Is Calgary Still a Seller's Market?

I get this question in almost every listing conversation right now: "is it still a seller's market?" A year and a half ago the answer was an easy yes. Today it depends entirely on what you're selling and where.

Start with the citywide numbers, because they're the ones everyone quotes and also the ones that mislead people the most. CREB's August 2026 stats show 1,660 sales across the city, down 16.4% from August 2025. New listings were down too — 3,141, off about 9.7% — but not by as much as sales, so the balance between supply and demand has been sliding toward buyers all year. Months of supply came in at 3.9 for the month, and the sales-to-new-listings ratio dropped to 53%, down from 57% a year earlier. By the textbook definition, that's a balanced-to-buyer's market, not a seller's one.

The number that actually matters is the one for your property type

Here's where it gets more interesting, and where I think the "Calgary market" framing stops being useful. Break the August numbers down by property type and you get two very different stories.

Detached homes are sitting at 3.4 months of supply. Semi-detached is even tighter, at 3.3 months. Below roughly four months, buyers competing for well-priced, well-located homes are still the norm — that's seller's-market territory, even if the pace has cooled from the frenzy of a couple years back. Benchmark prices reflect it: detached is down just 1.1% year over year at $744,300, and semi-detached is actually up 1% to $690,500.

Apartment condos are the opposite story. Months of supply there is 5.7 — a clear buyer's market — and the benchmark price has fallen 8.2% year over year to $295,400. Row and townhouse product sits in between, at 3.9 months and a 5.4% price decline. If your listing is a condo, you're not selling into the same market as someone with a detached bungalow three blocks away, even if you're both in Calgary.

There's a third layer worth mentioning: price point. Homes over $1 million actually posted sales gains this August compared to last year, concentrated in detached and semi-detached, while the entry-level end of the market — usually the most competitive segment — pulled back the hardest. Renting is genuinely competitive with buying at the low end right now, and that's pulling first-time buyers out of the market or pushing them to wait.

Why the split is happening

A few things are driving this. Years of strong new-construction volume, especially in multi-family, have caught up with condo demand right as population growth from international migration has slowed sharply — that combination shows up directly in the apartment numbers. On the rate side, the Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25% at its September 2 announcement, so borrowing costs haven't moved much lately in either direction, which means rates aren't doing much to explain the split between property types. This is a supply story more than a rates story, at least for now.

Detached and semi-detached inventory, meanwhile, never really caught up after the run-up in demand from 2021 to 2023 — and buyers who can afford that segment aren't as exposed to the affordability squeeze that's hitting condo buyers.

So what does this mean if you're selling?

If you own a detached or semi-detached home in a decent location, you're still in a reasonably strong position — not the free-for-all of a few years ago, but pricing correctly and presenting well still gets you a fast, competitive sale. If you own a condo, the calculus is different: you're competing against more inventory and softer prices, and realistic pricing from day one matters a lot more than it did in 2022.

None of this makes the citywide "buyer's market" headline wrong — it's accurate as an average. It just isn't the number that determines what happens when your specific home hits the market. That's always been true, but the gap between the citywide average and your street's reality is wider right now than it's been in years.

If you're trying to figure out where your own property actually sits in all this — not the citywide average, but your specific type, price point, and neighbourhood — that's worth a conversation before you set a list price. I run these numbers for sellers regularly, and it usually takes one conversation to know whether you're in a seller's market or a buyer's one.