Due to rising demand for housing, there are bidding wars, application fees, and a sense of “me against you.
Calgarians who are looking for a good place to live say that navigating the city’s rental market has become a frustrating and exhausting task.
“As a Calgarian who was born and raised there, I am shocked. Laura Martin, who lives in a mobile home park with her husband and three children, said, “It feels pretty sad.”
The family used to rent a house in the southeast neighborhood of Midnapore, but in 2019, they decided to move to a smaller place to save money for a down payment so they could buy a house. But the pandemic, an unexpected layoff, and now inflation have changed those plans.
Martin says that they now feel stuck in a place to live that was meant to be temporary. The mobile home is cheap, but it’s small and in bad shape, and she’s had a hard time getting the landlord to make long-needed repairs.
But it has been nearly impossible to find a better place to live.
“There aren’t many choices,” she said. “If I find a place to rent for less than $3,000 a month that would work for my family of five and my cat, there are often bidding wars for it.”
She is not the only one having trouble.
‘Sticker shock
A report from Calgary Economic Development that was given to the city council this week says that most people’s incomes haven’t grown as fast as housing costs have.
The report says, “This means that 379,200 working Calgarians would have to stretch their financial strength to get even the most affordable market housing that is currently available.”
The latest report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says that there were only 2.6% of empty homes in Calgary in October 2022. Outside of downtown and the Beltline, the rate was even lower, ranging from 1.2% to 1.9% in other parts of the city.
Since October, the market seems to have become even tighter as more people from all over Canada and the world have moved to Calgary, making the city’s population grow.
Shannon Greer was one of them. She used to live in Calgary and moved back there in February after living in Victoria, B.C., for a few years.
She moved back because she got a job offer, and she was surprised by how hard it was to find a place to rent in 2023. Even if the market was tight, she and her partner thought they would be able to find something because they both had jobs and didn’t have kids or pets.
But because the market is so tight, she is still looking for a place four months after she moved here. In the meantime, she has been staying with friends and family.
Greer said, “I’ve been having sticker shock all over the place.” “That’s why I don’t even have a permanent place to live yet.”
At one point, she and her partner thought they had finally found an affordable rental home. They signed a lease, but when the day came to move in, the place was in such bad shape that they couldn’t live there.
“The smoke alarm was going off when we walked in. A lot of personal things were left in the house. Greer said, “There was mud all over the floor.”
“There was no hot water, and the heater didn’t work either. So, we broke the lease because the place wasn’t ready for safe occupancy.”
She said it was hard to get their damage deposit and first month’s rent back, but the landlord eventually gave them their money back after putting the house back on the market and finding a new tenant.
Greer said, “I wonder how the people who moved into that house are doing, because it had a lot of problems.”
Power dynami
Greer says it’s clear who has the power in the market when he talks to potential landlords.
“I saw a place in Inglewood, and as a renter, I asked a lot of questions about it,” she said. “And I don’t think the landlord liked that, because I went through the application process, gave her all my references, etc., and then she said, ‘I don’t think you’re the right fit.'”
“So I thought, ‘Oh, shoot, I can’t ask any more questions.'” So when I saw the next place, I thought, “Oh, that looks really good.”
She also said that rental prices seemed to go up as soon as she showed interest in them.
She remembered one time when a rental in Marda Loop was listed for $2,450 per month, but when she asked, the landlord said that was a mistake and the real price was $2,550. She still set up a showing, but when she got there, the price had gone up to $2,700.
Martin is still looking for an alternative to her mobile home, and she says that the market in Calgary has become so competitive that she has never seen it this way before.
“There are bid wars for rent. She said, “It’s me against you.”
“When I called landlords to ask about a property, they asked for a non-refundable fee to process my application, which meant I had to pay between $200 and $400 just to file an application.”
Rising costs of owning, to
Also, interest rates are still going up. On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada raised its key rate by another quarter point, bringing it to 4.75 percent.
Rising mortgage rates have made it more expensive to buy a home, especially for first-time buyers, but they have also made it more expensive for many landlords who own investment properties.
Martin says that it seems unlikely that her family will ever own their own home.
And it’s hard not to feel down when she keeps looking for a different place to rent than their mobile home.
“It makes me feel like less of a person,” she said.
“As a renter, I’m barely keeping my head above water, and landlords have almost all the power. It really does make me feel trapped.”
Still, given what other people around her have been going through, she feels lucky.
“I have friends who are single moms and are on income assistance,” she said. “As it is, they’re barely getting by, so their landlord decided to double their rent or not renew their lease so that a higher-paying tenant could move in. They are now staying with family or in shelters for the homeless.”
She also said, “The more society turns away from these problems, the worse it will get.”