Name: Calgary median family income and median assessed home value, 2004–2024
Creator: CalgaryListings Group

Calgary family incomes are lower today than they were a decade ago.Median total income for Calgary economic families peaked at $155,800 in 2014 and was $135,800 in 2024 — -12.8% in nominal terms, before inflation is even considered.
Over the same decade, home values rose by more than a third.Median assessed value went from $413,000 in 2014 to $572,000 in 2024, +38.5%.
Calgary housing is less affordable now than at the peak of the 2007 boom.The ratio of median home value to median family income was 2.93 in the boom year of 2007. It is 4.21 today — the highest in this twenty-year record.
Carrying a median home is still manageable for a median family, for now.At the current prime rate of 4.45%, a median Calgary sale of $575,588 with 20% down over 25 years is about $2,546 a month — roughly 23% of median family income. The deterioration is in the deposit and the ratio, not yet in the monthly payment.

The Local Read

The number that surprises people is not the price, it is the income. Calgary families are earning less than they did in 2014, and I do not think most buyers realise that is the backdrop to everything else. When I started, a family on a normal Calgary income could buy a normal Calgary house without much creativity. That is what has changed — not because the payment is impossible, but because the deposit now takes years longer to save while the target keeps moving.

— Crystal Tost, REALTOR®, Calgary real estate since 1997

The two series

Twenty years of incomes and values

Incomes are median total income for Calgary economic families, from Statistics Canada. Home values are the median assessed value of Calgary residential dwellings, dated to the market they represent. Both are medians, so the ratio between them is a like-for-like comparison.

Calgary median family income and median assessed home value, 2004–2024.
Year	Median family income	Median assessed value	Value ÷ income
2004	$115,800	$207,000	1.79
2005	$122,200	$221,500	1.81
2006	$130,500	$319,000	2.44
2007	$136,500	$400,500	2.93
2008	$139,900	$377,500	2.70
2009	$138,100	$327,000	2.37
2010	$130,200	$358,500	2.75
2011	$144,000	$345,000	2.40
2012	$153,400	$351,500	2.29
2013	$148,000	$373,000	2.52
2014	$155,800	$413,000	2.65
2015	$143,300	$405,000	2.83
2016	$132,800	$388,500	2.93
2017	$143,200	$396,000	2.77
2018	$138,600	$388,500	2.80
2019	$143,800	$369,000	2.57
2020	$137,000	$358,500	2.62
2021	$140,900	$396,000	2.81
2022	$141,000	$450,000	3.19
2023	$140,000	$495,500	3.54
2024	$135,800	$572,000	4.21

The ratio

A ratio that has never been higher

In 2004 the typical Calgary home was worth 1.79 times the typical Calgary family's annual income. At the height of the 2007 boom it reached 2.93. Today it is 4.21.

Calgary's price-to-income ratio is worse than it was at the 2007 peak

2.93 in 2007 → 4.21 in 2024

Median assessed value over median family total income

Sources: Statistics Canada 11-10-0190-01; City of Calgary assessments

CalgaryListings Group analysis

Roughly two-thirds of that deterioration came from the value side and one third from incomes falling. Both directions matter: a market can become unaffordable without prices rising at all, simply by incomes going backwards, and Calgary has had some of both.

Carrying cost

What a median home actually costs to carry

At the Bank of Canada prime rate of 4.45% as at 2026-08-26, a median Calgary sale price of $575,588 with 20% down amortised over 25 years works out at approximately $2,546 a month, or $30,557 a year. Against median family income that is about 23%.

What this figure is and is not. It is principal and interest only at prime, before property tax, insurance, condo fees or any lender premium, and it assumes a 20% deposit that many buyers do not have. It is a comparison over time, not a mortgage quote. Actual rates are negotiated and usually differ from prime.

The honest reading is that Calgary's affordability problem is currently a deposit-and-ratio problem more than a monthly-payment problem. That is a meaningfully different situation from Vancouver or Toronto, and it is also a situation that changes quickly if rates move.

How this was made

Methodology

Income data: Statistics Canada table 11-10-0190-01, Calgary census metropolitan area, economic families, median total income. Families rather than individuals, because a home is typically purchased by a family unit.
Home value data: City of Calgary assessment records, residential dwelling parcels only, dated to the roll's 1 July valuation date. Parking stalls and storage lockers are separately assessed parcels and are excluded.
Why assessed value and not sale price: Assessment records cover every dwelling in the city every year for two decades. No sales dataset available to us reaches that far back. The carrying-cost section uses the actual median sale price from MLS® data, and says so.
Nominal, not inflation-adjusted: Both series are nominal dollars. Adjusting for inflation would widen the income decline further, not narrow it.
Limitations: CMA income covers a wider area than the City of Calgary, while assessment data is city only. The ratio is therefore indicative of direction and magnitude rather than a precise affordability index. Income data currently ends at 2024.

Cite this data

Free to cite and quote. Attribution appreciated, no link required.

Report: Calgary Housing Affordability
Reporting period: 2004–2024
Underlying source: Statistics Canada and City of Calgary records
URL: https://www.calgarylistings.com/calgary-housing-affordability/

Suggested attribution:

CalgaryListings Group analysis of Statistics Canada and City of Calgary records, Calgary Housing Affordability (2004–2024).
https://www.calgarylistings.com/calgary-housing-affordability/

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