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

Gone are the days of soaring rents, lineups for viewings and upfront rental application fees in Calgary — at least for now.

Those keeping a close eye on the rental market say this is a good time for Calgary renters to look for deals as move-in incentives return in full swing.

In May, Calgary once again posted the steepest year-over-year decrease for asking rents among major markets, down 7.9 per cent to an average of $1,928 for an apartment, according to the latest report by rental listing company Rentals.ca.

It's the 10th month in a row that asking rents in Calgary have fallen.

"It's actually below Montreal now, it's below London, it's below Hamilton and Kingston. So it's kind of really falling on our rankings, which I guess is a good thing for Calgary renters," said Giacomo Ladas, associate director of communications with Rentals.ca.

He said Calgary is now catching up with trends in Toronto and Vancouver, where rental prices have been falling for 16 and 18 months respectively.

It's a big change from what Calgary renters have seen in recent years.

"There was one point early last year where we were seeing 15 to 20 per cent increases year over year," said Ladas.

Statistics Canada is reporting similar numbers. It recently launched a new program with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to publish information on asking rents for the first time.

The first report said average asking rents — that's the initial price that landlords request for a unit — fell roughly $170 between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.

Jean-Philippe Deschamps-Laporte with Statistics Canada said it's important to publish this information because it provides a much more current look at the market compared to the annual rental market survey CMHC publishes.

"This is relevant and timely information to know. Like, if you're expecting a child, how much does it cost to add a bedroom? Or if you wish to move to Red Deer, [what] does that look like?"

Both Ladas and Deschamps-Laporte attributed the drop in rent to a surge of new supply, mixed with a decrease in demand as international migration slows and Canadians choose to move to smaller centres instead.

Free rent, signing bonuses

With the market shifting, moving incentives have returned in Calgary.

A quick search of websites like Rentals.ca and RentFaster show various types of incentives offered by landlords — including two months of free rent, six months of free storage, a $1,000 discount on security deposits and $500 signing bonuses.

Ladas said this is a "nice little pocket" for renters to take advantage of the incentives while they last, but it's not yet time to breathe a huge sigh of relief.

He said he isn't sure how long incentives will be around, but he suspects many new buildings coming online were greenlighted when interest rates plummeted. Ladas said the amount of new supply could slow over the next couple of years, now that interest rates have risen.

Additionally, a recent CMHC report said Calgary needs to build nearly 9,000 more units a year — on top of the record amounts of housing already being built — to restore pre-pandemic affordability levels.

He added Calgary's rental market is still particularly difficult for low-income renters as Calgarians cling onto their cheaper rentals due to ongoing economic uncertainty.

"Low-income renters are the ones who are kind of suffering the most because they're in competition for a very small pool of available rental units and they're in competition with people who aren't necessarily low-income," said Ladas.

Statistics Canada's new program also includes reporting of prices of single rooms for the first time, aimed to provide fresh information to low-income renters, seniors and students.

The average asking rent for a single room in Calgary in the first quarter of 2025 was $740. That marks a $40 decrease from the same period in 2024, but it's significantly higher than the $550 figure recorded in 2020, according to Deschamps-Laporte.

"That's a significant increase, especially if you're on a fixed income," said Deschamps-Laporte.