The current economical forecast has made its mark on the number of new residential lots purchased in Okotoks.

In the Town's third quarter report numbers fell well below expectations.

Permit and Assessment Manager for the Town Rob Mueller says there's been quite a trend since the beginning of 2016.

"We're seeing residential housing starts within Okotoks numbers decrease quarter by quarter throughout the year," he says. "Our projected starts will be about 150 homes which the budget was set for around 200 homes."

That being said Mueller says communities that have new lot space available are being bought just at a slower rate.

"We have a couple of active sub-divisions which have the most lot inventory and one of those would be Mountainview and the other is Drake Landing. Within the third quarter the permits that were issued for new residential homes was ten in Mountainview and Drake Landing had six starts."

Mueller says when comparing 2016's numbers to all of 2015 it's quite the substantial drop.

"We're seeing about a 40 percent reduction in residential housing starts for the same time period as last year."

CIR Realtor Brett Murrell says on the other hand Okotoks is not any different than other communities as all markets are slow at the moment.

"Pretty much all markets are. Calgary is still fine, Calgary's sitting at about two and a half months of inventory so that's a balanced market. All the smaller communities like Cochrane, Strathmore , Chestermere and others are all slower. They're sitting at about six months of inventory."

Murrell adds that though residential housing starts are down it's still a buyers market.

"We are definitely a buyers market right now. Anything over 4 months of inventory is a buyers market and we are sitting at 6 months of inventory so we are a buyers market which is a great time to be buying. Prices are dropping, inventories are up so there is way more houses and prices have definitely come down."

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