Posthaste: These two cities are now the top-searched spots for real estate in Canada
Good morning,
When the housing market gets tough, homebuyers go west.
In new evidence that Alberta hosts some of the hottest real estate in the country, Royal LePage says Edmonton and Calgary are now the top-searched cities for home hunters in Canada.
Since the start of the pandemic, sky-high prices for Ontario properties and an increased ability to work remotely have sent a surge of home seekers to the province, said the national real estate company.
In 2020, Alberta’s capital and its largest city were in the top 20 of searches. By 2021, they were in the top 10. In the first six months of this year, Edmonton was the most searched city in Canada, followed by Calgary.
In the past it has always been the big cities in southern Ontario that dominated searches, said Royal LePage.
The proportion of searches on the Royal LePage website for properties in Edmonton have quadrupled since before the pandemic. Between January and June of 2023, unique searches for homes in Edmonton reached 2 per cent of total searches, compared with 0.5 per cent in 2019.
Searches for Calgary homes made up 1.9 per cent, more than double the percentage during the same period in 2019.
“Canadians are grappling with expensive home prices in a high-cost borrowing environment. These challenges are tempting homebuyers to migrate to communities where housing is more affordable,” said Tom Shearer, owner of Royal LePage Noralta Real Estate in Edmonton.
Cheaper real estate is part of the appeal. According to Royal LePage the aggregate price of a home in Edmonton was $434,400 in the second quarter of 2023, and $643,200 in Calgary, compared to a national aggregate price of $809,200.
Prices, however, are rising. In June the average selling price of a home in
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