Canada’s four largest housing markets all reported August sales figures within five days of one another, and the condominium numbers ran in four different directions, undercutting the idea that the country is living through a single national condo downturn.
Calgary’s apartment-style benchmark price fell 8.2 per cent year over year to $295,400 in August, the Calgary Real Estate Board reported Sept. 1. Three days later, the Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers reported that the median price of a condominium in the Montreal census metropolitan area rose 3.6 per cent over the same month, to $437,250.
Vancouver and Toronto sit between those two poles. Greater Vancouver Realtors reported Sept. 2 that the benchmark price of an apartment in Metro Vancouver was $686,200 in August, down 6.6 per cent from a year earlier and 0.3 per cent from July. The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board reported Sept. 3 that the average condominium apartment in the Greater Toronto Area sold for $617,593, down 3.6 per cent year over year, with condo sales off 2.6 per cent.
The headline prices are not directly comparable. Each board publishes its own preferred measure: Calgary and Vancouver quote a benchmark price, which models a typical home of that type, Toronto quotes an average, and Montreal quotes a median. Comparing $295,400 in Calgary against $686,200 in Vancouver mixes methods as well as markets.
The comparison that does hold is each condo segment measured against its own city’s overall market, by the same board, using the same method. On that basis Calgary is the outlier, and by a wide margin. Its total residential benchmark price slipped just 1.1 per cent year over year to $569,800, according to CREB, meaning the apartment segment fell roughly seven percentage points faster than the market containing it.
Vancouver’s gap is one percentage point. Greater Vancouver Realtors put the composite benchmark for all residential property at $1,081,900 in August, down 5.6 per cent, against the 6.6 per cent apartment decline. And in Vancouver the steepest fall was not in condos at all. Detached homes dropped 7.2 per cent to a benchmark of $1,799,400, while townhouses were down 4.4 per cent to $1,028,800. The segment usually cast as the weak link was the second most resilient of the three.
Toronto’s gap is narrower still. TRREB’s overall average selling price of $993,410 was down 2.7 per cent, less than a percentage point better than the condo segment. It was the second time this year the GTA average has closed a month below $1 million. The board’s composite benchmark, which controls for the mix of homes sold, was down 4.5 per cent.
What makes the spread worth noting is that the one input every market shares did not move. The Bank of Canada held its target for the overnight rate at 2.25 per cent on Sept. 2, its seventh consecutive hold, and the rate has not changed since October 2025. A buyer in Calgary and a buyer in Montreal faced the same policy rate through August. Whatever separates an 8.2 per cent decline from a 3.6 per cent increase, it is not the cost of borrowing.
CREB has pointed to local supply and population. “Several consecutive years of high construction levels and the sudden drop in mostly international migration have contributed to the shift in housing market conditions mostly for higher-density homes, a transition that started in the second half of last year,” chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie said in the board’s July statistics release. Calgary apartment condos carried 5.7 months of supply in August and averaged roughly 52 days on market, according to CREB. The association described Montreal’s condominium market, by contrast, as in balance.
Sales volumes tell a further story that does not line up neatly with prices. Calgary recorded 1,660 sales in August, down 16.4 per cent year over year, the steepest drop of the four. Montreal logged 2,853 residential sales, down 13 per cent. Vancouver reported 1,869 residential sales, down 4.6 per cent, and Toronto 5,057, down 2.1 per cent. Montreal therefore posted the second-largest sales decline in the country while its condo prices rose, which is a reminder that transaction counts and price direction can move independently when few sellers are willing to list.
Supply is part of that. New listings in the GTA came in at 12,075 in August, down 14.1 per cent year over year, according to TRREB. Sellers withdrawing supports prices even as buyers stay away.
The national picture arrives next week. The Canadian Real Estate Association publishes August resale figures Sept. 15, and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. releases August housing starts Sept. 16.
