Here’s why that isn’t irrational.

Most people read Calgary’s 9% condo price drop as a weak market. It’s not. It’s a product problem.

Line up the three options a family is actually choosing between:

→ Apartment condo — benchmark ~$300K. But it’s a one or two-bedroom, small-footprint unit. A family-sized condo (1,600+ sq ft) barely exists in Calgary’s core inventory.

→ Townhouse — benchmark ~$424K. Three bedrooms become possible. Fees shrink but don’t disappear.

→ Detached — benchmark ~$750K. Three-plus bedrooms. A yard. Every dollar builds equity. And it’s the tightest segment on the market.

You can’t fit a family into a one-bedroom, whatever the price. So the “cheap” condo isn’t cheap. It’s the wrong product for the buyer doing the buying.

Now add wages. Median Alberta full-time pay is $35/hour, and real weekly earnings are lower today than in 2019 — the only province where that’s true.

So families vote with the map. Airdrie has added over 15,000 residents since 2021. Cochrane went from 33,000 to 39,000.

This isn’t a demand problem. It’s a feasibility problem.

Before the next multifamily project pencils out, the question isn’t whether to build. It’s what to build — for whom, at what square footage, at what ongoing cost.

Get that wrong, and you’re just adding to the glut.

If you’re planning a project in the Calgary region: which of the three are you building — and who did you build it for?

#CalgaryRealEstate #AlbertaRealEstate #RealEstateDevelopment
#FeasibilityStudy #PropertyDevelopment #MultifamilyDevelopment
#HousingMarket