Luxury Home Market Shines in Calgary

CALGARY – The luxury home market in Calgary and area continues to shine in what has turned out to be a record year for sales in the upper-end of residential real estate.

Ann-Marie Lurie, chief economist with the Calgary Real Estate Board, said several favourable economic conditions have been supporting a strong luxury home market in Calgary and area this year.

“There’s more activity in the inner-city. A lot of those sales are actually occurring in the inner-city,” she said. “And a lot of them are single-family homes.”

The inner-city market is also demanding a premium price these days.

“Overall it does point to people and what they feel is going to happen in Calgary in the long term. There’s some confidence of what’s happening in the Calgary market,” said Lurie. “That’s supporting that growth as well.”

So far this year, according to CREB, there have been 689 MLS sales in the city of $1 million or more, up until Tuesday. The previous record for a year was set last year at 544.

Every month this year, with the exception of January, has seen new records set in the luxury home market in the city.

Month-to-date up until Tuesday there have been 44 luxury home sales. The November record is 48 which was set last year.

The Calgary MLS market also set a record earlier this year with the highest priced sale ever as a Crescent Heights home sold for $11.1 million. A penthouse condo in Calgary’s Beltline district is currently for sale at $10 million but not through the MLS system.

But the appetite for expensive properties is not only a city phenomenon this year.

This year, a Canmore lot sold for a record price of $2 million in that real estate market. An executive single-family home in Silvertip sold for $3.75 million, setting the record for the biggest resale residential property ever in Canmore.

There have been 24 single-family home sales over $1 million in Canmore from January 1 to November 19, up from 16 for the same period last year. In 2012, there were no sales over $2 million. This year there have been four up until November 19.

The top five most expensive MLS listings currently on the market are: $29.057 million for 279 hectares of rural land near High River; $13.5 million for 48 hectares of rural land near Springbank; $12.7 million for a home in Canmore; $12 million for a home near Cochrane; $12 million for a home near Priddis; and $12 million for a home near Calgary to the west.

Jeff Neustaedter, realtor with RE/MAX House of Real Estate in Calgary, has just listed the home for $12 million in Rocky View County. It is one of about 20 listings he has on the market for $1 million or more.

“People overall feel confident there’s not going to be a bust,” he said, adding that people are also turning a deaf ear to all the chatter about interest rates going up.

“This is the new reality. High real estate prices and low interest rates.”

He said so many people in Calgary make a very good living resulting in solid sales in the upper-end market.

Steve Landi, a realtor with Royal LePage Rocky Mountain Realty in Canmore, said “Canmore’s star is rising again for obvious reasons.”