Last week, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation painted a pretty picture of continued growth in Edmonton, which couldn’t be said for the rest of the country.

Its report released every quarter, noted housing starts and resales in Edmonton are expected to increase again in 2013, topping the 11,000 unit mark, which they forecast to reach by the end of this year. Resells in 2013 are expected to increase slightly too. The percentage increase for both new builds and resales are only around 1 percent, but, nonetheless, it shows continued growth with the overall new builds for Canada in  2013 expected to decrease by almost 7 percent.

Richard Cho, senior market analyst with CMHC’s prairie division, told the Edmonton Journal “the economy in Alberta has been improving and is expected to be one of the leaders in economic growth. That will naturally support the housing market.”

Cho said he expects the influx of people from other provinces and abroad to continue to grow as the oil markets in Alberta continue to stay steady too.

Jobs are ultimately the driving force behind a strong housing market.

The CMHC report also expects the average price home in Alberta to rise 3 percent too, making for an average MLS, or multiple service listing, price of 372,300, up from an average of 362,200.

The detailed report also touches on other economic factors and housing indicators, like average wage and increases, which have gone up 4.1 per cent from June ’11 to June ’12 while unemployment has decreased 0.9 per cent too.

The 12 page report from the CMHC is available for free in PDF format here and the Edmonton Journal article on August 15 is available here.

Alexis Hlady is an experienced REALTOR  and has connections to lots of houses for sale in Edmonton Alberta.