Edmonton rent is nearly $700 less than the national average: report

A one-bedroom apartment in Edmonton is nearly $700 less than the national average: report

Lisa Bourgeault/Shutterstock

Despite a steady increase in average pricing, Edmonton is still one of Canada’s most affordable major cities for rent.

That’s what the latest numbers from rental platform Zumper show. Alberta’s capital didn’t crack the top 20 in terms of costs for a one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartment, according to the numbers in a recently released monthly report.

But Edmontonians still, on average, have to shell out more cash than they did for rent at this time last year.

The median price of a one-bedroom apartment in Edmonton, according to Zumper’s latest numbers, is $1,200 — up 1.7% from last month and 20% from the previous year.

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A two-bedroom apartment was cheaper last month, coming in at a decrease of 1.3% at $1,470. That’s still a steep increase from last year when prices were 14.8% less than they are now.

A graph that shows the price of rentals in Canada (Zumper)

According to the report, the national Canadian rent index saw one-bedroom rent climbed 1% to $1,894, while two-bedrooms increased 0.3% to $2,350 last month.

“Migration into Alberta was high last year due to Alberta’s bustling job market, as employment rates reached a record high since 2019, the return of students to full-time learning on campus, and renters who were potentially being priced out of other expensive cities looking for more affordable housing,” said Crystal Chen with Zumper.

“All this has created a market with high competition, which puts upward pressure on rent prices.”

Zumper’s report is conducted by aggregating data from more than one million active listings to calculate median asking rents in the top 100 cities by population and almost 300 additional cities within major metro areas.

“While the national rents are on the rise on a monthly basis, the year-over-year rates are actually continuing the trend from the last two months and decelerating as we progress into [the] slow-moving season,” the report reads.

Out of the 23 cities taken into account for the data, Edmonton is the third cheapest. Based on those numbers, only Saskatoon and Regina are less expensive.

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