EDMONTON - Is the city's housing market going into the tank, as it did in the 1980s? Or is it already showing signs of emerging from its year-long funk?
My guess? With the average price of a single-family detached home in Edmonton down to $379,224 in July -- nearly $38,000 or 9.1 per cent below the July 2007 peak of $417,150 -- the recent downturn is largely history.
Sales volumes are picking up, the bloated inventory of unsold homes is shrinking, new housing starts are down by more than 70 per cent, and current prices better reflect what buyers are willing to pay to live in what has become one of Canada's most consistently prosperous cities.
Unless energy prices fall off a cliff, Alberta's economy should remain strong. And that should lead to a stronger housing market in 2009.
So what's a cliff? In my view, oil prices would have to skid to $75 US per barrel or lower for a sustained period -- rendering some oilsands projects uneconomic -- and natural gas prices would have to sink below $7 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), making drilling too costly to justify.
Read the complete story at:
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=116e6424-35ad-4822-a412-c96d8f71bb3d