Calgary Construction XXVI

[Daemon]

Winter panaramo serene

[Daemon]

[Daemon]

and mansion Too cold to take too many photos. Only one

[Bad Grizzly]

I have to admit, this is really nice. The kind of winter pic my relatives think are only in fairy tales.

Originally Posted by Daemon

Winter panaramo serene

[topdog]

Roof looks to be topped off now.

Originally Posted by Daemon

Telus

[Fatcat loser]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Here is the housing sales data trend for detached, apartment and duplex. These are for the entire city, so only give part of the picture.

REF: https://www.creblink.com/-/media/Public/CREBcom/Housing_Statistics/City_of_Calgary_Report.pdf?la=en

Nothing has been doing very well, but relatively speaking, I'd say the one in the middle has performed worst.

It might be interesting to look at the numbers based on median prices, so that way things are not skewed by one or two 10M dollar sales. That's the blue line. The duplex data may seem perplexing at first glance - how are they maintaining their value? But if we are thoughtful about it, we know that the proportion of infill duplexes keeps rising year over year, so it is not that the same duplex has maintained value, rather that the mix of duplexes sold is shifting to infills. At the end of the day, that means the graph for duplexes doesn't tell us as much as we'd like to think. For detached, looks like they've gone from a median of 460 to about 445 (-3.25%), while apartments have gone down from 280 to about 225 (-19.6%).

The one in the middle has performed the best lately however. Maybe the trend is moving away from SFHs?
Just so we're clear, I'm not trying to say the inner city is better than the suburbs or anything like that, only that over the last year apartments everywhere have done well for the most part.
Maybe the trend toward apartments like we've sen in Van, Tor, and Mtl is catching on in Calgary.

[milomilo]

Apartments being cheap is a good thing, not a bad thing. If we want people living in high density then cheering for unnaffordable condos is the opposite of what we should want.

[Fatcat loser]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Apartments being cheap is a good thing, not a bad thing. If we want people living in high density then cheering for unnaffordable condos is the opposite of what we should want.

Nobody said it was a bad thing.

[milomilo]

Well the general thrust of this conversation has been high house prices = good, low prices = bad. Of course, that's a economically illiterate viewpoint held mainly by the boomer generation.

[Fatcat loser]

If you read through all the posts, nobody said they wanted to keep prices high, only that apartments weren't decreasing as much as some were saying.

[Bad Grizzly]

Why are you posting only one year’s worth of data? Suburbia posted 4 years of data, which gives a better idea of the trends.

Originally Posted by Fatcat loser

The one in the middle has performed the best lately however. Maybe the trend is moving away from SFHs?
Just so we're clear, I'm not trying to say the inner city is better than the suburbs or anything like that, only that over the last year apartments everywhere have done well for the most part.
Maybe the trend toward apartments like we've sen in Van, Tor, and Mtl is catching on in Calgary.

[Bad Grizzly]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well the general thrust of this conversation has been high house prices = good, low prices = bad. Of course, that's a economically illiterate viewpoint held mainly by the boomer generation.

It’s not an illiterate viewpoint. Real estate all around the world generally appreciates over time. If it never did that nobody would be interested in developing new real estate except communist regimes and we’d all be living in commie blocks. The illiterate view cones from people who don’t understand that concept.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Fatcat loser

If you read through all the posts, nobody said they wanted to keep prices high, only that apartments weren't decreasing as much as some were saying.

Using language like performed "best" or "worse" definitely implies that most here see rising house prices as a measure of improvement.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Bad Grizzly

It’s not an illiterate viewpoint. Real estate all around the world generally appreciates over time. If it never did that nobody would be interested in developing new real estate except communist regimes and we’d all be living in commie blocks. The illiterate view cones from people who don’t understand that concept.

Prices rising at approximately the average rate of inflation is fine, thinking that house prices should only go up at a rate faster than wage growth is not.

[Fatcat loser]

Originally Posted by Bad Grizzly

Why are you posting only one year’s worth of data? Suburbia posted 4 years of data, which gives a better idea of the trends.

I was going by the original link posted from Toyboy, also while 4 years of data can be useful, the more recent the data the more relevant the data. At this point it doesn't matter what happened in 2015.

[Bad Grizzly]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Prices rising at approximately the average rate of inflation is fine, thinking that house prices should only go up at a rate faster than wage growth is not.

Have been following along with this discussion over the past couple of days or only since this morning? Nobody has posted anywhere that they want prices going upwards at s high rate. The conversation has been all about decreases.

[Northern]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Well the general thrust of this conversation has been high house prices = good, low prices = bad. Of course, that's a economically illiterate viewpoint held mainly by the boomer generation.

Do we want house prices to drop, so those with less on the ball can have a shot at buying a cheap home? Sorry but that’s a ridiculous concept. Nobody would ever invest or buy into real estate if that were the case.

[Bad Grizzly]

Originally Posted by Northern

Do we want house prices to drop, so those with less on the ball can have a shot at buying a cheap home? Sorry but that’s a ridiculous concept. Nobody would ever invest or buy into real estate if that were the case.

Exactly. The concept of cheap housing so everyone can be equal has been tried already and it doesn’t work. Having prices skyrocket isn’t a great thing either, but what I would like to see ideally is real estate appreciating
by around 5-7% every year. A little bit above inflation.

People wrongly assume that if real estate increases above inflation rate that nobody will ever be able to afford a home. The fact is, over time most people’s income increases better than inflation, via getting married and having two incomes, via promotions at work, etc.. there’s easily room for hoses to increase at higher than the inflation rate and still make it affordable for people, this is the way it’s been over a decade and it’s worked fine.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Bad Grizzly

Exactly. The concept of cheap housing so everyone can be equal has been tried already and it doesn’t work. Having prices skyrocket isn’t a great thing either, but what I would like to see ideally is real estate appreciating
by around 5% every year. A little bit above inflation.

People wrongly assume that if real estate increases above inflation rate that nobody will ever be able to afford a home. The fact is, over time most people’s income increases better than inflation, via getting married and having two incomes, via promotions at work, etc.. there’s easily room for hoses to increase at higher than the inflation rate and still make it affordable for people, this is the way it’s been over a decade and it’s worked fine.

You might want to check your math on that. If house prices constantly rise above inflation/wage growth, then eventually a point will be reached where people can't afford them, and the market will crash. See Vancouver and Toronto.

What is this "the concept of cheap housing has been tried and doesn't work" you speak of? Calgary currently does have moderately affordable housing, let's keep it that way and allow people to use the spare money on productive things rather than dead money in a house.

[Northern]

Very well put.

Originally Posted by Bad Grizzly

Exactly. The concept of cheap housing so everyone can be equal has been tried already and it doesn’t work. Having prices skyrocket isn’t a great thing either, but what I would like to see ideally is real estate appreciating
by around 5-7% every year. A little bit above inflation.

People wrongly assume that if real estate increases above inflation rate that nobody will ever be able to afford a home. The fact is, over time most people’s income increases better than inflation, via getting married and having two incomes, via promotions at work, etc.. there’s easily room for hoses to increase at higher than the inflation rate and still make it affordable for people, this is the way it’s been over a decade and it’s worked fine.