Vital Statistics

Nov 1, 2009

The DIY Option
In August, ComFree Commission-Free Realty released a survey indicating that Alberta homeowners are increasingly confident selling their properties through for-sale-by-owner websites. Seventy-five per cent of respondents cited high commission costs as a deterrent to working with agents. “The commissions can actually raise the value of property and so for-sale-by-owner… essentially we’re taking that out,” says ComFree’s Travis Holowach, vice-president of marketing, Western Canada. He says direct sales make the market more competitive and limit commission-built-in pricing. Consumers are also leaning toward more flexible sale processes. “We’re in a world of technology where people are used to having information at their fingertips that they can access 24 hours a day, and the agent system doesn’t work that way.”

For the year ending June 2009, total Alberta property sales reached a value of $10,336,020,742, a decrease from the same period a year earlier.
Residential properties represented 91% of total property sales for the year ending June 2009.
From January through June 2009, commercial real estate transaction volumes in Canada dropped to $4.9 billion (mid 2009) from $10 billion (mid 2008).
In the second quarter of 2009, 1.7 million square feet of new office space was completed in Canada.
Building permit values for Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec fell in July 2009.
Opened in August 2009, CrossIron Mills, the first shopping centre built in Western Canada in 20 years, has 1.4 million square feet of gross building area and required an investment of nearly $500 million.

Sources: Alberta Real Estate Association, Avison Young, CB Richard Ellis, Colliers International, Ivanhoe Cambridge, Statistics Canada