Winter Trends in Real Estate affecting Interior Designers as Row Housing Booms
If recent trends are to be seriously considered, the current level of activities being handled by residential interior designers in the row housing segment is a strong indication that the condo market in Calgary is definitely on a hot streak. Coming on the heels of the highly successful launch of Calgary's most recent condo development project, where units were sold out within a matter of days, Calgary residential interior designers are now setting their sights on multi-family residential starts which are emerging as top favorites of homebuyers.
Based on the latest industry reports released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the inventory in this property segment increased from 230 in October of last year to 438 multi-family starts in October of the current year. This is probably the main reason why most residential interior designers in Calgary are concentrating their efforts on multi-family housing units. This number of housing starts corresponds to a hefty 160 percent growth from the same month of last year.
A considerable number of multi-family starts are row housing units. There are currently about 250 row housing units that are under various stages of development during the month of October. According to industry experts, this figure is the highest for any month in the last 10 years. For the year to date, Calgary now accounts for 3,138 row housing units. This is a major jump from the inventory for the same period last year, which stood at 1,217 multi-family housing starts.
There are 1,148 multi-family housing starts within the metropolitan section of Calgary as of October 2009 which is way above the number of housing starts during the same month 2009. If we are to account for the total number of housing starts for the month of October, the current inventory of housing starts for the period January to October 2010 is 8,221. This represents a 70 percent growth in housing starts inventory for the same period of last year.
The major shift in Canada's housing industry can be largely attributed to what most residential interior designers consider as frenzied activities in multi-family housing segment of Calgary's real estate market. Based on the latest Housing Price Index, Calgary is now tugging at the coattails of Montreal when it comes to home property price increases among key Cities in Canada. According to experts the price uptrend in both Calgary and Montreal can be largely attributed to the shift in property developments to new sections and locations that fetch higher fees for land development.
This major event in the row housing segment is somewhat tempered by the contrasting fortunes of stakeholders and players in the single-detached home property segment, where latest figures indicate a 31 percent dip in the number of home units that broke ground for the month of October 2010. This depressed condition in the single-detached home property segment can be gleaned from the shift of attention of most home interior designers operating in Calgary from this segment to the row housing segment. This latest development represents the third consecutive time that this segment registered a significant drop. A parallel event in the market is the decrease in the ongoing development projects for this home property segment as more and more home developers are staying on the sidelines.
The ongoing development project in the University City is now one of the primary targets of residential interior designers. The row housing units are expected to be completed and ready for occupancy by December of this year. This project is admittedly one of the major draws in Calgary's real estate market as we are seeing a long queue of earnest buyers and property investors who are bent on getting the best deals.