The prices of homes in the Calgary market continue to take a beating.

The Teranet–National Bank National Composite House Price Index, released on Friday says Calgary has gone through nine straight months without a rise in prices for repeat home sales, as of the end of March.

In fact, Calgary prices fell by 0.52 per cent month over month and by 2.79 per cent year over year. And prices are 7.01 per cent off their peak in October 2014.

The index tracks observed or registered home prices using data from public land registries. All dwellings that have been sold at least twice are considered in the calculation of the index.

The report said Edmonton saw a monthly increase in prices of 0.38 per cent and an annual hike of 0.09 per cent. However, Edmonton prices are still off by 6.04 per cent from their peak in September 2007.

Nationally, the index was down 0.31 per cent from the previous month.

“Apart from the recession year 2009, it was the first March decline in the 20 years of index history. It was also the sixth consecutive monthly decline, for a cumulative drop of 1.7 per cent,” said the report.

Indexes were down on the month for seven of the 11 metropolitan markets surveyed.

“Most of the markets in the composite index have been trending down for months. For Calgary it was the ninth straight month without a rise (cumulative decline 3.7 per cent), for Vancouver the eighth (cumulative −4.3 per cent), for Victoria the sixth (−3.5 per cent). The March rise of the Edmonton index had been preceded by six consecutive months without a rise (cumulative −3.2 per cent over the seven months),” it said.

The composite index rose by 1.53 per cent on an annual basis.

Mario Toneguzzi is a Troy Media business reporter based in Calgary. 


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