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By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

out of the blocks

2022 off to decent start for Red Deer home sales

Feb 16, 2022 | 10:02 AM

The market for home sales in Red Deer last year was pretty stellar, and 2022 is off to a pretty decent start.

According to the Central Alberta Realtors Association (CARA), 1,924 units were sold in 2021, including 123 in December.

The highest month of the year was April with 223.

The year’s total tops the 1,262 sold in 2020, 1,295 in 2019, 1,329 in 2018, and 1,398 in 2017.

The average sale price in December 2021 was $338,937, compared to $322,437 in December 2020.

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In fact, the average sale price was higher in each month of 2021 than it was the year prior. The last time a monthly average sale price beat any 2021 sale price was August 2017.

“The market in Red Deer showed little sign of easing as sales activity improved over last year’s levels. Some of the gains were thanks to a boost in new listings in January compared to what was coming onto the market at the end of the year,” a summary from the Alberta Real Estate Association (AREA) says.

“However, with 402 units available in inventory, January levels are the lowest since 2015. Improving sales coupled with lower inventory levels have caused the months of supply to remain just over three months, making it the tightest start to a new year since 2014.”

While 2022 appears to be headed in the right direction, with 124 home sales in January, compared to 100 a year ago, there is one area where home-sellers will need to make up ground.

That’s with average sale prices, where last month, the average was $312,526, lower than December 2021 ($338,937), and also lower than January 2021 at $328,081.

Since 2017, it’s the second-lowest average sale price for a January.

AREA notes this occurred despite the fact that righter market conditions usually drive prices upward.

“The decline is likely related to shifts in composition, both from a price point and a property type. The share of detached sales dropped from 71 to 64 percent of all the sales in the market,” AREA says. “That shift in composition toward the relatively more affordable semi and apartment-style product could be contributing to the nearly five percent decline in average price. This is reflected through the shift in activity by price range, with more sales occurring at lower price points.”

Larissa Kalyn, CARA chairperson, explains this doesn’t mean that the sky is falling or that prices are bottoming out, rather that the starter home market is simply more predominant right now.

The Canadian Real Estate Association recently put out its latest numbers, which show the average sale price of a home nationally in January 2022 was a record $748,450, up 21 per cent from the year previous.

The full AREA report for January 2022 is available here.