At the end of a year and during the first few weeks of another, there are always forecasts released by all the major Real Estate companies, banks and of course the Calgary Real Estate Board. The CREB forecast breakfast was yesterday morning, the highlights were:

• Average single family home price 451,120 2009(F) vs. $460,327 2008


• Sales of single family homes to increase by 10% similar number of listings to 2008


• Number of condos sold to fall by 5% while listings increase by 5%

I think everyone agrees it's a very difficult time to make predictions and it will be interesting to look back at these forecast numbers as the year progresses.

My opinion is that it will ultimately depend on supply and demand. Supply could well remain lower than last year as construction slowed down considerably for single family homes and a lot of the speculative sellers are out of the market now. On the other hand, buyers are still very cautious as they look at the overall economy, with many people waiting for a clear indication on how much Calgary is going to be impacted by the global economic slowdown.

Have your own predictions? Please add them in the comments.