PROPERTY
Phil Soper. “This means is that people generally feel that the long-term economic prospects in the province remain good, and they’re unwilling to sell their home at a discount. “But there’s no sense putting their home on the market,
because buyers are feeling risk-averse. They feel prices could drop. So there’s this gap between seller and buyer expectations. “In our monthly figures, we’re seeing the first material
decreases in property prices since the oil crisis, and it’s taken about a year for those to show up. My expectation is that we’ll see softness in prices, most predominantly in Fort McMurray, secondly in Calgary, then, to a much lesser extent, in the smaller cities – Edmonton, Red Deer, Lethbridge – where the economies are more balanced.” That, of course, means a happier picture for those wishing
to rent. “According to the CMHC’s Spring Market Report, released in mid-June, Calgary’s vacancy rate was 0.2 per cent,” says Sandra Cairns. “However, with the additional layoffs in the oil and gas industry this past autumn, indications are that vacancy rates will continue to increase into the spring and summer of 2016. “The types of property most affected by this change are
high-end, single-family homes and executive rentals. As more rentals have become available, landlords are offering incentives they haven’t offered in many years, such as a month’s free rent on new leases.”
The future of assignments In terms of mobility, Sandra Cairns notes a couple of emerging trends. “Within the last year, we have seen a significant increase in the number of short-term assignments, where the employee moves on a temporary basis. Their assignment typically lasts between six months and two years, while the family stays in their home country. “Due to this growing trend, there has been an increase in
authorisations for furnished condo apartments, town homes, and single-family homes. We believe this trend will continue into 2016.” There’s a trend for a very different type of property, far
from the cities, however. “Canada has several small towns because it is such a large
country with a highly natural-resource-based economy, and this leads to relocations in especially remote locations,” says Sandra Cairns. “Finding the right rental property in a larger city can be challenging, but finding rentals in a town where the population is 50,000 or fewer, with little or no availability of suitable rental properties, is equally difficult. “Providers and clients have begun to think outside the box,
and have come up with creative solutions. Prefabricated and ‘tiny’ houses on corporate-leased land may become the new normal for small-town relocations.”
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