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The oil price downturn is creating a building opportunity for commercial real-estate developers in Calgary, home to Canada’s petroleum industry, rather than deterring investment, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said.

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On Wednesday morning, one of Adam O’Keefe’s moving crews is scheduled to pull up to a six-bedroom home in Springbank, a well-to-do neighbourhood just west of Calgary, clear the contents out of the house and send it directly to a consignment gallery.

O’Keefe doesn’t know the specifics of the homeowner’s situation, but as the oilpatch reels from a prolonged downturn in prices, the president of locally based Alberta Pro Movers has seen an unfortunate increase in court-ordered repossessions.

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“Our downtown commercial market is very strong and we’re getting a lot of folks saying they had been priced out of Calgary and now here’s their chance,” he said Monday in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “I’m told by these very, very large skyscraper builders and commercial property developers, mostly backed by pensions, that they are patient money, and they make their money by building at this point in the cycle.”