Home vacancy in Calgary at highest level in more than a decade
Posted Jul 21, 2016 1:40 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Calgary’s housing vacancy is at its highest level in 12 years.
According to the 2016 civic census, 20,800 units were empty in April, a 67 per cent spike from last year.
Anne-Marie Lurie, chief economist with the Calgary Real Estate Board said it’s all about the economic slowdown.
“We have seen a pullback as far as sales activity goes to levels that (compared to) the actual transactions in the regional market are far lower than longer term averages. It’s lower than the ten-year average, it’s lower than the five-year average.”
There were nearly 9,000 vacant apartments across the city which is a rate of more than eight per cent.
Lurie added that there is a lot of downward pressure on condos as well which have declined almost six per cent in value over the last year.
