Calgary Housing Market Update: January 2023
Sales down 40% on the year and prices at their lowest in eleven months — which, with hindsight, was the bottom.
In January 2023, Calgary’s benchmark home price was $516,300 — down 0.5% from December but still 4.2% above January 2022. Sales fell 40.2% year-over-year to 1,198, the sharpest annual decline of the cycle, as buyers absorbed the full effect of the previous year’s rate increases. Inventory was 2,451 homes, 6.7% below last January, leaving 2.0 months of supply. A typical home took 42 days to sell. Apartment condos, at $263,900, were up 4.3% year-over-year.
January 2023 at a glance
January 2023 was the low point of Calgary’s correction, though nobody could have known it at the time. The benchmark eased 0.5% to $516,300 — down 5.4% from the May 2022 peak — and sales fell 40.2% year-over-year to 1,198, the steepest annual decline of the entire cycle. Inventory was just 2,451 homes. Everything about the month looked like a market in retreat, and prices would rise in ten of the next eleven months.
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 | $518,800 | ▲ +11.8% |
| 2023 (to January) | $516,300 | ▼ -0.5% |
Sales, listings and inventory
| Month | Sales | New listings | Inventory | Days on market | Benchmark |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 2022 | 3,293 | 4,651 | 3,607 | 25 | $522,900 |
| March 2022 | 4,091 | 5,492 | 4,389 | 20 | $537,400 |
| April 2022 | 3,399 | 4,585 | 4,874 | 22 | $544,300 |
| May 2022 | 3,063 | 4,297 | 5,214 | 25 | $546,000 |
| June 2022 | 2,839 | 4,055 | 5,404 | 27 | $543,900 |
| July 2022 | 2,249 | 3,178 | 5,343 | 31 | $539,900 |
| August 2022 | 2,133 | 2,718 | 4,783 | 35 | $531,800 |
| September 2022 | 1,894 | 2,626 | 4,461 | 39 | $527,400 |
| October 2022 | 1,857 | 2,174 | 3,889 | 40 | $523,900 |
| November 2022 | 1,642 | 1,611 | 3,116 | 40 | $520,200 |
| December 2022 | 1,201 | 1,032 | 2,222 | 46 | $518,800 |
| January 2023 | 1,198 | 1,852 | 2,451 | 42 | $516,300 |
The headline numbers
| Metric | January 2023 | vs prev month | vs last year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Benchmark price | $516,300 | ▼ -0.5% | ▲ +4.2% |
| Sales | 1,198 | ▼ -0.2% | ▼ -40.2% |
| New listings | 1,852 | ▲ +79.5% | ▼ -25.1% |
| Inventory | 2,451 | ▲ +10.3% | ▼ -6.7% |
| Days on market | 42 | ▼ -4 days | ▼ -2 days |
A look by property type
| Property type | Benchmark | vs last year | Sales | Days on mkt | Months of supply |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detached | $623,900 | ▲ +6.9% | 561 | 42 | 2.0 |
| Semi-detached | $559,900 | ▲ +6.1% | 111 | 47 | 2.0 |
| Row / townhouse | $353,700 | ▲ +9.9% | 209 | 39 | 1.5 |
| Apartment condo | $263,900 | ▲ +4.3% | 317 | 44 | 2.4 |
Why sales fell so far
A 40% decline sounds catastrophic and mostly reflects the comparison. January 2022 saw 2,004 sales in a frenzy ahead of expected rate increases — an exceptional month, not a normal one. Against January 2021’s 1,207 sales, January 2023’s 1,198 was essentially flat.
The real change was in qualifying power. The Bank of Canada’s increases through 2022 had substantially reduced the mortgage a given income could support, and buyers must qualify at a stress-tested rate above the contract rate. Many households who could have bought in 2021 simply could not in 2023, at any price the market was offering.
The bottom was made of supply, not demand
With 2,451 homes for sale and 1,198 sales, supply was 2.0 months — still tighter than balanced, in the weakest demand month of the cycle. That is a remarkable statistic and it explains why the correction ended here.
For prices to keep falling, sellers needed to compete with each other. With two months of inventory, they didn’t have to. Anyone who didn’t like the offers simply took their home off the market, and the shortage deepened.
The gap between the top and bottom of the market
Detached homes were $623,900, up 6.9% year-over-year but down 3.8% from their May 2022 peak. Row homes at $353,700 were up 9.9%, and apartment condos at $263,900 up 4.3%.
Notice that nothing in the affordable half of the market had actually declined. The correction of 2022 was almost entirely a detached-home event, because that’s where higher rates removed the most buyers. For anyone shopping condos or townhouses, there had been no correction to wait for.
What this meant if you were buying
January 2023 offered the least competition Calgary had seen in two years — 42 days on market, few rival buyers, and sellers who had been sitting since the autumn. For a buyer who could qualify, it was a genuinely favourable month.
The constraint was qualifying, not choosing. The most useful thing to do was get a full pre-approval to find out precisely what you could support at current rates — and if it fell short, to understand which levers actually move the number: a longer amortization, a larger down payment, paying off a car loan, or adding a qualified co-borrower.
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Source: CREB, January 2023 (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.
