Province's vacation homes to remain in demand: report
Alberta's recreational real estate market is expected to have another banner year, further adding to the value of the province's already pricey vacation home market, a new report predicts.
Royal Lepage 2021 Spring Recreational Property Price Forecast predicts the aggregate price of a vacation property in Alberta will rise by six per cent to about $942,881.
That's less than the predicted national average of about 15 per cent year over year. Yet the average price of a recreational home in Canada is expected to only reach about $502,000.
The province features a much higher aggregate price for a vacation home because Canmore is the primary driver of the niche market — among the most expensive recreational real estate markets in the nation, the report notes.
Canmore real estate agent Brad Hawker says the Bow Valley community is likely to see an even higher increase in pricing than forecast in the report based on early performance this year.
“Our market has been seeing record-breaking month-aftermonth sales, and we had already seen a 6.5-per-cent increase in the benchmark price since the start of the year,” says the broker/owner of Royal Lepage Rocky Mountain Realty. “And we're anticipating more growth throughout the rest of the year.”
Other vacation home hot spots in the province highlighted in the report are Lac St. Anne and Wabamun Lake, both short drives from Edmonton.
It noted these communities — like Canmore, only to a lesser extent — are seeing fast-growing demand amid low supply of listed properties.
Hawker further notes many vacation communities in the province are benefiting from the growing work-from-home trend with buyers in Canmore coming from major centres like Toronto.
“It previously was a small segment of our market,” he says. “Things have turned on their head as people are not tethered to their office anymore.”