Calgary Answers · Buying · Timing

Is Now a Good Timeto buy in Calgary?

The honest answer depends far more on your situation than on the market. But here is what the market is actually doing, updated with every CREB® release.

Benchmark Price
Latest CREB® release
Year Over Year
Benchmark change
Sales to New Listings
Above 60% favours sellers
Months of Supply
Under 2 is tight

How to read those four numbers

Those are the figures that actually describe market conditions, and they update automatically with each CREB® release, so what you are reading is current rather than whatever was true when this was written.

Why "is it a good time" is usually the wrong question

Almost nobody buys a home as a pure investment decision. People buy because a lease is ending, a family grew, a job moved, a relationship changed, or the stairs stopped working. In those situations the market is context, not the deciding factor.

The questions that actually determine whether you should buy now:

Four yeses and the market matters much less than you think. A no on any of them and a favourable market will not rescue the decision.

When waiting is genuinely the right call

Waiting makes sense when you are close on the down payment and a few more months materially changes your position; when your employment is about to change; when you have just arrived in the city and do not yet know which community suits you; or when you would be buying at the absolute top of what you can carry.

Waiting to time the market is a different thing from waiting because you are not ready, and the second is a much better reason. In thirty years here we have watched far more people hurt by buying something they could not comfortably carry than by buying in the wrong quarter.

See also: how much house can I afford in Calgary?