If you want an idea as to how bad the housing market is in Alberta right now, you just have to ask my mother.
She’s been looking for a new place to live for a couple months now, but without any luck so far. Even if you ignore financing problems, she hasn’t even won a single one of the dozen or more bids she’s placed so far. People are bidding 30-40k over the list price, and there are enough bids on any single house that your options are limited. You can’t even ask for an official inspection; there’s enough competition that the sellers can go with a slightly lower bidder that doesn’t ask for an inspection than take your higher bid and risk having the inspection knock its value down.
Trying to find a rental unit hasn’t been any easier, either. She wants to keep her dogs, but very few places have any vacancies right now, and even fewer would allow her to keep two large dogs. Even townhouses are tending to prohibit pets nowadays, for some reason.
I really should be getting back to my own search now that I’ve recovered, but her stories aren’t filling me with confidence…