The Top 5 Neighbourhoods in Calgary in 2019

MoneySense Magazine released it's Best Neighbourhoods in Calgary in terms of Value earlier in 2019 and I wanted to share with you some of the details here on the blog.

Contrary to what the media has to say lately, you should know that Calgary's market is slowly coming back in to balance and will be in balance by the end of Q2 in 2020.

The link above gives you some idea of what neighbourhoods in Calgary are seeing the best return on investment. The top neighbourhood according to Money Sense Magazine back in June of 2019 was Braeside.

Back in 2015 I was compiling data for a similar post and I was curious as to where Money Sense and this same author, got their information from. You can see the screenshot of the respone I received from her on Twitter (yes Twitter, it's making a comeback you know!).

This is essentially my caveat, their information is quite a bit different from mine and I am going to take a contrarian point of view here so that I can paint a picture for you...don't believe everything you read, do your research.

Calgary's Best Buys According to Money Sense Magazine

Sitting at Number 5 on the list is Cedarbrae.

MoneySense has pegged the average price at in 2017 $440,200. This pricing is actually inaccurate, according to CREB the average sale price for detached homes in Cedarbrae ended up at $410,016 and the total residential market at $351,262.

I can't state this enough and will likely come up again below, if you want accurate data contact a Realtor that has access to historical information and ask for a detailed report on what your neighbourhood is doing.

A perfect example....the average sale price for Cedarbrae has stayed pretty flat over the last 2 years going back to 2017 where the average sale price dropped by 1% by the end of 2019.

At Number 4 is Ranchlands in NW Calgary

MoneySense had the average price in 2017 at $408,600. Going back to CREB stats, Ranchlands finished out the year at an average sale price in the detached market of $440,554 and total residential at $362,092.

In 2019 the average detached price was $420,033 and total residentai was $356,643. In the last  2 years we have seen a decline in the detached market of 4.6% and total residential of 1%.

At Number 3 sits Southwood

Alright following the same pattern, MoneySense had the average sale price in Southwood (2017) sitting at $372,700.

Remember now, these numbers being quoted in the article are already 2 years old so we have to give them a bit of a break. 

I have the benefit of looking at year end numbers, and so, the average detached price in Southwood for 2019 was $451,961. The total residential average price was $368,860.

Going back to 2017 and comparing the numbers to today we have seen an increase of .7% on the detached and decrease of 2% on total residential numbers.

At Number 2 we have Woodbine

MoneySense in 2017 had Woodbine average sale price at $407,900 where CREB stats shows the detached market at $513.018 and the total residential at $483,610.

According to Calgary Real Estate Board statistics Woodbine has seen a decline in total residential numbers of 10.1% and a drop of 6% on the average in the detached market.

The Number 1 Rated Neighbourhood According to Money Sense Magazine 

The number one best neighbourhood to invest in Calgary according to Money Sense Mag was Braeside with an average sales price in 2017 of $431,700 where the actual in 2017 was $449,867 for detached homes and $338,264 for total residential.

As you can see there is a massive difference in numbers that they arrived at and what the actual numbers were.

How did MoneySense Arrive at These Numbers?

According to their website 

"Our annual report on real estate gives you the hard numbers to help guide your decision. We used data from Statistics Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to analyze the real estate markets in Canada’s largest 35 municipal areas."

To read the full methodology you can click this link here

To be honest, I really don't know where they came up with their numbers, they claim in the article to have consulted local Realtors® and scoured local board information.

 

If you read through what I wrote, you can clearly see that their numbers don't jive with what the actuals are. Ultimately if you want the right numbers for your neighbourhood and your home, ask a local expert and don't rely on magazine articles or the media for information.