Asking rents in Vancouver are increasing at double to triple the rate of inflation

English Bay (Daily Hive)

Asking rents in Vancouver have increased an unsettling amount again since this time last year, rising at double to triple the rate of inflation Canada-wide.

Asking rents for a one-bedroom apartment in the city are 6% to 10% more expensive than they were this time last year, according to data from Rentals.ca and Zumper, which track unit listings on their respective platforms.

The average price of a one-bedroom rental in Vancouver is now $2,866 on Rentals.ca and $2,730 on Zumper. They’re both posting slight decreases since the previous month but massive gains since last year.

Those numbers follow an even more shocking rise in asking rents from 2021 to 2022. Comparing December to December, Rentals.ca pegged Vancouver’s increase at 21%. But earlier in the year, from spring 2021 to 2022, rents increased 30% year-over-year in the city.

With those kinds of post-pandemic increases, it’s fair to say asking rents are skyrocketing. The pace of increase has slowed slightly since last year in Vancouver proper, but with Statistics Canada’s latest Consumer Price Index report clocking year-over-year inflation at 3.1%, rents are still rising far faster.

Some cities in Metro Vancouver are still posting year-over-year increases well into the double-digit percentages. Rentals.ca data suggests listings in Burnaby are 18% more expensive than this time last year, making it the second-most expensive city for renters in all of Canada. Zumper names Burnaby the third most expensive city in Canada, tracking a 12% increase year-over-year.

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Zumper’s rent increases are more conservative than Rentals.ca, but that may just be a reflection of the units posted on their listing platforms. The data doesn’t capture every single unit for rent in the city, missing ones that are listed just on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace.

But massive rent increases since the pandemic are also seen on those platforms, creating stressful realities for tenants in the rental market. Daily Hive shared the story this week of two tenants whose landlords served them family-use evictions, and they could only find equivalent apartments by shelling out 1.5 times to double their previous rent.

Rents are increasing so quickly that tenants who’ve been in their unit a year or more are paying, on average, three-quarters of what freshly moved-in tenants are.

This is happening as Canada hikes interest rates at the fastest pace in 40 years, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. It’s creating a shock for many homeowners, including landlords, at mortgage renewal time.

The current environment with population growth, rental rate inflation, rising interest rates, and spiking mortgage payments has everyone feeling stretched, Realtor Jeff Appelbe told Daily Hive this week. Everything is increasing but wages, he said, and it’s a “recipe for disaster.”

“I’ve certainly noticed an uptick in tenanted properties for sale,” he said. “The irony is that tenants with ultra-cheap rent are often evicted because their landlord is underwater and forced to sell. It’s sort of a lose-lose.”

It’s a situation that’s prompted at least one healthcare worker facing eviction to think about moving back to Ontario, concerned for the future of Metro Vancouver.

“I just really think that the housing market has failed. For those who have money, it’s great,” Meaghan Zerebecki said. “But for those who are middle income or low income … I’m concerned for those who make less than us. It is so stressful.”

For renters remaining in their current place, the maximum allowable rent increase this year is 3.5%.

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