Inventory rises, but seller's market conditions remain.
City of Calgary, May 2021 - With 2,989 sales, housing market activity hit a new May record. Despite strong levels of sales, they did trend down relative to last month. Additionally, there were 4,562 new listings, causing seasonally adjusted inventory levels to increase over last month. “The recent gains in prices have encouraged more homeowners to list their homes and take advantage of the current market situation,” said CREB® chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie. “However, the inventory gains are still not enough to offset the demand growth and the market continues to favour the seller. Prices are rising, but they are still recovering in our market from previous highs in 2014. Only detached and semi-detached home prices in certain districts and communities have recovered to the level of previous monthly highs.” The months of supply did trend up slightly this month to just over two months, but it was not enough to halt the upward pressure on prices. The unadjusted benchmark price in May reached $455,200. This is one per cent higher than last month and nearly 11 per cent higher than prices recorded last year. Sales have been rising across all product types, but homes priced above $600,000 represent a larger-than-usual share of all sales. The upper end of the market only reflected 16 per cent of city sales last May, compared with this year where it now reflects nearly 26 per cent of all sales.