(Canadian Press)

By David Opinko

homes sales up 62%

Lethbridge sees its strongest-ever quarter for home sales

Apr 6, 2021 | 3:04 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The global recession continues, yet people are buying houses in Lethbridge in great numbers.

Cathy Maxwell, CEO of the Lethbridge and District Association of Realtors, says, in just the first three months of this year, 494 residential properties were sold in the city.

That marks an increase of 62 per cent from the same last year when transactions were completed for 305 homes. It should be noted that the first wave of COVID-19 restrictions were announced right at the end of Q1 2020.

“For the second month in a row, sales have hit a new record high for the month… making this the best first-quarter sales on record.”

The average home price to kick of the new year was $326,000. That is a marked increase from the same time last year when houses typically sold for $288,000.

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Maxwell says there are currently about 2.4 months of inventory, meaning that, if properties kept selling at their current pace and no new items were listed, it would take that amount of time to clear all of them.

“That’s why we might see some prices increase a little bit because demand is higher and there’s not as much inventory. What that means is, when you’re shopping, you gotta be prepared to put an offer down because it might be gone relatively quickly.”

Currently, she reports that there are 539 residential units available on the market. “These are the lowest levels since March of 2008.”

There are at least a couple of reasons why home sales have spiked so sharply. One is historically-low interest rates.

Another, according to Maxwell, is that many people have begun to re-evaluate what it means to have a home since many are also working out of their houses.

She predicts that the real estate market in Lethbridge will continue to be strong throughout 2021, but it is unclear what the job markets will be like by next year, so she could not give any forecasts beyond that.