How Energy and Agriculture Shape the Lloydminster Housing Market

If you want to understand real estate in Lloydminster, don't start with the listing photos. Start with two questions: how's the oil patch doing,  and how did the crop come off?

People often ask me why our market can feel so different from Edmonton or Saskatoon. The honest answer is that it's tied closely to the two industries that built this city. Understand how energy and agriculture move, and you'll make better decisions about when to buy, when to sell, and how to plan for the bumps.

Two industries, one border city

Lloydminster is the city that straddles the Alberta–Saskatchewan border on the Fourth Meridian, and heavy oil has been an economic driver here for decades. Cenovus runs the Lloydminster Upgrader and the Lloydminster Refinery, along with heavy oil production across the region. The City's own Municipal Development Plan puts it plainly: "Lloydminster's success is inextricably linked to the oil and gas industry." Based on 2021 census data, oil, gas and innovative manufacturing is the city's largest employment group, at roughly 16% of the workforce.

Agriculture has been here even longer, going back to the pioneer days. Wheat, barley and canola typically account for more than 30% of the acreage sown in the Lloydminster area, and ADM runs a canola crushing plant and a biodiesel plant right here in the city. Only a small share of people inside city limits list farming as their job, but Lloydminster serves a trade area the City estimates at around 189,000 people. Many are farm families who shop, bank and see the doctor here, and often eventually buy here.

When either industry has a good year or a hard one, we feel it in housing.

When oil is up, and when it isn't

The clearest lesson I know about our market comes from the 2014–2016 oil downturn.

When oil prices fell, local home sales dropped fast. Canadian Real Estate Association data reported by the Calgary Herald showed Lloydminster MLS® sales were down 44% year over year in the first quarter of 2015. In that same quarter, though, average sale prices were actually up 4%. ATB Financial's chief economist called it "the kind of very cyclical pattern that those communities are always living in."

That's worth remembering. Here, the number of sales tends to react first, and prices often take longer to catch up, in both directions. A quiet few months doesn't automatically mean values have dropped, and a busy spring doesn't guarantee they'll keep climbing.

Rentals showed the swing even more. The City's 2018 Housing Needs Assessment notes rental vacancy was below 1% between 2000 and 2008, a very tight market. By fall 2016, CMHC reported Lloydminster's apartment vacancy at 25.4%, so about one apartment in four sat empty. Local economic development leaders put that down to transient oilfield workers leaving for jobs elsewhere, plus a few hundred new units that had just been added.

Recoveries take time, too. Back then, the head of the Lloydminster Economic Development Corporation said, "When the price started going down, it took a while for it to impact employment. When the price starts to rise again, it will take a while again before companies start to hire back."

Since then, the rental picture has tightened again. The City's 2024 Housing Needs Assessment found that rental stock has declined since it peaked in 2017, vacancy has stayed relatively low, and average rents have risen on both sides of the border. Even this year, though, the mood has shifted. In January the mayor called oil prices "not what I consider sustainable" for producers, and by the Heavy Oil Show in September the event chair was describing it as "a pretty positive and optimistic show." It can turn that quickly here.

The farm calendar and the housing calendar

Agriculture shapes our market more quietly, but just as surely.

Farm families run on a calendar that doesn't care about the spring market, and seeding and harvest are not the time to be packing boxes. In my experience, many plan bigger moves for the quieter months once the crop is in. If you're selling to, or buying from, a farm family, expect timelines and possession dates to work around the field season.

There's also a bigger, slower shift going on. Statistics Canada's 2021 Census of Agriculture found the average Canadian farm operator was 56 years old, and 60.5% were 55 or older. As more farm families hand the operation to the next generation or step back, many of them think about moving into town. That keeps steady interest in homes that are easy to live in: bungalows, main-floor living, condos and homes close to services and healthcare.

A good or poor crop year also affects confidence in the businesses that serve farmers, and that ripples into who feels ready to buy.

Who moves in, and who stays

Lloydminster has always had people coming and going. The 2018 Housing Needs Assessment describes the population as having "largely transient tendencies" and notes that roughly one-third of residents lived in market rental housing at the time. When the oil patch is busy, workers arrive for projects and rotations, and rentals fill up. When it slows, some of them move on, and that's often the first place you see a change.

Plenty of people stay through every cycle, though. Our workforce also includes retail, healthcare, education, construction and trades, and many families here go back generations. Those long-term owners keep our neighbourhoods steady when the headlines get loud.

Change is part of the deal

I've been reading Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor whose private journal became the book we call Meditations. He wrote: "Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too." (Meditations 4.43)

That sounds a lot like a commodity town. Booms pass, and so do busts. Nobody controls oil prices or the weather, but you can control how prepared you are when the current shifts.

For buyers: what to watch and how to plan

• Look at your own job, not just the headlines. If your income depends on oil or ag, ask yourself how secure it would be in a slower year, and build your budget around that, not your best year.
• Talk to your lender about variable income. Overtime, rotations, contract work and farm income can each be treated differently when you qualify. Find out early.
• Watch sales activity and days on market. These often move before prices do. Ask me for current local numbers in the neighbourhoods you're considering.
• Thinking of a rental property? Plan for vacancy swings like 2016's, and make sure the numbers still work in a slow year.
• Check what's nearby. The City notes that well sites and pipelines affect where and how development can happen. That's worth knowing for acreages and lots on the edge of town.

For sellers: what to watch and how to plan

• Price for the market you're in. When activity slows, buyers have more choice. When it's busy, overpricing can still leave you sitting while others sell.
• Plan around your own calendar. If you farm, think about prep and timing well before harvest so you're not trying to do everything at once.
• Have a Plan B. Know ahead of time what you'd do if the right offer doesn't come quickly, whether that's waiting, adjusting price or renting the home out.
• Know your likely buyer. A young oilfield family, a retiring farm couple and an investor each want different things.

Steady through every cycle

Marcus also asked, "Is any man afraid of change? Why, what can take place without change?" (Meditations 7.18) Lloydminster has come through plenty of ups and downs. If you understand what drives our market, you don't have to guess. You can plan.

If you're wondering how today's energy and farm picture affects your plans, I'd be happy to sit down over coffee and walk through it. No pressure, just a plain conversation about what makes sense for you.

Reach out anytime:
Phone: (306) 371-5888
Email: JordanBirdRealtor@gmail.com
Website: jordanbird.ca
Instagram: @jordanbirdrealtor

Jordan Bird | LPT Realty — 17 years serving clients in real estate, licensed in Alberta and Saskatchewan