,” he said.
Carle noted that more transactions were happening in the lower-priced segment of the market, as people are becoming more price conscious.
“They’re no longer buying a home based on two incomes. They’re saying wait a minute maybe we should be careful,” he said.
He adds that the St. Albert real estate market is still doing well because when given the choice between a similar-priced home in Edmonton, most will choose to live in the city dubbed “the best place to live in Canada.”
Last month, the average single-family home price dropped 10.7 per cent over January 2015, selling for $416,953, and condos took a 12.2 per cent hit selling for an average of $240,900.
In the last 30 days, the average sale price for a property in St. Albert was $395,338.
