Every Calgary market report you can find quotes the apartment average and says rents are down. That is true for apartments. It is not true for houses, townhouses or suites, and the difference is worth thousands of dollars a year to an owner.
Every figure on this page carries its source and the period it describes. Where two credible sources disagree, we publish both and explain why, rather than averaging them into a number nobody can defend.
The single most repeated line about Calgary rental housing in 2026 is that rents are down. It comes from the apartment data, and the apartment data is real. But Calgary is not one market, and when the asking-rent figures are split by property type the picture reverses completely.
| Property type | Asking rent, year over year |
|---|---|
| Townhouse and duplex | +9.5% |
| Detached house | +7.1% |
| Multi-residential | +3.8% |
| Main floor and basement suites | -1.0% |
Calgary asking rents, first quarter 2026 against first quarter 2025. Source: RentFaster data published by The City of Calgary.
What this actually means. Houses and townhouses posted meaningful growth. Main floor and basement suites are effectively flat, not falling. The softness that dominates the headlines is concentrated in apartments and condominiums, which is a different product in a different part of the market.
If you are looking for one of the property types that has held its value, you can browse the houses and suites we currently have available across Calgary, Airdrie and Chestermere.
Calgary purpose-built apartment vacancy was about 5% in 2025, up from 4.6% the year before, and CMHC forecasts 5.7% for 2026. Nationally, vacancy rose from 2.2% to 3.1%. Those numbers get quoted as a warning. The more useful cut is by rent quartile.
| Calgary, 2025 | Vacancy | Turnover |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest-rent quartile | 4.4% | 20.7% |
| Second quartile | — | 27.3% |
| Third quartile | — | 27.8% |
| Highest-rent quartile | 6.7% | not reported |
Sources: CMHC Rental Market Survey via The City of Calgary (vacancy) and CMHC 2026 Mid-Year Rental Market Update (turnover). The highest-rent quartile turnover figure was suppressed and is not published.
CMHC’s own balance test puts Calgary inside the normal band. CMHC estimates a balanced vacancy range of 3.0% to 5.5% for Calgary, and notes that Calgary and Edmonton need higher vacancy than other centres before rents stabilise. At about 5%, Calgary sits inside that range and near the top of it. That is a market with slack in it, not an oversupplied one.
The pattern holds locally as well as citywide. Our northeast Calgary rentals sit largely in the lower rent quartiles, which is where vacancy is tightest and demand has stayed steadiest.
Both are published, both are credible, and they do not agree. We are not going to average them.
| Source | What it measures | Period | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Statistics Canada | Two-bedroom apartment asking rents across major platforms | Q1 2026 | -1.0% |
| Rentals.ca | All property types on its own network | July 2026 | -4.5% |
Statistics Canada, Quarterly rent statistics, released 9 June 2026. Rentals.ca National Rent Report, August 2026 edition, published 6 August 2026.
Different baskets and different periods produce different numbers. Statistics Canada has the stronger methodology; Rentals.ca is more current. Rentals.ca also notes that while Calgary tied Vancouver for the largest annual decline among Canada’s six largest markets, it posted a monthly gain of 0.5% in July. The fall is a year-over-year story, and the month-over-month direction has already turned.
This is the contradiction that confuses most owners, and the explanation is straightforward once you see it.
| Calgary occupied rent | 2025 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two bedroom | $1,896 | $1,870 | +1.42% |
| Bachelor | $1,440 | — | +5.67% |
CMHC Rental Market Survey, published on the Government of Alberta Regional Dashboard, last updated 18 June 2026. Scope is non-subsidised buildings with three or more rental units, measuring occupied units rather than listings.
Occupied rent is a lagging series. Sitting tenants renew at or above their old rent, so the occupied average keeps drifting upward. New listings have to clear against fresh supply, so asking rents move first and move further. When you read that rents are up and rents are down in the same week, you are usually reading one of each.
Canada added purpose-built rental supply at about 11% in 2025, the fastest pace in decades, and that new stock is overwhelmingly apartments at the upper end of the price range. That is why the vacancy shows up in the highest-rent quartile, and why a detached house or a basement suite has behaved completely differently. Calgary is still adding people at the same time, with the City estimating roughly 34,000 added in 2026.
CMHC’s published index of Calgary two-bedroom asking rents peaked at 102.9 in the second quarter of 2024 and sat at 92.3 by the fourth quarter of 2025, on a base of 100.0 in the first quarter of 2024. That implies asking rents about 10% below their peak. We read that index off CMHC’s published chart rather than a data table, so treat it as approximate.
Sources: CMHC news release 11 December 2025, CMHC 2026 Mid-Year Rental Market Update, City of Calgary Corporate Economics.
It depends entirely on the property type. Calgary asking rents in the first quarter of 2026 were up 9.5% year over year for townhouses and duplexes and up 7.1% for detached homes, while main floor and basement suites were down 1.0%. The widely quoted decline applies to apartments and condominiums, not to the whole market. Source: RentFaster data published by The City of Calgary, Q1 2026.
Calgary purpose-built apartment vacancy was about 5% in 2025, up from 4.6% in 2024, and CMHC forecasts 5.7% for 2026. CMHC estimates Calgary’s balanced vacancy range at 3.0% to 5.5%, so at about 5% the city sits inside that band and near the top of it, rather than oversupplied. Source: CMHC Rental Market Survey and Housing Market Outlook, via The City of Calgary.
They measure different things over different periods. Statistics Canada reported Calgary two-bedroom apartment asking rents down 1.0% year over year in the first quarter of 2026. Rentals.ca reported Calgary asking rents across all property types down 4.5% year over year in July 2026. Different baskets and different periods produce different numbers, and both are correct within their own scope. We publish both rather than averaging them.
Occupied rent is a lagging series. Sitting tenants renew at or above their old rent, so the occupied average keeps drifting upward, while new listings have to clear against fresh supply, so asking rents move first. Calgary two-bedroom occupied rent rose 1.42% to $1,896 in 2025, in the same window that asking rents fell. Sources: CMHC Rental Market Survey via the Government of Alberta Regional Dashboard, and Statistics Canada.
Roughly one Calgary rental in four turned over during 2025. Turnover by rent quartile was 20.7% in the lowest-rent quartile, 27.3% in the second and 27.8% in the third; the highest quartile was not reported. For an owner, turnover rather than vacancy is what actually costs money, because every turnover carries a vacancy gap, a make-ready cost and a re-letting cost. Source: CMHC 2026 Mid-Year Rental Market Update.
We manage more than 400 residential rental properties across Calgary, Airdrie and Chestermere, so we price against what our own doors are letting for rather than against an apartment average that does not describe your property.
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