Real Estate Update Medicine Hat

The number of homes sold via the MLS® System of the Medicine Hat Real Estate Board totaled 72 units in March 2020. This was down 21.7% from March 2019.On a year-to-date basis, home sales totaled 210 units over the first three months of the year, a 7.9% decline from the same period in 2019.
Residential sales activity in all of Alberta, by comparison, was down 8.5% in March 2020 compared to March 2019.

"As was expected, home sales and new listings fell back in March 2020 as both buyers and sellers moved off to the sidelines amid the economic turmoil and physical distancing guidelines associated with the coronavirus pandemic,” said Dione Todd, President of the Medicine Hat Real Estate Board. “This is likely to remain the case until those measure start to be lifted and the economy opens back up.”

The average price of homes sold in March 2020 was $298,874, rising 9.3% from March 2019.The more comprehensive year-to-date average price was $281,763, also up 9.3% from the first three months of 2019.The provincial average price for homes sold in March 2020 was $371,022, edging down 2.6% from March 2019.

Note: The Association cautions that the average MLS® residential price is a useful figure only for establishing trends and comparisons over a period of time. It does not indicate an actual price for a home due to the wide selection of housing available in the area.

There were 159 new residential listings in March 2020. This was down 27.1% on a year-over-year basis.Active residential listings numbered 639 units at the end of March, an increase of 19% from the end of March 2019. Active listings haven't been this high in the month of March in more than five years.

Months of inventory numbered 8.9 at the end of March 2020, up from the 5.8 months recorded at the end of March 2019 and above the 10-year average of 5.4 months for this time of year. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.

The combined dollar value of all home sales in March 2020 was $21.5 million, decreasing by 14.5% from the same month in 2019.The dollar value of all home sales in Alberta, by comparison, declined 10.9% compared to March 2019.Sales of all property types numbered 78 units in March 2020, down 20.4%from March 2019. The total value of all properties sold was $24.5 million, decreasing by 13.8% from March 2019.