A message from Mark Parsons at ATB Economics:
At first glance, the national housing price story is, well, kinda boring.
The latest housing price data released on Feb. 18 show a national market that has been moving sideways since early 2024. Benchmark national home prices have barely budged over the past year (+0.2% year-over-year … yawn).
That's the national trend. But anyone who follows this industry knows that housing is local, not national. And this is where it gets interesting.
Higher-priced markets like Vancouver and Toronto have seen almost no change over the past year, while lower-priced markets like Edmonton, Fredericton, and Saskatoon have witnessed large gains. In other words, huge variation across markets, all washing out to very little movement in the national number.
What's going on here? We have long argued that Canadians are chasing affordability amid extremely high prices in certain parts of the country (the Vancouver benchmark price is $1.2M) and lower-cost housing in other places (Edmonton sits at $421K). An additional affordability squeeze came from higher mortgage rates with the Bank of Canada hiking its policy rate in early 2022.
As we have found, Alberta's housing affordability advantage has, in large part, explained record interprovincial migration flows into Alberta, particularly inflows from B.C. and Ontario.
Compare and contrast what's going on in Edmonton and Calgary in this edition of The Twenty-Four.
For more number-crunching on Alberta's economy, visit The Twenty-Four Seven by ATB.