Victoria remains at the top end of Canada’s most expensive rental markets according to a pair of recent reports.
Zumper and Rentals.ca recently released new rental data from cities across Canada.
The two reports use different data points which offer some insight into what’s going on in the capital’s rental sphere. When Zumper looked at the median price of a one-bedroom, it found Victoria came in at $2,080 a month. Rentals.ca measured the average rent of vacant one-bedrooms and found Victoria was the sixth most expensive city in Canada at $2,148.
Zumper has Victoria tied with Burnaby for the third-highest one-bedroom apartment rents in the country last month. The two B.C. cities and Windsor all saw the fastest-growing rent rates last month, at 6.1 per cent.
Rentals.ca found the average two-bedroom space in Victoria was $2,770, more than $500 above the Canadian average and six per cent more than the same time last year. The average September rent for a single-family home in Canada was $3,014, 12.1 per cent higher than in September 2021.
It’s likely not very shocking that Victoria, once again, was well above the national average for a traditional rental apartment. B.C. also remains the most expensive market in the country when looking at all rental property types, Rentals.ca found, with prices jumping almost by a third (31 per cent) since September 2021. September rents for one- and two-bedrooms in Victoria jumped by 30 and 25 per cent, respectively, from one year ago, according to Zumper.
Rentals.ca also shows interesting year-over-year data when it comes to local demand. Victoria had the most page views per listing, out of the largest 25 urban Canadian centres, in July, August and September of last year. But demand cooled in Victoria during that three-month stretch this year, when the city dropped to the middle of the pack.
Several factors are influencing the market, with Rentals.ca pointing to few new purpose-built rentals going online, increased interest rates keeping prospective buyers in the rental market and those buyers also holding out on the sidelines for longer as home prices fall.
The Rentals.ca report said there are also signs that the market will start to ease based on declining per-listing page views in September and the winter months traditionally seeing a drop in demand.
READ: Victoria rents spike at fastest rate in the country in past year
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