So, who got the best returns on their housing buck?
January 22, 2012 Gordon Kent, Edmonton Journal
If you were just in it for the money, you'd have done better buying a swimming pool's worth of oil back in 2006 than picking up a house in Mactaggart.
Storing all that crude in your back-yard might have made the people next door angry, but five years later the price would have been up by 28 per cent.
That lovely pile near Whitemud Creek? Typically, its value rose by only 21 per cent, the least of any Edmonton neighbourhood and half the city average.
But if you had sunk your cash into a place in Rossdale, or farther down-stream in Beverly Heights, you'd have made out like a bandit - average values in those areas jumped 55 per cent, blowing stocks and oil out of the water.
These are some of the findings from the latest assessments mailed out for 326,500 Edmonton properties at the beginning of January, based on estimates made last July 1.
Although one-year values for single-family houses (the Journal figures don't include other types of homes) are down 1.7 per cent, results vary between a 10-per-cent rise in Secord and a similar-sized drop in Canora.
The spread is even larger over five years.
While the average neighbourhood value rose 41 per cent in that time, the biggest growth came in the northeast, where eight of the 12 districts that had increases of more than 50 per cent are located.
That doesn't surprise real estate analyst Don Campbell, who says this area has cheaper housing that's attractive to many people coming to Edmonton for its many job opportunities.
"When you have a workplace move in (to a city), the majority want to rent for three years. They probably, as new migrants, went to places that were a little less expensive . and they just stayed in the neighbourhood."
As well, the lower-cost homes in these older communities have more room for prices to rise, especially if the owners want to do renovations or put in sweat equity, the Vancouverbased author says.
It's a different picture in the developing southwest suburbs, site of four of the six neighbourhoods that saw average values rise by less than 30 per cent.
"The places that have gone up the least are the newest areas," says Campbell, who has investments in Edmonton. "New properties never increase as quickly as older resale properties, because you're paying full market price, possibly a little bit more."
However, one big advantage of buying a residence over other investments is that owners can put down a fraction of the purchase price and borrow the rest, magnifying the amount of any increases they see.
Campbell, who expects strong returns on Edmonton property starting next year, suggests prospective buyers look at homes within 800 metres of new LRT stations as one factor that will lead to higher returns in the long run.
He cautions that city assessments, always at least six months out of date, aren't necessarily a good indicator of current prices.
"If your assessment is higher than you expected, don't get too excited, and if it's lower than you expected, don't get too excited, because it's just a picture in time on which they tax you."
Other experts say the five-year figures are skewed by the mindboggling 64-per-cent assessment increase recorded during the 2007 boom, when the typical Edmonton house was worth $400,000, compared with $357,000 today.
But don't take any real-estate reversals since then too personally. While your family castle might have declined a piddling few thousand dollars, spare a thought for Oilers owner Daryl Katz.
In 2009, his sprawling mansion along the edge of the North Saskatchewan River valley, reputed to be the most valuable house in the city, was assessed at $14.8 million.
Now it's only worth $13.7 million, a drop of $1.1 million. He could hire another Theo Peckham for that.