Canadian rent at 17 month low; biggest decrease seen in Ontario

The average rent across all residential types across the country is $2,109 as of December, 3.2 per cent less than the year prior, with it marking the fifth consecutive month of rent declines.

This is according to the latest report from Rentals.ca and Urbanation using data from Internet Listings Services on primary and secondary rental markets.

The decline follows a growth of 8.6 per cent in 2023 and 12.1 per cent in 2022. 2024 is the first year rents experienced an annual decrease since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when rents fell 5.4 per cent.

But even with the year-over-year decrease, overall rent across the country increased 16.8 per cent over the past five years, an average of 3.15 per cent per year.

Ontario saw some of the biggest rent relief where average asking rents for all apartments fell 4.7 per cent to $2,332. This followed a 3.7 per cent increase in apartment rents across the province during 2023.

Despite these decreases, Ontario remained the second most costly province for rent, second only to British Columbia.

The City of Ottawa is ranked 13th for cost of rent nationwide. The average one bedroom apartment in Ottawa is listed for $2,012, a 0.2 per cent decrease month-over-month and 2.5 per cent decrease year-over-year.

But the slight rent relief is not enough to help those in most need of housing. Ottawa’s latest Point-In-Time Count, on the night of Oct. 23, concluded there were 2,952 people across the city experiencing homelessness. That is a 13 per cent increase from the 2,612 counted in 2021.

Shelters are overflowing as Ottawa deals with “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity and homelessness, the Ottawa Mission’s 2024 annual impact report states. The charity says it has seen unprecedented levels of homelessness across the city in 2024.

“We’re in a desperate situation that the promises made in the ten year housing strategy by the federal government in 2017, haven’t even come close to their objective,” Peter Tilley, CEO of the Ottawa Mission, told CityNews. “We’ve all got people lining up to wait for a bed each night that’s happening all across this country.”