Quick answer: Yes, but “recovering” describes a different country than the one you live in. RBC’s latest forecast has Canada’s housing market “finally” turning up — while still ending 2026 with resales down about 3.6% and prices down about 2.3%, with the real rebound waiting for 2027. That national number is mostly Toronto and Vancouver clawing back from a 20%-plus correction. Alberta never had that correction. Calgary and Edmonton benchmark prices sit within about 3% of their all-time highs and rose while the rest of the country fell. The reason isn’t the Bank of Canada — it’s oil, and the workers who follow it. If you own a home in Alberta and you’re renewing a mortgage in the next couple of years, that distinction is worth real money.
What RBC actually said
On September 1, RBC Economics put out its updated housing forecast, and the coverage ran with a clean headline: Canada’s market is “finally” moving toward recovery. Read past the headline and the call is more careful than that. RBC’s assistant chief economist expects national home resales to still fall about 3.6% in 2026 — to roughly 453,000 units — with the benchmark price down about 2.3% on the year. The actual turn, in RBC’s numbers, is a 2027 story: resales up 6.7% and prices up a token 0.8%.
RBC is also blunt about why the recovery is late and uneven: it pins the drag on “prolonged market corrections in Ontario and B.C.” that hurt confidence, and it says borrowing costs are about “as low as they will get this cycle,” with the Bank of Canada expected to hold and then potentially start raising in 2027. So the recovery arrives right as the rate tailwind runs out. Hold that thought — it’s the whole ballgame for renewers.
Here’s my problem with how this gets read in Alberta. A forecast about “Canada’s housing market” gets published, every outlet in the country reprints it, and an Albertan reads “prices down, recovery delayed” as if it were a weather report for their own street. It isn’t. There is no single Canadian housing market. There are several, and they are not even moving in the same direction.
The one chart that breaks the “Canadian housing market”
The cleanest way to see it is to put five markets on one axis, using the same yardstick for all of them — the CREA MLS® Home Price Index, which strips out the “we sold more mansions this month” noise that plagues average-price stats. Set every market to 100 in January 2020 and watch what happens.
Two completely different stories. Toronto and Vancouver — and therefore the national line they dominate — rocketed through the pandemic, peaked in early 2022 the moment the Bank of Canada started hiking, and have been grinding lower ever since. Calgary and Edmonton climbed more slowly, barely paused, and kept going. As of mid-2026 the national index sits about 20% below its 2022 peak; Greater Toronto is down roughly 26%. Calgary is off less than 3% from a peak it didn’t even reach until the end of 2024, and Edmonton is a similar story.
| Market | Benchmark (Jun 2026) | Peak month | Down from peak | Change since Jan 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calgary | $569,000 | Dec 2024 | −2.7% | +38.5% |
| Edmonton | $413,500 | Mar 2025 | −2.8% | +20.9% |
| Canada (national) | $657,700 | Feb 2022 | −20.5% | +23.8% |
| Greater Toronto | $930,800 | Feb 2022 | −26.1% | +15.6% |
| Greater Vancouver | $1,085,500 | Mar 2022 | −12.2% | +18.3% |
Look at the peak-month column, because that’s the tell. Toronto, Vancouver and the national index all topped out in February–March 2022 — the exact month rate hikes began. Alberta’s markets didn’t peak until late 2024 and early 2025, years later, and gave back almost nothing. Same country, same central bank, same mortgage rules. Opposite clocks. If one interest-rate policy produced those two outcomes, then interest rates are clearly not the thing setting the beat in Alberta.
The popular take: “Canadian home prices are falling and the market won’t recover until 2027.” It’s not wrong — as a national average. But a national average of five markets moving in opposite directions describes none of them. Averaged with Toronto’s 26% drop, Alberta’s small dip disappears entirely. That’s how an Albertan ends up bracing for a downturn that already skipped their city.
So what does move Alberta? Follow the oil.
If not rates, then what? Put Alberta’s home prices next to the price of oil and the answer stops being subtle. Here are Calgary and Edmonton benchmark prices and WTI crude, all indexed to January 2020, with the Bank of Canada’s policy rate laid over top on the right axis.
Watch the dashed line — the policy rate — go vertical in 2022 and 2023, from 0.25% all the way to 5.0%, the most aggressive tightening in a generation. That move flattened Toronto. In Alberta, the price lines barely register it. What they do track is the orange line: oil. Crude collapsed in 2020 and Alberta prices went soft; oil ran to nearly US$110 in 2022 and Alberta housing pushed to new highs straight through the rate hikes. Since 2015 the month-to-month correlation between WTI and Calgary’s benchmark price is about 0.5 — and on a year-over-year basis, with a short lag, closer to 0.6. That’s not a coincidence you can hand-wave away.
The single clearest test ran from February 2022 to July 2023 — the entire hiking cycle. Here’s what each market did while the Bank of Canada did the same thing to all of them:
| Market | Benchmark price change | What was happening |
|---|---|---|
| Calgary | +6.8% | Oil near US$100+; jobs and people arriving |
| Greater Toronto | −11.8% | Rate-sensitive, sentiment-driven, priced for perfection |
| Bank of Canada policy rate | 0.25% → 5.0% | Identical medicine, opposite patients |
Oil is the engine, but it isn’t the whole machine. Oil drives jobs; jobs drive migration; and for three years Alberta has been the landing spot for tens of thousands of Canadians priced out of Ontario and B.C., plus record newcomers. Those people need somewhere to live the day they arrive, which keeps a floor under both prices and rents that has nothing to do with what the Bank of Canada did last Wednesday. Add relatively restrained construction against that demand and you get exactly what RBC itself concedes: Calgary and Edmonton “remain relatively balanced with strong new construction helping to meet demand.” Balanced — not booming, not busting — while the big two markets whipsaw.
Why a national interest rate is a blunt instrument out here
Here’s the part that should bother every Albertan a little. The Bank of Canada sets one interest rate for the whole country, and it has to. But when the bulk of the country’s mortgage debt and the loudest housing distress sit in Ontario and B.C. — in and around Toronto and Vancouver — the policy conversation is effectively calibrated to their problem. When Toronto is overheating, the country gets rate hikes. When Toronto is hurting, the country gets rate relief. Alberta rides along either way, on a rate meant for a market that behaves nothing like ours.
That’s not a grievance — it’s just how a single monetary policy works in a country of very different economies, and it’s exactly why the “Vancouver and Toronto are their own planet” shrug misses the point. Those markets don’t have to resemble yours to affect you. They set the weather for the interest rate that lands on your renewal. So the useful move for an Alberta homeowner isn’t to tune out the national story — it’s to translate it: read what the Bank is likely to do (a Toronto-and-Vancouver-driven decision), then read your own market’s fundamentals (an oil-and-migration-driven reality) separately, because they won’t always point the same way.
What this actually means for your mortgage
Most of the people reading this aren’t buying — they’re renewing. Something like six in ten Canadian mortgages come up for renewal over the next couple of years, and a lot of them were last signed when rates were near zero. If that’s you, the RBC forecast contains one line that matters more than the price call: rates are about “as low as they will get this cycle.”
Sit with that. The doom-and-recovery headlines quietly imply the Bank is about to ride to the rescue with another round of deep cuts. RBC’s own economists don’t think so — they see the policy rate holding near 2.25% and the next move being up, in 2027. If they’re right, betting your renewal on emergency cuts that aren’t coming is the expensive mistake. Here’s the honest lay of the land as of today:
| Indicator | Level | What it means for a renewer |
|---|---|---|
| BoC policy rate | 2.25% | Held; RBC sees it near the floor, not the launch pad |
| Prime rate | 4.45% | The base your variable rate and HELOC sit on |
| 5-yr Gov’t of Canada yield | ~3.30% | The engine under fixed rates — moves on growth, not the BoC |
| 5-yr fixed / variable (typical) | ~4.5–4.9% / ~3.7–4.0% | Where renewals are actually landing today |
| Alberta affordability | best in ~3 years (RBC) | Ownership costs have eased more here than nationally |
Two practical takeaways. First, don’t confuse the Bank’s overnight rate with your fixed rate. Your fixed rate is priced off government bond yields, and those move on growth and inflation expectations — sometimes up even as the Bank holds. A “recovery” that RBC thinks brings rate hikes in 2027 is more likely to nudge fixed rates up than down. If a fixed rate you can live with is in front of you, waiting for a better one is a bet against RBC’s own read.
Second, your equity is in better shape than a national headline implies. If you bought in Calgary or Edmonton in the last five years, your home is very likely worth more than you paid — up roughly 38% in Calgary and 21% in Edmonton since early 2020 — not down like the “market” you keep reading about. That matters for renewals, refinances, switching lenders, and pulling equity for a renovation or to wipe out high-interest debt. The person quietly assuming their Alberta home lost value because “Canadian prices are falling” may be leaving options on the table.
None of this tells you fixed or variable — that depends on your renewal date, your amortization, your plans for the home, and how much payment uncertainty you can stomach. It just means the decision should be built on your market and the actual rate outlook, not on a forecast written about someone else’s city.
Renewing in the next 18 months? Get your Alberta numbers read straight.
A no-pressure call to look at your renewal, your equity, and what the rate outlook — not the national headline — means for your payment.
The honest limits
I argue that oil drives Alberta, so let me be fair to the other side. Oil is a double-edged engine: the same lever that carried Calgary through the rate shock could stall the market if crude drops hard and stays there — this is not a one-way bet, and anyone in Alberta over 40 has the scars to prove it. Alberta’s sales did cool through 2026, down roughly 9–11% year-over-year off an unusually hot 2025, even as prices held; a balanced market is not a runaway one. Correlation isn’t a physics law — oil explains a lot of Alberta’s cycle, not all of it. And RBC’s forecast, like every forecast, will be revised. My claim is narrow and, I think, sturdy: the “Canadian housing market” that national coverage keeps describing is mostly Toronto and Vancouver, Alberta marches to a different and largely oil-driven beat, and reading your own decision off the national headline will cost you money either way it breaks.
FAQ
Is Alberta’s housing market recovering in 2026?
Alberta didn’t have the correction the rest of the country is recovering from. Calgary and Edmonton benchmark prices are within about 3% of their all-time highs and rose while national prices fell. RBC’s “recovery” mostly describes Ontario and B.C. climbing back from a 20%-plus drop that Alberta never experienced.
Why are Calgary and Edmonton prices holding up when Canadian prices are falling?
Because Alberta’s housing cycle tracks oil and the jobs and migration that follow it, more than it tracks interest rates. When the Bank of Canada hiked from 0.25% to 5.0% in 2022–23, Toronto’s benchmark fell about 12% while Calgary’s rose about 7%, with oil near US$100.
Does the Bank of Canada control Alberta home prices?
Only indirectly. One national interest rate is set largely around conditions in Toronto and Vancouver, where most of the country’s mortgage debt sits. Alberta prices have historically moved with oil and employment, which is why they rose straight through the biggest rate-hiking cycle in a generation.
How much are Calgary and Edmonton homes worth in 2026?
As of June 2026 the CREA benchmark was about $569,000 in Calgary and $413,500 in Edmonton — roughly 38% and 21% above where they sat in early 2020, and far below Toronto (about $931,000) and Vancouver (about $1.09 million).
Will the Bank of Canada cut interest rates again in 2026?
RBC expects the policy rate to hold near 2.25% — “as low as it will get this cycle” — and sees the next move as a possible increase in 2027. That means a renewal strategy built on expecting deep further cuts is betting against RBC’s own forecast.
I’m renewing my mortgage in Alberta — should I go fixed or variable?
It depends on your renewal date, amortization, plans for the home, and tolerance for payment changes. The key point: fixed rates are priced off government bond yields, not the BoC rate, and a strengthening economy can push them up even while the Bank holds. Don’t assume rates only fall from here.
Is there really no single “Canadian housing market”?
Not in any useful sense. Canada is several distinct housing markets — Toronto and Vancouver behave nothing like Calgary, Edmonton, or the Atlantic and Prairie markets. A national average blends markets moving in opposite directions, so it can describe a “decline” no individual city is actually experiencing.
This article is general commentary and market opinion, not financial, investment, or personalized mortgage advice. Home-price figures are CREA MLS® HPI (seasonally adjusted) to June 2026; local sales and benchmark figures are from CREB and the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton; oil prices are WTI monthly (U.S. EIA); rates and forecasts are as of early September 2026 and change — confirm current numbers before making any decision. Josh Tagg is a licensed mortgage broker with Mortgages for Less.
