The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says the price of homes in Calgary is balancing out and isn’t as artificially inflated as they were in years past.
CMHC is concerned, however, about the vacancy rate in the rental market, specifically in larger apartment buildings.
In a new report, it says that overbuilding in Calgary has led to a glut in apartments sitting empty.
Officials say that most of the vacancies are in large developments that were constructed in the last boom.
“A couple of years ago, inventories of apartments were quite low and the economy was doing quite well and we had quite strong demand for housing but when the price declined, it was a pretty quick shift in economic activity and some of these projects are fairly large and as they kept going they couldn’t really stop right away,” said Richard Cho, a CMHC market analyst.
The board also says that the real estate markets are still red hot in Vancouver and Toronto, driving up the national average and fueling concerns of overvaluation in those two centres.
