Condominium apartments were the weak link in two of Western Canada’s largest housing markets in September, with apartment sales falling in both Greater Vancouver and Calgary and Calgary apartment prices down sharply, even as detached homes held up, according to figures released this week by the cities’ real estate boards.
Greater Vancouver Realtors reported 1,717 sales in September, down 8.4 per cent from a year earlier and 25 per cent below the 10-year seasonal average, as fewer apartment-style homes changed hands. “Despite the overall decrease, attached and detached home sales were slightly above last year’s levels,” said Andrew Lis, the board’s chief economist and vice-president of data analytics, according to The Canadian Press via BNN Bloomberg.
The composite benchmark price in the region was $1,075,900, down 5.5 per cent from September 2025 and 0.6 per cent from August. New listings fell 10.3 per cent year over year to 5,852 but were still 5.7 per cent above the 10-year average, while total inventory slipped four per cent to 16,394, which the board said is 24.3 per cent above the long-term average.
In Calgary, the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) reported 1,650 sales on Oct. 1, down 3.8 per cent from a year earlier, with the total residential benchmark price easing 0.8 per cent to $566,700. The split by property type was sharp. Detached sales rose to 896, more than four per cent above last September, and the detached benchmark price slipped only one per cent to $739,400, with just over three months of supply, according to CREB.
Apartments told a different story. CREB counted 343 apartment condominium sales against 717 new listings, leaving just over five months of supply. The apartment benchmark price fell 8.3 per cent from a year earlier to $291,400. Row homes dropped 5.5 per cent to $412,400, and their months of supply rose above four for the first time since the start of the year, while semi-detached prices were essentially flat at $685,200.
Put another way, Calgary apartment prices fell more than eight times as fast as detached prices over the past year. Across all types, new listings fell 11.3 per cent to 3,354 and inventory dropped 6.3 per cent to 6,486, leaving the city with just under four months of supply and a sales-to-new-listings ratio of 49 per cent.
CREB chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie tied the gap directly to the recent building cycle. “The variation in market conditions between property types is related to where the supply was added. The construction boom over the past three years was mostly driven by gains in higher-density sectors,” she said in the board’s release.
That squares with federal data. In its Fall 2026 Housing Supply Report, released Sept. 10, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Calgary had nearly halved its housing supply gap through strong construction, while purpose-built rental apartments now make up about 60 per cent of housing starts nationally. CMHC warned that the collapse in condominium construction poses a longer-term risk to ownership affordability.
The result is a two-speed condo picture. Resale buyers in both cities currently face more apartment listings and softer prices, conditions that generally give buyers more room to negotiate. But CMHC’s warning suggests that the current surplus of resale units may not last once today’s construction pipeline is absorbed, since far fewer new condos are being started.
The September numbers extend the trend Canada News Media reported for August in Calgary and Vancouver. The Canadian Real Estate Association’s national September figures are due later this month.
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Sources: BNN Bloomberg (Vancouver), BNN Bloomberg (Calgary), CREB, CMHC. Featured photo: file photo of condo towers along Vancouver’s False Creek. All photos are illustrative stock images.
