Its hot. Market is hot. Weather is hot. I’m hot, but not a big fan of the heat and like to escape these scorching temperatures by shopping (malls have A/C) but hubby likes it when it gets warm as he spent a lot of time in Australia and it gets hotter there. The downside to hot temperatures is wildfires and our hearts go out to everyone in Jasper affected by the recent fires. We were just there on vacation a couple weeks ago and seeing pictures of the devastation is shocking. Words are not adequate.
The Bank of Canada has made their second interest rate announcement dropping the rate by a further quarter percent. After all the hype prior to the first rate cut it was interesting to see the market virtually halt and noticed many properties were doing price reductions. What were buyers waiting for, another interest rate cut? Well its here now so it will be interesting to see how this will effect Real Estate sales and prices here in Edmonton.
As you can see in the above graph, prices peaked in May which is traditionally the height of the spring market and then decreasing slightly for June which is normal. We often see a small increase in prices for July and expect to see it again this year as the number of new listings is less than what we saw in June. Half duplex & townhouses have been performing well this summer. The July figures will be out next week so the big question will be how much impact the lower mortgage rates will have on motivating buyers to make a purchase and how this will influence sales and prices for August.
The big word (or should that be abbreviation) which shows up everywhere these days including real estate. In these early days of AI infiltrating the real estate market, we see many instances of it occurring and it is not easy to say if it is beneficial or detrimental. The most obvious implementation to the public comes with pricing. Buyers have access to many AI tools to estimate a homes value in under a minute which offers the question, how accurate is it and do buyers need to use an agent if they want to buy a home. My belief is it is simply another tool to use as we incorporate similar tools ourselves (both industry provided as well as publicly available) to determine market value but it is not the only tool we use. In my opinion, it doesn’t replace expert knowledge of a market, neighbourhood, style or level of finishing that only an experienced agent can provide by viewing the home in person so there are still benefits to using an agent when it comes to buying or selling a home.
So many stories deal with the need to build new homes. Canada needs about 3.5 million new homes in the next 5 years. There are also many stories saying home ownership is unaffordable. A recent article about a Toronto seller who has been trying to sell his one bedroom condo for about a year and complaining he can’t afford to go below $600,000 just highlights the issue. One bedroom condos are not a good choice in my opinion as they limit how many people can live there. Can’t sell below $600k. Do you know what you can buy in Edmonton for $600k. Even with the price increases we have seen this last year, Edmonton is still extremely affordable and you can buy quite a lot of home for that amount as the average home price here combining all categories is less than $420k.
Not sure what it is with young girls and riding horses. They seem to have such an affinity for them and Fionna is no exception. She has taking to horse back riding these summer holidays and right now, it is her most favourite thing. Mid July she got to volunteer as helper at a big horse show and she really enjoyed herself. Another memorable day was spent at the Devon Botanical Gardens with plans to go again.
This article contains the opinions of Andrew Barrett and Selena Cheung. Licensed Realtors® with COLDWELL BANKER Mountain Central.
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