Home sales and prices were unexpectedly strong in Edmonton last year, as in Canada's other major cities, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reports.
The Housing Market Insight released on Feb. 25 shows that while sales declined sharply when the pandemic hit a year ago, they rebounded in the third quarter of 2020, recovering beyond pre-pandemic levels.
Sales were up in Edmonton in the middle ranges between $300,000 and $700,000, but were down for less expensive housing, as was the case elsewhere in the country.
"This reflects pent-up demand from the early months of the pandemic, low mortgage rates and the uneven impacts of the pandemic across income groups," said CMHC's deputy chief economist, Aled ab Iorwerth.
The CMHC noted that it's a little harder to understand the interactions of various economic indicators in oil-producing provinces. It also cautioned that unemployment remains high and government income measures are temporary, so these trends won't necessarily prevail in the long term.