Cooling rental market provides window of opportunity for Calgary renters to find deals

Karina Zapata · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 27, 2025 4:58 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours ago

Gone are the days of soaring rents, lineups for viewings and upfront rental exertion fees successful Calgary — astatine slightest for now.

Those keeping a adjacent oculus connected the rental marketplace accidental this is a bully clip for Calgary renters to look for deals arsenic move-in incentives instrumentality successful afloat swing.

In May, Calgary erstwhile again posted the steepest year-over-year alteration for asking rents among large markets, down 7.9 per cent to an mean of $1,928 for an apartment, according to the latest study by rental listing institution Rentals.ca.

It's the 10th period successful a enactment that asking rents successful Calgary person fallen.

"It's really beneath Montreal now, it's beneath London, it's beneath Hamilton and Kingston. So it's benignant of truly falling connected our rankings, which I conjecture is simply a bully happening for Calgary renters," said Giacomo Ladas, subordinate manager of communications with Rentals.ca.

He said Calgary is present catching up with trends successful Toronto and Vancouver, wherever rental prices person been falling for 16 and 18 months respectively.

It's a large alteration from what Calgary renters person seen successful caller years.

"There was 1 constituent aboriginal past twelvemonth wherever we were seeing 15 to 20 per cent increases twelvemonth implicit year," said Ladas.

Statistics Canada is reporting akin numbers. It precocious launched a caller programme with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to people accusation connected asking rents for the archetypal time.

The first report said mean asking rents — that's the archetypal terms that landlords petition for a portion — fell astir $170 betwixt the archetypal 4th of 2024 and the archetypal 4th of 2025.

Jean-Philippe Deschamps-Laporte with Statistics Canada said it's important to people this accusation due to the fact that it provides a overmuch much existent look astatine the marketplace compared to the yearly rental marketplace survey CMHC publishes.

"This is applicable and timely accusation to know. Like, if you're expecting a child, however overmuch does it outgo to adhd a bedroom? Or if you privation to determination to Red Deer, [what] does that look like?"

Both Ladas and Deschamps-Laporte attributed the driblet successful rent to a surge of caller supply, mixed with a alteration successful request arsenic planetary migration slows and Canadians take to determination to smaller centres instead.

Free rent, signing bonuses

With the marketplace shifting, moving incentives person returned successful Calgary.

A speedy hunt of websites similar Rentals.ca and RentFaster amusement assorted types of incentives offered by landlords — including 2 months of escaped rent, six months of escaped storage, a $1,000 discount connected information deposits and $500 signing bonuses.

Ladas said this is simply a "nice small pocket" for renters to instrumentality vantage of the incentives portion they last, but it's not yet clip to respire a immense suspiration of relief.

He said helium isn't definite however agelong incentives volition beryllium around, but helium suspects galore caller buildings coming online were greenlighted when involvement rates plummeted. Ladas said the magnitude of caller proviso could dilatory implicit the adjacent mates of years, present that involvement rates person risen.

Additionally, a caller CMHC study said Calgary needs to physique nearly 9,000 much units a twelvemonth — connected apical of the grounds amounts of lodging already being built — to reconstruct pre-pandemic affordability levels.

He added Calgary's rental marketplace is inactive peculiarly hard for low-income renters arsenic Calgarians cling onto their cheaper rentals owed to ongoing economical uncertainty.

"Low-income renters are the ones who are benignant of suffering the astir due to the fact that they're successful contention for a precise tiny excavation of disposable rental units and they're successful contention with radical who aren't needfully low-income," said Ladas.

Statistics Canada's caller programme besides includes reporting of prices of azygous rooms for the archetypal time, aimed to supply caller accusation to low-income renters, seniors and students.

The mean asking rent for a azygous country successful Calgary successful the archetypal 4th of 2025 was $740. That marks a $40 alteration from the aforesaid play successful 2024, but it's importantly higher than the $550 fig recorded successful 2020, according to Deschamps-Laporte.

"That's a important increase, particularly if you're connected a fixed income," said Deschamps-Laporte.