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What I learned at the 2014 CREB Forecast Breakfast

Blog by Matt Carre | January 16th, 2014

Yesterday was the annual CREB (Calgary Real Estate Board) Forecast Breakfast.  It's always a great day with tons of insight, some good laughs (if the Speakers are good) and time spent with fellow agents.

This year I thought I would share with you the 5 major points I took away.

1.) We are very fortunate to have Anne-Marie Lurie as our Chief Econmist for the Calgary Real Estate Board.  Not only is she brilliant at her job, she has a great way of turning graphs, charts and numbers into usable information.  If Matt, Bruce or I can't answer a statitisical question about the market or speak to the economic conditions we know exactly where to go to get you the best information possible.

2.) Alberta is exepcted to lead the country in growth.  In surrounding towns/cities like Airdrie the benchmark sale price was over $100,000 lower than in Calgary.  With that kind of price difference we can expect to see growth here in Airdrie.

3.) Although the vacancy rate is expected to rise slightly in 2014, it will still hover just over 1%.  The lack of rental inventory combined with low interest rates will encourage people to consider home ownership.  This should increase the number of condominum sales as last year almost 43% of condos were listed under $300,000 while only 6% of single family homes were listed under $300,000.

4.) I'm a square with some circle influance.  We had a great Speaker, Connie Podesta.  She spoke about different personality types and used shapes to describe them.  It was very entertaining and insightful.  

5.) I want to communicate with you the way you like.  If you like to chit chat and hug it out at the end - I'm in!  If you want to get down to business, want the hard numbers and clear choices, I'll give that to you too.  I've also said this business is about relationships but it's important to ask HOW people want to have a relationship.

If you have any questions about this post or the forecast for 2014, we would be happy to chat with you.  You can contact us indidvidually or call our office directly at 403.948.1411.  We'd love to help you buy or sell your next home so if you would like to set up a meeting to see if we are a fit for you we would be happy to do so.  

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