MARKET UPDATE – APRIL 30, 2017
It feels like the spring market in Red Deer, like the weather, still hasn’t arrived. The percentage drop in year over year sales at 15.3% is not what most people would have expected this year so far, but we aren’t surprised because we know that a recovery in the real estate market always lags behind an economic recovery by a year or so. In spite of the year over year decline in sales, the number of active listings is lower than a year ago which has helped push the sales to listings ratio just into balanced territory.
What does the future hold? As tough as the last two years have been, fortunately, it is looking brighter….
The Alberta Treasury Branch summed up the last two years in Alberta this way – Many Albertans felt it. And the latest numbers confirm it. Alberta’s economy contracted another 3.8 per cent in 2016. This follows a similar decline of 3.7 per cent in 2015. It was the second consecutive year that real gross domestic product (GDP) contracted, the last time this happened was in 1982 and 1983….
The last couple of years have been tough for Albertans and the provincial economy. But it is expected to get better in 2017. ATB is forecasting real GDP growth this year in the two to three per cent range. This represents an end to two consecutive years of recession and welcomes in an era of modest growth.
