Calgary is now the 14th most expensive city in Canada for renters
After more than a year of boiling-hot rent increases, Calgary’s rental boom has reached a simmer in recent months.
Calgary is the latest major Canadian city to see average rents decline from record peaks — and large increases to its stock of new purpose-built rentals could mean the worst is behind the city, experts say.
Apartment and condo rents in Calgary tumbled two per cent in August, according to Rentals.ca, the second-straight month the city has seen its average rent decline.
“That probably means that this is not just a one-month thing,” Giacomo Ladas, associate director of communications for Rentals.ca, said in an interview.
Calgary is now the 14th most expensive city in Canada for renters, and remains significantly cheaper than Vancouver and Toronto’s rental markets. Edmonton, meanwhile, is still seeing explosive rent increases: in August, rents increased 12 per cent, crossing the $1,600 mark for the first time — about $400 per month less than Calgary.
As of August, the average rent for an apartment or condo in Calgary was $2,049. The average one-bed went for $1,780 and two-bed for $2,224. In Edmonton, a one-bedroom apartment was going for an average $1,454 and two-bedroom for $1,758.
As Calgary’s rents have climbed higher over the past three years, a greater number of people have been encouraged to flock to Edmonton in the pursuit of lower housing and rent prices, where valuations remain significantly lower than in Calgary.
“It’s enough that if people are moving to Alberta — which we know a ton of people still are — let’s go to Edmonton because it’s a little bit cheaper rent,” Ladas said. More than 100,000 people moved to Edmonton over 2022 and 2023, while Calgary welcomed nearly 96,000 people in 2023 alone.
Larger cities such as Vancouver and Toronto have seen more precipitous declines in rental prices over the past 10 months. On the heels of Calgary’s recent country-leading leaps in rental prices, Ladas said he’s expected Calgary to see price drops similar to those of Toronto and Vancouver.
“We were kind of waiting, when is this going to happen to Calgary? When is it going to happen to Montreal? And it turns out that it’s happened now,” Ladas said.
Part of that is owed to Calgary’s skyrocketing new rental stock which, through the first six months of 2024, was the leading type of housing unit built in Calgary. “If any place is equipped to build and have space to build, it’s Calgary, right?” Ladas said.
More to come…