Old listings seen piling up

Mario Toneguzzi, Calgary HeraldPublished: Thursday, September 25, 2008

The number of residential MLS listings in the Calgary area that have expired without a sale soared in the month of August to nearly double what it was a year ago.
According to the Calgary Real Estate Board, there were 2,550 MLS listings that expired in August comprising single-family homes and condominiums in Calgary metro, as well as residential properties in CREB's market area, which includes acreages as well as town and country.
In August 2007, there were 1,368 listings that expired.
There are more listings expiring each month, said Ron Esch, executive vice-president of the local real estate board.
For many sellers, the expectation of a sale is not being met probably due to pricing, he said.
In August, MLS sales were down compared with a year ago throughout CREB's market area in four categories -- single-family homes in Calgary metro (10.96 per cent), condominiums in Calgary metro (17.2 per cent), towns outside Calgary (30.3 per cent) and country residential or acreages (20.3 per cent).
People need to know that condos now average 58 days to sell, compared with 35 days last year, while single-family homes were averaging 52 days in August, compared with 39 days a year ago, said Lai Sing Louie, senior market analyst in Calgary for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
"So it is taking longer to sell right now and people have to be in touch with the current market conditions," said Louie. "If you price it above, there's likely another house that's selling maybe a little below and that will go first."
He said people selling a home these days have to price their property according to product that's very similar.
Active listings are coming down in the Calgary market, but remain high.
"In terms of August, over 11,000 units were for sale. It's the highest August on record that we have going back to 1981," said Louie. "Even though it's peaked, the peak appears to have happened in May this year at over 13,000, it is coming down and the trend line is also down, but historically comparing the number, it's still high. We expect it to come down."
In August, average sale prices in the Calgary market dropped in four different areas compared with last year -- single-family homes in Calgary metro (down 9.3 per cent), condominiums in Calgary metro (10.3 per cent), towns outside Calgary (six per cent) and country residential including acreages (0.8 per cent).
Esch said MLS listings expire in two ways -- a listing contract runs out after 60 or 90 days with the property not selling or sometimes listings are terminated in advance of the expiration date. He said the majority of expirations are because they've run the course of the listing period and did not sell.
Data supplied by realtor Mike Fotiou of First Place Realty show that expirations in single-family homes in Calgary metro hit a high of 1,332 in December 2007 and have been over 1,200 in each of the months of August, July and June. Over the past year, expirations in the Calgary metro condo market hit a high of 614 in July.
On his web blog, Fotiou writes that the days-on-the-market (DOM) tatistic is not accurate these days.
"In the past few years, when properties were actually selling in 60 days or less, the DOM stat was quite accurate," he said.
But now with close to five months of supply for the inventory, "homes are expiring and getting relisted frequently, skewing the DOM stat."
He said the days-on-market clock resets back to zero when a property expires and is relisted.

mtoneguzzi@theherald.canwest.com