Calgary residential foreclosures spiked to 839 units last year and have averaged more than one a day during the first weeks of 2016, according to figures released by the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta.
Across Alberta, 2,166 homeowners entered the foreclosure process in 2015, up from approximately 1,800 a year earlier. From January 1 to January 25, 122 Alberta homes fell into foreclosure, which is usually defined as a mortgage being three months or more in arrears.
Calgary had the highest number of foreclosures in the province last year, followed by Edmonton, at 814. In Fort McMurray, a city of 78,000 at the centre of the Alberta oilsands, 14 homes went into foreclosure during the first 25 days of 2016, double the number in the entire first quarter of last year.
There are now 150 foreclosed homes listed for sale in Calgary, up from 30 in January of 2015 and 50 in December of 2015 according to CIR Realty in Calgary, an agency specializing in foreclosed properties.
There is often a lag between when a home is foreclosed and when it is listed for sale, “but for sure now the foreclosures are starting to come,” said Stephen MacDonald, a CIR agent.
The current Calgary foreclosed listings are a mix of court-ordered sales and bank-owned property, MacDonald said, and include building lots, acreages, detached houses and condominiums. “There is something for everyone,” he said.
Asking prices range from one-bedroom condominiums at $94,500 to large detached houses at $1.5 million.
CIR compared the sale prices for Calgary detached houses that had been sold under foreclosure to comparable houses sold that were not under foreclosure. It found that the average foreclosed house price in 2015 was $267 per square foot, compared to $367 for a non-foreclosed sale. MacDonald noted that foreclosed homes may be in poor condition, or in less desirable neighbourhoods, when compared to non-foreclosed listings.
In its first quarter Housing Market Assessment Report, released January 27, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. cited “problematic conditions” in the Calgary housing market, due primarily to the affect of plunging oil prices.
