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Saturday, July 29, 2006

Edmonton Vacancy Rate Plummits while Rents Increase

From the CBC news.... as expected, while the housing market is taking off, rents are going up as well... the average 1-bedroom in Edmonton goes for $650/month now!

Edmonton's apartment vacancy rate has fallen from 4.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent in the past six months, making it tougher to find a place to rent.

Commercial real estate company CB Richard Ellis surveyed over 30,000 apartments and found only about 500 vacancies.

Vice-president Paul Gemmel expects the rental market will only get tighter.

"The general economy is so strong. There's no new rental being built, it's not affordable, you can't build these things and make sense out of them," he said.

"I think we're going to see a real tight market here for the next several years."

After years of stability, rents have taken a 13 per cent jump. The average one-bedroom now rents for about $650 dollars a month.

2 Comments:

  • At 7/31/2006 12:03:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Hi Sara:
    Do you think this hot real estate market will stay for an other year or more from today? Is it good to buy now or is it good to sell now? Please reply

     
  • At 7/31/2006 10:30:00 PM, Blogger Sara said…

    Hello,
    Thanks for commenting on our blog. To answer your questions... I think the market will be "hot" for another 5 years or more, but I don't think it will stay the way it is right now. It can't imagine it will keep up the pace.

    Currently there are more buyers in the marketplace than there are sellers. That makes it a sellers market and it is certainly easier to sell a home than buy one right now. Even in these conditions I would say it is a better time to buy, because values are still going up and if you hold on to what you have, or get into the market now, you will make money. See my previous 2 posts - "How long will the Edmonto market stay hot?", and "Why now is a great time to buy real estate in Edmonton."

     

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