At a glance
- There’s a $922/month gap between Vancouver’s most vs least expensive neighbourhoods
- Downtown Vancouver is the city’s most expensive neighbourhood to rent in this month, with an unfurnished one-bedroom unit renting for an average of $2,782/month. The same type of unit rents for an average of $1,976 in Vancouver’s cheapest neighbourhood, Sunset-Victoria Fraserview, a difference of $806/month.
- Vancouver home to 4 of Canada’s top 5 most expensive cities
- This January, four of the country’s five most expensive cities are located in Metro Vancouver. West Vancouver takes the top spot as the most expensive city in Canada, followed by North Vancouver, Vancouver and Richmond. Markham is the only city on the list not located in Metro Vancouver.
- Furnished units see big price swings this month in Metro Vancouver
Download The Latest Vancouver Rent Report
For the complete Vancouver rent report including new neighbourhood breakdowns, download here.
Metro Vancouver’s average rent prices have decreased this month and are still just about under year-over-year levels by $74. The Bank of Canada’s most recent announcement on December 11th indicated that it would lower the target overnight rate to 3.25%, which has led many to believe that rent and home prices may continue to fall through 2025.
Let’s look now at the current rental costs and overarching trends in Vancouver for January 2025.
Average rent across Metro Vancouver
Metro Vancouver’s average rent prices have decreased this January. This month, the average rent price for an unfurnished, one-bedroom unit dropped by $4, to a new average of $2,293. Since January 2024, Metro Vancouver’s average rate for an unfurnished one-bedroom unit has decreased by $74.
Planning on raising rent this year? B.C.’s new annual allowable rent increase limit for 2025 is 3%. Find out when and how to increase rent and ensure you comply with provincial guidelines by reading our updated Guide to B.C. Rent Increases.
>> Recommended Reading: [Updated for 2023] How Much Can Landlords Increase Rent in BC?
Month-to-month rent change
To better understand how rent prices changed in Metro Vancouver cities, let’s look at the most significant changes for both furnished and unfurnished one-bedroom units this month.
Several cities saw notable changes in average rent prices this month. Looking at one-bedroom furnished units, Langley (+9.63%) and New Westminster (+9.02%) saw the biggest month-to-month increases, while Coquitlam (-8.55%) had the most notable month-to-month decrease.
Unfurnished one-bedroom units showed little change this month. Langley (+4.76%) experienced the highest month-to-month increase, while New Westminster saw the biggest decrease with a drop of (-5.71%) followed by Coquitlam (-3.01%).
Rent per square foot
Where’s the cheapest place to rent in Metro Vancouver based on how much space you get? As of January 2025, the least expensive cities for square footage are West Vancouver ($2.45/sq. ft.), New Westminster ($2.87/sq. ft.) and Surrey ($2.88/sq. ft.) while the most expensive cities for square footage are Vancouver ($4.18/sq. ft.) and Coquitlam ($3.17/sq. ft.).
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.
Active listing data
We’ll also examine detailed statistics for currently active listings available on the market to see which property types and number of bedrooms are the most represented. For renters, these numbers show which types of units you’re most likely to encounter in the Metro Vancouver region, while for landlords, you can assess how much competition you’ll face based on the current supply.
Active listings by property type
As of January 2025, apartments were the most common rental property type, representing 72.60% of active listings on the market. Partial houses (e.g., basement suites) were the second-most rented unit type this month, at 16.34% of active listings currently available to rent.
Active listings by number of bedrooms
In terms of the number of bedrooms, we saw a more even spread across active listings on the market this January. One-bedroom units were the most common type of listing this month at 45.35%, though two-bedroom units held a nearly equal share, representing 44.99% of all active listings on the market.
Average unfurnished vs. furnished rates
Average prices for unfurnished one-bedroom units in Metro Vancouver fell this month while prices for furnished units rose. As of January 2025, a furnished one-bedroom unit rents for more than an unfurnished one-bedroom unit by $29/month on average.
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.
Looking for our full January 2025 Metro Vancouver Rent Report? Download your copy here to get all the latest insights, including a detailed breakdown by neighbourhood.
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 furnished and unfurnished units in different areas. Here are some highlights from our most recent findings:
- Surrey has seen prices decrease across all types of unfurnished units, while Coquitlam saw prices drop across all types of furnished units.
- Surrey has the cheapest rent for all types of unfurnished units in Metro Vancouver.
- Prices decreased for two-bedroom furnished units in all areas except in Richmond and Surrey this month.
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 neighbourhoods for a more complete look at the city’s 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 Vancouver is the city’s most expensive neighbourhood to rent in this month, with an unfurnished one-bedroom unit renting for $2,782/month on average. The same type of unit rents for an average of $1,976 in Vancouver’s cheapest neighbourhood, Sunset-Victoria Fraserview, a difference of $806/month.
We’ve added more new neighbourhoods to our monthly reports that aren’t shown in the data below. To see data on these additional neighbourhoods, statistics for furnished rentals, as well as neighbourhood breakdowns for other cities in Metro Vancouver, be sure to download your copy of our full report here.
Most expensive cities in Canada
This January, four of the country’s five most expensive cities are located in Metro Vancouver. West Vancouver is the most expensive city in the country to rent in, followed by North Vancouver, Vancouver, Richmond and Markham.
Other rental data
These insights are exclusive to our blog and are intended to give more context to each month’s rental data. Based on data sourced directly from liv.rent, these statistics provide a more comprehensive overview of the current rental situation in Canada.
Renter demographics
On liv.rent, our renter demographics are fairly balanced across all different age groups. While most of our users are aged 25-34, there’s a good representation of renters under 25 years old, as well as a notable amount of users between 35-44.
Pet-friendly rentals
We’re proud to say that liv.rent continues to be the rental platform with the most pet-friendly rentals. This January, other rental platforms had just 22.00% of units available that were pet-friendly while on liv.rent, 51.00% of all listed units were pet-friendly.
>> Recommended Reading: The Top 8 Pet Friendly Neighbourhoods in Metro Vancouver
Downloadable resources
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:
June 2024 Metro Vancouver Rent Report
June 2024 Toronto Rent Report
June 2024 Calgary & Edmonton Rent Report
June 2024 Montreal Rent Report
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