Fort McMurray: Highest Housing Prices in Canada
Buying a house in Fort McMurray is expensive. It’s so expensive that you could take that money and buy a Ferrari Enzo instead. And there were only 349 of those cars ever made, so they are rare. Just about as rare as houses in Fort Mac, which is maybe why their retail prices are the same.
Townhouses are being built by the dozens to fit more people onto less land
The current (December 2009) average price of a single family home is $645,000, and that’s down $10,000 from December 2008. That won’t get you much in the way of land, though, as property sizes are often very small with limited open space. You’re paying for the privilege of OWNING your sleeping quarters, which is a pretty big deal. You can be master of your domain, and you won’t be forced to pay thousands (read: THOUSANDS) of dollars each month on rent.
AVERAGE HOUSING PRICES IN CANADA (September 2009)
Fort McMurray: $645,000
Vancouver: $611,000
Toronto: $407,00
Calgary: $395,000
Ottawa: $306,000
Montreal: $285,000
Regina: $242,000
Halifax: $234,000
Fredericton: $141,000
The average rent for a one bedroom unit is $1,700 per month. If that’s too rich for your blood, then you can get a bachelor suite for $1,200 per month. If you want anything cheaper then you’re pretty much out of luck, since affordable municipally-run housing in this town is $1,100 minimum. And you’re only permitted to stay in municipal housing for a maximum of one year. Sometimes it’s as little as 6 months, then you’re out on the street.
Low-rise apartment buildings are very common in the newer areas of town
Housing is so expensive because there isn’t very much of it. The oil boom has created thousands of jobs in a very short amount of time, but there is not enough available land to house the growing population. Fort McMurray is a bit of a bizarre city. It doesn’t have big gigantic municipal boundaries that can be gradually filled up with endless suburbs. Instead, it grows piece by piece, expanding whenever the Province of Alberta decides to give it land. It’s hard to get land from the Province though. They own all the land and can make a huge profit selling it to oil companies instead of giving it to Fort McMurray.
The high housing prices will continue until supply is able to keep up with demand. So, if you want a house, you’d better save up for that $3,000-a-month mortgage.
WBUTN 
Nice article, and a great followup to the intro to Fort McMurray (and ‘Oil Country’) below it. I love it because there is an implicit connection between the two subjects, and it’s quite an ironic one – even though I think most that aren’t versed in the Planning field would miss it.
The dependence on oil that you criticize in the first article is driven (yes, pun intended) by planning, and the land use pattern around our cities. More and more people choose to pursue a lifestyle with individual home ownership, the country-styled house in suburbia, et al. We see that as quality of life – even as it forces us into cars and onto highways – burning more and more resources as a result.
To paraphrase a great line from a book I read in University: It’s oddly ironic that a family can drive a huge SUV through rush hour to get their asthmatic child to a medical centre – and not see the connection.
I find it oddly ironic here that people decry Fort McMurray as the great evil and yet most residents do not have that same lifestyle choice. We live denser, but for most, it’s because it is forced on the community.
I’m sure there’s a veiled statement on society being its’ own worst enemy in there somewhere…
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Thanks for this article.