Average asking rents fall over 4% in June compared to last year, new report says

The B.C. government says it’s delivering results with its housing goals—and that’s driving rent prices down.

Asking rents in Canada continued to sink lower last month compared with a year ago, with a new report pegging the average cost at $2,033 for June.

That’s down 4.3 per cent from June 2025, marking the 21st consecutive month of year-over-year declines, according to the latest monthly analysis from Rentals.ca and Urbanation, which is based on asking rents across the former’s listings network.

It’s the lowest average price for June in four years. The report also said rents have declined 6.9 per cent over the past two years.

Prices ticked up 0.2 per cent on a month-over-month basis from May.

Asking rents for purpose-built apartments fell 3.1 per cent year-over-year to an average of $2,034 last month, while asking rents for condominium apartments decreased 6.8 per cent to $2,058. Secondary market units such as houses and townhouses saw the steepest annual decline, down 7.4 per cent to $2,017.

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Despite lower prices compared with previous years, a survey this past spring of Canadian renters who had used Rentals.ca found affordability concerns continued to far outweigh all other rental market challenges.

Around 70 per cent of respondents identified high rent prices as the biggest obstacle in their housing search, while 11 per cent pointed to unsuitable listings and six per cent cited low rental supply.

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At the provincial level, the monthly analysis for June found B.C. and Ontario each posted the largest year-over-year drops of 5.3 per cent each, bringing average asking rents to $2,377 and $2,233, respectively, in those provinces.

In Alberta, average asking rents fell 4.2 per cent to $1,766, while Quebec saw a 2.2 per cent drop to $1,929.

Atlantic Canada saw the biggest jump in average asking prices, which rose 5.3 per cent to $2,271 across the region.

Prices ticked up 0.8 per cent in both Manitoba and Saskatchewan, to average asks of $1,673 and $1,458, respectively.

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Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2026.