"It's something I haven't really experienced in my nine years in real estate"
Out-of-province buyers have been creeping in on Calgary homes for the past six months, most coming from Ontario and British Columbia, according to CBC News.
The total property sales in Calgary soared from 9,217 to 12,850 – a nearly 40% increase from the same time last year. Adam Sharek, a realtor for CIR Realty, said the uptick was most visible in the final months of 2021.
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“A lot of folks I work with come through on my website and we’re probably seeing maybe 40-50% of those are from out of province,” Sharek told CBC News. “It’s something I haven’t really experienced in my nine years in real estate.”
Interested buyers from Vancouver and Toronto are zooming in on Calgary to get more of a home for less. In Calgary, the average home is priced only around $535,000 – a long haul from the $1.3 million in Toronto.
Although prices have increased, the average length of time a house sits on the market is shrinking, according to the CREB. There was also a total of 3,401 home sales recorded in the region last month.
Read more: Calgary sales activity reaches new milestone
Droves of migrants are also behind the spike. Data from the Government of Alberta puts the figures at 3,451 for interprovincial migration and 9,489 for international migration in Q4 2021. It was the first time since 2015 that the province of Alberta had led the country in a quarter.
“Interprovincial migration from other provinces has flipped back positive in the past few quarters,” Michael Mak, a senior analyst for the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, told CBC News. “So there is evidence of people from other provinces moving into Alberta and, of course, moving into Calgary.”
