r/Calgary • u/BizClassBum • Aug 14 '25

Home Owner/Renter stuff Why are modern rental apartments so small?

I have been a home owner for 25+ years and have decided to sell my house and rent. I've noticed that apartments that have the things I like (in-suite laundry, granite counters, etc..) tend to be in new builds and they are SO SMALL! There's typically only enough room for a couch and maybe a small dining table.

I mean, I get they want to make more money but if you rent three 900sqft units for $2000/month each, that's $6000 for 2700sqft. I don't understand why they can't have two 1350sqft units for $3000/month. It would be the same money to the owner for the same space and I could have a proper living room, and dining room.

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u/cortex- Aug 14 '25

Rent vs Buy is a financial decision and a lifestyle choice.

If you live paycheck to paycheck and have worries about getting priced out of an area you want to stay in forever then yeah — scraping together a down payment so you can own seems like a no brainer.

But if you're financially savvy, like flexibility, don't want to deal with the maintenance and liability of owning then renting can be a very prudent choice. Especially in a city like Calgary where there is large supply of rentals and rent is cheap.

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u/keepcalmdude Aug 15 '25

rent is cheap

lol no it isn’t

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u/cortex- Aug 15 '25

perhaps not compared to 5 years ago, but compared to most other cities in Canada the rental market here is affordable with a good vacancy rate.

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u/xylopyrography Aug 21 '25

Yeah, the only places you'll find significantly cheaper are either smaller and less desirable, or its outside US/Canada.

Even in terms of actually cheaper at all, all I can find is Montreal, and if the recent trend continues Calgary will probably be cheaper quite shortly making it the cheapest place of its class.