They came, so they built: Housing starts set a record in Alberta in 2025

In the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams,” Kevin Costner’s character hears a disembodied voice tell him “if you build it, he will come.” The “it” in question is a baseball field and the “he” is the Costner character’s deceased father.

When it comes to home construction, the risks are such that the line works better if it is reversed and changed to “if they come, we will build.”

This has been the case recently in Alberta where rapid population growth has been followed by a boom in new home construction.

The stats are impressive:

• Annual housing starts* in Alberta totalled 54,858 (almost the same as our forecast of 55,100). That’s the most on record, beating the previous peak of 48,962 set in 2006.
• Last year’s total was 15% higher than 2024’s, which was itself a strong year for starts and 33% higher than 2023.
• Alberta accounted for over 21% of all starts in Canada last year. That’s the highest share since the provincial building boom of 2006.

The driving force behind this is the almost half a million people added to Alberta’s population between the start of 2023 and the end of September 2025 (latest data available). It is no coincidence that Alberta’s share of Canada’s population growth over this period is the same as its share of housing starts (21%). “If they come, we will build.”

Alberta’s rapid population growth over the last few years was driven by a surge in non-permanent residents on student and work visas, strong gains from immigration, ongoing natural increase (births less deaths) and a return to a net inflow of people from other parts of the country.

In terms of the type of housing being built, multi-dwelling units dominated at 70% of last year’s starts. This is the highest share on record, beating the previous high of 66% set in 2024.

About 90% of the starts were in the Calgary and Edmonton metro areas.

Clearly, 2025 was a banner year for residential construction in Alberta, but what’s next? Just as population growth heated up residential construction, slower population growth will cool it off. As outlined in a recent ATB Real Estate Team report, 2026 will be marked by a period of rebalancing and stabilization in the housing market.

With Alberta’s rate of population increase falling to 1.5% this year from 4.7% in 2024 and 2.5% last year, we see annual housing starts in 2026 dropping by about 10,000 units for a total of 45,000 in 2026. Although lower than last year, this is still 33% higher than the 10-year average. In other words, starts will slow, but remain relatively high. 

*A housing start is defined as the beginning of construction work on the building where the dwelling unit will be located. This can be described in two ways: 1) The stage when the concrete has been poured for the whole of the footing around the structure. 2) An equivalent stage where a basement will not be part of the structure.

Answer to the previous trivia question: The Economist magazine launched the Big Mac Index in 1986 as a way to measure purchasing power across countries.

Today’s trivia question: When did the popular American TV show “This Old House” premier on the U.S. Public Broadcasting System (PBS)?