Calgary Housing Market History

Calgary spent 15 years getting back to where it was

Calgary's median residential assessed value peaked at $400,500 in July 2007. It touched that level again briefly in the middle of the next decade, then fell away, and did not sit durably above it until July 2022. Anyone who bought at the top of the boom waited roughly fifteen years to be reliably ahead on paper.

• Calgary housing has broken away from the oil price.The Bank of Canada's energy price index is 31% BELOW its 2008 peak. Calgary's median assessed value is +52% ABOVE its 2008 level.
• Calgary took 15 years to put its 2007 peak behind it.The median assessed value reached $400,500 in July 2007. It did not sit durably above that level again until July 2022, at $450,000.
• There was a decade in which Calgary home values went nowhere at all.July 2010 and July 2020 both record a median of $358,500 — identical, ten years apart.
• The recent rise is the fastest sustained gain since the boom.From July 2020 to July 2024, the median rose +59.6%, from $358,500 to $572,000.
• The single biggest year in the series is still 2006–2007.Values rose +44.0% in the year to July 2006 and +25.5% again by July 2007 — a scale of increase nothing since has matched.
• The oil downturn was longer than the crash, but shallower.Values fell -18.4% over two years after 2007. They fell -13.2% over the six years to July 2020.
• Across two decades, Calgary values roughly tripled.July 2004 $207,000 to July 2024 $572,000 — +176%.

Two decades of Calgary values

Each figure is the median assessed value of Calgary residential dwelling parcels, dated to the market it represents rather than the roll it appeared on — see methodology for why those differ by a year.

Five cycles in twenty years

The turning points below are taken from the series itself, not from a narrative fitted over it.

How long recovery actually took

Values first exceeded the July 2007 peak in July 2014, at $413,000 — but that did not hold. They slipped back below it within two years and stayed there through the oil downturn. The peak was only durably cleared from July 2022, at $450,000 — 15 years after it was set.

That distinction matters for anyone reading a market headline today. A single year above a previous high is not a recovery; it is a touch. Calgary demonstrates the difference across a full decade of records.

The decade that went nowhere

July 2010 records a median of $358,500. July 2020 records exactly the same figure. Ten years apart, with a rise and a fall in between that cancelled out entirely.

For context, over the same period the most recent four years produced a +59.6% rise. Calgary's housing market has not moved at a steady rate in any part of this record.

Does Calgary housing actually follow the oil price?

It is the assumption behind almost every story written about this city's housing market. Tested against twenty years of records, it holds far less well than the reputation suggests.

Year to year, the relationship is weak. Across 20 years of overlapping data the correlation between the annual change in the Bank of Canada's energy price index and the annual change in Calgary's median assessed value is r = +0.22, and the two moved in the same direction in only 12 of 20 years. That is close to a coin toss.

The years they moved in opposite directions

Where the link is real

The exception is a sustained shock rather than a single year. The energy index fell 48% in the year to July 2015 and stayed depressed. Calgary's median assessed value then declined for six consecutive years, from $413,000 to $358,500. A one-year price swing moves nothing; a structural contraction in the industry moves everything, slowly.

The clearest break is the most recent. Energy prices fell 25% in the year to July 2023 and were roughly flat the year after. Calgary values rose +10.1% and then +15.4%. Whatever is driving the current market, the oil price is not it — which is a meaningful change in how this city's housing should be read.

Methodology

Data source

City of Calgary Open Data — Historical Property Assessments, assessment rolls 2005 to 2025. Energy prices are the Bank of Canada's annual BCPI Energy index (series A.ENER), retrieved from the Bank of Canada Valet API. Compiled and analysed by CalgaryListings Group. This dataset is separate from CREB® benchmark prices and from the MLS® sales medians used in our Calgary Neighbourhood Report; the three are not interchangeable and are not mixed.

Assessed value is not a sale price

An assessed value is the City's estimate of a property's market value for taxation. It is not a transaction. Assessment records are used here because they cover every dwelling in the city, every year, for twenty years — which no sales dataset available to us does.

Why figures are dated a year before their roll

A Calgary assessment reflects market value as at 1 July of the preceding year, with the property's physical condition as at 31 December of that year. The 2025 roll therefore describes the July 2024 market. Every figure on this page is labelled by its market date for that reason; labelling by roll year would misdate every cycle in the series by twelve months.

Which parcels are counted

Residential dwelling parcels only. The assessment roll treats parking stalls and storage lockers as separately assessed parcels, and in condominium-dense communities these outnumber the dwellings — including them pulls medians down severely. They are excluded here.

Median, not average

True medians computed from parcel-level records, not the mean. Medians are used throughout our research so figures remain comparable between reports.

Limitations

Assessment values are estimates and are subject to appeal and revision. The parcel count grows across the series as Calgary builds, so the composition of the city changes over twenty years — a median across a growing, changing stock is not the same measure as a repeat-sales index. This series describes the typical assessed dwelling in each year, not the change in value of any individual home.