Canmore housing shortage making it difficult for new doctors to find a place to live

With soaring rents and low vacancy rates, one Canmore doctor is asking for help finding two new physicians a place to live.

A housing shortage in one of Alberta’s most sought-after mountain towns is making it increasingly difficult for some essential workers to put down roots, including physicians being recruited to care for the community.

Dr. Brendan Flowers, who owns Mountain Maternity and Family Medicine in Canmore, says two doctors joining his clinic are struggling to find a place to live as housing costs soar and rental options remain scarce.

Flowers says while recruiting physicians to the Bow Valley is challenging, finding housing for them can be even harder.

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“We’ve been able to recruit a new physician that started with us a few months ago, she wants to be part of the community long term,” Flowers said.

“The difficulty is that affordable housing here is considered 10 per cent under market value, but when market value is insane, 10 per cent less than insane is still crazy.”

Flowers says his new doctor is currently renting, but the situation isn’t sustainable and she’s been paying far more than what he considers to be a reasonable amount to pay.

Most one-bedroom places in the town range from $2,600 to $3,000 rent per month, says Flowers, who has put out ads of his own to help his new employee.

Another physician is scheduled to arrive at Flowers’ clinic in July to help cover maternity and parental leaves, but the cost of living for that new physician is likely to remain high too.

Flowers says the housing crunch is increasingly mentioned when he tries to recruit physicians.

At career fairs for medical residents, he says it is often the first concern potential recruits raise.

“When that’s the first challenge — it’s not the culture, it’s not the team, it’s not the type of patients — but the first question is, ‘Where am I going to live?’ That’s a hard hill to go up against.”

“If we’ve lose physicians as a result of housing shortages and cost, many will stick to Calgary because they don’t want to be commuting into here. It’s just a matter of what that downstream effect is, because it does impact community health.”

A tight housing market

Canmore has long faced a housing shortage driven by high demand and limited supply.

The town has a rental vacancy rate of about 0.9 per cent, and roughly 25 per cent of homes are not occupied by permanent residents.

According to local real estate data from Daniel Maguire with Century 21 Nordic Realty, prices in Canmore remain among the highest in Alberta.

As of March 2026, the median asking price for a two-bedroom short-term rental property is about $950,000, while a three-bedroom townhouse averages roughly $1.2 million.

The median price for a single-family home sits around $2.6 million.

“Canmore for many years has been in a housing shortage with very low supply and high demand,” Maguire said. “That’s been keeping the home prices quite high or stable over the years.”

Even with high prices, demand remains strong.

Maguire says the local market saw a surge in activity in February, with 40 home sales — the most since last June and double the number recorded in January.

“The market in Canmore is hot, for sure,” he said.

However, the number of homes available remains limited.

“Right now, we’re sitting at around 110 listings in Canmore, which is very low,” Maguire said.

“There’s also such a huge demand for short-term rentals here in Canmore and I would say 50 per cent of the people I meet are looking for that type of property.”

Combined with the lack of supply, rental prices have also climbed sharply.

“If you wanted a two-bedroom townhouse, you’re anywhere from three to four grand a month,” he said. “Three-bedroom townhouse anywhere from $3,500 to $5,000 a month.”

With the vacancy rate under one per cent, competition for rentals remains intense.

“It’s super hard, and it’s very expensive.”

Town looking for solutions

Canmore Mayor Sean Krausert says the town is facing what he describes as an extreme housing crisis, with costs that are increasingly out of reach for people who work locally.

“The problem is the market is way too high for the average person,” he said.

“Those who are looking to work and live here have an extremely difficult time finding a place to own or rent that is within their means.”

To help address the issue, the town has approved a 0.4 per cent livability tax on residential properties that are not used as a primary residence and sit vacant for large parts of the year for this tax season.

The tax will apply primarily to out-of-province property owners.

Municipal officials say the goal is to encourage more full-time residency while also generating funding to build housing for local workers.

Revenue from the tax will be directed toward the construction of non-market housing, which is sold or rented below typical market prices.

“Non-market housing — that’s not social housing, just housing that’s not at the market prices — is the solution,” Krausert said.

However, he says the private market alone cannot deliver enough housing to meet the community’s needs.

“Most of this will have to be done by the municipality and we’re going to need to build thousands of rental and ownership units in the coming years.”

Several projects are already moving forward.

One of the largest developments is planned for the Palliser Trail area, where about 1,300 homes are expected to be built, including roughly 1,000 non-market units.

Construction has already begun on one building there that will contain 144 rental units, with another 260-unit rental project expected to break ground soon.

Krausert says while those developments will help, but it will take years before supply begins to catch up with demand.

“We’ve laid a lot of the groundwork for this,” he said.

“What you’re going to be seeing now is a lot more projects starting to be built.”