CMHC (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) comes out with a Rental Market Report on Calgary that gives me great reason to smile! It came out only yesterday, so it is up-to-the-minute research on the Calgary rental market. Vacancy in Calgary is average 0.6%, and is expected to remain similar through 2007. Rents have jumped across the board an average of 19.5%! And I believe we’ll see similar things in 2007 as well. This report confirms everything I’ve been ranting about.. and also sets up 2007 to be another incredible in Calgary real estate! Thank you Santa! Here’s an excerpt from their report (which you can download here): Few Vacancies Expected in 2007 Calgary’s economy is experiencing one of its strongest performances on record thanks to the strength of the oil and gas sector and a construction boom with a multitude of residential, commercial, institutional and infrastructure projects. High level of economic activity has resulted in a very tight labour market and a shortage of skilled labour. At the time of writing, the unemployment rate was 3.2 per cent, representative of more than full-employment conditions. The tight labour market is attracting a multitude of people to Calgary from other parts of Canada and other countries. Following 13,667 net migrants in 2005, net migration to the City of Calgary increased dramatically in the fiscal year 2006, reaching 25,794 people. In 2007, net migration, the number of people coming minus leaving, is expected to reach 26,000 people. Sustained inflow of people to Calgary should sufficiently replace those renters moving to homeownership. Meanwhile, the continued conversion of rental apartments to condominium units and very few rental housing starts will put downward pressure on the number of units in the rental apartment universe. As a result, CMHC expects little change in the apartment vacancy rate from 2006 to 2007.]]>