Home prices continue to rise in Calgary despite more on the market

Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Falling resales and rising inventory is often a recipe for price moderation in real estate, but Calgary saw supply rise and demand fall in February and, still, prices climbed.

The conditions point to years of historically high demand and low supply where even as Calgary Real Estate Board statistics last month showed improving balance in the market, benchmark prices marched higher, year over year. In February, the resale market saw 1,721 sales, a decrease of 19 per cent year over year. Inventory increased substantially, up nearly 76 per cent year over year.



Still, the benchmark price increased about one per cent to $587,600. That said, CREB statistics show month-over-month prices plateauing and trending downward in recent months. Semi-detached homes saw the largest increase in benchmark price at nearly seven per cent to $683,500 from February last year.

Single-family detached homes experienced the next largest percentage rise at about five per cent to $760,500. Apartment’s benchmark price grew four per cent year over year to reach $334,200. And row homes’ benchmark price increased about three per cent to $446,800 in February from the same month last year.

From a more long-term perspective, the market is cooling, CREB’s report shows. Yet sales year to date, ending Feb. 28, remain above the historical average.

Although benchmark prices saw year-over-year growth, months of supply grew nearly 118 per cent to about 2.4 months. The levels remain below much of the pandemic years where supply often easily exceeded three months in 2020 into 2021.

Overall, CREB’s report points to supply trending upward heading into the busy spring market. The market still favours sellers, though slightly. The sales-to-new-listings ratio for all housing types in February was 61 per cent.

A balanced market ranges from 40 to 60 per cent. Broken down by housing type, only condominium apartments indicated a balanced market with a ratio of 56 per cent last month..