CALGARY — An iconic piece of Alberta history, nestled near the Kananaskis River, is available for purchase.

The Rafter Six Ranch Resort, where movies have been filmed and where famous Hollywood stars have stayed, is listed for sale at $12.5 million by Sotheby’s International Realty Canada.

“We’ve had it listed for under six months. We’ve had some pretty good institutional interested investors. We actually have quite a few buyers who are interested in it. It’s definitely a property for somebody who is looking at running a business out of it. It could definitely be a strong business,” said Daren Gull, realtor with Sotheby’s International Realty Canada in Calgary.

“In Sotheby’s, it’s definitely one of the Sotheby’s premier ranches right across North America … It’s actually really put Calgary on the map as far as ranching communities internationally. It’s so unique.”

The property is currently owned by a bank. The resort currently is still operating.

It sits on 30 hectares of land that is bordered on the east side by the Kananaskis River, just minutes south of the Highway 1 and the Seebee turnoff, about 90 kilometres west of Calgary and 20 kilometres east of Canmore in the Municipal District of Bighorn.

The Sotheby’s listing says the purchase price includes a 19,116-square-foot, three-storey guest lodge that has 18 guest rooms, a dining room, a coffee shop and two meeting rooms. A 6,326-square-foot hall is utilized for a variety of group events that can hold up to 400 guests. A 2,430-square-foot church was built in 1996 for about 100 guests and incudes a choir loft, fireplace, and finished basement.

The barn and tack shop is 5,041 square feet surrounded by corrals. There are eight guest cabins, and four chalets ranging from 368 square feet to 1,266 square feet. There is also a 2,700-square-foot Quonset. The property includes a 3,400-square-foot, two-storey, owner’s residence, and various out structures.

The property has a rich history. According to the Rafter Six Ranch Resort website: “In the 1880s Colonel James Walker of the Northwest Mounted Police (NWMP) established a rough line shack, and pastured and bred horse’s on the land that today is Rafter Six Ranch.”

The website says that in the 1940s a location scout for Walt Disney Pictures discovered the Rafter Six Ranch.

“Walt Disney visited Rafter Six Ranch, and was so taken with the stunning scenery, that soon a steady stream of Disney Productions were using the Ranch. A cabin was specially built for Walt Disney — and still carries his name,” says the website.

“River of No Return, was Marilyn Monroe’s first movie, and many of the scenes were shot on and around the ranch. Rafter Six Ranch has been the backdrop for many wilderness themed Movies and TV Shows. Productions like, Grizzly Adams, Wilderness Family, Wolf Boy, and Across the Great Divide … have all been shot at the Resort.”

In 1994, the television movie, How the West Was Fun, using the ranch’s name, starred Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and was filmed on location.

The website says some of the guests and visitors over the years have included: Charles Bronson; Paul Newman; Martin Mull; Robert Logan; Lee Marvin; Kevin Costner; Robert Mitchum; Stuart Margolin; and Hardy Kruger.

Over the years, the ranch has been used for a variety of activities including: weddings; corporate retreats and meetings; lodging; horseback adventures; whitewater rafting; treetop ropes and zipline; entertainment; winter adventures; and dining.

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CALGARY — The apartment vacancy rate in the Calgary region averaged 1.3 per cent in October, down from 1.9 per cent last year, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s Fall Rental Market Survey released Thursday.

“Employment growth and higher incomes, supported by Calgary’s expanding economy, continued to attract migrants and increased demand for rental units,” said Richard Cho, senior market analyst in Calgary for the CMHC.

The apartment crunch will likely continue as the CMHC is forecasting 20,000 net migrants to the Calgary area in 2012 after 11,200 net migrants in 2011.

“Alberta is once again seeing some very strong interprovincial migration these days and many of these people are arriving in Calgary,” said Todd Hirsch, senior economist with ATB Financial. “Typically before looking at buying a home, the recently-arrived will rent an apartment. That’s where a lot of the strong demand is coming from, and it’s pushing down the vacancy rate in the rental market.”

Recently, Sam Kolias, chairman and chief executive of Calgary-based Boardwalk Real Estate Investment Trust, told the Herald that the local rental market continues to see high demand as people keep moving to the province.

In the REIT’s third quarter, which ended September 30, it has 5,310 rental units in Calgary and the occupancy rate was 99.34 per cent, up from 98.89 per cent last year.

The apartment vacancy rate in most zones in Calgary declined from the previous year, said the CMHC report. Areas close to the downtown where there is a high concentration of employers continued to have among the lowest vacancy rates in the city, said the CMHC.

The vacancy rate in the Downtown zone reached 0.5 per cent in October, down from 1.0 per cent in October 2011.

The strong demand for rental accommodations combined with lower vacancies has led to an increase in rental rates in Calgary. Same-sample rents increased 6.1 per cent in October, following a 1.8 per cent rise in the previous year. Bachelor units and two-bedroom units recorded an increase of 7.4 per cent and 5.9 per cent, respectively. The average same-sample rent for three-bedroom units increased 4.2 per cent from a year earlier, said the agency.

Overall, the two-bedroom rent in Calgary averaged $1,152 in October, up from $1,087 last year. The Downtown and Beltline had among the highest average two-bedroom rents in the Calgary CMA at $1,240 and $1,222, respectively. The Southeast and Other Centres recorded the lowest two-bedroom rents in October, averaging $998 and $1,005, respectively.

Vacancies for rental condominium apartments declined to 2.1 per cent in October, down from 5.7 per cent in October 2011. The condominium rent in CMHC’s 2012 survey averaged $1,288 per month, down from $1,378 last year.

“Condominium apartment rents are typically higher compared to units in the purpose-built rental market as the buildings are generally newer and may include additional amenities such as a fitness centre, entertainment room, and heated underground parking,” said Cho.

Don Campbell, president of the Real Estate Investment Network in Canada, said the low vacancy rate wil lead to two things.

“Strong upward pressure on rents across the board, at all levels. Upward pressure on resale housing market first in 2013, then new home sales in 2014,” he said. “Look for the market to perform well in 2013 with values going up more quickly than 2012.”

CALGARY — Are we looking at another residential condominium boom in the city?

This weekend two high-profile projects launch sales initiatives on the next phases of their developments to capture the renewed interest in the market.

Keynote Urban Village is opening its doors Saturday to a new show suite for its Residential Tower Two project in the east Beltline area while University City on Saturday and Sunday is having a VIP launch for a select group of people for its Building 3 project at the Brentwood LRT Station.

“Activity in the condo market has been gradually improving. Gains in employment, favourable mortgage rates, and price reductions have attracted buyers to the condo market, especially those looking for their first place. A majority of the condo sales in the city of Calgary were for units less than $300,000,” said Richard Cho, senior market analyst in Calgary for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

“We are also expecting to see more new apartment condominiums break ground in the coming months. There has been an uptick in the number of apartment permits issued, signalling the intention of more activity.”

According to the CMHC August had the highest number of monthly apartment starts since May 2008 with 451 units breaking ground in the Calgary census metropolitan area.

The second Keynote residential tower will be 29 storeys high, and will include 250 suites and a wet spa. Possessions are scheduled for the summer of 2013.

Keynote Urban Village project sales manager Jeannie Elrafie said sales have been surging over the past eight months and that’s “telling us there is an upswing underway in the Calgary real-estate market.”

“We’re getting a lot more demand than we ever were,” she said.

Keynote Urban Village encompasses nearly an entire city block on 1st Street S.E., between 11th and 12th Avenues. The Keynote development already includes the 26-storey Residential Tower One with 179 units, and a 14-storey office tower with featured tenants CH2M Hill and Aon Reed Stenhouse Inc., and about 1,500 employees. It also has 40,000 square feet of retail space, occupied by Sunterra Market, Starbucks, and a full-service RBC Royal Bank branch.

Just last week the city’s subdivision and development appeal board gave the green light for the construction of the first two condo highrises for the University City project.

An invitation for the VIP launch of sales for Building 3 says 400 condos sold in five days for the project’s first two buildings. Sales this weekend are for a select group of clients. A public launch is expected to be announced next week.

The first two towers are 18-storeys each with 216 units in each. The master-planned community will eventually consist of between 600 to 700 residences across from the University of Calgary at the Brentwood LRT station.

The University City website says phases 3 and 4 of the project will consist of 12-14 storey buildings while phase 5 will be four storeys.

CALGARY — The average price of resale homes in Calgary topped $400,000 in August, according to a report released Friday by the Conference Board of Canada.

The board said all residential property sales in the city hit an average of $404,755 during the month, up from $391,497 a year ago.

The seasonally-adjusted annualized rate of sales also jumped to 22,092 from 18,816 in August 2010.

And the annualized rate for new listings has also increased to 44,940 from 43,536.

The board said the sales to new listings ratio in Calgary increased to 0.466 in August from 0.410 a year ago.

The board also forecasts short-term year-over-year price growth of between five to seven per cent for Calgary.

According to the Calgary Real Estate Board, month-to-date up to and including Thursday, there were 740 single-family MLS sales for an average price of $466,754 and 307 condo sales for an average of $302,460.

For the same period in 2010 up to Sept. 22, there were 682 single-family transactions at an average of $467,486 and 258 condo sales for an average price of $280,790.