Photo: zyphichore/Flickr
If you live in major city, chances are, you’ve seen your rent climb year-over-year. But which Canadian metro has seen the biggest leap in rental costs in the last decade?
We looked at CMHC’s market data for two-bedroom rental apartments (which do not include condos), their benchmark for tracking rent, in ten major cities across the country. And it’s the booming prairie cities that have seen the biggest percentage increases in prices.
Here’s what we learned:
- Regina came out on top. In October 2003, a two-bedroom flat was $589 a month on average, but that number has shot up to $1,018 this year for a 72.84 per cent rise (Tweet this).
- Calgary and Edmonton followed behind with 58.03 per cent and 52.24 per cent increases respectively.
- The pricier markets saw less dramatic increases. Ottawa was second last on the list, moving from $932 in 2003 to $1,132 in 2013 for a 21.46 per cent rise.
- Surprisingly, Toronto came in last with rents in the GTA rising from $1,040 to $1,213 in the last ten years for a 16.63 per cent increase (Tweet this).
We also checked out vacancy rates for the same ten cities to see whether they’ve had rental conditions tighten since 2012. Five of the cities had vacancy rates drop while two cities registered no change. Perhaps it’s a sign that next year won’t see any huge hikes in rent?
Check out our graphs and tables below for more details:
