Vancouverites looking to move this month might not find there are many affordable options available for rent.
Unsurprisingly, the city continues to see the highest rental rates in the country this March, with prices for one and two-bedroom apartments ranging a couple of hundred dollars higher than the next priciest market.
Rentals.ca, an online apartment rental platform, has released its March 2022 National Rent Rankings report, which is based on data from its monthly listings.
This month, the average cost to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver is $2,239, which is an increase of 3.51 per cent this month over last and an astonishing increase of 14.7 per cent since March 2021. Two-bedroom units cost an average of $$3,050, which is an increase of 1.57 per cent since February but a whopping 17.62 per cent since last year.
Toronto has the country's second-most-expensive market, with one-bedroom units averaging $2,044 and two-bedrooms going for $2,774.
Another B.C. city, Burnaby, had the third priciest market, with one-bedroom rentals averaging $1,979 and two-bedroom units going for $2,398.
National Overview
The bottom panel in the chart below looks at the rent per-square-foot in Canada, according to rentals.ca data for all property types across the country. The average rent per square foot in February 2022 was $2.35, which is an annual increase of 3.5%.
Report authors note that "while the average rent-per-square-foot for all property types in Canada has fluctuated over the past three years, it appears to be slowly trending upward since 2021."
Provincial Rental Rates
British Columbia and Ontario recorded the highest monthly average rental rates at $2,253 per month and $2,118 per month, respectively. On the other end of the spectrum, Newfoundland and Saskatchewan recorded the lowest average monthly rental rates.
B.C. has experienced the largest annual increase in monthly rental rates, increasing by 15.3 per cent from the February 2021 average of $1,954 per month. Ontario has also experienced a significant annual increase of 10.4 per cent.
