Calgary Real Estate Investment guideline
The Calgary Real Estate Board is a non-profit, voluntary membership organization with more than 5,500 licensed brokers and associates. The Calgary Real Estate Board was formed to serve the needs of professionals in the real estate business. Their primary function is the maintenance of the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). The MLS is an important tool used in the buying and selling of real estate.
The Calgary Real Estate Board was originally conceived in the 1920s, and registered under the Statutes of Alberta on March 20, 1929. Throughout the 1930’s and until the early 1940’s the group was fairly dormant, when Mr. Kennett Lyle sought to revive the board in hopes of better serving its members and to further promote the real estate business. At that present time, there were no other professional groups for real estate agents. One of the earlier Presidents, Mr. Clair J. Cote, Sr. was elected as chairman and Lyle as secretary. The board also put together 5 committee members to rewrite the organization’s constitution. They also set a membership fee schedule, $5 for active members and $2 for an associate membership.
Although the MLS is their primary mission, the Calgary Real Estate Board also serves to provide the public and agents with up to date info on buying and selling real estate. One venue they use is their weekly publication, Real Estate News. Another publication used to reach out to their members and the public is their monthly magazine, Home to Home, which contains a series of tips, helps and articles to better inform their readers on the current real estate market.
The Calgary Real Estate Board lists on their MLS more than 90% of the properties available in the Calgary and surrounding areas. The nature of this advanced technology gives the sellers more potential buyers and the buyers more options in property selection and price. Because they represent over 260 member offices, The Calgary Real Estate Board can quickly pair up buyers and sellers.
Another mission of the Calgary Real Estate Board is to apprise members of current trends in the real estate market and overall economy. One of these recent trends, as mentioned by The Calgary Real Estate Board, is the potential drop in selling prices for the upcoming year. After realizing rising prices for the last 3 years, it is expected the average sales price for a home in Calgary will drop between $8000 and $9000. This could ignite the market that has remained slightly stagnant the past 6 months. Nevertheless, the Calgary Real Estate Board expects this tend to be short-lived and expects home prices to rise about 10% by the end of 2009.