Calgary property owners were shocked when their 2020 property value assessments were down an average of two per cent or $10,000.
“COVID caused a lot of havoc on a lot of companies, and a lot of people’s incomes have been reduced exponentially,” said Matt Brown, a Calgary homeowner and group account manager at The Co-operators.
“The buying power of an average person isn’t as high anymore, so the market obviously corrects for that.”
Brown owns a three floor townhouse in the community of Auburn Bay located in the city’s southeast.
Although Brown saw a decrease in his overall value, he knows that the properties damaged by the spring hailstorm have seen a much larger decrease.
“I know specifically with the hailstorm that happened, there was like a ton of damage that happened to a lot of people’s homes, and some of that still hasn’t been fixed,” said Brown.
“Mother Nature hasn’t really liked us much.”
Brown said that the remaining damage is due to the construction companies not being able to source enough materials in order to meet the demand, and the repairs are going slowly because of it.
“We did see a large decrease in the value of our home, roughly $12,000,” said Liam Samaha, Calgary homeowner.
“Our initial reaction was ‘Well this isn’t surprising, and could me worse’.”
Samaha and his wife own a condo in the southeast community of McKenzie Towne.
“The buying power of an average person isn’t as high anymore.”
-Matt Brown
Samaha said that he believes the cause of the decrease is the economy and the fact that Alberta is not completely back at work, which is damaging to the economy.
“I think the drop in value is due to COVID-19 and I’m certain that the value will rise once this is past us and we can get the economy moving and get back to a healthy work life.”