Signs of slowing rental market in Halifax, but affordability challenges persist: CMHC report

The rental market in Halifax is showing signs of slowing down, but that's not translating to improved affordability for tenants, according to a new mid-year update report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

In the first three months of the year, advertised rents for new listings of purpose-built, two-bedroom apartments in Halifax were down 4.2 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2024.

A CMHC economist said this easing of asking rents is mainly the result of fewer people moving to Halifax.

"The demand is a little bit weaker than it was a year or two before," said Lukas Jasmin-Tucci, pointing to reduced migration from other provinces and changes in federal immigration policies.

However, there were still increases in overall rents. Jasmin-Tucci said it's as though there are two different markets in the city.

"We have the high-priced, more recent buildings … where we see slowdown, less demand," he said. "But if we look at older buildings, cheaper rents, it still remains very tight in those [areas]."

According to the report, the difference in prices between older and newer apartment buildings has narrowed across major cities in Canada. Previous CBC News analysis showed that rents for some of Halifax's oldest and most affordable apartments rose rapidly between 2020 and 2024.

Jasmin-Tucci said Halifax has seen its largest increase in housing supply on record for the first half of the year. More than 1,000 housing units have been completed since January.

"For a long period we had a lot of starts, [a] lot less completions," said Jasmin-Tucci. "That's not the case anymore."

But one affordable housing researcher raised concern about the types of new housing being built. 

The report pointed to two CMHC programs as drivers of increased rental housing supply in Canada.

Catherine Leviten-Reid said one of those, the Apartment Construction Loan Program, which was formerly known as the Rental Construction Financing Initiative, often doesn't result in housing that's affordable.

"While we're seeing new units being built, we're not seeing units being built for people who are most in need," said Leviten-Reid, an associate professor at Cape Breton University.

According to a 2023 report from a council that advises the federal housing minister, the Rental Construction Financing Initiative was the largest national housing strategy program, but produced "the least amount of affordable housing for people in core housing need."

Overall, in Leviten-Reid's view, low-income earners in Halifax still face "a very difficult situation" when it comes to housing affordability. 

In major Canadian cities, "more tenants are expected to turn to shared living arrangements" due to ongoing affordability challenges, the CMHC report said. That could boost demand for apartments with three or more bedrooms while making it harder for landlords to lease smaller units. 

The CMHC forecasts an increase in the apartment vacancy rate in Halifax, potentially reaching three per cent this year, said Jasmin-Tucci. Last year, the figure rose above two per cent. 

He said it's the first time Canada's housing agency has provided a mid-year rental market update since it moved to conducting just one annual housing survey, adding that the CMHC saw a need for people to be informed more frequently.