DailyStats.ca

Thanks Bob, for us stat junkies can you tell us what the current month-to-date sold prices are for SFH and Condos ? (Avg and Median).

Mike is the only one I know of who posts that stat, but as you already know, he's away at the moment.

Here you go:

For Jan 1 - 21,

SFH avg       $434,351
SFH median $394,250

Condo avg       $274,588
Condo median $255,000

- Bob

This listing in Rosedale that just came out caught my eye because I'd seen it when looking at the median rent calculations for SFH in Calgary...

Buy for $609,000

C3407933

(might not be able to see it on realtor.ca yet)

or rent for $1500

http://www.rentfaster.ca/Calgary-Apartments-For-Rent/Renovated-Rosedale-25933

Price/Rent ratio of 406 !

In regards to my post above, I'm wondering if this might be an indication of people giving up on the rental market and starting to cash out ?

cM

I walk by that place on the way to work. The For Rent signed showed up a few months ago.

I think investors with a short term horizon (less than 5 years) should divest instead of acquire.

With rising interest rates pretty much guaranteed as the economy starts a slow recovery, interest rates will rise and so will borrowing costs.

This provides a good time for investors to sell.

I think there were several issues on the supply side that helped cause the correction, overheated demand which caused overheated supply both speculative and new construction.  Affordability in 2007 was the worst since 1991, so that was a major factor as well in price escalation that put a cap on price increases.

While I do think speculation and new MFH construction will remain subdued in 2010, high number of MFH units are still under construction (but dropping due to low starts). I don't expect this aspect to dramatically affect supply.

Nor am I expecting a large increase in supply from bankruptcies.

For these reasons, the biggest supply risk I believe could be affordability (and higher interest rates).  If you are planning to "get out" in the short term, then it's probably best to do it before affordability has the possibility of pinching out demand again.  My assumption would be that there is the potential within the next 5 years that we approach again the poor levels of affordability that were present in 2007 due to interest rates.  For this reason, there remains the potential of another correction in the market in the medium term.

That is why I think it is especially important that if one has a short time horizon that one get out before a potential new record inventory record is set at some point in the future.  

The rising vacancy rates, should also be a good reason why investors may want to sell now, because there is a larger volume of rental properties that have the potential to be sold.

"Sales of SFH are low compared to the historical average. Is it due to a shortage of inventory?"

No this is clearly due to a shortage of realtors since they all took a winter vacation this year. You can check out the historical average vacation time for realtors at

www.calgaryrealtorvacationschedule.com