Are things turning around in the Calgary Real Estate market?

We’ve heard lots about the new mortgage rules having an impact on buying decisions, particularly in the second quarter of 2018. According to this recent article, the folks at Urban Analytics are saying that we are soon to be able to put that behind us with the second half of 2018 due to outperform the first half.

“Buyers adjusted to the impacts of the stress test, and we also see in the Calgary market, in particular, that there has been a bit of pent up demand based on the amount of new projects launched in the inner city,” said Kimberly Poffenroth, a senior market analyst with Urban Analytics.

We’re certainly starting to see larger investment in the City, including the Federal Government announcing that they’re investing in rental units for middle-class families.

While sales were still down in Q2, over 2017, they were 28% higher than Q1. Are you feeling the impact on your business? I certainly am!

Spring started slowly, and much later than usual, but has been as busy as ever since the middle of May.

The Alberta Government is also optimistic that we’re on the right track. While there is still a ways to go for the recovery to “hit every kitchen table”, the province’s deficit is about 25% lower than was forecast. That’s a good thing and there’s lots of other good news in the province’s recent annual report.

When it comes to rates, we were all planning for another Bank of Canada key lending rate increase on July 11th, at their next announcement. But maybe not??

Last week, the odds were 70% that there was going to be a rate hike, but this week analysts are a little more cautious.

Stéfane Marion, National Bank’s chief economist and strategist said this week in a interview with BNN, “I think this is one of the rare instances where you could argue that given this uncertainty out there, why would you proceed with a rate hike if things turn from bad to worse later this summer?”

While the probability is still high that we’ll see a rate increase next week, with less than a week to go, there is still a lot of chatter. Three rate increases in the last year. Isn’t that enough, given the uncertainty?

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.