Detached houses changing hands in fourteen days, prices up more than a fifth on the year, and the fastest market Calgary has recorded.
In February 2022, Calgary’s benchmark home price was $522,900 — up 5.6% from January and 21.6% from a year earlier. 3,293 homes sold, up 79.8% on the year, and a typical home took just 25 days to sell, 19 days faster than January. Detached homes sold in 14 days at a $620,200 benchmark. Inventory rose to 3,607 as sellers responded, but supply still sat at only 1.1 months. Apartment condos, up 4.3% to $256,900, remained the one segment with any slack.
February 2022 at a glance
Fourteen days. That was the average time it took to sell a detached home in Calgary in February 2022 — down from 33 days in January and 37 a year earlier. City-wide, a typical property sold in 25 days, a nineteen-day improvement in four weeks, which is the largest single-month drop in the record. Sales hit 3,293 and the benchmark rose another 5.6% to $522,900, now 21.6% above February 2021. Sellers did respond, listing 4,651 homes, but with supply at 1.1 months it barely registered.
Calgary prices over time
| Year | Benchmark price | Change on the year |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | $459,500 | — |
| 2015 | $448,800 | ▼ -2.3% |
| 2016 | $434,100 | ▼ -3.3% |
| 2017 | $433,200 | ▼ -0.2% |
| 2018 | $424,600 | ▼ -2% |
| 2019 | $415,900 | ▼ -2% |
| 2020 | $421,300 | ▲ +1.3% |
| 2021 | $463,900 | ▲ +10.1% |
| 2022 (to February) | $522,900 | ▲ +12.7% |
Sales, listings and inventory
| Month | Sales | New listings | Inventory | Days on market | Benchmark |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 2021 | 2,903 | 4,440 | 5,422 | 35 | $440,900 |
| April 2021 | 3,205 | 4,675 | 6,077 | 33 | $450,400 |
| May 2021 | 2,981 | 4,562 | 6,789 | 32 | $454,800 |
| June 2021 | 2,914 | 4,134 | 6,920 | 34 | $457,900 |
| July 2021 | 2,314 | 3,298 | 6,682 | 40 | $459,700 |
| August 2021 | 2,146 | 2,823 | 6,065 | 42 | $459,200 |
| September 2021 | 2,156 | 2,906 | 5,619 | 44 | $457,900 |
| October 2021 | 2,184 | 2,501 | 4,875 | 43 | $460,100 |
| November 2021 | 2,108 | 1,999 | 3,932 | 47 | $461,000 |
| December 2021 | 1,737 | 1,230 | 2,608 | 47 | $463,900 |
| January 2022 | 2,004 | 2,474 | 2,627 | 44 | $495,300 |
| February 2022 | 3,293 | 4,651 | 3,607 | 25 | $522,900 |
The headline numbers
| Metric | February 2022 | vs prev month | vs last year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benchmark price | $522,900 | ▲ +5.6% | ▲ +21.6% |
| Sales | 3,293 | ▲ +64.3% | ▲ +79.8% |
| New listings | 4,651 | ▲ +88% | ▲ +63.2% |
| Inventory | 3,607 | ▲ +37.3% | ▼ -20.2% |
| Days on market | 25 | ▼ -19 days | ▼ -20 days |
A look by property type
| Property type | Benchmark | vs last year | Sales | Days on mkt | Months of supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | $620,200 | ▲ +23.7% | 1,896 | 14 | 0.9 |
| Semi-detached | $553,300 | ▲ +38.8% | 296 | 25 | 1.1 |
| Row / townhouse | $338,900 | ▲ +19.5% | 536 | 30 | 1.0 |
| Apartment condo | $256,900 | ▲ +4.3% | 565 | 57 | 1.9 |
What a fourteen-day market feels like
An average of fourteen days means a large share of detached homes sold in under a week. In practice that meant listings going live on a Wednesday with offers reviewed the following Monday, and buyers making decisions after a single viewing — often on a property they had seen for twenty minutes.
It also meant the terms of offers shifted. When a seller has six offers, the differentiator stops being price alone and becomes certainty: no financing condition, no inspection, a deposit that clears quickly. That is where buyers took on genuine risk.
Sellers finally showed up — and it didn’t help
4,651 new listings came to market, an 88% increase on January and 63% more than February 2021. Inventory rose 37.3% to 3,607 homes. On any normal reading, that is a meaningful increase in choice.
It made almost no difference, because sales rose just as fast. Supply went from 1.3 months to 1.1. A market can absorb an enormous amount of new inventory when demand is running at this level, which is why ‘more listings will fix it’ took much longer to be true than people expected.
The condo market’s quiet turn
Apartment condos were still the laggard on price — up 4.3% year-over-year to $256,900 — but something had changed underneath. Supply fell from 3 months to 1.9, and days on market dropped from 71 to 57. Condo sales reached 565, up sharply.
This is the point at which buyers priced out of everything else started arriving in the condo market in numbers. Prices hadn’t moved much yet, but the conditions that had kept them flat for two years were finally breaking down.
What this meant if you were buying
The honest advice in February 2022 was that if you weren’t fully prepared, you weren’t really in the market. A fourteen-day detached market doesn’t accommodate buyers who still need to gather documents or find a lender.
It’s also worth saying plainly what waiving conditions costs. A financing condition protects you if the lender’s appraisal comes in below your purchase price — without it, you cover the shortfall in cash or lose your deposit. In a month when prices rose 5.6%, appraisals struggling to keep up with negotiated prices was a real and recurring problem, not a theoretical one.
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Source: CREB, February 2022 (City of Calgary geography). Prices shown are benchmark (HPI) values. Month-over-month compares to the prior month; year-over-year to the same month last year. The board may revise past months as late sales are recorded. Prepared by Mortgages for Less.
