Vancouver renters have the rest of Canada beat, by far, but that’s not a glowing endorsement; it’s a dubious honour that renters in the city wear.
Rentals.ca recently shared a blog post about budgets for Canadian renters, and Vancouver leads the pack in one category by miles, but it’s not necessarily something to celebrate.
According to a renter preference survey that Rentals.ca recently conducted, Vancouver renters are budgeting the highest among all major Canadian markets, and it’s not even close.
“Vancouver renters are budgeting the highest of any market nationally — 48 per cent have a budget of $2,000 or more per month,” Rentals said.
The next highest is Ottawa, where 38 per cent of renters have a budget of $2,000 or more.
Rentals.ca
Rentals.ca’s most recent national rent report shared that an average one-bedroom unit in Vancouver is $2,392. The only city in Canada that Vancouver trails is North Vancouver, where a one-bedroom unit is $2,457. It’s a few hundred dollars higher when looked at all apartment types combined.
The situation isn’t much better province-wide, as Rentals.ca says that B.C. renters are budgeting the highest in the country.
Rentals says that 35 per cent of B.C. renters are targeting $2,000 or more per month, compared to the 48 per cent in Vancouver specifically, “yet the city’s average asking rent of $2,715 still outpaces even those elevated budgets.”
The Rentals report also reveals that most residents in B.C. don’t have much awareness of rent control.
In B.C., rent can only be increased once every 12 months and is limited by a provincial cap. This doesn’t apply to vacated units, where rent increases have no limitations.
The Rentals report concludes that in every region across the country, high prices are still the key concern, despite the B.C. Ministry of Housing celebrating a recent trend of decreasing rents.
B.C. Minister of Housing Christine Boyle said the situation during the FIFA World Cup was much better than where rent was at during the 2010 Olympics.
“Unlike during the 2010 Olympics, people aren’t lined up around the block in Metro Vancouver to compete for an apartment. Now, we see renters able to negotiate their rent down because similar units in their building are going for less, or move to newer apartments at better prices,” Boyle said.
The mileage may vary on that claim depending on who you’re talking to. There’s also a chance that we’re going to start seeing that trend reversing, as we did in the most recent Rentals report.