Home Sweet...Tent?

Look closely at the booming economy and you will see a housing panic in Alberta. With the fuel driven prosperity and record numbers of jobs available you would think that to own homes there would be easy. True the affordability index suggests that the people living here are making enough money to own homes or rent property even though the housing prices are at a premium. This is simply not true but for a different reason.

The irony here is that with the average wage of $20.94 per hour, the people who are coming to fill the copious number of jobs available can afford to support the real estate market to pay rent or own homes and make the mortgage payments. The problem is not that they are low income or destitute and looking for somewhere to live for free, the problem is that there are so few homes or other real estate property to be had. The jobs are there crying for workers to fill them. The workers in-migrate from across the country, even the world only to find that they can afford to live well but that dream is kept just out of reach by the real estate market's lack of housing.

This boom is destined to continue for a few more years before it starts to decline again so how will the real estate market provide property to rent or homes to own? Workers are living in tents and campgrounds while they search out homes. Unfortunately, having the housing market match the job market is unrealistic at this point.

Rhonda Hoffman

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