Commercial real estate in Calgary showed slightly higher vacancies at the end of 2002 than 2001, according to the latest figures from a major brokerage.
The downtown office market showed an 8.9-per-cent vacancy at the end of last year, says Laurel Edwards, research co-ordinator for Colliers International in Calgary, up from 7.9 per cent overall vacancy at the end of the previous year.
Class A buildings were at the low end with only seven per cent of their space vacant, while buildings in Classes B and C had 11.5-per-cent vacancy rates.
Colliers counts only physically empty space in the vacancy rate. The availability rate – more indicative because it includes everything on the market – was 13.3 per cent, she says.
Outside of downtown, the availability and vacancy rates are closer, says Edwards.
The vacancy rate in the Beltline was 12.3 per cent. The northwest area, which has comparatively little of the city’s office space, ended 2002 with 8.3 per cent available and 7.5 per cent vacant. In the south, the vacancy rate was 9.4 per cent and availability just ahead at 9.8 per cent, she says.
In the northeast, the vacancy rate was 17.6 per cent and the availability rate 19.2 per cent, says Edwards. Much of that was due to the telecom industry’s woes.
For months, much of the downtown office vacancy rate is in sublease space that became available because of the last wave of mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas industry. Edwards agrees tenants will look for good sublease space before they prelease space in a new tower.
I’m going to predict there will be no office tower announcement for downtown Calgary this year. That’s not exactly a high-risk prediction, either. I can also predict that the federal Liberals will continue to annoy Alberta’s business community.
A forecast released late last year by CB Richard Ellis Alberta Ltd. showed the downtown office vacancy rate at 13.8 per cent. The increase was the result of mergers and acquisitions in 2001 and earlier, CB Richard Ellis said. The company noted about 80 per cent of downtown office space was occupied by oil and gas companies, or professional service companies doing significant business with the energy sector.
Building permits issued in Calgary last year were worth 16 per cent more than in 2001, with house builders continuing to drive the totals as the year drew to a close.
Building permits worth $2.29 billion were issued to the end of December, compared to $1.97 billion a year earlier, city hall reports.
Permits issued in December were worth $180.9 million, up 45 per cent from $124.8 million a year earlier. Residential permits were up 88 per cent to $143 million from $76 million. Of that amount, single-family permits accounted for $71.6 million, up 23 per cent from $58.2 million in December 2001.
At the same time, non-residential permits dropped 22 per cent to $38 million from $48.8 million.
The Capital Region did see several records set on sales through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Sales totalled 15,619 homes at a new high average price of $150,258, up 12.6 per cent from 2001, EREB said.
Detached houses sold for a record average $171,599, and a record median price of $163,000 for the year. The dollar volume of MLS sales reached $2.35 billion, up 9.4 per cent from 2001.
Inventory at the end of the year was 2,592, up almost 1,000 from January 2002, EREB said.
Demand for higher-end homes increased, as houses priced at more than $250,000 took six per cent of the market in 2002, up from four per cent in 2001. MLS sales reached $1 billion on May 8, the earliest ever.
Meanwhile, Calgary real estate agents in the housing sector topped off a record-breaking year with 25,054 sales, up 11 per cent from 2001.
The Calgary Real Estate Board said sales included 18,836 single-family homes, 6,023 condominiums and 195 mobile homes. Sales totalled $4.96 billion, up 21 per cent from 2001.
The average residential sale price in 2002 was $198,057, compared to 2001’s $182,090, an increase of almost nine per cent.
Sales in December numbered 1,309, down from 1,676 in November and 1,395 in December 2001.
Sales in December included 984 single-family houses, 317 condos and eight mobile homes.
