No sooner had I pushed the publish button on my "weekly update" this afternoon did I receive notification from the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton that the monthly numbers were ready! I don't think they're trying to ruin my vacation but they are certainly giving me lots to do! Just kidding.... They obviously worked hard to correct the problem and release the numbers as quickly as possible.
Anyway, here is what June 2009 actually looked like:
That is a lot of sales! The highest number of residential sales for June ever (that I am aware of) and the third highest number of sales for any month (that I am aware of). What is causing this high number of sales? First it's seasonality - there are always more sales in the spring than in the rest of the year. Second, record low mortgage rates and lower prices. Third, there have been a lot of people sitting on the fence, waiting to buy for a couple of years now and a lot of them have decided now is the right time for them since things are more affordable.
Of course, with an influx of buyers comes more competition (we've seen this on many of our listings that have received multiple offers in the past two months) and increasing prices:
And more sales means dropping inventory. But that is not the end of the story...
We typically would see the number of new listings drop in June, but they have stayed flat (3180 new listings in May, 3179 in June). Some home owners are starting to jump in with the buyers as well... what I mean is that I'm starting to get a lot of questions from owners who were thinking of selling a couple of years ago but decided to wait when the market turned. Many of these people rented out their properties, or some decided not to move up or down or out of Edmonton. My guess is many of these people are going to try selling again this summer because they feel the market is improving and it's time to cash out. I wouldn't be surprised to see a higher than normal number of new listings in July and perhaps even more than we saw this month.
What could this mean for the market? Well, for buyers that have reserved a rate with their lender it could mean more selection and less competition as the summer progresses, which would be an ideal time for many to buy. For sellers it could mean that they should put away their rose coloured glasses until next year (or maybe the year after that). Whatever it means, the market is certainly unpredictable and we're all going to have to wait and see what happens.
June definitely turned out to be the best month so far for sellers this year, with an 80% sales to new listings ratio is was most definitely a seller's market:
The absorption rate also shows sellers had the upper hand, and for the first month this year I'd say the absorption rate was normal:
Hope everyone has a great weekend and I do look forward to the discussion that is generated by these numbers.
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