Edmonton dethroned as Canadian city with the fastest-rising rent

A new rent report has revealed that Edmonton no longer leads the pack when it comes to rapidly rising rental costs.

The July Canadian Rent Report from Zumper shows that while Alberta’s capital continues to see annual rent growth in the double-digits, jumping 20.9% compared to this time last year, Winnipeg is now seeing the fastest-rising rental costs in the country.

Winnipeg saw the highest annual rent growth at 25%, Edmonton came in second, and Kelowna saw the third-fastest growth at 20.1%.

Though rent prices are spiking, Edmonton is still just the 21st out of 23 on Zumper’s list of Canada’s most expensive cities for renters. On average, a one-bedroom apartment in Alberta’s capital city costs $1,330 monthly.

Vancouver remains the most expensive city in the country for renters, with a one-bedroom apartment costing an average of $2,700. Despite astronomical costs, Vancouver is the only city in the top 10 that saw a decline in annual rent prices, dropping -2.5% over last year.

Zumper

Zumper

Our neighbours to the south in Calgary, who saw rent prices rise rapidly in 2023, have the ninth most expensive rent in the country.

The average price for a one-bedroom apartment in YYC is now $1,840, a 4.5% increase from last year.

“Annually speaking, one and two-bedrooms are up 4.3% and 3.6%, respectively. This report marks the first time we’ve seen the national one-bedroom rent price hit $1,900, a record high, and this rate is up 19.7% when compared to July 2022,” Zumper wrote.

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Alberta is one of a handful of Canadian provinces that does not have a rent control policy, and there are no limits to how much a landlord may increase the rent. However, there are some rules in the Residential Tenancies Act on how and when rent can be increased.

In neighbouring BC, which has the highest rental prices in the country, rent control policies limit annual rent increases for tenants, currently capped at 3.5%.

However, when a renter leaves a unit, there are no legal limits on how much a landlord can increase the price for a new renter.

The Zumper Canadian Rent Report analyzes rental data from hundreds of thousands of active listings nationwide.

Listings are then aggregated monthly to calculate median asking rents for the top 23 most populous metro areas.