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Edmonton Real Estate Market

Even more unpopular: Vancouver is just as expensive (if not more) and is worth even less.
TBH, few cities in Canada offer the bang for the buck Edmonton does. Calgary was right there with us until things started going crazy there.
It’s fast changing now, but Montreal has long been the best “bang for buck” option in Canada. It offers the best urban experience and is the most affordable of the big cities. The city is not as cheap as it was 10yrs ago but it’s still a steal compared to Vancouver or Toronto. As a city, it easily beats Vancouver and while Toronto has more or less ”caught up” and exceeded Montreal lately, Montreal still has a quality that Toronto lacks. Quebec City is even more of a “bang for buck” but it’s even further from people’s radar than Montreal is in Anglo Canada.

There main affordable regions in Canada are the Prairies, Quebec, and non-Halifax Atlantic provinces. St John’s, Saint John, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary are still pretty affordable compared to Southern BC and Ontario and are interesting cities.

Calgary, even though it is a bit more expensive than Edmonton, is still relatively affordable compared to those expensive areas. And considering the overall higher quality of urban experience and proximity to the mountains, I’d argue it’s worth the slight bump in prices, if you aren’t already established in Edmonton or another Prairie city. But because it’s the most attractive Prairie city from an outsider’s perspective, it’s also going to be the first one to leave the affordable category. It’s higher price is manageable now, but I doubt it will last unless there’s a major correction in the real estate market.
 
Vancouver is expensive as ultra wealth has invaded that city. Toronto is the preferred choice for immigrants for most are accustomed to super large cities. As we know, demands spikes up prices. What I find though, through You Tube vlogs of Edmonton, foreigners are now giving Edmonton and Calgary a look for the job and affordable factors.
 
Vancouver is expensive as ultra wealth has invaded that city. Toronto is the preferred choice for immigrants for most are accustomed to super large cities. As we know, demands spikes up prices. What I find though, through You Tube vlogs of Edmonton, foreigners are now giving Edmonton and Calgary a look for the job and affordable factors.

The other major item Calgary has on Edmonton is that there is actual private sector job creation. Edmonton has virtually zero, which significantly impacts its ability to attract newcomers v Calgary. The mountains, airport, etc. are all a red herring, Calgary has jobs whereas Edmonton does not. If Edmonton had those jobs people would overlook the lack of proximity to the mountains and move here at the same pace. The data is shown in the significant difference in house price growth and rental growth between the two cities over the last ~24 months.
 
It's undeniable that the big 3 will always have an allure and draw similar to those in the US who move to NYC, Chicago, S.F. etc.

Edmonton offers A LOT for a little and should be proud of what it has in terms of 'big city offerings', but when it seems to be grouping with Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Regina while the Calgary gap grows is not a particularly great thing to be promoting.

Certainly not the be all and end all given the number of other inputs to housing costs, but it does provide one indicator of desirability and demand of a city...
In the end affordability probably beats desirability. A place can be wonderful, but if you can't afford to live there you have to start to look at other places. Most people have limited budgets. Unless the three big cities can build a lot more housing than they are now and that doesn't mean just tiny downtown condos, but places where people with families actually want to live, their growth with be constrained in the future.

In some ways we were fortunate to have a good rental stock and a slow economy from 2015 to 2020, so we now still have some slack to accommodate people moving for elsewhere, but that will not last forever and the growing number of affordability refuges from Ontario and BC could easily overwhelm any city.
 
It’s fast changing now, but Montreal has long been the best “bang for buck” option in Canada. It offers the best urban experience and is the most affordable of the big cities. The city is not as cheap as it was 10yrs ago but it’s still a steal compared to Vancouver or Toronto. As a city, it easily beats Vancouver and while Toronto has more or less ”caught up” and exceeded Montreal lately, Montreal still has a quality that Toronto lacks. Quebec City is even more of a “bang for buck” but it’s even further from people’s radar than Montreal is in Anglo Canada.

There main affordable regions in Canada are the Prairies, Quebec, and non-Halifax Atlantic provinces. St John’s, Saint John, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary are still pretty affordable compared to Southern BC and Ontario and are interesting cities.

Calgary, even though it is a bit more expensive than Edmonton, is still relatively affordable compared to those expensive areas. And considering the overall higher quality of urban experience and proximity to the mountains, I’d argue it’s worth the slight bump in prices, if you aren’t already established in Edmonton or another Prairie city. But because it’s the most attractive Prairie city from an outsider’s perspective, it’s also going to be the first one to leave the affordable category. It’s higher price is manageable now, but I doubt it will last unless there’s a major correction in the real estate market.

You categorize Calgary as "a bit" more expensive than Edmonton. It's almost 30% more expensive in terms of the average mortgage payment and rental rate. I think the technical definition of "a bit" or "slightly" is only 10% or less.

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$500 more a month is $6,000 a year in after tax income, which depending on your tax bracket could be as $10,000 a year before tax, so I would say the gap is now more than a bit.
 
I actually disagree with you. Edmonton is well diversified while Calgary was more office related with some diversification. Calgary's real estate was higher due in large to the white collar jobs.
you can disagree with me all you want but people are going there b/c there are more jobs
 
Are people not coming to Edmonton? Maybe things have changed in last two years dramatically but between 2016 and 2021 Edmonton metro (7.3%) grew more than Calgary metro (6.4%). I know there has been massive growth recently with intraprovincial migration and immigration jumps but I haven't seen data to show everyone is going to Calgary as of late.

Unemployment rate is no perfect measure but is currently close between the two centers
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I would argue Calgary might appear to have more jobs because there is more downtown office types and more larger private companies. Edmonton would have more smaller organizations that maybe aren't as "sexy"
 
These stupid comparisons with Calgary scream low self-esteem.

There are plenty of people who think Calgary, Toronto or Vancouver are superior. That's fine. They can believe that no one wants to live here or that there are no good jobs, but that doesn't make it true. The fact is that when it costs $1M+ for a house in Barrie, regular suburban families are going to start making a choice in larger numbers to move to places where the cost of living is lower and incomes are higher. Despite what some might want to be true, regular people will continue moving to Edmonton in larger and larger numbers.

With that said, the one thing I have to give Calgarians is their relentless boosterism. They are desperate to convince themselves almost as much as others of how great their city is. I wish Edmonton had more of that energy because frankly people who are relentlessly negative don't come off as particularly clever -- in fact, they seem quite provincial in worse sense of the word.
 
Vancouver is expensive as ultra wealth has invaded that city. Toronto is the preferred choice for immigrants for most are accustomed to super large cities. As we know, demands spikes up prices. What I find though, through You Tube vlogs of Edmonton, foreigners are now giving Edmonton and Calgary a look for the job and affordable factors.
I wouldn’t say that’s the predominate reason Toronto is the preferred choice. It’s simply the most known and has existing large ethnic communities for all the major immigrant countries (and more), which means it has amenities and supports and often relatives too. This is changing, anyway, as a lot of immigrants are ending up in cities like Edmonton now.

You categorize Calgary as "a bit" more expensive than Edmonton. It's almost 30% more expensive in terms of the average mortgage payment and rental rate. I think the technical definition of "a bit" or "slightly" is only 10% or less.

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My mistake. It is still significantly cheaper than Southern Ontario and BC, though, and so remains “affordable” to people in those cities. It’s definitely pushing upwards though, which makes sense. It has the most recognition for outsiders and is generally seen as a desirable city. The other Prairie cities, regardless of your personal feelings about them, don’t have that outside impression.

Montreal and Calgary are the next grouping of cities in terms of expense after Toronto, Kitchener, Ottawa, Hamilton, Barrie, Victoria, Vancouver, and Kelowna. They’re formerly pretty cheap and still notably cheaper than those other cities, but have migrated from the still-cheap cities it used to hang out with, and are the next in line to join the expensive group.
These stupid comparisons with Calgary scream low self-esteem.

There are plenty of people who think Calgary, Toronto or Vancouver are superior. That's fine. They can believe that no one wants to live here or that there are no good jobs, but that doesn't make it true. The fact is that when it costs $1M+ for a house in Barrie, regular suburban families are going to start making a choice in larger numbers to move to places where the cost of living is lower and incomes are higher. Despite what some might want to be true, regular people will continue moving to Edmonton in larger and larger numbers.

With that said, the one thing I have to give Calgarians is their relentless boosterism. They are desperate to convince themselves almost as much as others of how great their city is. I wish Edmonton had more of that energy because frankly people who are relentlessly negative don't come off as particularly clever -- in fact, they seem quite provincial in worse sense of the word.

It would help if Edmonton had stuff to boost. I’m well traveled and love cities, and as a city Edmonton has a lot of work to do. It has a lot of potential, but the city’s main selling feature for outsiders is that it’s cheap (and not a shithole), and it looks it too for the most part. Even our new fancy designer alley in WEM has glossy storefronts meet the tarnished terazzo of yesteryear.

There are some beautiful bits to Edmonton, but its few and far between, and with every step forward, it feels like we take two steps backwards. For every Ice District, we get Regency either producing ugly condos or leaving prime sites vacant and a mass exodus of retail from downtown. Still, there is hope. The Valley Line will be a gamechanger if/when it finally opens, and hopefully areas like Whyte get LRT sooner than later. At least our existing LRT is much better designed than Calgary’s. Maybe 124th will finally take off, a quarter century after revitalization efforts began. If the City can pull off a successfully inviting, destination-worthy Warehouse Park, it’ll do a lot for the core and hopefully spur more development like the Parks, which is a significant improvement from the botched towers of 104th that Langham gave us (and continues to give us). Maybe one of these years Fox will have all of its CRUs filled.

I think the thing with Edmonton is there’s just so much to fix, it’s exhausting. And most people who choose Edmonton don’t care. They just want a cheap house off Ellerslie Road and a decent enough job to afford an all-inclusive in January. This isn’t a city of taste, it’s a city of convenience.
 
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I think the thing with Edmonton is there’s just so much to fix, it’s exhausting. And most people who choose Edmonton don’t care. They just want a cheap house off Ellerslie Road and a decent enough job to afford an all-inclusive in January. This isn’t a city of taste, it’s a city of convenience.
Probably the most accurate and well said statement I've read on here in awhile.
 
Probably the most accurate and well said statement I've read on here in awhile.

Is that any different for the vast majority of citizens in any city? Generally speaking my friends in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary expect services to be provided and great spaces to explore and enjoy, but are not very engaged or involved. They might not hit Vegas or the Mayan as much, but also do not have the climate and long winters (Calgary somewhat) Edmonton faces and so an escape is justified damnit:) Edmonton is very much a blue-collar, government and family town.

The bigger challenge for Edmonton is to retrain and attract grads, demonstrate that great opportunity exists, housing is approachable, BUT, and where the bigger issue is in my mind is that those with significant means/capital often leave these days and or are not attracted to Edmonton because it is rather remote, with a challenging climate, substandard urban core, little swagger or excitement and safety issues disproportionate to its size. These folks have choice of where to live, where to place their capital, volunteerism and philanthropy.

I am hopeful that things are going to improve for the City of Champions, but there needs to be much more of a concerted effort by more people in Edmonton to uplift, improve and change perceptions.
 

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