An article in the Calgary Herald this morning claims that nationally the home price index has risen for the third straight month. So what does that mean? Is this an indication that the bottom has been reached on the national housing market? Who knows, only time will tell, however it is an encouraging sign for home owners and for mortgage lenders. Particularly when it comes to fringe lending products, all Mortgage lenders prefer to lend in a rising market, there is just that little extra safety net if the value of your security is rising. So nationally (at least in the six markets the report focuses on) things are going ok. But what about locally, let’s review the housing market here in Calgary.
A quick review of the single family house market shows as it stands the 30 day median price (mid point of all houses sold in the last 30 days) is sitting at $399,250 this is basically level with the end of August so this has been steady and is up from the trough of $374,000 back in Jan 09 so certainly things have improved in the last 8 months. Of note it was last August (08) when the median was last this high, leaving us basically flat year over year. Looking at the condo market we see similar results with a reasonable increase from the low in Jan 09 $243,000 to today’s 30 day median of $263,000.
So considering the state of the economy over the last year, not too bad, there has certainly been a recovery since the lows of Jan 09 in both Single Family and Condo property prices and over the last year prices have about held their own. However looking a little further back it was the summer of 07 when both of these markets hit their peak and we are still approximately 10% off those highs. With a fragile economy it’s still too early to tell if the property market is at the start of another rise, however if I were a new home buyer, combined with the low interest rates it looks like a pretty good time to buy to me.
