There was no cooling down in August! Year over year sales for the month rose 58% to 76 transactions. Sales did decrease from July’s record high, but the market continues to steam along. In fact, sales volumes by transactions year to date are only down 14% now; pretty amazing considering we lost the spring market. The market overall is in balance market territory with 4.25 months of inventory vs 5.83 months at this time last year. When the Canmore real estate market was really struggling in the summer of 2011, there were 18 months of inventory.
Month over month, there was an increase in active listings for sale with a 4% increase in active listings. Year over year, there has been an 18% increase in active listings, but no huge surge of new inventory. We were anticipating being in the low 300’s for active listings coming into the fall market. The increase in active listing is also a reflection of our growing town and all the ongoing construction. Even during the very strong market in 2017, there was 5.4 months of active inventory. If sales volumes remain strong through the fall market, we expect to see inventory levels holding steady.
Banff is a different story in terms of the market. Currently, there are 9.5 months of inventory which places us into a buyer’s market. There were four sales last month ranging from $420,000 to $640,500. It will be interesting to see what the fall marketing brings in terms of both new listings and sales.
