Our Jordan Bateman gives you the heads-up on skyrocketing rental rates, housing busts everywhere but Alberta, and Oak Bay GASP building housing.
🚀 New data from Rentals.ca reminds us just how bad the rental crisis has become. Let’s look at 2-bedroom rentals. Vancouver: up 11% year over year, to $3,908 a month. Burnaby, up 21% to $3,411. Victoria up nearly 8% to $2,906. Kelowna up 6.3% to $2,775. Calgary up nearly 14% to $2,182. Edmonton up 9.3% to $1,580. Red Deer up 16% to $1,402. Tough time to be a renter.
🚚 Despite those big rental hikes, Alberta continues to lead the country in attracting interprovincial migration. Desjardins Economics reports recent shifts in the Canadian housing market, sparked by the Bank of Canada’s interest rate hikes. Sales are down nearly 40% from the gains witnessed earlier this year. As home sales soften, listings have surged by 35% nationally since March. This rise in listings hints that homeowners, initially enticed by lower rates, are now grappling with the steep borrowing expenses. This makes Calgary and Edmonton even more attractive. For example, Calgary’s housing sales have nearly doubled compared to pre-pandemic times.
🏠 Vaughn Palmer in the Vancouver Sun reports tiny, tony Oak Bay’s about-face on a 4-storey, 15-unit project they approved last week – after years of rejecting it. Why now? Because the provincial government has put Oak Bay on their housing naughty list and told the municipality it must build 664 new units over 5 years. Last year, it built 27.
