Calgary home prices on the rise again as lower-priced listings remain in demand

As home prices continued to rise in Calgary, a limited supply of lower-priced listings forced sales numbers to decline slightly in May.

The city’s benchmark price rose to $605,300 last month – up 9.5 per cent year-over-year.

"We need more new builds, we need more people that want to sell," said realtor Brian van Vliet with Redline Real Estate Group powered by Real Broker.

"We're still 34 per cent lower than a normal May. There's just such a backlog of buyers and just not enough inventory to support it."

Sales for the month declined slightly year-over-year – down 0.8 per cent to 3,092.

"One of the key things is we're actually starting to see some inventory levels improve," said Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie.

"We haven't had a year-over-year gain in inventory for a very long time. So that was a bit of a shift this month."

CREB said the sales pullback was largely created by limited supply choice in the number of listings for lower-priced detached and semi-detached homes compared to last year.

"The lowest price ranges of all property types is where we're seeing the biggest struggle with supply," said Lurie.

"So, if people can still afford to get in, the challenges are they (are) going to find the supply that meets their needs, even with the rate decline."

While those sales numbers were down slightly from a record high last year, they are still 34 per cent higher than long-term trends for May, according to CREB.

The rest of the housing metrics in the May report were up, including new listings (4,333, +18.7 per cent), inventory (3,402, +5.8 per cent) and months of supply (1.10, +6.7 per cent).

Despite the increase in new listings, CREB noted that the growth is largely due to higher-priced properties coming on the market.

“Our strong economic situation has supported sales growth in these higher price ranges. However, this month's sales could not offset the declines in the lower price ranges due to a lack of supply choice,” said Lurie.

Throughout 2024, there have been 12,412 sales across all housing types – an increase of 11 per cent year-over-year.

Buyer Chelsea Woods and her family secured their new acreage home right outside of the city limits.

"When we did put an offer on this place, there were other people interested in the property," she said.

"So we did have to come up with a strategic approach of how to win the bid."

She says it took some time to find the perfect home.

"We did have some pretty specific needs that we were looking for."