Good morning Calgary,

This week’s Pulse is about a market signal that is easy to miss if you only watch sales and benchmark prices.

Let’s get into it.

- Nathaniel and Graham

What This Means: Sales were up 5.9%, under-contract listings rose 3.0%, and 23% of sales still closed at or above list. That tells us there is real demand underneath the noise, especially for the right property at the right price.

The counterweight is inventory. Active listings climbed to 5,630, average days on market stretched to 36, and 2,578 active listings are now vacant or new and never occupied. That is roughly 46% of the active market sitting empty.

That matters because an empty property usually carries a different kind of pressure. There is no tenant helping with the mortgage. There is no owner happily living there while they test the market. There is just carrying cost, time, and a decision: reduce, relist, rent it out, or keep holding.

Calgary has a housing story hiding in plain sight.

Right now, there are 2,578 active listings in Calgary that are either vacant or new and never occupied. For context, there are 3,056 occupied active listings. So while the city is not flooded with empty homes, we are at the point where nearly half the active market is not being lived in.

That is not the kind of stat that gets a ribbon-cutting, a council debate, or a dramatic headline. But it may tell us more about seller pressure than the average price does.

The breakdown is where it gets interesting.

Apartments are the clearest pressure point. More than half of active apartment listings are vacant or brand new and still empty. Townhomes are not far behind. Detached homes are less extreme, but 845 vacant or new detached listings is still a meaningful number of owners carrying a property they are not living in.

The year-over-year sales mix is worth watching too. From May 1 to 14 last year, Calgary recorded 1,119 sales. Of those, 441 were vacant or new, while 678 were occupied. That put vacant/new properties at about 39% of sales during that period. This year, that share has moved higher. It is not a massive jump, but it is enough to pay attention to because the direction matters.

Here is the potential cycle. A vacant owner lists because they want out of the carrying cost. If they do not get the price they want, they can cut the price, pull the listing, or try to rent it. If more of those homes move into the rental pool, rental supply rises. If rental supply rises while rents are already cooling, the investor math gets tighter. Then some owners become even more motivated to sell.

We are already seeing the rental side soften. liv.rent reported Calgary’s average unfurnished one-bedroom rent at $1,440 in April, down $20 month over month, with year-over-year one-bedroom drops of 11% in the Northeast and 10% in the Northwest. Rentals.ca and Urbanation also reported that average asking rents in Canada fell 4.7% year over year in April, while Alberta rents across all unit types were down 3.4%.

None of this means every vacant listing is desperate. Some are new builds. Some are estate sales. Some are clean, move-in-ready homes where the seller has plenty of room to wait. And this MLS count does not include every builder-held quick possession home that may be sitting outside the public resale inventory.

But that is exactly why the number matters.

If Calgary already has 2,578 vacant or new public listings, and there is additional builder inventory that does not show up in the same way, the visible market may only be part of the story.

For buyers, this does not mean every listing is a bargain. It means motivation matters more than ever. For sellers, it means pricing against active competition is not enough. You also need to price against the carrying cost clock.

The real story is not that Calgary suddenly has too many homes. It is that more of the market is sitting empty, and empty homes tend to make owners make decisions.

Some lofts have high ceilings. This one has a whole backstory.

This top-floor Imperial Lofts unit sits inside one of Calgary’s rare true warehouse conversions, originally tied to the Imperial Tobacco Company in the early 1910s. The standout is the original freight elevator shaft, still with its metal door and pulleys intact, now turned into a tucked-away nook off the living space. Reading corner, hidden office, closet with serious main-character energy, take your pick.

Add 13-foot ceilings, oversized east-facing windows, titled underground parking, and a Beltline location across from Sunterra, and this is the kind of place that will not appeal to everyone. That is exactly why it is interesting.

🏛️ Calgary’s housing strategy is moving, but the pace has slipped. The city says 71% of Home is Here actions are now complete or underway, down from 88% last June, with the rezoning repeal cited as a major reason. That does not mean the strategy is dead. It does mean the next version needs fewer vague promises and more execution.

🏔️ Canmore’s vacancy tax is now an Alberta housing experiment. The town expects to collect $4.4 million in 2026 for affordable housing, well below the original $10.3 million estimate. It is still a new revenue stream, and a sign that mountain-town affordability pressure is pushing municipalities into tools Calgary has mostly avoided.

🏘️ Springbank Hill could see a major new housing proposal. A land-use application near 85th Street SW and 34th Avenue SW includes roughly 589 low-density homes, more than 1,400 multi-residential units, mixed-use space, and parks. The approval road still runs through City Hall, but the proposal shows where Calgary’s southwest growth conversation is heading.

💸 Rents are easing nationally, but the starting point is still high. Average Canadian asking rents fell 4.7% year over year in April to $2,027, the 19th straight annual drop. Good news for renters, but not exactly cheap. Rents are still 21.9% above the April 2021 low.

If someone in your life is watching the market and only asking “how many sold?”, forward this their way. The empty homes may be the part of the story they are missing.

Talk soon,

Nathaniel and Graham | YYC Housing Pulse Team

Terryberry Real Estate Group