Chair: Rob Dunseith; Music: Jerome Martin; Grace Bert Andrews ; Attendance: 32 ; Guest Speaker: Greg Steele

 

Guests: Elaine and Lois Rowand; Leslie Cleary; Kief E R Yang

 

 

Brian Thompson: Charity Golf Tournament will be held on July 24th and Brian is making the assumption that if you volunteered at the event last year that you will again this year.  Please contact Brian Thompson if you cannot help out this year or want to and were not able to previously.

 

Edmonton West Rotary has received a $500 grant from the Enbridge VIP volunteer recognition program on behalf of our president Duane Evans and the many hours of volunteering that he has provided.  Ingrid replied to thank both Duane and Enbridge!

 

Duart Berg: Update and report on the E4C Community Garden project - It was a wonderful evening (although rain was forecast) and a lot of work got done and we enjoyed a great BBQ supper.  Theresa and the E4C board are very appreciative and thankful for what was done and look forward to an ongoing relationship with our club.  Thanks to all members who helped out.

Check out the photo album here.

 

Lorne Proctor: Provided an update on the "Adventures in Citizenship Program" and introduced Keifer Yang, a grade 11 student from Ross Shep who we sponsored travel to Ottawa for 5 days as part of the program. Kiefer reported on all the activities places that he visited and all the great new people he met.

 

Ben Doz / John Blimke: Project Announcement - In memory of former member and Optomitrist Clinic founding partner, Jim Rowand, our club and some other of his friends have together donated $14,000 that will go towards the Windsor Block Rotary Project in Fort Edmonton Park.  This legacy project was very important to Jim and his wife Elaine and daughter Lois were at the meeting to help deliver the donation.

 

Zen Moisey: Reminder of the upcoming "Dr. Oz" fundraiser with all funds raised going to the Fort Edmonton Park Legacy Project.  Please plan on attending and contact Zen for a special pricing deal.

 

Fines / Happy Bucks:  Finemaster: Ben Doz challenged several tables with Rotary trivia and opened the floor for Happy Bucks.

 

Jerome Martin paid to announce that his son won a national award and recognition as best book on Canadian literature.

Fred Kraft paid to announce that his son just convocated from the U of A and is on the Dean's List for Environmental Studies.

Mike Ryan paid to announce that they had a very successful fundraising event and raised over $60,000 for two charities - Thanks for the support from the club members.

 

According to the Realtors Association of Edmonton, the average price of a single family home (SFD) in the Edmonton Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in April has dropped slightly from the high in March, even with the sale of 13 homes over a million dollars.

In April, the average SFD price was down more than $5,000 to $427,685; a decrease of 1.5% from March but up 5.9% from the same month a year ago. The all-residential average price was $365,045; up 0.4% from March and up 4.5% from a year ago. The higher SFD prices this year have put pressure on affordability and increased demand at the lower price end of the market. The average price for a condominium rose 1.1% from March to $251,300 (up 2.8% from last year).

There were 1,983 adjusted all-residential sales (1,836 reported) in April 2014 compared to 1,689 sales in March. Listings also rose in all categories to fill the demand which is common for this time of year. There were 2,977 residential properties listed in April compared to 2,548 last month; an increase of 16.8%. The overall sales-to-listing ratio in April was 62% compared to 60% last year and average days-on-market was 42. End-of-month residential inventory was 4,910, up 11.3% from March.

“The Edmonton CMA is experiencing the highest job and population growth in Canada and that should continue for the foreseeable future,” said President Greg Steele. “Edmonton is a diverse city and housing options exist in all price ranges but competition at the lower-priced end of the market is increasing. Entry level buyers may have to be a little more patient or scale back their expectations to find the home they can afford.”

The most active region of Edmonton is North Central north of Yellowhead Trail between 66 Street and 142 Street where there were 167 sales in April;  an increase of 0.6% over March and 23.7% over last year. Fully 20% of all SFD sales were in North Central in April. Areas in the Southeast, Southwest, and South of the Anthony Henday each had sales of about 140 SFD properties in April. The only region of the city to see a decrease in the number of sales year-over-year was the Southeast (Millwoods).

The highest priced homes were located, as usual, in the Southwest region but they saw an 8.7% drop in April compared to March. Homes in the West and Anthony Henday regions also saw price drops month-over-month. Homes in the North, Central, and Southeast were all sold on average below the city–wide average while homes in the West and southern regions (except Southeast) were priced $50,000 or more above average.

“New housing is being built all around Edmonton but the biggest region of new home construction is south of the Anthony Henday,” said President Greg Steele. “Because this housing is often sold directly by the builders and not listed on the MLS System, our figures do not include many of these sales.

Edmonton Realtors have recently developed and released a new website yegishome.ca where you can find not only real estate listings, but everything you would like to know about the community that each house is in.  You can even buy tickets to local events if that is what you would like to do.

Dan Graham thanked Greg for the presentation and wonderful overview of the industry in Edmonton and surrounding area.