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EDMONTON – By the end of the year, Edmonton could get something it hasn’t seen for several years — a “normalized” housing market — as homes for sale dry up and prices drop . $ |' K1 |+ e+ ]5 U4 I3 k
$ ]1 q# C4 e. @, Q: P8 ?. |* RThat’s the forecast contained in the House Price Survey and Market Survey Forecast released Thursday by Royal LePage Real Estate Services. : l0 j8 i# C5 U: D3 |3 A
, R9 ?6 O$ n/ A5 W2 vA soaring number of homes put on the market especially by builders and speculators in the last year softened the city’s housing market during the second quarter, the report said.
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5 K3 E3 g: P# T' u2 U% v“The high inventory levels will dwindle into the second half of the year, and as affordability improves, subsequent market conditions will continue to normalize,” the report said. ; _9 `# B% b4 X7 d
9 K3 R h/ K# [) v. n$ }& `As of the end of Wednesday, there were 11,184 homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, according to the Realtors’ Association of Edmonton. ; ]2 H Q' |# y% g, r
8 D! a5 ?/ x3 _. S7 N1 z3 t; ?6 `But Alberta’s two biggest cities still boast some of the most expensive real estate in the country, it noted. ( a: n Q! d! ]! U4 ~( t
Z/ P6 o$ {6 k/ Q$ E) L$ c“Despite some mild price erosion during the second quarter in both Calgary and Edmonton, these markets remain strong. Although prices have come down from where they were last year — one of the best years on record — current house prices are far higher than they were three years ago before energy-rich Alberta experienced its boom.”
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9 e: ^( M6 ~1 |5 LThe average price for a detached bungalow in Edmonton in April, May and June was $320,000, down about 14.5 per cent from the same period in 2007 ($374,143), Royal LePage said in its survey of Canadian house prices. 2 i W7 W ]; h* F) e" P
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In the second quarter of 2008, a two-storey house in Edmonton sold for an average price of $348,571, down 12.4 per cent year-over-year from $397,857. " H2 \) | R0 m9 E6 W: g; F
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An average condominium in Edmonton was priced at $226,000, down 14.2 per cent from $263,333 in the comparable 2007 period. ; l9 W) `. ?8 `( x
6 }! m; d. f0 u6 ]3 k7 y“A surge in inventory caused Alberta’s white-hot market to record the country’s only major-market price decreases,” the report said. * n& X0 H* i8 T
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Across most of the country, average house prices rose, but more slowly than the spikes seen in 2006 and 2007. + k! j2 a8 Y5 A# S: W! o/ s
$ d$ m4 R) f8 k% }4 U6 r/ w* PRoyal LePage forecasts the national average house price to rise by 3.5 per cent, to $318,000 by year’s end.
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The report predicts home sale transactions to decrease by 11.5 per cent to 461,000 unit sales by year’s end. |
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