Power Cut To South Calgary

(Feb 11, 2008) Power is off in most of South Calgary this morning as Enmax crews attempt to diagnose the cause of the disruption. There was a minor power bump around 7:15 this morning due to an outage in a single substation near the SE community of Douglasdale, but a cascading failure at 10:15 took an additional 5 substations offline.

Enmax crews are working on the problem and hope to have power restored before 1PM today. Let's hope that's the case, as even though it's warmer out today (currently about -10C), we've already resorted to sweaters (and battery power for computers). Close to 70,000 customers have been affected by the outage.

*11:45AM Update* While power has been restored to a number of communities in SW Calgary,…

Interest Rates Will Continue to Drop

(February 05, 2008) Since August 2007 the Fed cut rates by no less than 225 basis points. This is the most aggressive easing since the early 1980s when the Fed was targeting money supply growth and not inflation. But the market is expecting more. Note that the bond market is already pricing in a recession. And in every recession the inflation-adjusted fed funds rate was negative.

Today at 3%, the fed funds rate is about one percentage point above inflation. So it’s hardly a surprise that the market is now pricing in another 100 basis points rate cut by the Fed. At the minimum, the market will get 50 basis points. And if we are indeed in a recession, the Fed will cut by additional 50 basis points.

Libor Rate Down

The…

Calgary Real Estate Stats

Calgary’s MLS® Sales and Listings for the month of January 2008, show a steady and more stabilized market, according to figures released by the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB®).

Calgary SF Homes Stats

Single family Calgary metro new listings added for the month of January totaled, 3,023, an increase of 30.02 per cent over the 2,325 new listings added in January 2007. Single family Calgary metro properties changing hands in January 2008 were 1,083, a decrease of 27.66 per cent from the 1,497 recorded in January 2007 and an increase of 28.01 per cent over the 846 sales recorded in December.

The median price of a single family Calgary metro home in January 2008 was $410,000 showing an 7.89 per cent increase over January 2007,…

(Feb 04, 2008)  Lets all take a moment to say a prayer for family and friends of 24 yr old Lindsay Buziak, who's body was found Saturday in a home listed for sale in the Gordon Head neighbourhood of Saanich (Victoria). Ms Buziak had worked as a REALTOR in Vancouver prior to her position with Re/Max Camosun in Victoria B.C.

She was found dead in a vacant house which was listed by another REALTOR. Police are investigating and are seeking the person who called 911 asking them to check on the person inside the property on Saturday afternoon. It is unclear who the person Buziak had arranged the showing for was.

Buziak's father Jeff, a commercial REALTOR in Calgary, said "someone phoned Lindsay to show a house and they killed her."

Buziak was born in Victoria…

CREB Predicts 5% Gain in Market

 The average sale price of a single-family home in the city will flirt with the half-million-dollar mark this year, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. Two thousand and eight will be a good year and a year of opportunity for serious buyers and sellers,” said Jensen. “Seeing a solid Alberta economy, strong employment, predictions of movements to past levels of net migration, I see the Calgary market moving closer to normal market conditions - as normal as Calgary can be. 

According to the real estate board, single-family homes in the city averaged $472,230 in 2007, up 17.94 per cent from $400,398 in 2006. The average sale price of a condo was $316,370, an increase of 19.98 per cent from $263,684 in 2006.…

Bloodbath on Bay Street

(Monday  January 21, 2008) After losing nearly 1,000 points last week, most analysts expected the Canadian market to take a breather today, with markets south of the border closed for Martin Luther King Day. Instead, Canadian stocks on the TSX plummeted more than 600 points on Monday, following steep declines on both the Asian & European markets.

All sectors of the market were hit today, including resource, financial, consumer and tech stocks. For those currently invested in the market, the short-term outlook is grim: Tuesday morning when the US markets re-open, there will likely be another huge sell-off.

At market close, the S&P/TSX Composite index was down 605 points at 12,132, a drop of nearly 5% and a level not seen since…

Shortly after taking office, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach had Dr. Lyle Oberg, Minister of Finance, put together a panel who were tasked with examining the province’s energy royalty and tax regime. The six member panel was chaired by Bill Hunter, and included experts in resource taxation and the royalty system. Members of the panel included Evan Chrapko, Judith Dwarkin, Kenneth McKenzie, Andre Plourde and Sam Spanglet.

Throughout the process, the panel hosted a series of public meetings and accepted submissions from Alberta residents, municipal leaders, and stakeholders in the oil and gas industry. On September 18, 2007, the panel released their 104 page report entitled Our Fair Share (see link to report below). Stelmach's government promised to study the…

 Your weekly update of Calgary Real Estate

Calgary Real Estate Stats: July 01 - 17/07

Discussion: The average Calgary house price was $561,311 last week, setting another new record. This number reflects the growing number of sales of Calgary Luxury Real Estate. The average price of a Calgary condo was $313,973, a slight rise from the previous week. New Calgary listings continue to outpace sales by almost a 2:1 margin.

CREB *Calgary Real Estate Board* has revised the format of the weekly sales stats to better reflect the market within the Calgary city limits. The new "Calgary Metro" stats don't include acreages and properties listed from smaller towns outside of the Calgary metro area.

Calgary Real Estate Stats