…
Average asking rents in Canada have fallen back to levels seen three years ago, as April marked the 19th consecutive year-over-year decline, [according to] the latest monthly analysis from Rentals.ca and Urbanation, based on asking rents across the former’s listings network.
…
“Rents in Canada are basically back to their level from three years ago,” said Urbanation president Shaun Hildebrand. He added that average rents are now down around $100 from a year ago and 7.4 per cent lower than 2024.
Hildebrand says improving affordability “should help bring renters into the market who were priced out in recent years.”
Rent declines were most concentrated in the largest provinces, with B.C. seeing a 5.9 per cent decrease and Ontario rents down 5.2 per cent. Rents rose in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
CBC had an interesting blurb about this kind of study: it refers to asking rent, as opposed to what renters actually pay. Typically, most renters only see their rent go up, unless they move. Typically, when renters move equivalent homes will be the current inflated price - so the only way to reduce cost is to reduce amenities.
Regardless however, it’s good that prices are falling.
A new report says average asking rents in Canada have fallen back to levels seen three years ago, as April marked the 19th consecutive year-over-year decline.
The latest monthly analysis from Rentals.ca and Urbanation, based on asking rents across the former’s listings network, says prices reached an average of $2,027, down 4.7 per cent from April 2025.
Okay, and? Like, the CBC isn’t exactly the height of journalism, but it does seem like this is trying to portray some kind of substantial decline in recent years. The cost of living plus rent has increased by 6.1% as of the start of 2026 (before the increase in oil prices and its reverberating effects). People are moving around Canada more because they can’t fucking afford to live here, so of course the prices in the most expensive places has changed. The cost of that has also been shifted to other parts of the country, it didn’t just decline. Many higher-demand, affordable units in Nova Scotia are up 18%. In Ontario, tenants rights were decreased to the point that you now have to pay your landlord to see them in court for non-payment hearings, and the grace period between non-payment and eviction was cut in half.
All of this and Liberals are still only considering neoliberal policies in response to the dire state of things here. This is not good fucking news, a general and marginal decrease in rent is not enough and has cost so much more than other options.
The cost of living plus rent has increased by 6.1% as of the start of 2026 (before the increase in oil prices and its reverberating effects)
Where do you get this number?
Canada’s headline inflation rate was 2.4% in March 2026, up from 1.8% in February.
The consumer energy inflation swung to 3.9% from the deflation rate of -9.3% in the previous month (and a deflationary period in the entire last 12 months), with transportation inflation being at 3.7% in March versus -0.8% in February.
All data from Statistics Canada.
The official numbers aren’t hard to find, so why not use ones that are directly comparable to the (probably wrong) claim you’re responding to?
So far this year the CPI is up by 1.5% (or 0.7% seasonally adjusted which would be a 2.8% annualized rate) over the three months they’ve measured so far as of the latest from statcan. The “shelter” component is up by 0.2%. The correspondence of those figures with the actual “cost of living” is somewhat dubious of course, and I too am curious where the 6.1% came from.
Edit: Had to correct the annualized rate because I am bad at numbers.
I agree that the initial claim of 6.1% is wrong, at least I haven’t a source for that.
Nothing is perfect in Canada nor elsewhere, but I hope most will agree that it’s not the doomsday scenario that is often spread here in this community. This is not to say that many people suffer from hardship and we shouldn’t discuss improvements, but what goes on here is often just anti-Canada (or anti-Western and anti-democratic) propaganda, supposedly laying the ground to portray foreign autocracies as the better solution.
Just a small detail: Canada’s CPI in March is up 1.5 points (not percent), it increased to 167.40 points in March from 165.90 points February.
What a headline. Average rent fell by 5% in the year ending April which is a pretty big decline. It did not fall by 5% in April which had me wondering for a moment if I’d missed some catastrophic event putting an end to life as we know it much more quickly than expected.
