A once red-hot housing market in the Wild Rose province has now cooled as new numbers show Alberta is the most affordable market in the nation.
According to the RBC report, that’s thanks to lower mortgage rates and a further softening in housing prices.
“The combination of prices that have gone a bit lower, meant that mortgage payments have gone down,” says Senior Economist Robert Hogue. “And this is what affordability really measures is those mortgage payments plus utilities and property taxes as a percentage point.”
Those numbers for Alberta are all down including detached bungalows, standard condominiums and two-storey homes that all dipped from one to 2.4 per cent.
The figures in Calgary paint a similar picture with affordability the best it’s been in six years.
It was just a few years ago when the average home price was over $500,000; that now sits at just over $400,000.
According to RBC Cowtown fell the most among Canada’s largest urban markets, declining by 0.9 to 3.1 per cent.
However Hogue says don’t expect Calgary’s reign at the top to last for long.
“What we’ve seen more recently is that market conditions are more balanced now, and the price declines that we’ve seen over the last few years have probably run their course,” he says.
Moving forward for 2011, he says Calgarians should start to see more of a middle ground, instead of a buyer’s market.
http://www.660news.com/radio/660news/article/188455–calgary-one-of-the-most-affordable-cities-in-canada
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