National asking rents fell 4.8 per cent year over year in August, to a Canada-wide average of $2,035, marking a 23rd consecutive month of annual declines, according to the Rentals.ca and Urbanation National Rent Report released Sept. 9.
The month-over-month change was essentially flat, down just 0.1 per cent from July, and the national average is now 7.0 per cent below where it stood two years ago, the report found.
A second, officially compiled dataset released the same week points to a very different story underneath that national number. Statistics Canada’s quarterly rent survey, produced with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and also published Sept. 9, found that four mid-size cities posted the country’s steepest rent gains for the second quarter of 2026: Thunder Bay was up 6.5 per cent year over year, Sherbrooke rose 5.7 per cent, Halifax climbed 5.3 per cent and Saskatoon increased 5.2 per cent.
Those gains sit in sharp contrast with the cities StatCan found losing the most ground: Abbotsford-Mission and Calgary both fell 6.4 per cent, Montreal dropped 5.2 per cent and Vancouver was down 4.1 per cent, even though Vancouver remains Canada’s most expensive rental market at $3,030 a month for the average two-bedroom unit, per StatCan. Toronto followed at $2,650, then Victoria at $2,640 and Halifax, despite its recent gains, at $2,400.
Rentals.ca’s own ranking of Canada’s most and least expensive markets tells a similar story from a different angle. North Vancouver led the country in August at $3,018 for an average unit, ahead of Oakville, Ont., at $2,684 and Richmond, B.C., at $2,570. Fort McMurray, Alta., was the most affordable major market at $1,277, followed by Lloydminster, Alta., at $1,330 and Medicine Hat, Alta., at $1,345.
Among Canada’s six largest cities, rents moved higher in four of them during August even as the national figure fell: Ottawa was up 1.1 per cent to $2,168, Vancouver rose 1.0 per cent to $2,704, Montreal gained 0.8 per cent to $1,955 and Edmonton increased 0.7 per cent to $1,520. Toronto and Calgary were the exceptions, down 0.3 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.
A third pattern shows up by unit size. Rentals.ca found three-bedroom units the most resilient nationally, down just 3.1 per cent year over year to $2,508, compared with a 5.1 per cent annual drop for one-bedroom units and 5.0 per cent for studios. Toronto’s own figures, cited in the report and separately covered by CP24, show the same split locally: the city’s overall average rent fell 1.8 per cent to $2,571, but three-bedroom rents rose 3.5 per cent to $3,642 and two-bedroom rents edged up 0.3 per cent to $2,939. “People had only seen condo apartments for so long, that they forgot people built rental,” Matthew Boukall, vice-president at Altus Group, the firm that owns Urbanation, said of the shift in demand toward larger, purpose-built units.
StatCan’s survey also flagged a divergence between what landlords are asking new tenants to pay and what existing tenants already pay. In Calgary, the average asking rent of $1,890 for a two-bedroom unit now sits below the $1,930 that existing tenants pay on average, StatCan found. Regina showed a similar pattern, with average asking rent of $1,480 against average paid rent of $1,580. That gap indicates landlords in some softening markets are pricing new leases below what current tenants are paying on renewal.
Rentals.ca attributed part of the national softening to fresh uncertainty tied to U.S. tariffs, though it did not quantify the effect on rents directly. The firm’s next monthly report is due in October, and StatCan’s next quarterly rent survey, covering the third quarter of 2026, is expected before the end of the year.
