Asking rents fall 4.2% to $2,034 for 24th month, but Toronto, Vancouver edge up

Canada’s average asking rent fell 4.2 per cent from a year earlier to $2,034 in September, the 24th consecutive month of annual declines, according to the Rentals.ca and Urbanation National Rent Report released Oct. 7. The drop is not uniform: asking rents in Toronto and Vancouver have started to climb again.

The figure was down $1 from $2,035 in August and 7.3 per cent lower than two years earlier, the report said. It was the lowest September level since 2022. The Canadian Press reported the same national numbers, and the Rentals.ca release gives the full breakdown.

“Two straight years of falling rents is the longest downturn the Canadian rental market has seen in recent history,” Shaun Hildebrand, president of Urbanation, said in the release. He said supply has been the main driver of the correction and that, in Toronto and Vancouver, new supply is moving past its peak.

Toronto’s average asking rent was $2,554, down 1.4 per cent from a year earlier and 0.6 per cent from August. Vancouver’s was $2,741, down 1.3 per cent on the year but up 1.4 per cent on the month. Rentals.ca said Vancouver’s annual decline, the city’s 34th straight, was its smallest since December 2023.

Condos led the decline. Condo apartment rents fell 7.8 per cent on the year to $2,052, while purpose-built rentals dipped 2.7 per cent to $2,036, which Rentals.ca called the most resilient segment.

What the city numbers show

The six cities Rentals.ca tracks all posted smaller annual declines than the national figure of 4.2 per cent: Calgary at $1,823 (down 3.9 per cent), Edmonton at $1,522 (down 3.2 per cent), Ottawa at $2,164 (down 1.2 per cent), and Montreal at $1,959 (down 1.1 per cent). Canada News Media notes that the national figure therefore falls faster than any of the large markets, which suggests smaller markets and the mix of unit types are pulling the average down. The report does not explain the gap.

One explanation comes from Better Dwelling, which reported that the average listed rental unit shrank to 852 square feet in September, down 4.2 per cent over two years, and argued that this accounts for more than half of the 7.3 per cent two-year drop in asking rent. That is Better Dwelling’s analysis, not Rentals.ca’s, and we could not read the chart behind it. If it holds, part of the headline decline reflects smaller units rather than cheaper space.

The gap between cities, and between renting and owning

By Canada News Media’s calculation from the Rentals.ca averages, a Vancouver renter pays $1,219 a month more than an Edmonton renter, or $14,628 a year. The Toronto-Calgary gap is $731 a month.

National rent is $168 below the May 2024 peak of $2,202. Rentals.ca puts that at 9.2 per cent below peak, but the dollar figures it publishes work out to 7.6 per cent, and we could not reconcile the two, so we cite the dollar amounts.

Against ownership, the comparison is stark but crude. In our calculation of the Bank of Canada’s Oct. 28 hike, the payment on a $500,000 variable-rate mortgage at 4.20 per cent over 25 years was about $2,685 a month, using a worked example from Yahoo Finance Canada. That is about $651 a month, or $7,807 a year, above the national average asking rent. The comparison leaves out the down payment, property tax, insurance and maintenance, and a $500,000 mortgage does not match a $2,034 rental in size or location.

Why supply matters

A Desjardins report by economist Kari Norman, summarized by Storeys in August, found about 130,000 rental starts over the previous four quarters, while the ownership share of housing starts fell from 70 per cent to about 45 per cent. Condo starts dropped below 50,000 for the first time since the 2009 recession. Norman wrote that condo projects depend on investor presales that have “fallen sharply,” while targeted CMHC financing and the removal of GST on new rental construction have improved the economics of purpose-built rental.

Rentals.ca publishes monthly, so the October figures will show whether the recent upticks in Toronto and Vancouver hold. The release closes with another line from Hildebrand: “Where Toronto and Vancouver go, the rest of the country follows.”

Sources: Rentals.ca and Urbanation National Rent Report (Oct. 7, 2026); The Canadian Press via Investment Executive (Oct. 7); Better Dwelling (Oct. 8); Storeys, summarizing Desjardins (Aug. 10). Figures labelled as ours are Canada News Media calculations.

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