Calgary sees largest decline in house prices of 11 major Canadian cities

Prices for single-family homes in the Calgary metropolitan area declined for the ninth straight month in March, according to a regular analysis of real estate across 11 major markets in Canada.

The Teranet-National Bank House Price Index tracks house prices based ondata collected from public land registries and limited tohomes that have been sold at least twice.

While prices softened in March in most markets tracked by the index, only Calgary and Vancouver are lower now than they were a year ago.

Calgary's index is down 2.8 per cent compared to March 2018, while Vancouver's is down 2.1 per cent.

The index takes June 2005 as the baseline for each market. The prices at that time are assigned an index score of 100.

In Calgary, prices peaked in October 2014 with an index score of 188.4. (That is, 88.4 per cent higher than in June 2005.)

In March, the city's index was down to 175.1.

That marks a seven-per-cent decline from the peak, the largest such drop among the 11 major cities studied.

The latest data from the Calgary Real Estate Board, meanwhile, shows the median sale price for detached homes within city limits to be $459,400 so far in 2019.

That's down 6.9 per cent from the same period last year.

Across all housing types, the median price is down 5.9 per cent to $402,500.