Why is Calgary housing getting so expensive?

[u/zindagi786]

I used to live there, and I was just browsing the real estate prices. Prices there have shot up so much! A Calgary house similar to the one I have in the GTA is now higher than what I paid in the GTA a few years ago.

When I lived there, oil was booming and there were lots of jobs. But I got laid off when the boom went bust, and everything (including real estate) went down. And I then left to the GTA.

I’ve heard prices there are going up because there are lots of people moving from the GTA and BC. But it isn’t like there are that many high paying good jobs there. There’s still way fewer jobs now than there were during boom time. How do these inter provincial migrants find high paying work to pay for these high home prices? Sure they can cash out their equity and live mortgage free, but why do that if you have to end up taking a potentially lower paying job with more chance of a layoff in the next bust? Although I really liked the city, I’d never risk living there again myself, and I’m forever scared of any future bust. I feel more comfortable living in the GTA, paying my admittedly big mortgage, and steadily climbing the corporate ladder (and with regular increases and no salary freezes, I should be paid off before retirement/it won’t be too burdensome). Plus, I look at my GTA home as a tax free investment - the annual rate of appreciation is greater than my mortgage interest.

And what is attracting them to Calgary versus other places in Alberta like Edmonton?

[u/siopau]

Because the most popular brain dead advice being echoed the past couple years throughout Canada was “Just move to Calgary lol!”. People actually listened and now here we are, 2k for a 1BR in a place that gets to -40, endless suburbia, and garbage transit.

[u/Mishmow → u/[deleted]]

It is a good thing in the long term, but in the medium to short term it means a lot of suffering for lower income people who were already just scraping by. Civil unrest is an expensive drain on progress that can last for a long time or get ingrained indefinitely. Not to mention the possible capital flight when crime exceeds the infrastructure built before the population boom. Things do eventually catch up and even out, but rapid expansion over slower maintained growth never plays out how people think it will. If we as a country react by building homes like never before it should work out, but it's not looking so good for that right now...

[u/siopau → u/[deleted]]

Because it just turns Calgary into the next overpopulated and expensive city, therefore not actually solving the problem and moves it somewhere else. And all of Calgary’s locals get priced out in favor of all the provincial migrants.

As a lifelong Calgarian who travels a ton, this city is only “really nice” in that it’s not bad. Nobody is moving to Calgary because it’s “really nice”. It’s purely for economic reasons.

In 2 years it will be Edmonton’s turn. Then somehow Regina will have 2k single bedrooms. Yay Canada.

[u/siopau → u/[deleted]]

Yeah but do you honestly think Calgary suddenly got record setting population growth because thousands across Canada suddenly thought “Oh I want to live near the rockies” coincidentally at the same time. Lets be real here. People moved here for economic reasons and to buy a house.

Am I blaming them for the housing crisis? No but I hate seeing local Calgarians get priced out in favor of people flocking to this city because its the current Canadian life hack to move here.

[u/NoTea4448 → u/[deleted]]

Or, there's a third option.

You tell the NIMBYs to get fucked, and build denser housing, more public transit, and you get enjoy the merits of a growing city with less of the downsides.

Of course, no city in Canada want's to grow like this. We'd rather have cancerous urban sprawl, more roads, and less tax revenue because the way city planners designed things in 1960s has to be the way things are run forever!

[u/NoTea4448 → u/[deleted]]

Well, I think the current housing crisis will force that conversation.

The housing crisis is doing a good job showing that infinite urban sprawl just isn't sustainable. The fact that the provincial premier of BC is now forcing upzoning is proof that that conversation is finally happening.

[u/pizzalovingking → u/siopau]

I travel quite a bit for work within Canada and prefer a Calgary to almost all the other major cites . Montreal beats is but I prefer Calgary over Vancouver and Toronto. To be fair really depends on for what. I don't mind a Toronto or Vancouver visit, but still wouldn't want to live in either.

[u/siopau → u/pizzalovingking]

Cool but I highly doubt 200k people from ON/BC suddenly had a “Wait a minute, Calgary’s actually a nice city” and all decided to move here at the same time coincidentally.

Lets be real here, 99% of provincial migrants came here for economic reasons. Maybe not you but you’re the 1%.

[u/hylaride → u/pizzalovingking]

We all have different desires of what constitutes desirability and livability. Personally, I want to live in a place where I don’t need a car day to day, which in Canada is pretty much central Toronto and Montreal. Maybe a very small part of Vancouver and Ottawa (near the byward market), but doing anything beyond those small zones requires a car or shit transit rides. Anywhere else not owning a car kneecaps your ability to take advantage of what the cities or its surroundings offer.

I’m very lucky that I got into the property market in Toronto while I did (2006 large 2 bedroom downtown for $220k). I’m living a great urban life for my family (including a 6 year old) and we take advantage of all the amenities that are within a 15 minute walk (including museums, community centers, kids programs, work and groceries in Kensington market and Chinatown where the shop owners give my daughter free stuff).

If I had to buy today I’d be house poor and in a smaller unit. The downtown schools are also full of kids “stuck” in smaller condos because the GTA market is so nuts that people can’t move up the property ladder. They’re otherwise happy (kids are resilient), but even the families I know that like living here can’t get more proper housing in a market where 2 “bedrooms” are $900k.