Real estate in Calgary - another bubble?

[3thirty]

Originally Posted by Cappy

Whats the best way to find sale price of recently listed properties?

https://www.honestdoor.com/

[Calgary14]

I saw a couple houses we may be interested in so I contacted the listing realtors and they both said it's been relatively quiet, and they both have been on the market for 30+ days and have reduced the asking price at least once.

Maybe the "hot" market is limited to a specific type (detached houses) in a specific price range of $400-600K. Both houses I enquired about were around $850K so I would guess much less activity in that range

[Table 5]

We're currently selling our attached house (we're in the $800K range). We've been on the market for a couple weeks, and demand is definitely nowhere close to what you see in the under $600K market for detached homes. Showings were pretty steady until last week when they announced the new lockdowns...ever since then it's been dead quiet.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

I saw a couple houses we may be interested in so I contacted the listing realtors and they both said it's been relatively quiet, and they both have been on the market for 30+ days and have reduced the asking price at least once.

Maybe the "hot" market is limited to a specific type (detached houses) in a specific price range of $400-600K. Both houses I enquired about were around $850K so I would guess much less activity in that range

My realtor has told me the hot market is indeed only for the sub $500k detached homes segment.

Above that is business as usual (i.e.: slow)

[Mull]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

My realtor has told me the hot market is indeed only for the sub $500k detached homes segment.

Above that is business as usual (i.e.: slow)

Are you buying or selling and in what price range ish? I found some Realtors love telling their client what they want to hear with the market. Rarely from Realtor's do I hear them say its a poor time to sell or buy, and it is usually "now is the time". Not trying to paint the entire industry, just my short experience.

The slow pace of >$500K should be semi-provable or not with CREB data I imagine, but not sure.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by 3thirty

https://www.honestdoor.com/

Thanks - forgot what the website was

And thanks for previous poster as well for the land titles.

There were recently two units in my building with similar floorplans that i saw on MLS for sale. They were not there yesterday and i cannot find if they were sold or withdrawn?

If any realtors could access that info that would be helpful. My unit type almost never goes on sale so it would be interesting to see if there is demand for it right now.

[I_H8_Crawford]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

My realtor has told me the hot market is indeed only for the sub $500k detached homes segment.

Above that is business as usual (i.e.: slow)

Anecdotal, but inner city detached/semi-detached I have seen most things priced sub $700K move fast, anything over may stick around for a bit.

The house I bought was $30K less than what the seller paid for it 3.5 years ago

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Table 5

We're currently selling our attached house (we're in the $800K range). We've been on the market for a couple weeks, and demand is definitely nowhere close to what you see in the under $600K market for detached homes. Showings were pretty steady until last week when they announced the new lockdowns...ever since then it's been dead quiet.

This isn't only a story of price range but also by housing style.

I have been looking at buying and can say from our experience that detached homes with yards in the $600k to $1 million range is on fire similar to the <$600k market in the outer suburbs. Homes we have looked at in recent weeks have sold in a day with multiple offers.

That is entirely confined to detached homes with yards in the burbs though. We are also looking at places that fit your description and those are moving at a snails pace, mainly because thin places with 25 foot frontage lots with no real backyard is exactly the housing type that people are running from after experiencing the pandemic.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Mull

Are you buying or selling and in what price range ish? I found some Realtors love telling their client what they want to hear with the market. Rarely from Realtor's do I hear them say its a poor time to sell or buy, and it is usually "now is the time". Not trying to paint the entire industry, just my short experience.

The slow pace of >$500K should be semi-provable or not with CREB data I imagine, but not sure.

She showed me the sales stats of detached homes from 300-500k range compared to multifamily and >$500k homes. The inventory is still really low for detached homes in Calgary in the sub $500k range and they are moving fast. Often at ask or above asking price. We're selling regardless because of other circumstances, so her opinion on whether it was good time or not was kinda irrelevant.

Everything else is still relatively slow.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

This isn't only a story of price range but also by housing style.

I have been looking at buying and can say from our experience that detached homes with yards in the $600k to $1 million range is on fire similar to the <$600k market in the outer suburbs. Homes we have looked at in recent weeks have sold in a day with multiple offers.

That is entirely confined to detached homes with yards in the burbs though. We are also looking at places that fit your description and those are moving at a snails pace, mainly because thin places with 25 foot frontage lots with no real backyard is exactly the housing type that people are running from after experiencing the pandemic.

I still think it has to be competitively priced though. A house on my cul-de-sac (2400 sqft + developed basement, walkout basement, backs onto green space) has been on the market for 5+ months. Original asking price was $779K, then dropped to $729K, and now is at $699K, and it's still unsold.

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

I still think it has to be competitively priced though. A house on my cul-de-sac (2400 sqft + developed basement, walkout basement, backs onto green space) has been on the market for 5+ months. Original asking price was $779K, then dropped to $729K, and now is at $699K, and it's still unsold.

High DOM also brings people to question what's wrong with the place...

[The Yen Man]

Oh for sure. I'm actually super curious what is wrong with that house. I see a lot of people looking at it, but it still is unsold. It could be they have some sort of structural issue that needs a lot of money to fix.

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

I still think it has to be competitively priced though. A house on my cul-de-sac (2400 sqft + developed basement, walkout basement, backs onto green space) has been on the market for 5+ months. Original asking price was $779K, then dropped to $729K, and now is at $699K, and it's still unsold.

Non-realtor opinion here, but the only real reason for houses that sit on the market like that is they are overpriced. I think the biggest mistake you can make when listing your house is to have it overpriced. It leads to the house staying on the market too long, which has the effect of driving down the price, maybe even lower than it's true FMV if it was priced correctly in the first place. Listing at a good price also helps with negotiations - when you get low balled from the "expert negotiator", it's very easy to hold firm and say the listing price is appropriate and you are not going to move. Avoids all that dumb back and forth.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

Non-realtor opinion here, but the only real reason for houses that sit on the market like that is they are overpriced. I think the biggest mistake you can make when listing your house is to have it overpriced. It leads to the house staying on the market too long, which has the effect of driving down the price, maybe even lower than it's true FMV if it was priced correctly in the first place. Listing at a good price also helps with negotiations - when you get low balled from the "expert negotiator", it's very easy to hold firm and say the listing price is appropriate and you are not going to move. Avoids all that dumb back and forth.

That's what I think happened here. I asked a friend who's dad's a realtor. He said this is the 2nd owner selling, and the house was bought about 5 years when it was listed at $709K back then. So they must have thought the market was good to list it so much above that price. Now they're paying the price of having listed too high, and them dropping the price back down to original cost, and people wondering why the house was on the market for so long, and if there's something wrong with it.

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

This isn't only a story of price range but also by housing style.

I have been looking at buying and can say from our experience that detached homes with yards in the $600k to $1 million range is on fire similar to the <$600k market in the outer suburbs. Homes we have looked at in recent weeks have sold in a day with multiple offers.

That is entirely confined to detached homes with yards in the burbs though. We are also looking at places that fit your description and those are moving at a snails pace, mainly because thin places with 25 foot frontage lots with no real backyard is exactly the housing type that people are running from after experiencing the pandemic.

Interesting take, and very similar to here.

Another anecdote to add, knockdown and rebuilds are a big thing in my area. The land is the real value and there are some serious shacks that are sitting waiting for capital to come in and redevelop. Of course there are a number of pitfalls, so builders try to get information out into the market.

My partner and I went to one of these builder education sessions and it was fantastic. I'd done my own research previously, because coming from Calgary it is a different ball game with different rules when you go to a new market (e.g.: no basements here). I was pretty fresh, so I had taken a few pages of notes in my OneNote, I was the only one doing that, before the presenter opened the floor for questions.

This is where the night took a different path. Every question was super specific and clearly to do with a problem on their land block that was holding back any build, or was going to cost significant amounts of cash to upgrade. Each and every time the presenter would explain the issue, the couple would nod, then whisper amongst themselves, before asking a follow up with a "what about this situation...". The builder in question has a free land block assessment where their experts will tell you in 10mins if you can build on the block. Clearly none of these folks had used that service before making large purchases.

I walked out of the session realizing how little I knew about the industry, but my partner and I were happy since we hadn't made a decision to jump on a property, waive all conditions and find out later we were in tough. The buy anything behaviour is rampant right now, so it was interesting to see some of the consequences first hand.

[Calgary14]

^Just curious, what area has builder education sessions? And no basements? And what was the issue for that specific session, the buyer couldnt build on their land because of a restriction?

[tvp2003]

MacLean's just did a piece on the surging housing market across Canada:

https://www.macleans.ca/longforms/ca...-housing-2021/

Because it’s not just pushing out first-time buyers anymore. Maclean’s spoke with Marc Iturriaga, a 46-year-old father of two who’s owned houses in Waterloo, Ont., and Calgary. He sold the latter last fall in a relatively tame but still buoyant market, after he was hired by Mohawk College in Hamilton as executive director of the student association. It’s a managerial position with a salary that puts him in the top 15 per cent of Canadians. But in recent decades, Hamilton has evolved from a working-class town to an affordable market for Toronto-bound commuters to—now—a place where Iturriaga couldn’t find anything that suited his family despite having a budget north of $800,000. That’s $300,000 more than he got for his much larger house in Calgary.

Iturriaga was repeatedly outbid, pushed by sellers to bid even more and tempted at times to settle for houses his family didn’t like. He even considered forgoing the job in Hamilton. “It’s become this huge game now,” he says, “where all traditional methods of real estate dealings have gone out the window.”

So, after months of heartache, his family bought in Brantford, the next city over, a place listed at $599,000. He got it for $715,000—a fixer-upper he figures will take another $150,000 to renovate.

Perhaps the relative affordability in Alberta will attract some people to move here? It's certainly can't hurt...

[The Yen Man]

With all the vacancies downtown plus Calgary's housing affordability (relative to Toronto and Vancouver), I'm hoping we can attract some more companies moving here in the next few years.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

With all the vacancies downtown plus Calgary's housing affordability (relative to Toronto and Vancouver), I'm hoping we can attract some more companies moving here in the next few years.

That would require the commercial renters to lower their prices.. from my understanding that hasn’t happened a whole lot. We moved from a sublease to another sublease because the rates right from the building weren’t good at all.

[Regular_John]

While I think the tech scene overall still has some growth/maturing to do, I will say 30+ tech workers from other countries are starting to take notice of Calgary. For housing we’re not quite at the “We’ll offer $50k over asking site unseen” as of yet, but folks are looking at the lifestyle we have here compared to Toronto/Vancouver and sending in their applications.

I think just about half my team has immigrated to Canada in the last 5 years and specifically choose Calgary over the other major cities for the mountains, fresh air, and modern skyline.