Across the country, competition is stiff among apartment hunters as the rental market gets tighter. In Calgary, that struggle to find rental space is fuelling an unprecedented amount of rental construction.

As of September, construction has begun on 2,799 new rental apartment units in Calgary this year. That’s the highest number on record, though 2021 was another banner year with 2,572 rental apartment starts, numbers from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) show.

Developers describe it as a classic Economics 101 scenario: supply rising to meet demand. 

For years, they say a lack of rental construction in Calgary has left that side of the market underserved. On the demand side, higher interest rates are driving more people to rent rather than own.

The province is also seeing a significant uptick in people moving to the province, with more than 50,000 coming to Alberta to live in the first half of 2022 alone. 

“We have this huge void space compared to a lot of the other major metropolitan cities within Canada of rental housing,” said Alkarim Devani, president of the Calgary-based development company RNDSQR, which has shifted in recent years to building rentals exclusively. 

“We’ve had almost a 20-year gap of rental product, and so that’s why we’re seeing such an influx of it.”

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