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Edmonton Real Estate Market

Exactly. I realize some of the newer homes may be quite nice inside, but often the biggest feature facing the street is a large rather plain garage door along with an accompanying large plain concrete pad. After that often there is just room for a sliver of grass and maybe a tiny shrub or tree. It also seems rather fortress like and not really geared for interaction with the neighbourhood.

I have never found this either very attractive or impressive and it surprises me that anyone thinks that is great. I much prefer areas where the fronts of the homes have more character and a nice space for yards in front.
 
I think for people preferring those types of home styles the highest priority is convenience and function.

I haven't ever lived in such a home (nor will I ever) so I can't argue that those criteria are in fact the case with front garage homes but for people that also don't want a lot of landscaping to manage, it also seems to fit the bill.
 
David A said:
Exactly. I realize some of the newer homes may be quite nice inside, but often the biggest feature facing the street is a large rather plain garage door along with an accompanying large plain concrete pad. After that often there is just room for a sliver of grass and maybe a tiny shrub or tree. It also seems rather fortress like and not really geared for interaction with the neighbourhood.

I have never found this either very attractive or impressive and it surprises me that anyone thinks that is great. I much prefer areas where the fronts of the homes have more character and a nice space for yards in front.
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Precisely. I honestly think there should be a mandated minimum of green space and trees in front of houses. It looks so dead and sterile, like a big parking lot with some overgrown sheds, where there happen to be people inside.

What I find most incredible is that the still KNOW how to make decent suburban residential streets, but simply refuse to do so.

Here in Summerside, EVERYONE loves walking down Grande Boulevard, because it is nice and cool all-year-round and it looks, and feels, like some of the older neighbourhoods: Tree lined median, narrower lanes, wide sidewalks with grass and trees, houses with porches in the front instead of garage doors (and that actually look different from each other, for the most part), speed bumps (that the people actually fought to add, because there's always a lot of people, including kids, walking around). Feels like one of those quaint small towns, and it's actually really nice (although it could do with maybe a cafe and a restaurant, but that's asking too much).

And then you get out of it back into the dreary sea of cookie-cutter, concrete and asphalt.


David A said:
It also seems rather fortress like and not really geared for interaction with the neighbourhood.
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This is somewhat anecdotal, but you touched on a very good point. The argument I've heard from A LOT of people here is that it is more convenient to have the garage doors like this, because the can just get in and out easily and quickly, without having to ever negotiate for parking space with anyone, and just go from "the warmth of my home to the warmth of my office".

Essentially, it is a very isolationist mindset (and yet, they say that people have more sense of community here than in places like Oliver and DT).
 
ChazYEG said:
Different strokes for different folks, indeed, but these "modern aesthetics" lately are resumed in a big-ass garage door in the front, with a humungous concrete pad, no trees whatsoever... My brain CANNOT COMPREHEND how someone thinks this looks good.
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Isnt that the aesthetic of the 1950’s.

lets call it a mid century modern aesthetic.
 
Yeggy said:
Isnt that the aesthetic of the 1950’s.

lets call it a mid century modern aesthetic.
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we're using "modern" in different ways here. The "modern aesthetics" we're talking here how most people refer to things that are "current", not the modernist architecture that stems from the mid-late 1950s to the early 1970s.

The mid-century modern architecture, especially for houses, was a very polar opposite of what we are seeing now. They had lots of bungalows, usually garages were either in the back, or by the side of the house, which still gave plenty of green space in front yards. It prioritizes natural lights, which is why some of the first examples of the use of glass curtains or oversized windows in SFH come from this era.

Ironically, because the era was marked by the terrible urbanism mindset that brought us some of the most egregious pieces of urban planning the planet will ever see, it also brought some of the best single family homes, IMO., because they were supposed to be in idyllic, secluded, tight-knit communities, from which people would then just commute to their works in the cold, sterile downtowns.

I always chuckle when people complain that Downtown, or other central areas, are "concrete jungles", like, as if Oliver and Garneau alone don't have about 20x more greenery than all of the Ellersie communities put together.
 
ChazYEG said:
we're using "modern" in different ways here. The "modern aesthetics" we're talking here how most people refer to things that are "current", not the modernist architecture that stems from the mid-late 1950s to the early 1970s.

The mid-century modern architecture, especially for houses, was a very polar opposite of what we are seeing now. They had lots of bungalows, usually garages were either in the back, or by the side of the house, which still gave plenty of green space in front yards. It prioritizes natural lights, which is why some of the first examples of the use of glass curtains or oversized windows in SFH come from this era.

Ironically, because the era was marked by the terrible urbanism mindset that brought us some of the most egregious pieces of urban planning the planet will ever see, it also brought some of the best single family homes, IMO., because they were supposed to be in idyllic, secluded, tight-knit communities, from which people would then just commute to their works in the cold, sterile downtowns.

I always chuckle when people complain that Downtown, or other central areas, are "concrete jungles", like, as if Oliver and Garneau alone don't have about 20x more greenery than all of the Ellersie communities put together.
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I was being cheeky, for clarity.
 
ChazYEG said:
Different strokes for different folks, indeed, but these "modern aesthetics" lately are resumed in a big-ass garage door in the front, with a humungous concrete pad, no trees whatsoever... My brain CANNOT COMPREHEND how someone thinks this looks good.
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A friend of mine and I were just discussing this as I agree with you. In my opinion older homes have more character but I suppose much of it likely has to do with open concepts, efficiencies of the home, and general costs of repairs being further down the road.
 
What I imagine while watching all the other big cities in Canada getting overrun with a housing crisis (including Winnipeg), knowing what's in store for Edmonton:
They're Coming.jpg
 
Oh it's coming. The higher the interest rates rise or the longer they stay at these levels the more people you will see migrate into our province. I'm in my 10th year of living in Alberta and to me, Calgary and Edmonton have always been very underpopulated and easy to get around in. Well, I took my son to the Monster Jam in Calgary a few months back and man oh man has that place changed. I don't ever remember Calgary being that packed before and with that many people. Traffic jams everywhere we went.

It's only a matter of time before our city becomes like that. Real Estate in Canada is an investors game and now Calgary is out of reach for many first time home buyers. The thing is, once you get to that point where homes become unaffordable, there's no going back because how can you go back?? Where would you start?? You look at my old home city of Mississauga for example, bringing home prices down in that community by say $200k-300k would be a start. Who in their right mind would try something like that though? People losing $200k-$300k off the value of their home; there would be a mass panic/exodus for sure. What would the Canadian banks do with all those loans that were now broken?? What would that do to our economy when so much of it depends on real estate? How many of those home owners would vote against the government that caused this? How many of those home owners would pack up and leave Canada and take their investments elsewhere?

A little bit of a rant for sure but just the way I see things. I've got many friends back home that are still waiting on that big housing market crash. I mean we're all in our mid 30s now and I just don't think that crash is ever coming, not in my lifetime anyway.
 
David A said:
We are a sellers market now apparently

Posthaste: Buyer's market or seller's? Find out how your city's real estate ranks​


financialpost.com

Posthaste: Buyer's market or seller's? Find out how your city's real estate ranks

Housing market competition is cooling across the country. Find out which are the best cities for buyers
financialpost.com financialpost.com
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Article probably paid for by realtor associations. We're closer to balanced according to their own chart, nowhere near a sellers market
 
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