The number of Bonnyville homes sitting empty has seen a drastic increase in recent years.
While Panache Realty’s Bonnyville records showed 19 of their properties as uninhabited, realtor Marcel Sylvestre said the actual numbers are a little different.
“We can see if they’re vacant, tenant or seller occupied. A lot of them show tenant, but there’s no longer tenants in them. We determined 49 of 98 houses right now are either being rented or vacant. Fifty per cent, which is a huge and gross number,” he exclaimed.
A recent study called “Ghost” Homes Across Canada: A Decade of Change in 150 Cities released by Point2 Homes, a real estate market website based in Saskatchewan, compared temporary or vacant homes in the country. They found the vacancy rate went from 8.4 per cent in 2006 to 8.7 per cent in 2016.
Since there’s no formal way of keeping track of unoccupied dwellings, Point2 Homes subtracted the number of occupied residences from the total number of uninhabited houses.
Out of the 2,296 private dwellings located in Bonnyville within town limits, Point2 Homes’ research found that Bonnyville saw a 214 per cent increase of vacant homes from 125 in 2006 to 393 in 2016.
Sylvestre believes there could be a number of reasons why they’re empty.
“They can either be under foreclosure, or they’re going through bankruptcy proceedings, or people picked up and moved on, and are trying to market them as they go to move.”
Bernard Lefebvre, associate broker with Coldwell Banker Home Team Realty based in Cold Lake, agreed the city sees houses abandoned for similar reasons.
“People have moved onto other jobs and chose not to rent them out. We do manage rental properties as well, so we often get some of them leaving their homes with us to put tenants in, but if they choose not to go down that route then they leave their house empty.”
Over the past 18 months, Lefebvre has noticed an increase in foreclosures.
“I suspect that’s from trying to make it, and eventually, they just run out of funds to be able to maintain a household here and potentially elsewhere.”
As the report shows, the issue isn’t unique to Bonnyville or Cold Lake, however, Sylvestre described the region as “one of the hardest-hit economic areas in the entire country.”
“Our oil has got us in the tank, and property values have decreased anywhere from 22 to 24 per cent from the peak, which were retained in early 2014. We have an extraordinary number of homes on the market… and we have a ridiculous amount of foreclosures on the market that is really putting downward pressure on everything, which is why a lot of people have decided to walk away from their homes or foreclosure because they’re in a negative equity position.”
When it comes to Cold Lake residences sitting empty, broker Kelly Baker, owner of Re/Max Platinum Realty in Cold Lake, believes the number of military families in the community could be a factor.
“I’d say the largest portion of vacancy is probably military because they have been posted out,” explained Baker. “They’re renting somewhere else, and they’re trying to sell their house here… Where normally if you’re trying to sell your house, you know you’re going to move to another area for a job or something. Then you sell the house and move, but you’re still in the house up until the point of sale.”
Due to the decrease in prices in the area, there’s a small silver lining.
“It’s a good time for first time home buyers in town, but that’s about it,” noted realtor Gerry Storoschuk with Royal LePage Northern Lights Realty.
Sylvestre added, “Buyers have a great opportunity right now, inventory is high, and there’s a lot of choice homes that became very affordable.”
Baker is hopeful the market will improve.
“With the new government, I just (hear) people talking that are a lot more optimistic where it used to be that people were more pessimistic and unsure of what their futures held.”
