New | Oil price plunge pulling Calgary's housing market down with it
The city's agents are loath to admit the tide has turned, but sellers are no longer in the driver's seat and buyers are biding their time
A year ago, one of the hottest parts of Canada's red-hot housing market was Alberta's oil capital of Calgary, where cash-rich consumers fought for the fanciest home on the block. Now, a plunge in crude prices is pulling the housing market with it.
While agents in Calgary are loath to admit the tide has turned, sellers are no longer in the driver's seat and buyers are biding their time in hope of a real estate slump.
Sales in Calgary, the corporate centre of Canada's oil industry, were down 34 per cent in February from the same period last year, according to data from the Calgary Real Estate Board. Meanwhile, the price for benchmark US crude has more than halved since June last year.
Active listings have more than doubled since February last year as homeowners hurry to get their homes on the market before job losses hit hard and prices sink further.
The price for the average Calgary home dropped 4.3 per cent from a year earlier to C$462,108, the largest year-on-year fall since July 2009. February's decline was the second consecutive monthly drop in prices and the first back-to-back slide since June and July 2011.
We have a plethora of houses, it's like a beauty pageant of beautiful houses, on the market. There are lots of people wanting them, but they are waiting
It is a rare decline in a country that has seen home prices climb steadily for more than five years and double in the past decade.