'Nothing for rent at all': Apartments in rural Alberta hard to come by, town officials say

A search for rentals in Bassano, Alta., on popular listing site RentFaster turns up zero results. In Carstairs, you can find a lone bedroom rental on the website.

Based on data from the province, that's not uncommon in some of Alberta's rural communities. In its 2023 apartment vacancy and rental cost survey, the province found there were 22 towns with no rental vacancies, up from 11 the previous year.

Among those towns is Bassano, a community of about 1,200 residents located 100 kilometres southeast of Calgary.

The town has previously struggled with its vacancy rates, according to the provincial survey. But its mayor, Irv Morey, said they're now seeing an influx of people looking to become residents after moving from Calgary and elsewhere in Canada.

LISTEN | We hear from 2 of the many small towns in Alberta with no places to rent: 

Morey said places will come up occasionally, but it's rare.

"Our vacancy rate is, for the lack of a better term, zero per cent," Morey said.

CBC has previously reported that following record population growth in the province, many town officials of smaller communities said they were bursting at the seams.

Morey said Bassano has struggled to attract developers but recently sold several building lots after adding incentives in order to spur housing.

"Once it got out to MLS (Multiple Listing Service), all of them sold within a month. So we have developers now coming from Calgary because now they realize that maybe there's some money to be made there," he said.

Carstairs Mayor Lance Colby said his community also has limited rentals available. The town is home to 4,900 people and is about 50 kilometres north of Calgary. He's concerned that could slow growth in the workforce, especially as commercial development grows.

"Our apartments and duplexes and fourplexes are all full. There's nothing for rent at all," he said.

He added that what does exist is expensive.

The provincial survey found the average price of a bachelor suite had increased nearly 15 per cent since the previous year. The average prices for one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments also increased.

"We're hoping … we'll get some more development, that people put in fourplexes or anything along that line, where people can rent. But right now, we're totally, totally defeated in that area," he said.

Alicia Planincic, an economist and manager of policy with the Business Council of Alberta, said the amount of units being built across the province is not keeping up with Alberta's "insane" growth.

"I think the story up until now has mainly focused on Calgary and Edmonton, in part because, frankly, we have more data on them," she said.

But it was a matter of time before that growth spilled over into smaller towns and cities.

She expects Alberta to be in a pinch for a while, as building more units takes time and population growth isn't expected to slow soon.

"I think we can expect these numbers to continue, maybe not be quite as extreme, but we need to anticipate that population growth at high levels will continue, and we need to have a plan to respond. Otherwise, I think, frankly, it's only going to get worse."