Here's how you can try to get cheaper rent in Vancouver

While Metro Vancouver cities still make up four of the top five most expensive places to rent in the country, prices have been trickling down over the past few years — and some people are taking advantage of it.

Darren, a renter in East Vancouver, received notice from his property manager in December 2025 that they would be increasing his rent from $1,900 to $1,950 a month, for what he described as a “tiny little hole in the wall studio.”

“It was just too much,” Darren told Daily Hive Urbanized (he asked to keep his last name anonymous). “So, seeing the rents going down across the city, I thought it was the right opportunity to get it lowered.”

Darren had lived in his apartment for three years. When he first moved there, his rent was $1,850 a month for both the studio and parking.

“That’s when [rent] was starting to peak. So everything was going through the roof. It wasn’t the best time to be looking for an apartment, but you know, life does that to you,” he said.

When he got notice of the rent increase last December, he decided to take the opportunity to lower his costs.

He looked at some units that were listed in his apartment on Craigslist (where he had originally found his apartment), and saw they were lower than what he was currently paying — one was at $1,550. Darren gave his landlord a 30-day move-out notice, with the offer to stay if they would lower his rent to $1,650. He told them that rents were declining across Vancouver and mentioned the cheaper unit in the building.

“I figured that this would be a good in the middle for both of us,” Darren said.

They responded, saying that the unit listed for $1,550 was smaller than his and offered him $1,700.

Darren had assumed they would come back to him with this price, and agreed. But if they had come back offering $1,750 or $1,800, he said he would have looked for another place.

“I think that’s the real key to negotiating a rent decrease, is putting your mouth where your mouth is and being willing to leave, if they don’t come through with negotiation.”

But he thought $1,700 was a good compromise, because he couldn’t find anything comparable price-wise to stay in his neighbourhood, which he loves because of its walkability.

“This is a nice little reprieve — for once — in a city like Vancouver.”

Because Darren took the opportunity to negotiate, he’s now saving $250 a month, which amounts to $3,000 over the course of the full year. He said he’s putting that money towards a deposit to buy a home one day.

“So I don’t have to deal with the rising rents forever,” he said. “It’s a scary thing, right? When the market gets super high, landlords could kick you out to get in new tenants. You just never know. You never have security when the rents are going up.”

Why are rents going down?

Rents across the country are going down due to basic economics: an increase in supply and a decrease in demand.

B.C.’s population dropped by 41,000 people in 2025, due to the federal government’s policy shift to reduce the number of non-permanent residents in Canada, especially international students and temporary workers. Non-permanent residents tend to make up a large share of renters, and as their numbers decline, vacancy rates are rising.

Further, demand from new renters has also fallen. Giacomo Ladas, the associate director of communications for Rentals.ca, a rental marketplace, told Daily Hive Urbanized that would-be renters aren’t entering the market due to “heightened economic uncertainty.”

According to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey from March 2026, the unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 24 was at 13.8 per cent, about double the unemployment rate (6.7 per cent) for Canadians at large.

“Falling rents are good news for renters, of course, but they’re also kind of a signal of economic strain. We’re seeing weaker demand driven by weaker financial conditions from Canadians, especially among younger Canadians,” said Ladas.

“They’re staying at home longer. They’re staying with roommates longer. They’re waiting to upgrade. They’re maybe making rental choices based on affordability rather than accessibility, whether that’s moving to a different province in search of more affordable rents.”

This is coinciding with a record number of purpose-built rental completions. In 2025, Vancouver saw 2,300 purpose-built market rental units completed, the highest in four decades.

“Some of our most expensive rental markets have been on this build, build, build to increase our housing supply,” said Matisse Yiu, the head of marketing for liv.rent, another rental marketplace.

“It was really a matter of a decrease in demand and an increase in supply in our rental market that ultimately affected a lot of the rental rates coming down,” she said.

Are we finally in a renters market?

Yiu said that liv.rent’s highest recorded month for rent was September 2023. According to its Metro Vancouver rent report from that month, the average rent for an unfurnished one-bedroom unit was $2,438, nearly $350 more than current prices.

Around this time, rentals popping up in Vancouver included a partioned-off “shared space hall area” for $800 a month, a basement suite without a stove, cooktop, or any element for cooking for $2,900 a month, and a unit that went for $1,200 a month and asked the tenant to housekeep for 15 hours a week.

Ladas said Rentals.ca recorded the highest rents across Canada in spring 2024, when asking rents for all residential property types averaged $2,181.

“Whenever there was an open house for a single unit in a building, there’d be a line up down the street to view it. It was a crazy period,” said Ladas.

“But now it’s a renter’s market,” he said.

In April 2026, Metro Vancouver’s average rate for an unfurnished one-bedroom unit was at $2,090, according to liv.rent. In Vancouver, rent for the same unit was $2,249. And Rentals.ca recorded the national average rent at $2,008 a month in April 2026.

Vancouver’s rent has gone up slightly since the beginning of the year, which Ladas says is likely because people are taking the opportunity to move.

“We think that it is Canadians who are taking advantage of these reduced prices and these moving incentives,” he said.

How are landlords trying to attract new tenants?

Not only are rents going down, but there are now many landlords and property managers who are offering moving incentives, so much so that Rentals.ca added a rental incentive filter on its rental platform.

Tam Barclay, a real estate specialist with Stilhavn Real Estate Services, works with both tenants and landlords to rent units. Currently, she’s renting out a building called Cedar Lane on Kingsway. To attract tenants, she’s offering one month free for people who sign a one-year lease, and two months free for a 24-month contract.

“And still, people are trying to squeeze me on certain prices,” she said.

She said this is happening because there’s “just so much product” on the market right now. In the same area, four other buildings came online within a six-month period.

“You get a huge amount of competition. I would drop my prices, and then they would drop their prices,” Barclay said.

Cedar Lane is an air-conditioned, concrete building that is pet-friendly. Barclay has a studio listed for $1,925 a month, one-bedrooms on the top floors at $2,350, and a two-bedroom two-bathroom for $2,950. She said she’s recently dropped the prices of three-bedroom, one-bathroom townhouses to $3,750.

This building is even offering free, basic internet to tenants (or they can pay $30 a month for high-speed).

“I’ve never seen it before,” she said. “They’re offering a lot of good things — like a lot of good things. It’s still slow to rent, though.”

She said the rental housing market was completely different five years ago. Not only were rental incentives not offered, but landlords and property managers didn’t upgrade apartments.

“Which always frustrated me. They didn’t paint between tenants. They didn’t get proper cleaners,” Barclay said.

Today, she advises landlords to think about upgrading apartments if they want to attract tenants.

“If they’ve had the same unit for 20 years and done nothing, I think it’s time that they probably do a renovation,” she said. “It makes such a difference. And they don’t need to spend a huge amount of money, but doing a kitchen and a bathroom makes a huge difference.”

How can renters try to negotiate rent?

If someone wants to ask their landlord for lower rent, the first step is to research the market rate for similar units. They can then contact their landlords with screenshots of listings in either their rental building or neighbourhood to show that prices are declining, said Liu.

Along with that, they’ll explain how good a tenant they’ve been — paying rent on time, being low maintenance, and how long they’ve been in the unit for.

“They’re really trying to appeal to tenant turnover. Landlords don’t want that, so they’re really trying to use all of this information together to negotiate their rent prices, either for a rent freeze or even a rent reduction,” said Liu. “We’re definitely seeing that normalization of negotiation at this time.”

If someone decides to move homes in search of cheaper rent, landlords are often looking for tenants with stable incomes, good references, and good credit.

And when asking for lower rents, Barclay advises people not to be “too aggressive.”

“Try to ask for a couple of hundred, maybe a hundred off, maybe 200 off, depending on what the listing is. If it’s a higher listing, then you could be a bit cheeky and maybe ask for $1,000 off,” she said.

If you can offer to pay a couple of months of rent upfront, it also helps your case.

“You’ve got to look at the situation and look at what you’re bringing to the table,” she said.

If a landlord isn’t willing to lower rent, they might still offer move-in incentives like a free month, a reduction in parking fees, or the inclusion of utilities.