Calgary is building more rental properties than ever before, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), but will that translate into savings for renters?
Taylor Pardy, a lead CMHC economist for the prairies and territories, says Calgary’s rental increases are significant and happening in almost every quadrant of the city.
“I would anticipate we’re probably going to see another year of quite strong increases,” he told CityNews.
Why is this happening? Well, it’s due in part to the City of Calgary’s downtown office conversion programs, boosts to secondary suites, and soon, rezoning across the city.
“It’s not insignificant in terms of the impact that these policy changes can have,” Pardy said.
“Some of these more recent changes, it’s yet to be seen sort of what that impact is going to be.”
He says Calgary is on track for 24,000 housing starts this year. That includes construction that began on a highrise apartment building right across the street from a downtown highrise that just opened this past summer.
“At the same time that we’re seeing all this demand and seeing this sort of response on the supply side, we’re actually getting a lot of completions, like things are starting to complete in sort-of a higher volume,” Pardy said.
“It’s definitely a good thing to see those little signs.”
As people continue to move to Calgary, don’t expect rental prices to reach the sky-high heights that cities like Vancouver or Toronto.
“There’s a lot more land, there’s a lot more space to build,” said Giacomo Ladas, an associate communications director at Rentals.ca.
“If you’re a developer, wouldn’t you want to go where your development can actually be built at a faster rate and a cheaper rate?”