Housing Market settles after Roller-Coaster ride
EDMONTON - After toughing out hard times, Edmontonians ventured back into real estate to drive a steady recovery in existing-home sales and housing starts.
Sounds like the present day, but it could also be a recap of 2000.
After a decade-long roller-coaster ride that pushed Edmontonians up a homebuying and home-building peak and then plunged them down a subsequent slide, the market now looks much like the level track of 10 years ago.
"During the 10 years, you`ve seen almost a full cycle," said Barry Hanna, who was president of the Edmonton Real Estate Board in 2000.
"We`ve seen the whole thing go up and come back down again."
One difference remains after 10 years. Prices are considerably higher now; for the first 11 months of 2009, the average selling price of a single-family house was $362,165 compared with $139,966 in 2000. Still, that`s nearly 10 per cent down from the 2007 peak of $400,304.
Hanna, who now teaches at his Real Estate Training Institute, recalls that 2000 had a feeling of optimism after the bleak 1980s and 1990s.
Read the full article
here.