Only one major city in Alberta is seeing rent prices on the rise
Rent prices are cooling in the two largest cities in Alberta, but one major city in the province is bucking that trend with a rise year-over-year.
Rentals.ca just released its August 2025 Rent Report, which compares rental costs across 60 cities in Canada.
According to the data, Alberta’s capital city of Edmonton ranks as the 52nd most expensive city in the country. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment dropped 3.8 per cent year-over-year to $1,369, while two-bedroom apartments now average $1,745, a one per cent decrease from August 2024.
Down south in Calgary, it ranked as the 42nd most expensive city to rent in, with the average one-bedroom dropping 8.8 per cent year-over-year to $1,689.
Other major cities in the province, like Fort McMurray, Medicine Hat, and Airdrie, all saw prices decline year-over-year, but one central Alberta city is bucking that trend with an increase.
Red Deer ranked as the 54th most expensive city to rent in, with an average rent for a one-bedroom apartment rising 1.7 per cent year-over-year to $1,322, while two-bedroom apartments now average $1,518, a 4.3 per cent increase from August 2024.
Rentals.ca
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Over the longer term, Edmonton has seen some of the strongest rent growth in Canada. Since 2022, average prices have climbed 27 per cent, second only to Ottawa. In contrast, cities like Calgary and Toronto saw declines over the same two-year period, and Vancouver was the only major market where rents fell over both the past two and three years.
The 10 most expensive rental markets in the country were all located in B.C. and Ontario. North Vancouver took the country’s top spot, with a one-bedroom apartment costing an average of $2,630 monthly. That said, rent prices dropped in nine of those cities over the past year, with Sudbury being the exception.
After what the report described as a quiet summer of declining prices, average rents across Canada are now down 3.6 per cent from this time last year.
With files from Allison StephenÂ