Housing and rental prices are pulling people from other provinces to Alberta, where the province touts its affordability in major areas including Edmonton and Calgary.

Royal LePage, one of the country's largest residential brokerages, said online searches on its site have been increasing since 2019 and are probably driven by out-of-province potential homebuyers.

"Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Edmonton has been a popular destination for out-of-province buyers looking for a change. This demand has stayed consistent over the last year and a half, as qualifying for a home in high-priced provinces like Ontario and British Columbia has become even more challenging as a result of rising interest rates," said Tom Shearer, broker and owner, at Royal LePage Noralta Real Estate in Edmonton, in a commentary.

When it comes to housing prices, the benchmark price for all residential properties in Calgary was $564,700 in June, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. The Realtors Association of Edmonton reported an average price of $412,334 for June.

The numbers pale compared to the Greater Toronto Area, where the average sale price in June was $1,182,120, according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board. According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the composite benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver was $1,203,000 in June.

"Canadians are grappling with expensive home prices in a high-cost borrowing environment. These challenges are tempting homebuyers to migrate to communities where housing is more affordable. It's no surprise that more consumers, now empowered with the flexibility of the option to work remotely or who are willing to move for great employment opportunities, are considering relocating to Alberta," said Shearer.

Canada's population grew by a record 1 million in 2022, with Alberta's number jumping by more than 160,000, according to Statistics Canada. The province's numbers are increasingly being driven by interprovincial migration.

StatsCan said 31,031 people migrated in to Alberta in the first quarter of 2023, while only 15,245 migrated out. The province's population growth jumped by 4.46% between April 1, 2022, to April 1, 2023. It was the second-highest percentage of any province or territory, trailing only tiny Prince Edward Island, which has a low base of about 150,000 people.

Alberta has taken the unusual step of advertising in larger cities like Toronto with its albertaiscalling.ca campaign, which boasts affordability as a primary reason to move.

Two houses for the price of one is one of the themes on the government website. "In Alberta, the average cost of a new home is half of what you would pay in Ontario or British Columbia," said the site. "If you're not ready to buy a house, you'll still save with Alberta's lower average rent costs."

Alberta, one of only five provinces across the country with no rent control and the population leader by a large margin among that quintet, is a clear leader on lower rents.

Rentals.ca, which said the national average rental rate across the country for one-bedroom apartment was $1,837 per month in June, reported Edmonton at an average of $1,196 and Calgary at $1,687. By comparison, the average asking rent in Vancouver was $2,945 and $2,572 in Toronto for one-bedroom units.

LePage said unique searches for homes in Edmonton on its site over the first six months of the year accounted for 2% of total site searches, an increase from 0.5% during the same time in 2019.

Unique searches for homes in Calgary were 1.9% of total searches between January 1 and June 30, 2023, more than double the 0.8% of searches reported during the same time in 2019.

"Thanks in part to the flexibility of remote work, which became more common with the onset of the pandemic, Calgary's appeal among young homebuyers has been revived," said Corinne Lyall, broker and owner of Royal LePage Benchmark in Calgary, in a commentary.

In a second-quarter earnings report last week, Calgary-based publicly-traded Genesis Land Development Corp. said it had a backlog of new-home orders supported by the strength of the economy in Alberta's largest city.

"Genesis continues to add growth opportunities in both its land and housing divisions. Housing price increases in recent years, rapidly increasing interest rates, inflationary pressures, tight labour markets and continuing supply chain constraints are impacting new home orders and home affordability. These negative factors are being offset by strong housing demand from newcomers to Alberta, the continued historic low supply of homes for sale in the tight Calgary market and the growing economy," the real estate company said in an outlook report on the local economy.