I'm in Calgary as well. Was looking into buying a house, but after reading the latest article I'm have renewed appreciation for my rental. Any thoughts on the rent vs buy question in Calgary? What are your situations?
We bought two condos in downtown Calgary instead of one house in the burbs, back in 2010 when we moved there. We live in our Beltline condo, and rent the second one in East Village. When we bought, East Village looked kind of dystopian and end-of-the-worldly which I really liked, but in the past two years, it has gone through a complete revitalization and will soon become the place to be, with tons of high end condos, a very active arts scene, the Bow river and a nice network of nature trails a couple of hundred metres away, one block from the C-Train on the free downtown line, and the new Calgary Public Library and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame a block away. We bought low, and hopefully will be able to sell much higher. We would probably turn a good profit if we sold now even with the dip in the economy, but we decided to hold off and will continue to rent it. Current rent, for a 600 square-foot loft: $2000/month. And there is no shortage of young professionals who are leery about spending $600,000 on a condo but will not hesitate to fork that much money on a downtown pad. Once we are ready to sell, our condo will be priced about $200,000 less than the other nearby offerings so we are not worried about not being able to sell it at a profit.
