I purchased over ten years ago, at the start of first crazy upswing in house prices.
At the time, I was living in Bridgeland in a basement suite that I loved - great Italian landlords who would bring me real Italian food leftovers after every party they had. I had a view of downtown, to this day some of my best downtown pictures are right out the front door, owing to the fact that the suite was on a south facing hillside. The local was great - going for ice cream on 1st and 10th was a common evening pass time in the summer, and walking the streets was great, especially under some of the tree covered ones. My biggest complaint was the lack of a decent grocery store nearby.
So, when looking to purchase, I wanted to buy in Bridgeland. Unfortunately, the prices had climbed to that point that I couldn't afford anything other than a dump in that community. I briefly considered a new house - and discarded the idea as all communities I could afford were far north or far south - I HATE long commutes. I wanted my own yard, as I wanted to garden, so an apartment was out (flower boxes don't cut it). I won't touch any condo arrangement as I want control over my property maintenance - I have heard too many stupid condo board stories from many people.
I narrowed down my search to an area roughly bordering Mcknight on the North, Canyon Meadows on the south, nothing on the west side of town (owing to me working on the east side) and nothing in the east/NE starting with Forest Lawn and moving north (with a few exceptions). I looked at possible affordable houses in Queensland, Ogden, Renfrew, South Calgary, and Mayland Heights. I was mostly looking as small houses with small yards. Location is way more important to me than size of house - I'm the only one living in a house - I don't need anything over 1000 sqft. A bigger yard would be nice, but as long as I have something I can play in the dirt in, I'm happy. Oh, and a garage got big bonus points - if there wasn't room to build a garage, I wasn't going to buy it at the end of the day.
I ended up in Mayland Heights based on a combination of house condition and location. Better locations such as Renfrew and South Calgary had dumpy houses in my price range. Ogden offered a kick-ass property but less desirable location. Queensland and Mayland Heights were close - same type of small house with similar desirable amenities nearby. Queensland had a kickass commute to my job of the day, but not so good to downtown. Mayland Heights won out on better proximity to downtown and a better house w. a garage - and it's just across the Nose valley from Bridgeland! Oh, and I have a downtown view with mountains in the back, at least from 2nd story. Funny how that worked out.
I would be interested in hearing from you folks who chose the 'burbs (I consider myself to be near-beltline) - what it would take to buy an apartment condo if you were shopping now? Price? Missing Features? Etc?
For me, I would first say that if I had been buying in the last five years, price would've done it for me. No fancy Arriva for me - I'd have been stuck buying some crappy 4th tier 500 sqft place - no houses was affordable to me at the insane market owing to my wages not increasing the way housing prices did. I'd have been looking at around $200K max, not much available at that price last year. I just did a quick dig on realtor.ca and there is much more available now - like ~119 properties in the beltline. Around five years ago, there were a few condo renovation projects that I was aware of that were just within that price - I mighta gave up my property control for one of those.
I would've been tempted by downtown apartments by the following features: Green space to walk in on the property or nearby, (MUST) a grocery store within walking distance, (MUST) a relatively quiet street, a baloney with some sort of a view, a rooftop garden, greenhouse / sunroom for the winter, library/museum within walking distance, (MUST) a car parking spot - highly preferable indoors, some interesting pubs within walking distance, storage space for bicycles etc., (MUST) walking distance to LRT, perceived safe neighborhood, 2nd bedroom for computer lab, (MUST) soundproofing so I can't hear my neighbors.
Putting my current house at it's current market value in that mix, I'd probably end up picking that, considering I can afford it again at today's wages and today's house prices. I'll leave you to figure out how that worked out
Any apartments being built or built have LESS of the above desirable things that my house has - the gap is getting narrower though.