Edmonton housing looks set for growth in 2025

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Edmonton’s housing forecast for 2025 could be described as sunny but with storm clouds looming on the horizon.

While Edmonton’s residential housing sector soared in 2024 it wasn’t all sunshine, and the outlook for 2025 may be described in similar terms.

Postmedia spoke to major residential sector players in Edmonton to get their perspective on 2024 and 2025. Those organizations and companies are BILD Edmonton Metro, the voice for the region’s real estate development industry; Built Green Canada — based in Edmonton — a national, non-profit committed to working with builders interested in responsible sustainability practices in the residential building sector; Jayman Built, winning top housing awards in Edmonton, provincially, and on the national level in 2024, and the Rohit Group, which is taking its vision of going bold and expanding into other parts of Canada.

This is what they had to say about how Edmonton fared last year and what they see for 2025.

2024: A Mixed Bag

Both BILD Edmonton Metro and Rohit were quick to point out how hot Edmonton’s new home housing market was last year.

“Alberta saw record-breaking housing construction activity in Edmonton,” said Kalen Anderson, BILD Edmonton Metro’s CEO. “In July of 2024, Alberta saw 4,352 housing starts compared to July of 2023 — a 29.1 per cent increase. In the Edmonton region, housing starts were up 47 per cent year-over-year as of the third quarter of 2024. So, not only is Alberta growing quickly, but Edmonton has been growing fastest of all.”

Edmonton experienced a record year for construction starts and demonstrated resilience, echoed Adil Kodian, Rohit Group’s executive vice-president, noting despite this volume growth Edmonton remained as one of North America’s most affordable major cities. “This is attracting a lot of new population in-migration into Edmonton,” said Kodian. “In 2023, most of the in-migration was into Calgary. Now the flow is starting into Edmonton.”

But Built Green and Jayman emphasized 2024 wasn’t all sunshine.

“2024 was bittersweet,” said Jenifer Christenson, Built Green Canada’s CEO. “While housing starts were up at unprecedented levels — in large part driven by migrants moving into Edmonton — construction companies plan to build more homes to meet the increased housing supply but they’re having to catch up. Meanwhile, we remain grappling with the impacts of inflation and interest rate hikes — despite interest rate cuts. Lingering effects will be present as rates normalize with housing affordability remaining top-of-mind.”

Further, the industry faced shortages in the trades — an ongoing issue, said Christenson.

Jayman’s Charles Fay, vice-president, Edmonton, also noted delays to construction timelines due to labour shortages.

“2024 was definitely a mixed market,” said Fay. “We saw strong market demand in all segments, and we saw a return to a more balanced residential market.”

Storm Clouds

Take land availability concerns, reduced immigration, cost inflation due to a lower Canadian dollar, and the pessimist would say Edmonton’s housing market is headed for trouble in 2025. That doesn’t even include effects from potential trade tariffs from incoming American president-elect Donald Trump.

Land availability was brought up with concern expressed about Edmonton’s substantial completion policy, one that calls for restricting growth in new areas until existing communities have been developed to a threshold deemed substantially complete.

“Edmonton city council and administration have failed to plan for the lands south of 41st Avenue since they were annexed from Leduc County and Beaumont on January 1, 2019, and are actively delaying the opportunity to begin the future planning work based on a policy framework called ‘substantial completion’ and an associated suite of motions from city council,” said Anderson. “These lands were annexed out of a sense of urgency that land supply was rapidly running out for both residential and non-residential development in Edmonton’s fastest growing sectors of the city (i.e., the southwest and southeast).”

Artificially stalling planning and development in this area will constrain land supply, limit housing construction and drive up prices for buyers and renters, said Anderson.

“Removing the barriers to development in the annexed land will allow more houses to be built, helping ease the pressure on supply and keeping Edmonton affordable,” said Fay.

Meanwhile, Edmonton will need to respond to changes that will happen Canada-wide, said Kodian, pointing to reduced immigration levels, a lower dollar, and potential Trump tariffs.

2025: A ‘Green’ Light?

When it comes to going green in the Edmonton region’s housing sector, signals are mixed.

Jayman’s Fay said green initiatives and sustainability continue to be of interest for homebuyers. But Rohit’s Kodian notes that with housing costs rising, “it is often the green features, which have high cost and long break-even periods, that get sacrificed first.”

But Built Green Canada said going into 2025, it continues to see increased numbers through its third-party certification programs — offering verification to a home’s energy efficiency and green features.

“Though we operate on a business-to-business model, we are also receiving more and more calls from homebuyers asking about our programs and whether a specific home they’re considering has been certified through us,” said Christenson. “And we know consumer demand for sustainable homes continues to rise. The 2024 Canadian Home Buyer Preferences National Survey, in partnership with Avid Ratings, reveals that five of the top 10 sought-after home features are related to sustainable builds.”

Yet, while only anecdotal, Built Green notes there appears to be a slight waning in the pursuit of net-zero energy homes in select markets (the highest performance level for a sustainably built home) due to the expense.

However, it offers various certification levels that provide affordable options based on incremental energy performance improvements and green features, and adds that for net-zero homes this might lessen over time as new technologies come to market, and with a greater shared understanding between industry and government toward the realities of costs.

“Of course there are other variables,” said Christenson. “In parallel, we also have a housing affordability crisis and so we need to bring these opposing requirements into greater alignment. Meanwhile, we were thrilled to see the launch of RBC Green Home Mortgage program this year, which offers lower monthly mortgage payments (with the option to extend the amortization up to 35 years), and financing for upgrades on selected energy efficient upgrades as part of the purchase price.”

2025: Good Tidings?

So what does this all mean? There is some agreement that 2025 should be another good year for Edmonton’s residential housing sector.

“The forecasts are for another strong year in Edmonton for housing despite the geopolitical uncertainty as a key risk with tariff threats and land scarcity,” said Christenson. “We expect to see continued diverse product offerings grow with housing attainability at the forefront.”

Growth is also forecasted by Jayman but there are concerns.

“The northeast and southeast will be the growth areas in Edmonton due to the land constraints on the southwest,” said Fay, referring to the substantial completion policy. “Pricing will increase and affordability will be tested due to market demand, land shortages, and trade and supply pressure.”

All things considered, said Kodian, “I think Edmonton is still a great place to live. Keeping Edmonton affordable will be the number one priority. As other cities push up development charges and property taxes discipline will be required from all stakeholders to keep costs down in Edmonton.”

BILD Edmonton Metro, meanwhile, said that with Edmonton committed to welcoming an additional one million people, this will require partnership efforts between the public, private and community sectors.

“With increased demand, there is understandably an increase in the services required from municipal administrations and elected officials to support and enable development,” said Anderson. “We remain engaged and committed to working with municipalities to not only forecast and ready our city for more housing and new arrivals, but to also identify improvements around regulations, processes and timelines to ensure speed to market.”