Tax Time

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but the same might not be said about the value of your home in the eyes of a civic assessor. When the City of Calgary assesses your property in order to determine the value of your home and in turn, your share of municipal tax, there’s always the possibility of a distortion in how much your home is really worth and how much the tax will affect your household bottom line.

Mortgage Rates

As the economy slowly crawls back to almost equaling the plateau it achieved five years ago, when the stock market crashed and the Eurozone kerfuffle plunged the financial world into chaos, one major issue ranking high on the scuttlebutt circuit surrounds what will happen to mortgage rates. It makes sense, since the housing and construction markets are primary indicators of the economy’s direction.

Many homeowners have benefited from the reduction in the rates over the years, particularly five-year fixed closed rates, which were as high as six per cent 10 years ago and have since dropped to more than half by the end of 2012. An even longer-term picture shows that current rates are barely a third of what they were even 20 years ago.

Agreement for Sale

Regardless of the standard of living in Calgary, consumers have had to contend with two recently emerging factors that could jeopardize their chances of owning a home.

For openers, rising housing prices have been a consideration for a few years, although the average price of a family home in Calgary at the beginning of 2013 was $496,579 – slightly lower than its Toronto equivalent at $558,345 and less than half the price of a detached bungalow in Vancouver.

Contractor

When Calgary’s economy experiences a boom, Calgarians get busy. The heightened activity is particularly evident in the real estate industry, with enough hustle and bustle to qualify as a stampede in its own right.

In such a period, everyone gets into the act, from real estate agents inking deals and lawyers drawing up contracts to inspectors guaranteeing homes are up to code and contractors hired to build a home, boost an abode’s curb appeal or help consumers personalize their new digs.

Mission Condo

Life in Calgary, home of Canada’s most robust economy, doesn’t mean very much unless you have a roof over your head. It doesn’t help when the competition for active listings is so fierce, sometimes an active listing doesn’t even last a day before the ink dries on the sales contract. Folks who prefer to rent until they get an opportunity to buy a home aren’t all that fortunate, either, given Calgary’s vacancy rate barely hovering above the one-per cent mark. In fact, despite the competition for real estate, it’s still more prudent to purchase a home than to rent a place, since the inventory of active listings is comparatively much higher.

For Sale

The first thing you learn in the stock market is “Buy when high, sell when low.” And when it comes to selling your home in Calgary, such sage advice is the same. But when factoring in Calgary’s status as the hottest real estate market in Canada at a time when the economy is recovering with a vengeance after the bear market ensued a few years ago, sellers have to consider a number of other variables in the equation.

Normally, spring is seen by many sellers as the best time to get their property listed, while winter is normally viewed as the worst season during the year to sell. To many buyers, snow tends to have less curb appeal than a fresh lawn, while the cold conditions tend to deter people from venturing outdoors, an obvious prerequisite to relocating.

Rental Market

There’s an old saying among opportunists: Strike while the iron is hot. The same goes for Calgary’s housing market, and in the case of rental properties, it’s best to scramble while the skillet is scorching.

That’s because, like the real estate sales market, availability for units in the rental sector is also scarce, largely due to the influx of workers into a scorching economy that graces Calgary.

New Home

As the fastest-growing metropolis in Canada, Calgary seems to have everything, from economic prosperity to entrepreneurial opportunity. Everything, that is, except available housing. The Calgary Real Estate Board stats at the beginning of 2013 bear this out, with less than 3,000 available units listed, a 15 per cent drop from the end of 2011.

In response, the sod in outlying areas is being turned faster than ever, with new neighbourhoods like Auburn Bay, Evanston, Sherwood and Walden popping literally out of what used to be grassland. That’s kept such builders as Melcor, Homes by Avi, Jayman, Landmark, Greenboro and scores of others busy trying to keep pace with the demand, which shows no sign of stopping.