Norma and Alan Kehoe said leaving the beauty and friendships of Cape Breton wasn’t easy.
But living near grandchildren in Cochrane was a strong enough pull to make the move west and purchase a home in the Fireside area of the town just west of Calgary.
‘Concerning’ study highlights dangers of vaping
“We love Cochrane. We love the closeness to the mountains and to the city without having to be in it,” said Alan Kehoe.
“(Cochrane is) an older community but it’s growing quickly.”
The couple, who take possession of their 1,430-square-foot house next month, are among the home buyers driving a real estate boom in towns and cities surrounding Calgary.
According to new data from the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB), the 725 home sales in the first six months of the year in Cochrane nearly equal the record 754 purchases in the entire record year of 2014.
Much the same can be said for Airdrie to the north of Calgary, where the annual average number of home sales — 1,300 — has already been exceeded.
The benchmark price for a single detached home in Airdrie was $432,700 in June, 15 per cent higher than the previous year.
But the average price of a detached home in Airdrie so far this year is $411,011, well below the $500,183 in Calgary, according to CREB.
“My record sales in previous years were surpassed by May this year,” said Natalie Bethiaume of CIR Realty, who specializes in Airdrie.
Lower lot prices are a draw for buyers, she said, in the city that’s nearly doubled in size since 2009 to a population of more than 70,000.
“None of us saw this market coming. When COVID-19 really became a concern, all the predictions were this market was going to tank, but the opposite happened,” said Berthiaume.
The COVID-inspired trend to work from home has made places such as Airdrie more attractive, she said.
Echoing that is Cochrane CIR realtor Kendra Watt, whose town’s population has grown by 30 per cent in the past five years to more than 34,000.
“Working from home gives people the flexibility to live farther from the city centre . . . We’ve seen a significant increase in people moving from Calgary since the pandemic,” said Watt.
To read the full article visit : https://calgaryherald.com/news/trend-to-work-from-home-cited-as-real-estate-takes-off-in-cochrane-airdrie
Sourced From: Calgary Herald – Bill Kaufmann
