Sales in the first two weeks of September were up slightly in central Alberta compared to August, while the number of active listings is down. It’s normal to see slightly higher sales in September, but it’s especially significant considering some Albertans may be waiting for the result of the federal election before making a move. Lacombe, Ponoka and Penhold were the ones who bucked the trend and saw an increase in their inventories. Coincidentally those are the markets that don’t already have large excess inventories.
Generally, the number of homes on the market in central alberta is down compared to this time last year. There are a couple of possible reasons for the change. First, some of the people who had homes on the market a year ago weren’t getting the prices they needed so decided to wait until the market improved. Second, new construction has slowed and our total inventory hasn’t been growing much. Our population has increased a little in the past year which would have absorbed some of our excess inventory.
