Calgary Real Estate Board Agrees with My Predictions for 2012

I was fortunate enough to thoroughly enjoy yesterday's Annual Forecast Breakfast and Conference for local Calgary Real Estate REALTORS®. I am always amazed at how few real estate agents actually attend this conference as this is the time of year that everyone is tweeking their 2012 business plans that they created last fall. Or they should be.

 

I thought that I would take a few moments to share the forecast since this is the most requested content at this time of year.

 

Obviously, making forecasts are difficult - especially in the turbulent world of economics these days. For the last several years the forecast has been grossly optimistic that they were almost laughable based on economic events of the time. I'm sure there were tons of blog or forum comments questioning how a bunch of professionals could come up with a forecast that was so self-serving when the economists were clearly giving substantially different viewpoints.

 

Here's a recent example:

 

• Sales of single-Family homes to hit 14,500 units and increase by 19.9% from 2010. Average sales price was forecast to grow 4.1% to $480,000. For condominium homes, the forecasts were sales up 15.8% and prices up 1.8%.

But what actually transpired in 2011 was a completely different picture.

• There were 13,186 single-family home sales, increasing by 9.1%, and the average sale price was $466,402, up 1.2%. Condominium property sales were up 4.0%, and the average price was down 0.9%.

Those numbers weren't even close!

 

I believe this year's forecast is far closer to what we should see throughout 2012 based on all the information from various economists that I have seen, as well as possible outcomes of various economic events.

 

Here are the various forecasts for re-sale home on the MLS® System (within the city limits):

• For single-Family homes, sales are forecast to reach 14,800, up 12.2%, which is still well behind our 10-year average. Selling prices are forecast to rise 2.1%, again well below our peak pricing of 2007.
• Condominium home sales are expect to grow by 5.9%, to 5,700 sales, this year and selling prices are expected to rise by 1.7% to reach $292,000.

So overall, a modest increase of below 2% in selling prices, as I had predicted back in mid-December when I was tweeking my annual business plan. While none of us have a crystal ball, these number seem to be reasonable for this year's market.

 

For those of you wishing to see the background research, here is a link to the Forecast Report.

If you'd like me to email you the report, just call me or send me a note. I'd be happy to do so.