- Average rent prices for unfurnished, one-bedroom units across Metro Vancouver have increased greatly since July, up $147 from our previous report.
- West Vancouver is now the most expensive municipality in Canada to rent an unfurnished, one-bedroom unit.
- Rent prices in Richmond have soared +24.10% this August, making it the third-most expensive city in Canada for one-bedroom, unfurnished units.
Average rent prices across Metro Vancouver have unsurprisingly skyrocketed this August as students begin to return for the fall semester and interest rates rise across the country. Following last month’s brief cool-off, Metro Vancouver’s rental rates have resumed their upward trend with significant price increases in the majority of the region’s municipalities.
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Let’s take a look now at the current rental costs and overarching trends in Vancouver for August 2022. Don’t forget, you can download the entire report as a one-page infographic PDF below.
Jump to the following Vancouver Rent Report sections:
Download The Latest Vancouver Rent Report
For the complete Vancouver rent report including new neighbourhood breakdowns, download here.
Average rent across Metro Vancouver
Following a slight dip in July, Metro Vancouver’s rent prices are heating up again with a huge $147 increase in average rent since last month. Soaring all the way from $2,029 in July to a sky-high $2,176 this August, Vancouver’s rental market looks to continue its ascent as both landlords and renters adjust to increased competition and the reality of Canada’s latest interest rate announcements. Vancouver itself saw only mild price increases, but plenty of areas experienced more notable changes this August. We’ll cover these changes and potential catalysts as we dive deeper into this month’s data, statistics and trends throughout this report.
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Month-to-month rent change
August brings with it some seismic shifts in B.C.’s rental landscape, with prices primarily increasing in Metro Vancouver’s many communities, aside from a few outliers.
Looking more closely at unfurnished units, Richmond (+24.10%), New Westminster (+12.70%), and West Vancouver (+11.06%) experienced the most significant price increases this month. Decreases were scant, aside from North Vancouver, where unfurnished, one-bedroom units dropped in price by -3.77%. In Vancouver itself, prices rose slightly by 2.80%.
Furnished units were more of a mixed bag this month, as we’ve become accustomed to seeing. Average prices plummeted in both North Vancouver (-15.93%) and West Vancouver (-22.51%) after those municipalities peaked in recent months. Price increases were more moderate for furnished units, with the most notable increases coming from Langley (+8.00%), New Westminster (+7.10%), and Coquitlam (+6.31%).
Income-to-rent ratio
We gather data on renters’ income-to-rent ratio every month, and our most recent data shows that renters in Vancouver who use liv.rent are paying, on average, 33.90% of their income towards rent.
While traditional financial advice would be to spend no more than 30% of your income on rent, this advice is perhaps not well suited to the realities of renting in cities like Vancouver – especially as prices continue their rapid climb.
Still, landlords and property managers should look to see that a tenant can reasonably afford rent compared to how much money they make as part of their tenant screening process.
Rent per square foot
Where’s the cheapest place to rent in Metro Vancouver by how much space you get? This August, the least expensive cities for square footage are Surrey, Richmond, and Coquitlam while the most expensive this month is Vancouver itself, with Burnaby, New Westminster, and North Vancouver not far behind.
Renter demographics
Our liv.rent, renter demographics have seen a significant shift in recent months, with more and more renters from different age groups now using the platform. We’re now seeing a much more even spread, particularly with the recent influx of renters aged 35+. With that being said, the majority of renters that make up our community are between the ages of 25-34.
Pet-friendly rentals
We’re proud to say that liv.rent continues to be the rental platform with the most pet-friendly rentals. This August, other rental platforms had just 27.00% of units available that were pet-friendly while on liv.rent, 56.00% of listed units were pet-friendly.
>> Recommended Reading: The Top 8 Pet Friendly Neighbourhoods in Metro Vancouver
Average unfurnished vs. furnished rates
The gap in price between furnished and unfurnished rentals has closed significantly this August. As of this month, furnished one-bedroom units are, on average, just $96 more expensive than unfurnished units. This indicates that landlords who choose to rent their units furnished will be able to make slightly greater profits provided they have their own furniture to supply — especially as students return to school. Furnished units also lend themselves well to short-term rentals, which are highly in demand right now.
Is your rental priced competitively?
Find out with a free rent estimate. Our team of rental experts will calculate your unit’s true value based on your listing details & current market trends.
City breakdown
Metro Vancouver’s rental averages vary greatly across the region, so we’ve broken up our data by municipality/city to compare the cost of one-, two-, and three-bedroom rates for both furnished and unfurnished units in different areas.
- West Vancouver has become Metro Vancouver’s most expensive municipality for renting unfurnished, one-bedroom units this month.
- For the second month in a row, Langley is the cheapest place to rent both furnished and unfurnished one-bedroom units, at $1,728 and $1,716, respectively.
- Furnished units are the most expensive in Vancouver itself, for both one-, two-, and three-bedroom units this August.
Gain comprehensive insights about your listings with the new liv.rent Landlord listing Dashboard. Sign in to unlock live insights – find out the average rent for a comparable property, number of views your listing received and more!
Neighbourhood breakdown
We’ve broken down Vancouver into its individual neighbourhoods for a more complete look at the city’s individual rental markets. For a further breakdown of neighbourhoods in municipalities and cities outside of Vancouver, be sure to download our complete Rent Report.
Let’s take a look now at some of the latest averages from Vancouver’s many unique neighbourhoods. For August, Mount Pleasant just barely edges out Downtown by $1 to become Vancouver’s most expensive neighbourhood for an unfurnished one-bedroom unit, at an average of $2,744 per month.
You can take a look at our neighbourhood breakdown for unfurnished units in Vancouver here. For the complete report, including furnished rentals for Vancouver neighbourhoods as well as full information for other cities in Metro Vancouver, be sure to download your copy below.
Most expensive cities in Canada
West Vancouver has surpassed Vancouver to become Canada’s most expensive city to rent in terms of unfurnished one-bedroom units, with the average one-bedroom, unfurnished unit in the municipality going for $2,621. Richmond has also made it onto the list this month with a monthly average rent of $2,441, and average rent in Toronto has risen slightly again to $1,979 this month to make it Canada’s fourth-most expensive city this August.
Downloadable resources
Make Zoom calls fun and informative when you use the latest rental averages and trends as your virtual background.
Free Virtual Backgrounds: Download Here
Download The Latest Vancouver Rent Report
For the complete Vancouver rent report including new neighbourhood breakdowns, download here.
Rental resources for B.C. renters
You can read these comprehensive guides for more information on renting in B.C. and using liv.rent to streamline your rental process.
- BC Residential Tenancy Agreement Explained
- Guide to BC Tenancy Forms
- The Complete User Guide To liv.rent For Landlords & Property Managers
- The Ultimate Renter’s Guide To Using liv.rent
Data collection methodology
Our monthly rent reports use data from our own liv.rent listings, as well as data our team manually collects from other popular listing sites – looking at available basement suites, apartments, condos, townhouses, semi-detached houses, and single-detached houses for each area.
When collecting this data, we do exclude luxury properties listed at over $5,000, as well as rooms for rent and shared accommodation. Investing in manual data collection means that we only consider the current month’s listing, since we can filter out duplicate listings and older ads that haven’t been removed.
Another key difference between our data collection methods and some government agencies like the CMHC is that we only include current asking rent prices. Many official reports will include data for entire buildings in their reports, which tends to skew numbers lower since many units are already occupied, and may be rent-controlled or rented for significantly lower than the current rates.
As we are a Canadian rental platform founded and based in Vancouver, we want to ensure that we’re providing a completely accurate depiction of the rental market in the cities we look at.
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Subscribe to receive these monthly updates on the Vancouver rental market. Discover last month’s Rent Reports below:
July 2022 Metro Vancouver Rent Report
July 2022 Toronto Rent Report
July 2022 Montreal Rent Report
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