Last week the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) issued its forecast for 2009 - this is the last organization expected to issue a forecast for the 2009 Calgary real estate market so I thought it might be useful to summarize them all - that will be today’s post which I am calling “Part 1″. In Part 2, to follow in a couple of days, I am going to comment on these forecasts, and weigh in on the controversy around them.

There are 5 major organizations that forecast the Calgary Real Estate Market each calendar year. In addition to CREB, there is Royal LePage, Re/Max Canada, CMHC, and Toronto Dominion (TD) Economics.

Royal LePage predicts that after a slow start in 2009, Calgary’s market will return to a growth state later in the year. They predict that over the year the average home price will drop 1.0% in Calgary. This forecast was issued on January 6, 2009.

Re/Max predicts housing activity to be “somewhat static” in the first 9 months or so of 2009, and like RLP, recovery later in the year. Re/Max predicts net no change in the average home price over 2009. This forecast was issued in late November 2008.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) predicts an increase in average (resale) home price of 0.7% in 2009. Part of CMHC’s rationale is a predicted 29% increase in net migration to Alberta in 2009. This forecast was issued in December 2008.

CREB, the only organization that makes separate predictions for houses versus condos predicts a 2% average price drop for houses, and 5% for condos. Combined, this is a predicted 3% drop in average sale price across the entire market. This forecast was issued on January 21, 2009.

And TD Economics predicts a 15% drop in average sale price in all of Alberta, which I am taking liberty with and calling “Calgary”. This forecast was issued in late November 2008.

In my next blog post I am going talk about the integrity of these forecasts (or lack of?) and the controversy surrounding them.