March 2015

MoneySense recently came up with a list of the Calgary's top communities positioned for price growth when the Economy rebounds. MoneySense looked for growth communities that would offer the most value over 1-year and 5-year periods. Most of the neighbourhoods were in the Southwest and the lack of Northwest communities (Bowness and Montgomery to name just a couple) is fairly surprising.

1. Glenbrook, $591,083

Considered a rock solid community, Glenbrook featuring mostly well-kept single-family homes. It's in a great location, not too far from downtown, and MoneySense expects a very good short-term price appreciation of 17.9% and a 45.6% increase in the next five years.

2. Rosscarrock, $596,823

With easy access to downtown and a good, fairly central

Looks like declining oil prices have not really affected how much homes in Calgary are selling for. Sure, new listings growth is down, but prices are still holding steady.

Looking at the February real estate stats for Calgary, as released by the Calgary Real Estate Board, new listing growth slowed from 37% in January down to 9% in February, which is a clear sign the panic to sell has passed. In terms of pricing, the unadjusted detached benchmark price was $516,000 in February, a 6% increase from Feb. 2014, and a 0.5% decline from January figures.

Again, looking back to the last time oil prices plunged, in 2008 (when oil was less than US$50 a barrel), the average Calgary home price only dropped by 7% from 2007-2009.

I think that, despite what the

As the price of oil continues to hover around the $US50 mark, there was some talk in January about the province reassessing its capital spending priorities in the face of falling revenues and royalties, and one of the items discussed was cancelling the planned southwest ring road. However Premier Jim Prentice recently told AM770 the project still had the green light.

The southwest leg of the ring road would help create a true circle road around the city, and that section comes with a $5 billion pricetag. In addition, from a Calgary real estate perspective, would pave the way for land development south of the Tsuu T'ina Nation in what is known as the Providence area, which is south of 146 Ave and north of Hwy 22x, west of Bridlewood and Evergreen. That