Canada’s rental housing market lags the U.S. and that’s causing a lot of problems

The rental markets in the United States and Canada cannot be more dissimilar, especially when it comes to apartment rents, which have fallen in most U.S. cities, while spiking across Canada.

U.S. renters “with new leases in January paid a median rent that was 3.5 per cent lower than they would have paid last August,” the Wall Street Journal, using data from Apartment List, reported. Rents have fallen every month over a six-month period for the first time in five years.

By comparison, rents in Canada have been rising quickly. Year-over-year rent increases for one-bedroom apartments were 24.2 per cent in Vancouver and 20.8 per cent in Toronto, according to Rentals.ca data. Even in less populous cities such as Kitchener and London in Ontario, rents for one-bedroom apartments were up by more than 25 per cent.

The average annual increase across major rental markets tracked by Rentals.ca was about 15 per cent for one-bedroom apartments and 14.4 per cent for two-bedroom apartments.