A Canadian Growth Markets review conducted annually by U-Haul has Medicine Hat at No. 7 in Canada for one-way rentals into the community.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
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Medicine Hat was a top-10 destination for Canadians renting one-way moving trailers in 2024, according to U-Haul, which released Monday its top Canadian Growth Markets for last year.
The unofficial list is released each year, denoting areas that were a destination for more U-Haul clients than those who left the same places.
The ratio is meant to give a glimpse into where Canadians are moving, and in the 2024 rankings, Medicine-Redcliff placed No. 7 – behind the Alberta’s two largest cities and a handful of non-Toronto bedroom communities, but higher than any other Western Canadian city.
The ranking doesn’t surprise local realtor Greg Keen, but further piques his interest in local population patterns that he saw developing over the past year.
“There was so much talk for such a long time that our growth was flat, so what’s happened,” asked Keen, who served as president of the Medicine Hat Real Estate Board in 2024.
With low numbers of new homes being built, the regional real estate market saw increased demand for resales but fewer homes coming on the market.
“There are not a lot of vacant houses in Medicine Hat and there is very strong demand on our rental market. It’s indicative that something is happening with our population, but its hard to figure out what in black and white.”
At the mid-point of 2024, Keen suggested a city census be held in order to update numbers that could be out of date, and certify new figures to provide a clearer picture of economic market.
The U-Haul study is not scientific, but pegged Alberta as the top provincial destination of its moving vans.
Among individual cities, Calgary and Edmonton placed Nos. 1 and 2 respectively, followed by Bellville, Trenton and Pembroke, all in Ontario, rounding out the top five.
Apart from the Hat, at No. 7, and the two major Alberta centres, 15 of the top 18 destinations were in Ontario.
Among the top 25, five others were in British Columbia, including No. 23 Kelowna, and the only city from another province on the lis, No. 20 Sydney, N.S.
U-Haul does not release detailed information regarding the rankings, but officials with the company told the News on Monday that the top starting points for rentals destined for Medicine Hat and Redcliff were Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Brooks and Red Deer.
The city of Medicine Hat last conducted a civic census in 2015, when the population was determined to be 63,018. City Hall has since cancelled population counts since 2019, as that year the province changed policy to no longer consider local data when per-capita grant amounts are determined.
The federal census in 2021pegged the Hat’s population at 63,271.
The province now uses a formula to estimate population for purposes of determining grants, and stated that at May 2023, the local urban population was 66,381, about 1,000 more than in 2022.
