A total of 880 homes changed hands across Calgary’s Multiple Listing Service in January, a 38.9 per cent drop from the 1,439 sales recorded during the same month last year.
According to data from the Calgary Real Estate Board, single-family home sales were down 37.6 per cent year-over-year, condo sales fell 40.1 per cent and townhome sales dropped 40.4 per cent.
The sales drop can be contributed in large part to falling energy prices.
“A lack of recovery in oil has many concerned about their employment status and this concern is reflected through the weaker sales activity in Calgary’s January resale figures,” said CREB chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie in a release.
Indeed, sales levels were over 35 per cent lower than the 10-year average while new listings increased 39 per cent citywide. But despite the increase in inventory, the benchmark price for all property types ended the month at $459,100, up 7.7 per cent from the same time last year.
Is this price growth sustainable?
“If supply levels continue to rise at levels that exceed the pace of demand growth, we can expect this will start to impact prices in the city,” Lurie said.
