Selena’s July 2025 Newsletter

20 years ago on July 1st, 2005 Andy and I visited Edmonton for the the 1st time. Together we started doing our first Real Estate investment trip and that trip changed our life for the best. We learned so much about the Edmonton Real Estate market. We visited some not so good areas where we learned the vacancy rate was over 10% and we made decision never to invest in those areas even if property was cheap. Now looking back 20 years we are happy we didn’t invest in those areas because cheap properties can cause lots of expensive headaches and this is valuable lesson we pass on to our clients.

Alberta continues to lead the nation in population growth, low taxes and budget surpluses. This bodes well for our residential and commercial Real Estate sectors. For the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2025, Alberta recorded a very healthy $8.3 Billion surplus. Note that all other provinces reported deficits. Finance Minister Nate Horner told reporters the jump is because of more tax revenue from a growing population, coupled with oil royalties that were higher than expected. As a result, the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, which is unique to our province, has grown by $4.2 Billion in the past year and now stands at $27.2 Billion. And from the Edmonton Real Estate Board to go with the latest sales figures just released “June’s market remained steady overall, with year-over-year gains in sales and listings. However, we are starting to see signs of a slowdown in some categories, particularly semi-detached and row/townhomes, where sales dipped and time on market increased.” Yes, we have been saying this for a couple months now. Finally they are admitting it too.

We have been saying for a while that when you list a home for sale, it has to be priced right (for the current condition) otherwise buyers will have too much else to choose from. As example, there is a townhouse complex where we have sold multiple units this year and unfortunately there was a listing agent who misread the market and listed too high. As a consequence, they had to keep on reducing price again and again with total days on market 10X all the other units and reduce price by 15%. That is a lot. If they started lower, it would have sold quicker and for higher price.