What about Calgary real estate… 2026?
When it comes to crystal ball gazing, Calgary real estate agents often look at market factors, recent trends and experienced guesswork. More detailed and official analyses reference real estate market surveys, summaries and reports, relying on facts, year-over-year (YoY) or year-to-date (YTD) numbers, and rarely dabble into hunches or predictions.
Winding-up the year, both real estate agents and number-crunchers agree. After more than a year of low inventory and off-kilter sales-to-new-listings ratios, Calgary is now a balanced market and some experts suggest, shifting towards a buyer’s market. While detached homes are in a balanced market, apartments are moving into buyer’s market territory.
The trending shows that sales have dropped significantly (down 14 per cent), and active listings have increased substantially, up over 36.5 per cent, year-over-year.
Prices are easing, with the average home price down slightly YoY, although some areas Calgary areas, especially those competing with new builds, have seen larger inventory gains.
The average home price of $615,005 is down 1.1 per cent, and the detached home average price decreased by almost five per cent to $782k. The semi-detached home average price increased by just over two per cent, to $687k. And townhouse average prices decreased by 2.3 per cent to $457k, YoY.
Considerable turbulence, not only in real estate but the economy and consumer confidence, has affected the 2025 Calgary real estate market and is bound to spill over into 2026.
“A lot has happened this year,” says Susanita de Diego, chair of the Calgary Real Estate Board, (CREB®). “Questions around tariffs have created economic uncertainty in general, and the April’s federal election raised questions about policy changes that could affect the oil and gas industry. At the same time, the number of people moving to Calgary – both from other provinces and other countries – slowed more than expected. All these factors continue to have an impact on the Calgary market.
For several years, Calgary’s lack of inventory and ‘imbalanced market’ was partially blamed on post-COVID recovery, “but as of the end of last year, the Calgary market started to recover,” notes Corinne Lyall, owner, and broker at Royal LePage Benchmark. “And we started to slowly move toward a balanced market. With more new home construction and purpose-built apartment and condominium buildings, the increase in inventory has slowed buyers from making fast decisions and competing offers.”
For the past few years, Calgary real estate agents and industry analysts have warned about the perception about Calgary’s “affordability” issues. The recent shifts to a balanced market – and toward a buyer’s market, are also tempering Calgary’s affordability concerns.
“With real estate, as with most things, affordability is so personal,” de Diego explains. “We all have our own definition of what is affordable. In Calgary, construction of new rental properties has brought down rental rates, which along with new condominium construction is contributing to a drop in the price of apartment-style homes. More new row homes have also caused their prices to ease off a bit.
“At the same time, we’ve seen enough new detached homes built to bring prices down to below their peak in the spring of 2025, but they’re still higher than they were at this time last year.”
According to market experts, various national and local factors influence affordability. High demand when the high migration rate of people moving to the city puts pressure on the housing market. Low inventory when, despite increases in housing starts, there is still a lack of inventory, which contributes to price stability or increases. And high interest rates making it more difficult for buyers to afford homes.
“As much as Calgary’s real estate market has increased in sale prices in the last few years,” Corinne Lyall points out, “we are no where near Vancouver and Toronto. We are still relatively affordable next to these large urban cities. We are also experiencing lower interest rates, which is helping homeowners when they are renewing their mortgages or refinancing. The increased rental inventory has also helped, putting downward pressure on rental rates and giving consumers a choice on whether to buy or rent.”
Despite the thin line separating crystal ball gazing and forecasting, trending is a relevant and telltale factor about the 2026 Calgary market.
“We will more than likely see more of the same real estate market as what we have experienced this year,” Corinne Lyall says. “New construction is not slowing down and we are certainly starting to see some downward pressure on condominium prices and some areas of the single-family market. There has also been a slowdown of migration from other provinces as Calgary is not as affordable as it once was.”
CREB’s Susanita de Diego mentions the unpredictability of real estate. “Unless something totally unexpected happens, which you can’t rule out these days, more choices for buyers will have perhaps the biggest impact in 2026. There are a significant number of homes under construction that will give home buyers more options than they have had in the past few years.”