Calgary housing affordability still out of reach for prospective buyers

Anna Dunow said she’d like to buy a house in Calgary, but prices in the city have them considering seeking that dream elsewhere in southern Alberta.

“My boyfriend and I are really working towards buying a house in the next five to 10 years, trying to make bills lower and save,” said Dunow, 29, who works as an office administrator.

“But with the prices in Calgary, it’s a little less welcoming here and we’re looking at other areas where (prices) are less.”

One of those options, said Dunow who currently rents in the city’s northeast, is Medicine Hat “where you can get a better house for less.”

While housing affordability’s improved a little in Calgary in recent months, that needle hasn’t budged enough to make it significantly easier for prospective homebuyers, according to real estate statistics.

According to real estate analyzer Ratehub, only one city in Canada in September — Fredericton, N.B. — saw affordability improve among 13 major markets surveyed while Halifax saw the biggest change with $4,160 less annual income needed to purchase a home last month compared to August.

Calgary, meanwhile, saw that figure drop by just $350 in September compared to the previous month to $124,320. Over the same time period, the average price of a home in the city fell from $571,500 to $569,000.

Another factor are mortgage rates that haven’t changed much in Calgary and other places, said Ratehub mortgage expert Clay Jarvis.

“When average mortgage payments dip by less than $20, like they did in Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and St. John’s last month, it’s only fair for home buyers to wonder when they might catch a tangible break on their mortgages,” he said in Ratehub’s September, 2026 affordability report.

The impact of the ongoing Iran was will also maintain upward pressure on lending rates, said Jarvis.

In Calgary, that average monthly mortgage payment dipped from $2,950 to $2,941 from August to September, according to the report.

It’s a tale of two housing types in the city where price of condos has dropped 8 per cent over the past year while single detached homes have fallen less than 1 per cent, said Ann-Marie Lurie, chief economist with the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB).

“And that (house price) was at a record high last year,” she said.

“Housing prices in Calgary have been pretty flat on the retail side for a long time and we continue to add a lot of units.”

At the same time, prices for row housing in Calgary have dropped by 5 per cent over the year, she said.

That glut of condo units has their benchmark price sitting at $291,000 while single detached homes are at $740,000, said Lurie.

While those prices aren’t helping house buyers much, it speaks to a local economy more buoyant than other large markets like the Toronto and Vancouver areas, she said.

“We’re not seeing the pressure on the economy than in other markets where they’ve weak to no employment growth – we haven’t been impacted by (U.S.) tariffs the same way because energy is a central part of our economy,” said Lurie.

“Even while we’ve seen some adjustment, the detached market is pretty solid, the numbers have returned to something more normal.”

But if interest rates rise, that’ll cancel out affordability gains that have been realized recently, she added.

In the Greater Toronto Area, the real estate sold price for September is down 5.1 per cent year-over-year to an average of $1,006,409.

The benchmark price in metro Vancouver, meanwhile, is $1,075,900, down 5.5 per cent compared to a year ago.

As for prospective home buyer Dunow, other factors come into play that put home ownership further away.

“It’s a hard time to be saving for a house with the rising cost of living nowadays,” she said.

X: @BillKaufmannjrn

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