Well now the debate always rages on as one can see in the comments below however good on Alberta and congrats to Sasky for leading the league in forecasted growth....

Calgary, AB - The Alberta economic outlook is generally positive with the highest rate of growth for all provinces of 3.8 per cent this year, says the Conference Board of Canada in its latest forecast released Friday. Read more here...

Edmonton, July 4, 2012: At the end of the first half of the year, housing prices in all residential categories are up from the same time last year. On average1, residential prices are 3.2% higher than June of last year. The all-residential average price was $342,014 in June while single-family detached homes sold for $393,471, up 3.7% year-over-year.

“Our market continues to be robust and housing prices are higher than they were last year,” said REALTORS® Association of Edmonton President Doug Singleton. “We expect that, although prices will, as usual, slide gradually over the next six months, they will continue to be higher than they have been in the past two years or the five year average.”

The median3 price for a single family detached home was up 2.0% year-over-year at $369,900 while the condo median price was up 4.6% at $230,000 as compared to last year. The average price for a condo in the Edmonton area dipped 2.5% since May to $242,720. Duplexes and rowhouses were priced on average about 7% higher than last year at $318,223.

There were 3,211 residential properties listed in June and 1,874 sales and the sales-to-listing ratio was up from 53% in May to 58%. The average days-on-market in June was up two at 51 days. Residential inventory was 7,930 on June 30 or about 4.2 month’s supply; typical for this market. REALTORS® participated in the sale of over $640 million worth of residential property last month and total MLS® activity in the first half of the year is $3.8 billion.

In an unexpected move, the finance minister imposed new policies on residential mortgages for the fourth time in four years. Effective July 9, the maximum amortization period for government-backed mortgages was reduced from 30 to 25 years and purchases over $1 million cannot be guaranteed by CMHC. In addition the amount that homeowners can borrow against the equity in their homes is reduced from 85 to 80 percent.

“These changes are meant to cool the Toronto markets but will have little impact in our stable and affordable market locally,” said Singleton. “Some buyers may push their buying decision forward a bit or have to lower their expectations but their REALTOR® can still present them with plenty of options and housing choice in all price brackets. The limits on equity take-out and million dollar purchases will have negligible effect on the resale housing market.”

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Activity (for all residential sales on Edmonton MLS® System)

2 Residential includes SFD, condos and duplex/row houses
3 Single Family Dwelling
4 The middle figure in a list of all sales prices
5 Includes residential, rural and commercial sales

1 Average prices indicate market trends only. They do not reflect actual changes for a particular property, which may vary from house to house and area to area. Prior period figures have been adjusted to include late reported sales and cancellations and therefore reflect a more accurate view of the period than previously reported at month end.