Moncton tops renter demand again as Toronto slides to 22nd

Moncton, N.B., is Canada’s most sought-after rental market for a fifth straight quarter, while Toronto has slipped to 22nd of 25 cities, matching its lowest ranking, according to a new report from apartment listing site RentCafe.

The site’s quarterly Renter Interest Report, released Nov. 6, found that none of the country’s largest rental markets cracked the top 10 for the second quarter in a row. Smaller and mid-sized cities filled every spot, led by Moncton, Victoria and Hamilton.

RentCafe, which is owned by real estate software firm Yardi, ranks 25 cities using activity on its own site from July to September: how scarce listings are, how often they are viewed, and how many renters save listings and searches.

In Moncton, renters saved 60 per cent more listings as favourites than a year earlier, while the number of available units fell 13 per cent. Moncton and Hamilton were the only two cities where page views rose year over year. Moncton has now led the ranking in six of the nine quarters RentCafe has published.

Figures from Yardi cited in the report help explain the city’s pull. New Brunswick had the strongest growth in rents on new leases of the nine provinces Yardi tracks, at 3.7 per cent, and the lowest provincial vacancy rate, at 2.2 per cent.

Victoria rose one spot to second, its best showing since the ranking began, after available listings fell 57 per cent from a year earlier. Oshawa, Ont., made the biggest jump, climbing 11 places to eighth and returning to the top 10 for the first time since late 2024. More of the interest in Oshawa apartments came from Toronto renters than from Oshawa residents, the report said.

Toronto went the other way. Available listings in the city rose 34 per cent from a year earlier, while page views fell 54 per cent, saved searches 57 per cent and favourited listings 27 per cent.

Edmonton, at 14th, is now the highest-ranked of the big cities, passing Vancouver for the first time since the summer of 2025. Vancouver fell three places to 16th, Calgary dropped four to 21st and Montreal climbed two to 23rd, moving off the bottom of the list.

The shift comes as the wider rental market cools. The national vacancy rate held at 4.7 per cent in the third quarter, and rents paid by existing tenants rose just 1.7 per cent from a year earlier to an average of $1,790, the smallest increase since Yardi began tracking in 2020, according to Yardi’s Canadian National Multifamily Report. Rents on newly signed leases fell for a third straight quarter, though the decline is easing.

Winnipeg, at 2.6 per cent, and Halifax, at 2.7 per cent, had the lowest vacancy rates among major markets, while Calgary, at 5.9 per cent, had the highest.

Ontario placed four cities in the top 10, Hamilton, Kitchener, Oshawa and Windsor, tying its record from the previous quarter. Alberta and Quebec had none.

RentCafe’s ranking reflects how renters behave on its own site rather than the whole market, and it weighs year-over-year changes as well as volume. The full rankings and city breakdowns are in the RentCafe report. For asking rents from a different source, see our report on asking rents falling for a 25th month.