It’s been a very long time since Red Deer homeowners have felt confident with local property prices. Since the real estate “boom” ending 2008/09 the Alberta real estate market has been kicked each time it appeared to be improving.
The 2008 “mortgage crises” sent economic upheaval through North America and it felt even worse after a half-decade of hyper-growth. Following 2009 we didn’t see noteworthy improvement of any sort but the market gradually improved until 2014.
In 2014 the price of oil took a serious dive and that was the next kick to real estate right when things had appeared to be normalizing.
Yet again, a few years later it felt as though homeowners might see a light at the end of the tunnel. After a few years of moderate market improvement owners had begun to gain confidence until another kick landed at the end of 2017. 2018 began with the new federal government mortgage stress test meant to protect burrowers against higher interest rates when buying during historically low rates. This made it a little harder for every to buy the home they could only a few months earlier. Some activity slowed and because everyone had less buying power priced flattened again.
Since the last kick, the market has been inconsistent until COVID-19 reared up. COVID-19 sent sales and prices into a tailspin for the first 2 months but since then it’s suprisingly improved.
The first two tailspin months took a tailspi but things were back to normal quick and since then sales have beat each of the corresponding months 12-months prior.
Since COVID-19 sales have been up and listings have been down causing a lower than normal inventory level. With increased demand and lower supply prices have risen too.
You can see in the image above sales have been up and down but it’s hard to gauge from month to month. However, also in the image above you can see the 4-month and 12-month average have improved. When the 4-month average straightens out it’s the first sign of a price trend but when the 12-average improves a few months straight, prices are trending upward.
View last month price stats and data here – https://www.ionrealestate.ca/red-deer-real-estate-news/red-deer-average-home-price/. In December the 4 and 12-month price average began increasing and February was the 3rd month in a row that both averages have increased.