Hi, thanks for raising your hand for this letter. Here's the deal I'll keep with you: every two weeks, one idea about Canadian rental housing, the numbers behind it, and what I'm actually seeing on the ground in Alberta. Three minutes, no pitch, unsubscribe anytime.

Let's start with why this letter exists at all.

The three numbers

After fifteen years operating rental housing across six Canadian markets, three numbers pulled my entire focus to one province:

• 27% — the share of Canada's total population growth now landing in Alberta (StatCan / ATB).

• 12 — consecutive quarters Alberta has led the country in interprovincial migration (Government of Alberta, Q2 2025).

• 33% — the share of income an Edmonton household needs for ownership costs. Toronto: 68%. Vancouver: 93% (RBC, Q1 2025).

What they mean together

Population is concentrating in Alberta at a pace the rest of the country hasn't seen in a generation — and it's arriving in a market where housing is still genuinely affordable relative to income.

For anyone who owns rental housing, that's the only combination that matters: tenants who arrive, can afford to stay, and have reasons to. Rent growth built on an affordability gap eventually meets a wall — the tenant's paycheque, or a regulator. Rent stability built on incomes compounds quietly for decades.

An IRR is a story about the future. Rent collected is a fact about the present.

On the ground

I'm building purpose-built rental in Blatchford — Edmonton's city-led, master-planned district, 30,000 residents at build-out on the old municipal airport lands. Nearby, a 90-townhome purpose-built rental project is leasing right now — a live read on tenant demand I'll break down in a coming issue: what leases actually sign for, not what brochures project.

Next issue: why patient capital is quietly stepping off the three-year flip — and what it's asking for instead.

Mike Beer

Managing Principal, MBI · fifteen years, six Canadian markets, now building in Alberta

P.S. Reply and tell me which market you're watching — if you have a question about Alberta, chances are five other readers have the same one. I read and answer everything myself.