Calgary's Housing Market Isn't One Market Anymore

By McLaren Real Estate Team

The McLaren Real Estate Team, led by Luke McLaren, has built its reputation on a simple but powerful philosophy: people over profits.

There’s a question underneath almost every conversation about Calgary real estate this summer: is the market going up or down? It’s the wrong question. Frankly, Calgary isn’t behaving like one market at all anymore, and whether prices are rising or falling depends entirely on what kind of home you’re talking about.

That is the whole story right now, and it’s the part the headlines miss. A lot of what people are repeating, at work, on Facebook, and in the neighbourhood, comes from national coverage of the market as a whole, which often has little to do with a specific Calgary area.

So it’s worth setting the noise aside and looking at what the numbers actually say.

Start with price. In the July 2026 report from the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB), the citywide benchmark is roughly $569,200, down about 2% from a year ago. On its own, that number is almost useless, because it averages together two segments moving in opposite directions. Detached homes are holding their value, with a benchmark near $743,900. Apartment condos have slid about 8.4% year over year to around $297,600. Same city, same month, two completely different realities.

When someone tells you Calgary prices are down, the only useful response is to ask which kind of home they mean.

The same split shows up in the amount of room buyers actually have. Calgary is sitting near 3.5 months of supply overall, which reads as a balanced market, but that average hides the same divide. Detached inventory is tight at roughly 2.9 months, so a well-priced detached home still draws competition. Condos are closer to 4.9 months, which hands condo buyers real choice and real negotiating room, something that barely existed here a couple of years ago. Townhomes land somewhere in between, and semi-detached homes are holding up better than the higher-density segments. The breathing room is real, but it isn’t spread evenly.

One thing that isn’t split is financing. It’s the piece that gets lost most often. Borrowing costs are nowhere near the ultra-low pandemic rates, but they’ve eased a long way from the peak of the last cycle. The Bank of Canada has held its overnight rate at 2.25%, and many competitive fixed offers now sit in the roughly 4% range, depending on term and lender.

That matters more than it sounds, because even a small rate move changes a buyer’s monthly payment and how much home they can afford. Nobody’s getting 1% or 2% money again, but buyers today have far more room than they did at the top, and affordability has always been one of Calgary’s advantages over Toronto and Vancouver.

Put it together and a clearer picture emerges. Prices are broadly stable, rates have improved, and inventory has loosened, but every one of those statements changes the moment you specify a property type. Detached is still tight. Condos favour the buyer. Everything else falls somewhere along that line. The market isn’t rising or falling so much as sorting itself out, segment by segment, and that’s a far more useful way to read it.

Which is exactly why a citywide headline can’t tell you what to do. What matters is your neighbourhood, your price range, and the specific kind of home you’re buying or selling. If you want to know what the Calgary market really looks like for your situation, reach out and I’ll walk you through the real numbers for your area, so your decision is based on what’s actually happening rather than what’s trending in the news.

Call or text me at 403-968-2293, email team@mclarenrealestate.com, or visit mclarenrealestate.com. Let’s figure out what your market is actually doing.