New report suggests relief could be on the way for Calgary's housing market
The study out of Concordia University looks at how policy reform could impact Canadian housing supply in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, combining the latest data on housing starts and immigration along with risk factors like tariffs and supply chain volatility.
The team behind the report says AI allows researchers to more easily analyze evolving data that can then be used to inform policy changes.
'Things change fast but every time there is new information we go back to the model and improve the model all the time and see where we are heading,' says Erik Yonder, one of the researchers at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia.
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Researchers say aggressive housing starts, coupled with changing immigration policies, are narrowing the gap between supply and demand in the Calgary housing market. The median home price in Calgary saw a peak in 2024 at roughly $740,000, but the study suggests it could fall by more than $100,000 in the next two years.
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But researchers warn any softening in the market across the country could be short-lived.
'The demand cut is temporary,' says Yonder. 'We'll bring in three- to four-hundred thousand people again by the year 2026, which means the demand will come back.'
Yonder says he hopes this data will help inform local development policy and change building permits to speed up the rate of housing starts, to help lower prices. Brian Hahn with BILD Calgary says the city is already seeing record starts.
'Year over year compared to 2024 which was a record year for housing starts, we are 25 per cent ahead of last year's pace to the end of July,' says Hahn.
Hahn says the housing industry is on the cusp of changing technology to include prefabricated homes which is contributing to the increase in supply, along with a shift in perception of careers in trades meaning there is more labour to build homes. But Hahn does warn that momentum could run out if there is nowhere to build homes.
'We've done really good on the housing supply, but we're going to turn the corner here soon and run out of lot of supply,' explains Hahn.
'We're going to need to turn our attention to adding lot supply in both established areas and new communities.'
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Meanwhile the Concordia report suggest Calgary home prices should stabilize to between $650-730,000 by 2032 if supply can keep up with demand.
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