Rent prices in Canada soared last year as supply struggled to keep up with demand, leading to the lowest national vacancy rate on record since the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. began tracking that data in 1988.
The federal housing agency said in a report Wednesday the vacancy rate for purpose-built rental apartments sat at 1.5 per cent during the first two weeks of October 2023, when it conducted its annual survey.
That was down from 1.9 per cent a year earlier, which at the time had been the lowest national vacancy rate in over two decades.
The average rent for a two-bedroom purpose-built apartment, which the CMHC uses as its representative sample, grew eight per cent to $1,359 in 2023. That growth figure was up from the 5.6 per cent average rent increase recorded in 2022 and above the 1990-2022 average of 2.8 per cent.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The federal housing agency said in a report Wednesday the vacancy rate for purpose-built rental apartments sat at 1.5 per cent during the first two weeks of October 2023, when it conducted its annual survey.
The average rent for a two-bedroom purpose-built apartment, which the CMHC uses as its representative sample, grew eight per cent to $1,359 in 2023.
Although rental supply rose in most Canadian cities last year, it was not enough to keep pace with increased demand pressures caused by population and employment growth.
“You have newly arrived immigrants, obviously, but you have also young Canadians that are seeking their first home and you also have older households who are needing to downsize.”
He said with affordability challenges plaguing the home ownership market, especially amid last year’s high inflation and interest rate environment, more Canadians are looking to rental options.
The pair predicted that imbalance is “likely to persist for the foreseeable future” as the Bank of Canada forecasts population growth of about 800,000 in both 2024 and 2025, “with only a limited increase in housing starts.”
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