CMHC (the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation) is one of the few organizations with the resources to publish meaningful and comprehensive statistics on regional real estate. Their Spring 2010 Rental Market Report came out the other day (you can the Alberta Highlights here, PDF, opens in a new window) and it makes for interesting, if dry, reading.

There’s no surprise that vacancy is up a little bit, but the regional variances are pretty significant. (Click to open full size images)

Vacancy rates changed relatively little in Edmonton and Calgary, but this graph shows the huge changes in Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Wood Buffalo and Grande Prairie. The city level stats hide the fact that several property types are doing much better than average.

The average rents went down a little bit in all areas except Lethbridge, but that’s also a detailed local occurance. Remember to drill into the numbers. If you’ve made it this far without downloading your own copy and reading it all, go do it. It still boggles my mind how expensive things are up in Fort Mac, but that’s another blog post.

I like a good map. This is a pretty simple one. I’m sure CMHC can do better with data visualization, but then again they’re a government agency. Couldn’t we even go to the effort of making the arrows different sizes?

This one shocked me, and made me happy because I like buying 3 bedroom + properties. In Edmonton the vacancy rate for 3bed+ properties dropped from 13.2% to 5.3%, and the rate for batchelor pads went down from 4.9% to 4.1%. That’s the stuff that makes my investors happy.

Average rents by bedroom type carried one other surprise, the drop in batchelor prices in Calgary. I think the 2009 prices were more an artifact of the overheated run last year and the lack of inventory. Edmonton prices have changed very little.

And statistical significance is a topic I’m going to be getting into more in the future. What this last chart shows is that, statistically speaking there was no real change in rents, except for 2-bedrooms. That’s also a very competitive room type, so there’s a lot of moving pieces.

Whatever is happening with the market, there’s no reason your units have to sit vacant. Use smarter advertising, renovate your properties appropriately and be willing to put in the extra 10%.

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Smart advertising means doing your homework. Investors and property managers loved the Ontario ranking report we released in October and the original national report from last June. They’re reports that will help people advertise on the right websites, save money and fill your vacancies faster.

I’m proud to announce that reports for both Edmonton and Calgary are going to be released on January 31st.

To help kick things off we’ll do a short webinar at 1p.m MST to explain the methodology, results and what it means for how you should advertise vacancies online.

To be notified when the reports are available.

Thanks are due to Ron Roth for his technical assistance and advice, and PixelJones for the great photo.

Photo Credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixeljones/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

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Advertising your vacancies on the right sites will save you time and money. What many real estate investors fail to realize is that between your property and the tenant comes an advertisement. The missing link is how they find your ads, and the answer is:

This whitepaper does the heavy lifting for you if you’re in the Ontario investment market.We’ve set out to rank the highest, most consistently ranked sites for the areas identified as the Top Ontario Investment Towns by the Real Estate Investment Network (REIN).

Since it’s release to 400+ members of REIN at the Advanced Landlording and Investing Expo, this report has helped investors fill vacancies faster and with less effort.

The towns we’ve covered in the whitepaper include:

• The Technology Triangle: Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge (KWC)
• Hamilton
• Simcoe Shores: Barrie – Orillia
• Brampton
• Durham Region – Whitby, Pickering, and Ajax
• Ottawa
• Brantford
• Toronto
• Vaughan
• Whitchurch – Stouffville

It’s 20-pages covering the backgound and methodology of the reports, tips and tricks for advertising online, and detailed results for these areas. It’ll help make your advertising choices easier, learn how to Google like a tenant and run your real estate like a business.

You can download the report here (PDF) and signup for future reports below.

Praise for the Ontario Ranking Report:

Chris, while you were in Ireland, you made a big difference for 400+ people in Toronto. Your Special Report on the Ontario Rental Internet-site traffic was fantastic and a huge hit at A-LIFE. THANKS! And that was before the Blarney Stone….. can’t wait to see what comes next.

- Don R. Campbell, President, Real Estate Investment Network

Thank you so much for putting that report together for ALIFE & sharing it here. It is BRILLIANT! It is now one of my most frequently used documents.

- Carla Johnson, Author of Magnetic Real Estate Photography

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