Where to Find Single-Family Homes in Calgary for Under $500,000

Calgary homebuyers seeking detached, semi-detached, or townhouse properties for less than half-a-million dollars have a number of options.

By Josh Sherman | 2 minute read

Although Calgary’s housing market has been on a hot streak, house hunters with a budget of $500,000 or less have many options.

There are still lots of opportunities to find single-family homes for less than $500,000 in one of Canada’s biggest cities, although strong interest from bargain hunters is driving prices higher.

So suggests new analysis from digital real estate platform Wahi. The analysis identifies the most affordable Calgary neighbourhoods for single-family homes. It also provides insights into which of these neighbourhoods are seeing the strongest bidding competition among buyers.

Overall, between January and May this year, Wahi found that median selling prices for single-family homes were below $500,000 in 40 Calgary neighbourhoods.

The 10 most affordable of these neighbourhoods were heavily concentrated in Southwest Calgary, although two were located in Northwest Calgary and a third was in Northeast Calgary. (About a third (32.5%) of the 40 neighbourhoods with a median single-family home price below $500,000 were located in Southwest Calgary.)

Wahi has ranked these 10 neighbourhoods from lowest to highest median price for a single-family home, which includes detached, semi-detached, and townhouses. Neighbourhoods must have seen at least five sales during the study period to be included in the ranking.

Calgary’s relative affordability compared to other major real estate markets is attracting homebuyers from around Canada, with 2023 being a banner year for net interprovincial migration to Alberta. Yet despite this increased demographic demand, the biggest city in the Prairies continues to provide buyers on a budget with chances to step on the property ladder without compromising their dreams with other housing types — for now.

Calgary’s Sub-$500,000 Single-Family Homes Attract Bidding Wars

Some 65% of neighbourhoods where the median price of a single-family home was below $500,000 were in overbidding territory through the first five months of the year, led by Cedarbrae (+9%), in Southwest Calgary. However, several of these neighbourhoods remain significantly below the half-million-dollar threshold for median prices, providing options for first-time homebuyers.

For example, although Woodlands — also in Southwest Calgary — was bid up by 5%, the median sale price for a single-family home was $295,000, the lowest anywhere in the city. It is also the only neighbourhood where the median price of a single-family home was below the citywide median price of a condo ($320,000) over the same period.

To gauge bidding competition, Wahi compares the differences between median list and sold prices to determine whether neighbourhoods are in overbidding or underbidding territory.

Overbidding has by no means been limited to lower-priced single-family homes in recent months. An earlier Calgary Market Pulse Report from Wahi that analyzed bidding activity across all housing types between January and April found that approximately half (49%) of the city’s neighbourhoods were in overbidding territory.