Edmontonian properties belong mostly to Alberta residents, as shown by tax mail out destinations. In a time where foreign ownership looks like a growing trend, only 1 percent of Edmonton properties belong to people outside the country.
Of the 416,563 tax assessment notices sent out by the city’s property tax office in 2021, 91.7 percent of the destinations were in Edmonton, totaling 381,955. The report also notes that 97.2 percent or 404,888 of those notices were mailed out to Alberta addresses. Over 99 percent of those notices also went out to Canadian addresses.
While this metric isn’t a perfect system to measure property ownership, it does give a good screenshot of where the city’s real estate rights go. The figures show a combined report of residential and other property types. While this approach shows the addresses of the property owners, however, it does not indicate what nationalities they have.
There is also the added factor of people or companies outside of Alberta or Canada being able to direct notices to an address they don’t necessarily live in. “However, general trends indicate that the vast majority of Edmonton property owners reside in Alberta,” says an official statement by city spokesperson Matt Pretty.
Outside of Alberta, British Columbians seem to represent the next higher share of Edmonton properties. A total of 6,151 properties were sent to British Columbia addresses, accounting for 1.5 percent of all property tax notices sent out to Edmonton property owners. Only 0.14 percent of 578 of those notices went to addresses outside Canada. 423 belonged to people and entities in the United States. For comparison, 1,185 of Calgary residential properties go out to international recipients.
The report came after Councilor Michael Janz requested for the city data. The councilor became interested in the report after reading the same report in Calgary Herald. Given the federal government’s ban on foreign home buyers, there has been an attempt to limit ownership to Canadian buyers to cool the housing market. “It’s a little bit more than before, (but) I wouldn’t say it’s new. We’ve always had investors from outside Alberta come into our market,” he said. “There’s no worry about foreign investment necessarily in our market. There are some from across Canada … I wouldn’t say it’s any higher than normal, maybe a little bit, but it’s nothing to be concerned about.”
