Calgary's skyline, on March 12, 2020.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Despite the usual pickup in real estate activity in the spring, national housing values started to noticeably decline last month, as downturns in major cities deepened and growth in Prairie markets slowed down.
That’s according to data from from Wahi, a digital real estate platform, and Real Property Solutions (RPS), a Canadian property valuation service provider.
The research found the average value of a Canadian home declined by 4 per cent in April on a year-over-year basis. The decline comes after national housing prices stayed stable for much of 2025.
We spoke to Wahi economist Ryan McLaughlin and realtors from three cities where markets experienced a notable decrease to look at the factors slowing the Canadian housing market.
Calgary - 1 per cent decrease
Calgary posted a year-over-year decline in housing prices for the first time since 2020, according to data from Wahi-RPS. It’s a major reversal from strong gains in 2024 and early 2025, when the city‘s average home prices increased in excess of 10 per cent.
Calgary-based realtor Amanda Ku said this spring season has been unusually slow.
Much of the downward pressure is coming from condo values, which dropped 11 per cent in April. That compares to a 0 per cent change for detached homes in the same month.
“Our condo market is definitely in a buyer’s market, whereas detached homes are still technically in a balanced market,” said Ms. Ku.
Condos have been particularly weak in Calgary due to a large increase in supply, which has led the Alberta city to perform worse than other Prairie markets.
Mr. McLaughlin said a large amount of capital from condo developers was redirected to Calgary from Toronto when that city started struggling from a weakening market in 2022 and 2023.
Many of those projects are now being completed and flooding the market with supply at a time when buyers are concerned about global markets and U.S. trade policy.
Hamilton - 9 per cent decrease
Hamilton was the worst performing city in Canada, the Wahi-RPS study found. Average home prices declined 9 per cent in April, just below Toronto’s 8 per cent decrease in the same month.
Mr. McLaughlin said the effect of tariffs on Hamilton’s manufacturing sector and return-to-work policies by major employers in Toronto likely contributed to Hamilton’s weakness.
Hamilton experienced sharper increases to property valuations during the onset of the pandemic as more Canadians moved further from Toronto to take advantage of remote work.
When growth was peaking in February, 2022, Hamilton’s average home price values grew 31 per cent, compared to Toronto’s 24 per cent increase.
“There’s a long tail of unwinding the COVID effect,” said Mr. McLaughlin, who said many companies are still slowly bringing people back to the office.
Winnipeg - 2 per cent increase
Royal LePage realtor Michael Froese has a simple analogy for Winnipeg’s resilient local economy.
“If Toronto and Vancouver get sick, we just catch a cough,” said Mr. Froese.
The same can be said about the city’s real estate market, which is managing to hold on to modest increases with 2 per cent growth in values in April.
But the figure is a major drop from just five months ago, when Winnipeg’s housing market experienced a 10 per cent increase.
“If the economy was booming right now and we had trade deals and all that, our demand would just be going up,” said Mr. Froese.
He said Winnipeg’s modest growth is actually a sign of a healthy, sustainable market.
However, he noted that inventory numbers are relatively low and there is still lots of competition for desirable homes in the city.
