December 2022 Metro Vancouver Rent Report

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Looking for our full December 2022 Metro Vancouver Rent Report? Download your copy here to get all the latest insights, including a detailed breakdown by neighbourhood.

Metro Vancouver’s regional average rent prices have finally fallen as we head deeper into the slower winter renting season. Rental rates have been steadily climbing across Canada throughout the year as the Bank of Canada continues to increase interest rates, so this month’s sharp decline is a much-needed cool-off.

You can get the latest updates on the Vancouver rental market straight to your inbox when you subscribe to keep on top of the latest rent trends.

Let’s take a look now at the current rental costs and overarching trends in Vancouver for December 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:

Average rent across Metro Vancouver

For the first time since July and just the second time all year, Metro Vancouver’s region-wide average rent prices have fallen. Heading into the typically slower winter renting season, the average rental rate for an unfurnished, one-bedroom unit dropped $90, to a new monthly average of $2,227 – a much-needed cool-off after a year of soaring prices. Depending on the outcome of the upcoming December 7th announcement from the Bank of Canada, this could be the start of a return to normalcy for the region’s rent prices. We’ll continue to monitor these trends heading into the new year.

Month-to-month rent change

This month saw a number of larger price increases in individual communities, particularly for unfurnished units which are generally more stable.

Looking at unfurnished units, a number of communities saw notable declines this month. West Vancouver (-13.76%) saw its higher-than-usual prices return to earth, while Surrey (-7.21%) and North Vancouver (-6.28%) also saw aggregate declines in price. Only two cities saw rental rates increase this month: Langley (+2.36%) and Vancouver (+0.71%).

For furnished units, Langley (+29.76%), Coquitlam (+15.38%), and North Vancouver (+11.19%) all saw huge month-to-month price increases, while the only notable decline occurred in New Westminster (-17.61%). In Vancouver, prices for a furnished, one-bedroom unit barely budged, increasing by just 0.27%.

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, 41.30% of their income towards rent. This may be considerably above the recommended amount, but isn’t an anomaly given the past few months’ numbers.

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 due to Canada’s rising interest rates.

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? For December, the least expensive cities for square footage are Surrey, Coquitlam, Langley, and Richmond, while the most expensive is once again Vancouver – though Burnaby isn’t far behind.

Renter demographics

On liv.rent, our renter demographics have seen a significant shift over the past year, 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+ as well as increased representation from the younger, under-25 demographic. 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 December, other rental platforms had just 25.00% of units available that were pet-friendly while on liv.rent, 44.00% of listed units were pet-friendly.

Average unfurnished vs. furnished rates

This December, furnished, one-bedroom units rented for considerably more on average than their unfurnished counterparts. As of this month, unfurnished one-bedroom units are, on average, $309 less expensive than furnished units – a much wider margin than we’ve seen recently. This indicates that landlords who choose to rent their units furnished will be able to charge more for rent, likely as a result of increased demand for short-term rentals.

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.

• Prices for three-bedroom, unfurnished units in West Vancouver were higher than anywhere else in Metro Vancouver this December, at an average of $5,898.
• Surrey had the least expensive average rent prices for one- and three-bedroom, unfurnished units, as well as two-bedroom, furnished units.
• The most expensive unit type this month was three-bedroom, furnished units in West Vancouver, which rented for an average of $6,225.

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. Downtown is Vancouver’s most expensive neighbourhood this December at an average of $2,694 for an unfurnished, one-bedroom unit. The same type of unit rented for an average of $2,151 in Vancouver’s cheapest neighbourhood, Renfrew.

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

For the third straight month, all of Canada’s four most expensive cities are in Metro Vancouver. Vancouver is 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 $2,612. North Vancouver falls to the number two spot with a monthly average rent of $2,587, while Burnaby and Richmond round out the top four.

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Downloadable resources

Make Zoom calls fun and informative when you use the latest rental averages and trends as your virtual background.

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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:

November 2022 Metro Vancouver Rent Report
November 2022 Toronto Rent Report
November 2022 Calgary & Edmonton Rent Report
November 2022 Montreal Rent Report