{"id":41928,"date":"2026-05-12T13:41:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/41928\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T13:41:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:41:27","slug":"three-cities-where-canadas-housing-market-is-changing-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/41928\/","title":{"rendered":"Three cities where Canada\u2019s housing market is changing fast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Calgary’s skyline, on March 12, 2020.Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Despite the usual pickup in real estate activity in the spring, national housing<\/a> values started to noticeably decline last month, as downturns in major cities deepened and growth in Prairie markets slowed down.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to data from from Wahi, a digital real estate platform, and Real Property Solutions (RPS), a Canadian property valuation service provider. <\/p>\n

The research found the average value of a Canadian home declined by 4 per cent in April on a year-over-year basis. The decline comes after national housing prices stayed stable for much of 2025.<\/p>\n

We spoke to Wahi economist Ryan McLaughlin and realtors from three cities where markets experienced a notable decrease to look at the factors slowing the Canadian housing market. <\/p>\n

Calgary – 1 per cent decrease<\/p>\n

Calgary posted a year-over-year decline in housing prices for the first time since 2020, according to data from Wahi-RPS. It\u2019s a major reversal from strong gains in 2024 and early 2025, when the city\u2018s average home prices increased in excess of 10 per cent.<\/p>\n

Calgary-based realtor Amanda Ku said this spring season has been unusually slow.<\/p>\n

Much of the downward pressure is coming from condo values, which dropped 11 per cent in April. That compares to a 0 per cent change for detached homes in the same month. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur condo market is definitely in a buyer\u2019s market, whereas detached homes are still technically in a balanced market,\u201d said Ms. Ku.<\/p>\n

Condos have been particularly weak in Calgary due to a large increase in supply, which has led the Alberta city to perform worse than other Prairie markets. <\/p>\n

Mr. McLaughlin said a large amount of capital from condo developers was redirected to Calgary from Toronto when that city started struggling from a weakening market in 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n

Many of those projects are now being completed and flooding the market with supply at a time when buyers are concerned about global markets and U.S. trade policy.<\/p>\n

Hamilton – 9 per cent decrease<\/p>\n

Hamilton was the worst performing city in Canada, the Wahi-RPS study found. Average home prices declined 9 per cent in April, just below Toronto\u2019s 8 per cent decrease in the same month.<\/p>\n

Mr. McLaughlin said the effect of tariffs on Hamilton\u2019s manufacturing sector and return-to-work policies by major employers in Toronto likely contributed to Hamilton\u2019s weakness.<\/p>\n

Hamilton experienced sharper increases to property valuations during the onset of the pandemic as more Canadians moved further from Toronto to take advantage of remote work.<\/p>\n

When growth was peaking in February, 2022, Hamilton\u2019s average home price values grew 31 per cent, compared to Toronto\u2019s 24 per cent increase.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a long tail of unwinding the COVID effect,\u201d said Mr. McLaughlin, who said many companies are still slowly bringing people back to the office.<\/p>\n

Winnipeg – 2 per cent increase<\/p>\n

Royal LePage realtor Michael Froese has a simple analogy for Winnipeg\u2019s resilient local economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Toronto and Vancouver get sick, we just catch a cough,\u201d said Mr. Froese.<\/p>\n

The same can be said about the city\u2019s real estate market, which is managing to hold on to modest increases with 2 per cent growth in values in April.<\/p>\n

But the figure is a major drop from just five months ago, when Winnipeg\u2019s housing market experienced a 10 per cent increase.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the economy was booming right now and we had trade deals and all that, our demand would just be going up,\u201d said Mr. Froese.<\/p>\n

He said Winnipeg\u2019s modest growth is actually a sign of a healthy, sustainable market. <\/p>\n

However, he noted that inventory numbers are relatively low and there is still lots of competition for desirable homes in the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Calgary’s skyline, on March 12, 2020.Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press Despite the usual pickup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51,12458],"class_list":["post-41928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-calgary","tag-pf-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}