Posted 3 years ago (November 18th, 2008)
Calgary's Real Estate Market and Alberta's Surplus
I am sure that we have all been watching the markets in the recent weeks. With massive bailout packages being announced by all of the world's largest economies and banks declaring bankruptcy it is something unlike any of us have ever seen. The roller-coaster that is the stock market right now has somewhat taken our eyes off of the current state of the real estate market.
When looking at the Calgary Real
Estate market we see for the first time in over a year a declining
inventory. While we still remain in a strong
buyer's market we at least are seeing some relief in the
number of new listings being added to the inventory. We
are also seeing a decrease in sales this year from
last as well as this month from last month.
Partly attributed to the normal cycle and time of year it
can also be due to customer fear of declining markets.
I wanted to dig a bit
deeper into Calgary's market and take a good look at some
other market indicators for Calgary for instance the unemployment
rate as well as the availability of new jobs. This is
what I found;
Calgary's unemployment rate is 3.8% which is up 0.8% from
the same time last year and up 0.1% in October 2008
from September 2008. That being said the
participation rate in the labour force also increased by 2%
increasing the total employment rate to 75% up 1.3% from
the same time last year. Canada's national average
for unemployment is 6.2% in October of
2008.
Overall we see a strong
employment rate in Calgary with one of the lowest unemployment
rates in the country.
Calgary's population has grown by 1,600 people from
September 2008 to October 2008. With the influx of
people to Calgary what is our current job market
like?
I signed on to Monster.ca to take
a look at the number of full time jobs available in Calgary
and found a total of 2,134. When I narrowed my search to
include only jobs with a professional status my search narrowed to
1,160 results which is still a decent number of jobs
available when we compare that number to the number of people
moving to Calgary.
It still appears that Calgary's
economy is strong at this point in time. However, we
have yet to feel the effects of dwindling oil prices
and projects that have been put 'on hold'. The
combination of these two things will no doubt have an effect on our
employment rates as well as the numbers of jobs
available.
Alberta still does have some option
though. Today it was announced that the 2008
projected surplus of 8.5 billion dollars has been scaled back by a
staggering 6.5 billion to 2 billion dollars. While it is a
drastic decrease in funds let us not forget that we are still
operating at a surplus a wonderful situation to be in when you look
at the major world economies all entering into deficits to offset
the credit crisis. One of Alberta's
tactics might be to revisit the Royalty increase set
to begin in 2009 to promote projects that
may otherwise be shelved.
As we all know the Real Estate
market is very localized and while Calgary’s current market has
taken a big hit we are in a position for the market to
stabilize. These next few months will determine the future of
Calgary’s economy as well as the global economy. While many
people are pulling back now waiting to see what is going to occur
the general reasons for home buying remain the same and those
include changing life circumstances such as job, marriage, divorce,
kids, death and so on.
Resources: www.statcan.ca
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About the Author
Calgary Housing Market
403-923-7237
Lina Horner, RE/MAX House of Real Estate www.smartcalgaryhomes.com Read More
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