Tony Wang moved to Calgary in 2021, excited to buy his first home. It took four years of scouring condo listings before he found a loft-style condo in the East Village.Todd Korol/The Globe and Mail
Despite a persistent housing shortage in Calgary, condo sales are contracting, giving first-time buyers a respite after a four-year whirlwind.
In 2021, Tony Wang moved to Calgary from Saskatoon after accepting a job offer at a multinational agri-tech company. Excited for a new life in the Prairie city, Mr. Wang was eager to begin his real estate journey, and buy his first home.
“I was ready for a lifestyle change,” he says.
It was also in 2021 that Calgary’s real estate market began showing signs of recovery, after a seven-year lull, delaying Mr. Wang’s home ownership plans.
Over the course of four years, Mr. Wang scoured condo listings across Calgary’s established neighbourhoods, from Tuxedo Park in the city’s northwest to Mayfair in the south. He wanted to live in proximity to services, amenities and to avoid a lengthy commute.
Unlike Toronto’s, the condo market in Calgary has always been volatile.DAVE CHIDLEY/AFP/Getty Images
At a time of intense competition, largely driven by record population growth, finding a property that suit Mr. Wang’s preferences proved difficult, but he persevered.
“Most of what I was finding was in the suburbs,” he said. “Or in buildings with problems.”
In April, he finally placed a successful offer, $15,000 below listing price, on a loft-style condo whose double-height ceilings and south-facing windows captured Mr. Wang’s heart. “It will get a lot of sunlight, especially in the wintertime,” he says.
There was no bidding war on the 815-square-foot property. Listed at $385,000, the East Village condo had been sitting in the market for just over 30 days.
Mr. Wang’s experience was not an anomaly. After a record two years, Calgary’s condo market is levelling off.
In the first quarter of 2025, 96 per cent of condos sold below asking price, according to data compiled by Wahi, a digital real estate platform.
“The condo segment had the most dramatic shift year over year,” says Benjy Katchen, Wahi’s CEO, noting that in the first quarter of 2024 more than 60 per cent of condos had sold at or above listing price. “It was a very different market a year ago”
Edmonton’s heritage Garneau district confronts upzoning
Indeed, for the first time in four years, the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) reported negative growth in the benchmark price of apartment condos, which fell to $335,300 in May, as the inventory in this segment swelled beyond 2,000 units, and sales contracted by 30 per cent.
Rebecca Chamberlain, a real estate agent and co-founder of Chamberlain Real Estate Group, a Calgary-based brokerage, suggests that the spike in condo listings could be due to out-of-province investors leaving the Calgary market.
After a barrage of new purpose-built rental units launched in Calgary last year, vacancy rates in Calgary are rising. As a result, asking rents are trending downwards, affecting the cash flow of investors.
“The Ontario buyer just isn’t used to losing,” Ms. Chamberlain says.
Unlike Toronto’s, the condo market in Calgary has always been volatile, bouncing back and forth alongside the booms and busts of Alberta’s economy.
Before 2020, however, condos in the secondary rental market had been gaining ground.
As the construction of purpose-built rentals lagged behind, and vacancy rates tightened in the secondary rental market, the reliability of condos as a long-term investment seemed to be improving – but this trend didn’t last long.
Since 2021, a steady supply of purpose-built rentals has slowly undermined the profitability of condos in the secondary rental market, narrowing the price-gap that had given the secondary market its short-lived advantage.
Growing number of renters are waiting for home prices to decline further before buying, report says
Last October, the average rental rate for condos in the secondary market was $1,771 per month, whereas the average rent of purpose-built rental units in the primary market was only $27 higher. Three years earlier, the price differential sat at $210.
“You have many investors pulling back because they’re not making money,” Ms. Chamberlain says. “And buyers that have many options.”
The options available to Calgary buyers have significantly expanded over the past two years. A record 38,000 dwellings have been completed since 2023, and 23,000 are currently under construction, CMHC data shows.
As the supply of housing grows, and demand from investors wanes, it’s not surprising that Calgary’s condo market is loosening. But prices aren’t yet low enough to drive potential buyers into action, says Calgary realtor Amanda Ku. “They’re sitting on the fence.”
They might be up for a long wait.
Despite the influx of new supply and a rising resale inventory, Calgary’s condo market remains strong.
“We are seeing some pressure on prices in the condo sector, but it has not offset all the gains,” says Ann-Marie Lurie, chief economist at CREB. “Calgary had some very deep gains over a two-year period.”
In a city where bidding wars are rare, an Edmonton bungalow stirs a crowd with strategic pricing
Between January, 2022 and August, 2024, the benchmark condo price rose by close to $100,000, from $253,300 to $352,200. Today, the benchmark price for apartment condos remains $88,300 higher than in 2022, evidencing the persistence of Calgary’s housing shortage.
The City of Calgary estimates 42,000 dwellings are needed this year to meet housing demand in the prairie city, but more are needed to restore affordability to 2019 levels, according to a recent CMHC report. To narrow the gap between housing costs and income, the number of housing starts in Calgary should increase by close to 60 per cent annually over the next decade.
Significant price declines, however, could put a dent on the viability of new construction.
“When we start to hit that persistent six to eight months of supply, we’ll see more of an impact on price,” Ms. Lurie says. “We’re not there right now; we’re just seeing a bit of an adjustment from double digit gains.”