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St. Albert bucks regional housing trend

New home starts in St. Albert continue to be relatively strong, bucking a trend of continued declines in the overall Edmonton market. There were 20 new single-detached homes started in St.

New home starts in St. Albert continue to be relatively strong, bucking a trend of continued declines in the overall Edmonton market.

There were 20 new single-detached homes started in St. Albert in May, compared to just eight in the same month last year. Meanwhile, the Capital region posted its fifth-straight month of declines with a 12 per cent drop in single-family homes.

For the year so far, single starts in St. Albert are up 28 per cent over last year. Multi-family starts are up 19 per cent.

The figures aren’t as rosy in Morinville, where there was just one single-family start in May, compared to six last year. This segment is down 38 per cent on the year. The multi-family segment is down 89 per cent.

Part of the explanation for St. Albert bucking the trend is the city had such a slow year last year, said Richard Goatcher, senior market analyst with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Goatcher doesn’t analyze specific communities but said the figures for the overall region are on par with 2009 forecasts. One surprise is strong sales of existing homes.

“Resale market is giving us some encouraging signals that buyers are starting to come back to the marketplace and that should translate into a stronger new home market, particularly for single-family homes later on in the year,” he said.

Condo inventories are still climbing so that market won’t rebound until next year, he said.

One Edmonton homebuilder expects St. Albert’s positive figures to continue.

“I think you’ll see that trend continue in terms of increase,” said Pierre Sareault, sales manager with Reid Built Homes.

“For us it’s been positive out there for a year,” he said. “We’re continuing to buy land. I bought 18 lots in the month of May in North Ridge.”

One reason for the continued development in St. Albert is a recent bylaw change that removed a limit to the square-footage allowed on small lots, Sareault said.

The change happened after developers complained that the restriction was hampering development in St. Albert.

“Kudos to the city for working with us to solve that problem,” Sareault said.

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