Report predicts pandemic, oil woes to weigh on Calgary real estate

Calgary home sales, prices and new listings might be headed for a slight increase in 2021, but they’re likely still bound to be hampered by COVID-19 and reduced demand for oil, the city’s most prominent housing organization predicted Tuesday.

The Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) said in its annual outlook report that both the pandemic and energy industry woes will continue to weigh on the Albertan city and its surrounding neighbourhoods’ real estate market this year.

“We are not back to recovering from previous levels that we had, but we do expect that as we move into the earlier parts of the year that some of that momentum that we saw at the end of last year will continue, but not necessarily at the same pace,” Ann-Marie Lurie, CREB’s chief economist, said at a press conference.

Her board’s annual outlook showed if layoffs, bankruptcies and oil industry consolidation continue, people in the region will likely need to adjust their housing to match their new employment situation.

However, they’ll be more confident in listing their homes if mass vaccinations continue and COVID-19 restrictions around travel, social gatherings and business closures are slowly lifted, Lurie said.

While new listings fell by nearly nine per cent last year and resulted in the slowest year for new listings since 2002, CREB expects they will rise in 2021 as owners who delayed sales during the early stages of the pandemic put their homes on the market.

Prices will also creep up slightly, Lurie said.

CREB is forecasting overall housing prices will edge up by 1.3 per cent to hit $423,307.

“We do expect to see some price growth this year, but not exactly strong price gains,” said Lurie.

“Really we are talking about some modest gains happening, especially in the earlier part of the year”