Calgary's busiest communities for single-family home starts

An award-winning community in Calgary’ deep southeast with not one but two lakes and a new community only it’s second-year of construction are commanding the city’s biggest demand for detached homes so far in 2017.

Mahogany at the south end of Calgary and Cornerstone way up past the airport are the two communities where the most permits for single-family homes have been dished out by the City so far this year.

Hopewell Residential is the developer of Mahogany which submitted the most applications in January and February with applications from Cornerstone’s Walton Group a close second.

Mahogany Leads the Charge

This is the third year running that Mahogany has led the pack for single-family home building permits in Calgary.  Hopewell Residential marketing manager, Nicole McLaws, told the Calgary Herald that the community continues to be in demand with Calgary home buyers, even throughout the economic slump.

She noted that consumer confidence in the housing market is growing and buyers are wanting to get into a new home quickly.  She explained that Calgary home buyers are highly informed and after through research have a strong sense of their wants and needs, ending up in Mahogany with the knowledge that it’s a good choice for their home-buying dollar.  The community offers homes in a variety of price points and fits the lifestyles of a wide range of buyers both in new construction and in resale.

Hopewell’s group of home builders in Mahogany includes Calbridge, Jayman Built, Excel, Morrison, Hopewell and Homes by Avi.

Cornerstone is New and Affordable

Walton’s Cornerstone community is north of the airport and east of the SkyView Ranch district.  It was officially launched in the Fall of 2016 when 1,000 people gathered to formally introduce the neighbourhood to the market.

Kendra Milne, vice-president of marketing for Walton Group, said on behalf of the developer that they are very pleased with the attention they’re getting so early in the community’s foray into the real estate market.

The number of permits being issued in that area are one sign of economic recovery and renewed confidence as is the traffic they are seeing from highly engaged buyers in their show homes.  Builders who are busy in Cornerstone include Shane, Pacesetter by Sterling Homes, Jayman, Morrison, and Truman Homes.

Uptick in Single Family Starts

Early this year, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation analyst Richard Cho observed that a slight dip in inventory levels, in both new construction and the resale home sector, may be contributing to an uptick in single-family home starts in Calgary.  Only Edmonton has outpaced Calgary so far in 2017 for building permits. For example, in January Edmonton saw 244 new home starts, the highest number in the province.

At the start of 2017, CMHC predicted that the number of single-family homes scheduled for construction would be similar to the 2016 numbers. But based on activity so far, this year looks better with 162 new starts in January compared to 147 in January 2016.

Cho noted in an article last month that the number of detached units in Calgary is down this year compared to last, potentially because of a reluctance of sellers to put their homes on the market in a depressed economy.

February 2017 figures from the Calgary Real Estate Board show there were 27% fewer single-family homes on the resale market than there were in February 2016.

In Alberta as a whole, there were 661 new single-family starts across the province in January compared with 630 in January 2016 according to CMHC.

In terms of resale homes in Calgary, the northeast quadrant of the city saw the most number of sales due in part to the affordable nature of housing in a large majority of neighbourhoods in this area of the city.