Regina, Saskatchewan
Benchmark housing price: $320,000
Population: 226,404
After bottoming out in recent years, Saskatchewan’s agricultural industry is on a breakneck ascent—as a source of clean energy. Regina’s economy is now buoyed by a behemoth renewable diesel fuel plant, where the fuel is produced using the region’s abundant canola crops. The plant is one of several future-minded employers setting up shop in the province’s capital—there’s also Raven Industries, an American agtech company that’s building autonomous farm equipment.
The city has flourished along with its innovation landscape—Saskatchewan set a record this year for population growth—and plans to densify to keep up with all of its newcomers. Regina received $35.2 million from the federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund in exchange for its plans to fast-track more than 1,000 new units in the next three years. Other initiatives include zoning changes to allow up to four homes per residential lot and creating multigenerational homes and multiplexes.
There are bargains to be bargooned across the city: a recent report from the real estate firm Zoocasa named Regina the most affordable place in Canada to buy a single-family home in terms of down payments and closing costs (the absence of a land-transfer tax keeps prices exceptionally low). The benchmark price hovers around $320,000, roughly a third of the number in Toronto or Vancouver. For that amount, you can find cozy, 1920s-era detached homes in the $200,000 to $300,000 range in the Cathedral area, while the Greens on Gardiner has a mix of housing at every price point, from $100,000 condos to $2-million mansions.
There’s no escaping Regina’s brutally cold winters, with temps dropping as low as -30° C, but residents make sno-cones out of all that snow: the Frost festival has ice slides, snow mazes, light installations and DJ skate nights. Other cultural touchstones include the excellent MacKenzie Art Gallery, which recently showed an exhibit from art icon Shary Boyle, and the Regina Symphony Orchestra. Once the snow melts, the city welcomes festivals of the folk and film variety, as well as its Country Thunder extravaganza, which this year featured performances from Luke Combs (of “Fast Car” fame) and, for Y2K nostalgics, Nickelback.
Recently Listed
797 Old Colony Road
Price tag: $590,000
The place: A three-bedroom home with a private yard and a new kitchen
3411 McCallum Avenue
Price tag: $249,900
The place: A two-bedroom home with a large backyard, across the street from the recently revamped Lakeview Park
