Fort McMurray - Population Growth

The regional municipality of Wood Buffalo, which contains Fort McMurray and all the areas that contain oil sands, conducted a study to determine how much the population of Fort McMurray would grow in the next decade.

According to their website, they are now projecting 250,000 people by 2015. The municipality even has its own job requirements listed on the front page of their website.

This is a chart of the number of dwelling units that need to be constructed in order to keep up with the population growth.


The average rent is $2,000. There are many complaints that now one can afford to retire in Fort McMurray.







This chart shows the number of dwellings Fort McMurray will be short if the population growth rate stay around 12%. Since this chart was created, the Wood Buffalo municipality upped its growth rate projections to 15%.

The current average resale on a property is 35%. This will only get worse as the population grows and the housing starts are not able to keep up.

The average single family home is $441,924 in 2006. That would be a profit of $154,000 for one year.