Stricter lending criteria and higher lending rates are downplaying any sort of improvements the city’s housing market will be seeing in 2018 says a new report from the Calgary Real Estate Board.

CREB released its 2018 report on Wednesday, forecasting a slight drop in the average price growth (-0.13 percent) of homes.

Apartment sales will be continuing to struggle, while attached homes could see modest gains.

“What we’re seeing is much more of the same as we did last year. Improving economic conditions are helping our market but what are offsetting it are higher rates now as well as different mortgage qualifications. We’re looking at a lot more stability in our market and not a lot of changes,” said Anne-Marie Lurie, chief economist with CREB.

There is also an increased supply in some of the lower price ranges in 2017, making the housing market more affordable than it was the year before.

According to data, over 63 percent of the housing supply last year was priced below $500,000 and 41 percent of the detached supply was also in that same range.

“On the detached side, while we do expect sales to remain relatively flat, we also believe that listings will start to adjust. So essentially, that supply is going to adjust to the current level of demand and that should push us to more balanced conditions by the mid-point to the end of this year.”

Lurie says that if you are looking to buy a home in 2018, you will need to consider a number of things.

“The conditions haven’t changed much from last year, there is an adequate supply in all price ranges, but for anyone who is active in this market, they have to consider what they’re looking at, what price point they want and what the supply for that price point is because it can be very different where you are [in the city].”

CREB says the economy will continue to grow in 2018 as well, heading towards the point where it was before the 2016-17 recession. However, analysts say that the full recovery won’t be realized until 2019.

That recovery is also expected to continue over the next two years.

One of the chief areas driving economic growth in Calgary is the energy sector and CREB says that it has been rebounding slowly back from the lows seen two years ago. The most improvement was seen through 2017, but during that time, the price of oil seldom moved above $50.

CREB’s prediction for the price of oil in 2018 is between $50 and $65 per barrel, short of encouraging any increase in investment spending.

As for interest rates regarding mortgages, CREB says that in addition to the stress test introduced by the Bank of Canada on January 1, 2018 there is also a belief that the institution will increase rates by 0.75 percent sometime in 2018.

To read the full report, click here or scroll through the document below.