Why These Housing Markets Are Canada’s Most Stable Right Now

Ottawa and Calgary have started the year out showing strong signs of stability while other major markets are either mired in corrections or, in some cases, continuing to heat up.

By Josh Sherman | 3 minute read

As major Canadian housing markets on the west coast and southern Ontario experience price corrections, and several environs in the prairies and Quebec see home values push even higher, Calgary and Ottawa remain pictures of stability. 

In January, Calgary home prices edged 2% higher than a year ago, while Ottawa values were up 1% over the same period, according to the latest reading of the RPS-Wahi House Price Index.

These numbers fall short of Canada’s most resilient housing markets — prices in January surged 14% annually in Quebec City, 11% in Regina, and 9% in Montreal —  but they’re also a far cry from the depths plumbed in the Lower Mainland and the Toronto region. Last month, the Greater Toronto Area led all 13 markets tracked by the RPS-Wahi House Price Index for declines, with values plunging 6% annually. Hamilton and Victoria followed with 5% declines, while Vancouver prices were down 4%. 

Calgary and Ottawa have been spared the worst of the corrections working through the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and Vancouver thanks, in part, to their limited exposure to the condo-investor segment. “Ottawa seems to be driven more by people buying homes to live in as opposed to investors chasing rapid appreciation,” says Tami Eades, president of the Ottawa Real Estate Board. “Ottawa’s housing market, it truly really reflects the fundamentals of our local economy.”

Ottawa’s status as the nation’s capital has insulated its real estate market from negative shocks to the labour market. “We were less exposed to the private sector layoffs or industry shocks,” she tells Wahi. Essentially when employment is stable, housing markets tend to be stable, so Ottawa does benefit from one of the most secure employment bases in the country.”

In the once-high-flying Calgary market — as recently as January of 2025, home prices in Calgary soared 12% on a year-over-year basis — stability has set in, too. “We are pretty stable,” says Ann-Marie Lurie, chief economist at the Calgary Real Estate Board. “There is some adjustment in pricing, but it’s mostly occurring for apartment-sized units.

“One of the reasons Calgary has actually outperformed in many ways is we’ve had such strong migration growth, and not just from international migration, we had a lot of interprovincial migration,” Lurie tells Wahi. “We continue to attract people here from other provinces. Everyone felt the boost of international migration, but we had that added layer,” she continues. 

This population growth supported the earlier price boom, and encouraged homebuilders to respond with a record number of housing starts. However, with migration levels pulling back somewhat as the federal government has reduced its targets, the new supply coming onto the market is keeping a lid on significant price growth. 

Similar to Ottawa — albeit for different reasons and in different industries, such as aviation and clean energy technology — Calgary’s economy has been chugging along. “Another thing is our economy hasn’t been hit as hard as what’s been seen in some other provinces,” notes Lurie. “It doesn’t mean we haven’t had our own challenges, we have seen slightly higher unemployment rates, but that was really more because more people were moving here than jobs were being created.”