Sellers' market: Average Edmonton home prices jumped in 2024 in each residential category

Edmonton real estate heating up for 2025 Edmonton's real estate market is currently a seller's market. Miriam Valdes-Carletti explains why.

Fewer homes for sale in Edmonton resulted in higher year-over-year prices for them as 2024 ended, according to the Realtors Association of Edmonton.

The average price for a detached home sold in the Edmonton area in December was $540,232, an increase of 10.6 per cent from the previous December, the association said in a media release.

But while detached homes led the way in price, every other category saw even larger increases year over year.

Apartment condos saw a 19.8 per cent jump in average price to $203,920, with the semi-detached (average price $408,823) and row/townhouses ($292,640) categories each increasing by 12.3 per cent.

Darlene Reid, the 2025 chair of the Realtors Association of Edmonton, told CTV News Edmonton on Sunday "every category is a challenge right now" for buyers given the demand.

She said inventory levels have been affected by population growth, by more investors buying properties to rent and by lower interest rates.

"It is very tough for a buyer right now," Reid said. "(They're) looking to purchase a property and in (competition) with six, seven others -- we've seen up to 13 offers on one property -- and this last year, we saw homes selling for $40,000 to $60,000 over asking price."

The average number of days on the real-estate market for residential listings has also dropped year-over-year -- to 55 days in 2024 from 71 in 2023 -- a factor that indicates inventory has shrunk in the market, Red said.

"When our days on market are really low, we don't have enough supply to keep up with demand," she said.

"When we're seeing huge jumps in sold prices from the listing prices, when we are seeing multiple buyers sitting on the sidelines that can't get homeownership and now their leases are up (and) their rents, and they're trying to find something to buy and just can't, that tells us that we have an inventory problem."

Reid said the realtors' association has seen several buyers come from Calgary and buy in Edmonton given the latter city's more-affordable prices.

"There's a big price gap between Calgary and Edmonton: the same home in Calgary is about $200,000 more than it is in Edmonton," she said, adding the work-from-home climate that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic has had an effect. "We're seeing a lot of migration where people can get affordable housing because they can still work from home."

On the other side, sellers in Edmonton are benefitting from the current real-estate climate. Reid said the total sales volume in 2024 increased by 37 per cent from 2023 for a total of $14.5 billion.

"House prices have gone up, which is great for sellers who are looking to pull equity out," she said. "In terms of buyers, it's positive because interest rates are going down."

Reid said while she isn't able to predict how the market will act over the coming year, if inventory keeps dropping, prices will keep increasing.

"What the numbers tell us is, year over year from 2023 to 2024, our number of listings dropped 7.3 per cent and the number of sales went up 17 per cent," she said. "This gap keeps growing (due to) less and less listings and more and more sales."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Miriam Valdes-Carletti