Larry MacDougal/The Globe and Mail
The drop in the energy sector in Alberta hasn't hurt investment in multiresidential buildings, unlike the impact on commercial office spaces.
Both Calgary and Edmonton saw a strong increase in multiresidential interest in the first half of 2015, according to new data from the real-estate services company Avison Young.
In particular, Calgary has had a strong upswing in purpose-built rentals in and around the city centre. "The relative scarcity of available investment-grade multiresidential rental product has prompted institutional players to develop apartment projects as a means of balancing their real estate exposure to the Calgary market," Avison Young reported.
That need to find balance is crucial because investment interest in commercial office has dropped sharply. In the first half of 2014, investment in office spaces represented 43 per cent of commercial real-estate investment activity in Calgary. In the first half of 2015, it fell to just 17 per cent.
The trend has been just as pronounced in Edmonton, where new multiresidential units are sprouting downtown, with more expected to come. And from an investment viewpoint, this has also taken up some of the slack left by sagging office investment.
Similar to the office dip in Calgary, commercial office investment in Edmonton in the first half of 2014 was 11 per cent of all commercial real-estate investment activity. In the first half of this year, office investment dropped to 4 per cent.