Calgary detached market emerging from crater

October 29, 2020

Detached houses are the dominant factor in Calgary’s housing market and the sector appears to be emerging slowly from a five-year deep crater, according to third quarter data from the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB).
Detached house sales reached 3,217 in the three-month period, up 16.6 per cent from the third-quarter of 2019, CREB reports.
Sales this quarter were far from record levels, but they are better than in the past five years. Improved sales were also met with a quarterly rise in new listings, yet benchmark house prices increased 0.7 per cent from a year earlier and 2.6 per cent from the second quarter.
The benchmark detached house price in Calgary is now $487,567—the second-highest in Western Canada but about $1 million lower than in Vancouver.
Detached house prices remain nearly 5 per cent below levels recorded at the end of 2017. The detached market has struggled with higher levels of supply relative to demand since 2018, according to CREB.
The third quarter saw new listings for Calgary detached houses dip 1.6 per cent from a year earlier to 4,625 houses, and the total inventory for 2020 so far is down approximately 18 per cent from 2019.
Calgary’s city centre, however, remains oversupplied with detached house inventory, and is the only district to record lower prices in the third quarter compared to the second quarter while benchmark prices remain more than 3 per cent lower than 2019 levels, CREB stated.