Best Places to Live in Calgary: 2024

Best Places to Live in Calgary

Calgary is Alberta’s largest city and is situated just 80 kilometres from the Canadian Rockies. It is known as the sunniest major city in Canada and is home to the Calgary Stampede, a 10-day outdoor event with incredible shows, amazing food and non-stop entertainment. Its close proximity to the mountains makes Calgary a great home base for those wanting to spend time skiing and snowboarding on the slopes of the many ski resorts in the winter.

Calgary real estate has always been a hotspot in Alberta, with young and old alike flocking to the diverse city. So, what are the best neighbourhoods in Calgary to buy a home? Based on liveability factors such as ​​access to shopping, dining, and green spaces, proximity to public transit, work, preferred schools, and cultural and community centres, here are some of the best places to buy in Calgary.

Most Liveable Neighbourhoods in Calgary

1. Beltline

Located immediately south of Calgary’s downtown, Beltline is one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in Calgary, filled with entrepreneurs, young professionals, artists, and the most urban. It has a reputation for being one of Calgary’s primary areas for eclectic nightlife, restaurants, and urban culture.

2. Downtown East Village

Like Beltline, Downtown East Village is centrally located with easy connections to everywhere in the city by walking, cycling, driving, or public transit. This urban hub is home to everything from eateries to boutiques to green spaces, all of which showcase the many things Calgary has to offer.

3. Downtown West End

The Downtown West End is a dense residential community that caters largely to young professionals and is almost entirely made up of condominiums and apartment buildings (only 25 single-family detached homes remain in the neighbourhood). However, it offers easy access to multi-use paths and has various cultural features, such as Contemporary Calgary, a public art gallery.

4. Downtown Commercial Core

The population of Calgary that lives in its Core compared to the East Village or West End is relatively low but has been growing in recent years. Those who inhabit the lively neighbourhood enjoy quick commutes to their workplaces and easy access to the many cultural events and amenities downtown Calgary offers.

5. Mission

This inner-city neighbourhood is considered part of Calgary’s downtown but is separate from the other downtown neighbourhoods. It boasts a rich mix of single-family residences, duplexes, apartments, commercial establishments, and institutional uses. It also contains the very popular 4^th Street with its trendy restaurants and shops.

As noted above, the most liveable neighbourhoods in Calgary offer good walkability and easy access to bike lanes and walking paths. They also have great proximity to green spaces and dog parks.

Other notable mentions include:

6. Sunalta
7. Lower Mount Royal
8. Rundle
9. Southview
10. Greenview

Calgary Liveability Trends

Calgary is a city that was initially intended to house 1 million plus people. However, despite its population of nearly two million, the city still feels very spacious since it continues to grow horizontally and vertically. With effective, forward-thinking planning, the positive liveability trends in Calgary can be expected to continue.

How Is the Calgary Real Estate Market Doing These Days?

It turns out that Alberta’s advertising campaign to attract more people to the western province worked. After being the Canadian real estate market’s best-kept secret, Calgary has quickly become one of the country’s hottest housing sectors.

According to the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB), home sales surged seven per cent year-over-year in April, with nearly 2,900 units exchanging hands. Price growth remained robust, climbing close to ten per cent to above $603,000. All home types, from detached to condos, ballooned to kick off the second quarter of 2024, climbing double digits.

Like many other Canadian markets, Calgary is facing declining housing stocks. Local association data show that while new listings increased by 11.5 per cent to 3,491 units, active listings have been sliding. In April, there were 2,711 units, down more than 16 per cent from the same time a year ago.

In addition, the months of supply, which measures the number of months it would take to exhaust current housing stocks at the present level of sales activity, fell nearly 22 per cent to 0.94 months.

While there is demand for a diverse array of properties, housing economists note that buyers have been attracted to more affordable homes amid higher borrowing costs.

“While supply levels are still declining, much of the decline has been driven by lower-priced homes,” said Ann-Marie Lurie, the chief economist at CREB®, in a housing market update report. “Homes priced below $500,000 have reported a 29 per cent decline. Meanwhile, we are seeing supply growth in homes priced above $700,000. Persistently high interest rates are driving demand toward more affordable products in the market and, at the same time, driving listing growth for higher priced properties.”

The good news in the Calgary real estate market is that new housing construction activity has been through the roof. Developers anticipate robust demand for the foreseeable future amid population growth. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) statistics show that housing starts were up 50 per cent year-over-year in the first four months of 2024.

Last year, Calgary’s metro-area population increased by approximately 96,000, up six per cent from the previous year. This represented the largest annualized jump since Statistics Canada launched the series in 2001. Calgary and the surrounding area are now home to about 1.68 million people.

What is driving the population explosion? The main two factors are immigration and interprovincial migration. A majority of the population increase was due to newcomers entering the country. Calgary led the nation in net interprovincial migration, adding close to 27,000 residents from other provinces.

Public policymakers have been expecting this trend to continue and have a sizeable impact on the Calgary real estate market. The city has been working toward instituting a housing strategy, but officials warn that it might take time before the benefits are seen, as roughly 80 per cent of the actions in the initiative will be initiated by the year’s end.

“We just have to be self-aware of the time it takes to create a problem is almost the equivalent to the amount of time it will take to solve it,” a Calgary city councillor told reporters, according to Global News.

Can Calgary afford to be patient? With prices trending upward, many prospective homebuyers hope for some relief, whether in the form of lower mortgage rates or additional supply to reduce prices.