Calgary Is Tilting Toward Buyers. What That Means 30 Minutes South.

The August numbers are out from the Calgary Real Estate Board, and the headline is quiet: "Sales and new listings slow in August." Here is what the numbers actually say, and what they mean if you are buying or selling in High River, Okotoks or the Foothills.

What four months of supply means in plain English

Months of supply is the number that matters. It answers one question: if nobody listed another home tomorrow, how long would it take to sell everything currently for sale at the current pace?

Two years ago Calgary was sitting near one month. Buyers were writing offers the same day they saw a house, with no conditions, over asking. At nearly four months, the city is balanced and tilting toward buyers. Not a crash. Not a fire sale. Just a market where a buyer can breathe, and a seller has to price honestly.

Prices are down about one percent from a year ago. That is a sideways market, not a falling one. I have been doing this since 1999 and I have watched Calgary do far worse.

What it means 30 minutes south

Here is the thing about the Foothills: we do not move in lockstep with Calgary, but we do not ignore it either. When Calgary softens, three things happen out here.

1. Conditions come back. Financing conditions. Inspection conditions. Sale-of-buyer's-home conditions. For two years those were a competitive disadvantage. Now they are normal again, and a buyer who uses them properly is protected instead of exposed. If you are buying, take the conditions. If you are selling, expect them.
2. The Calgary-to-Foothills move gets easier to time. The hardest part of trading a Calgary house for one in Okotoks or High River has always been the gap: you need to sell before you buy, but nobody wants to lose the house they found. In a balanced market, a sale-of-home condition is accepted more often, and bridge financing does the rest. That is a file I do every month.
3. Sellers price to the market, not to last year. If your neighbour sold in 2024 at a number that made you smile, that number is gone. The homes selling in August were the ones priced correctly on day one. The ones sitting are the ones priced to a memory.

The mistake I am watching people make right now

Buyers are waiting. They read "buyer's market" and decide to wait for it to get better. Look - I understand the instinct. But a balanced market is the moment, not the warm-up. The advantage is the conditions, the selection and the negotiating room. All three exist today. Whether they exist in the spring depends on things nobody can predict - including what the Bank of Canada does next, which I will write about next week.

The move is not to wait. The move is to know your number before you look, so that when the right house shows up you can act with conditions instead of without them.

What to do this week

If you are buying: get a real pre-approval, not a website estimate. Fifteen minutes, one credit pull, and you know exactly what you can carry. If you are selling and buying: call me before you list, because the order of operations decides whether you need a bridge, a condition, or neither. And if you are just curious what your own numbers look like, the affordability calculator is free and does not ask for your email.