CALGARY - Calgary’s housing market is quickly heating up again and barring a sudden drop in oil markets, home prices have further to run and homebuilders will get busier in the year ahead, but a throwback to the frenzied pace of the 2006/07 boom is still a stretch, says new report released Friday by BMO Capital Markets.

But it said Alberta was bound for another housing boom.

“For policymakers, this is clearly a case of superior economic and demographic fundamentals at work, not a bubble rearing its head,” it said.

Robert Kavcic, senior economist with BMO Capital Markets, said in an interview with the Herald that the main difference today from the previous boom is that time was a “pretty unique situation and I don’t think we’re going back there.”

The economy was stronger then even though Alberta today is head and shoulders above the rest of the country now. The pace of growth is not comparable with what was experienced in 2006. Today growth is in the 3.5 per cent range. Back then growth was four per cent to five per cent.

“The last energy boom came on the province pretty quickly and there was really a lack of housing supply back then. You saw a real sudden pick up in economic growth and an influx in population and homebuilders were really scrambling to get homes built fast enough to satisfy that demand,” said Kavcic.

“So the market was a lot tighter back then too. Now we’ve added a good almost 10 years of strong economic performance in Alberta so the market is much more well supplied this time around.”

The BMO report looked at various aspects of Calgary’s housing market today comparing them with 10-year averages and the peak of 2006/2007.

The average house price of $443,000 (the latest three-month average) is higher than the 10-year average of $369,000 and $437,000 during the peak.

The sales-to-new listings ratio today is 75 per cent, up from the 61.5 per cent 10-year average but down from 90.3 per cent at the peak.

Month’s supply, which measures the number of months it would take to absorb the inventory with current sales activity, is 3.8 today, down from the 10-year average of 4.3, but way up from the 1.2 during the peak.

The price-to-median income ratio is 4.1 today, just slightly up from the 10-year average of 3.8 and just slightly down from the 4.7 peak.

BMO also measured the mortgage payment as a percentage of median family income. It is 24 per cent today which is the same as the 10-year average but down from 35 per cent at the peak.

The completed and unabsorbed inventory for new homes is 511 today, way down from the 10-year average of 895 but up from the peak of 481.

Calgary’s apartment rental vacancy rate is 1.0 per cent today. It’s 10-year average is 2.3 per cent. During the peak it was 0.5 per cent.

“Alberta’s rapidly-strengthening market which, like the province’s broader economic performance, is quickly decoupling from the rest of the country,” said the report.

It said the province sits head-and-shoulders above the rest of the pack on a variety of measures including GDP, employment and retail sales growth.