Lethbridge home prices among the fastest rising in Alberta

LETHBRIDGE, ALTA. -

Lethbridge- The latest monthly report from the Alberta Real Estate Association shows Lethbridge has seen one of the biggest year over year increases in home prices.

Home prices in Lethbridge have jumped 12.6 percent compared to this time last year.

Province-wide that increase is second only to Calgary, which saw its home prices increase by 14.2 percent.

Lethbridge now has the most expensive housing of any mid-sized Alberta city, with an average property costing about $392,000.

“Lethbridge does seem to follow Calgary quite a lot of the time. When there was the great big housing boom that we had in 2007 that followed a really large increase in prices in 2006 in Calgary,” said Jennifer Brodoway, a realtor with Team View Lethbridge.

One of the biggest factors driving home buyers to the Lethbrige is affordable housing.

Affordable housing

One of the biggest factors behind the increase is people moving to Lethbridge in search of more affordable housing.

But that population boom has had home prices steadily increasing over recent years.

Brodoway said “There's a lot of people in Calgary and other communities, and they see the prices, they are going up so much. And then they take a look at Lethbridge and they say, oh my gosh, Lethbridge has so much to offer and the prices are still affordable why don't we look there? And of course, then the more people who come to Lethbridge, the more the prices keep going up.”

Currently there is less than two months worth of housing supply in Lethbridge.

But more the housing industry is working to catch up.

This year has seen 156 housing starts this year compared to 101 the year before.   

“As the city grows, you'd like to see the starts continues to grow. With that, people need places to live. And we're going to have to build those places. So we'd like to see obviously that keep pace with population,” said Bridget Mearns, executive officer of BILD Lethbridge.

Housing starts

Housing starts had been down in recent years due to the pandemic, which produced a burst of inflation, resulting in a lack of consumer confidence.

With interest rates expected to continue to drop, it's prime time for new housing developments.

“I think we're at very least going to stay at this (level of development) and hopefully we can build," Mearns said . "We're expecting a couple of more interest rates drops and that's going to be helpful for sure.”

The average home price in Alberta is now nearly $495,000.

Calgary leads the way with an average of $556,000.