Opinion · Homes
More homes can ease rents. Vancouver still needs to protect renters.
Vancouver’s asking rents eased and vacancy rose. That is a reason to keep building, alongside stronger renter protections and more public and co-op housing.
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Vancouver’s rental market has given people looking for a home a little more room. The region’s two-bedroom asking-rent index fell 10.2% between early 2024 and late 2025, according to our calculation from CMHC’s published figures.
That is a change worth taking seriously in a city where finding a rental has been such a strain. It is also a reason to keep building.
CMHC reports more competition from newly completed rentals and investor-owned condos in Vancouver. Its mid-year update also makes clear that average rents paid across tenancies continued to rise. Relief for someone shopping for a home and the experience of someone already renting can move differently.
Vacancy gives renters some room to choose
The region’s purpose-built apartment vacancy rate rose from 1.6% in 2024 to 3.7% in 2025. That is an increase of 2.1 percentage points, using CMHC’s figures reported by the Province.
New homes arrived as demand softened. CMHC’s 2025 rental-market review describes weaker population growth and labour-market conditions alongside new completions.
We want renters to have more choice and landlords to have to compete for them. More available homes help make that possible. Easing rents should give Vancouver a reason to keep adding homes, rather than an excuse to decide we have done enough.
What the research adds
A new apartment can be expensive and still matter to people who will never rent it. When someone moves into it, they may leave another home available. That move can set off another, and another.
Evan Mast’s research on moving chains traced the address histories of 52,000 residents of new multifamily buildings. The chains reached lower-income neighbourhoods. It is evidence that the market for new homes is connected to the rest of the rental stock, rather than sitting in a separate world.
Auckland offers evidence about changing the rules across a city. In 2016 it allowed more housing on roughly three-quarters of its residential land. Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy and Yun So’s published 2026 study compares its rents with a modelled Auckland without that reform. Their preferred estimate puts rents 23% below that counterfactual after eight years.
That is a strong reason to take broad permission to build seriously. We would rather Vancouver learn from a city that made room across much of its residential land than keep arguing over whether each small apartment building belongs.
| Evidence | Finding |
|---|---|
| Vancouver asking rents and vacancy | Asking-rent index down 10.2%; purpose-built vacancy up to 3.7% |
| U.S. moving-chain research | Moves into new buildings connected through other moves to lower-income neighbourhoods |
| Auckland zoning study | Estimated rents 23% below a modelled no-reform scenario after eight years |
Permission needs to lead to homes
There is work beyond changing the zoning map. Financing and building costs matter. Yonah Freemark’s Chicago study found higher property values after targeted transit-area upzonings, without a detected increase in permitted dwellings over five years.
Vancouver should judge its reforms by the homes that reach completion and what they rent for. That means paying attention to the cost and difficulty of getting a building from an allowed use to a front door someone can open.
The renter who has to leave still needs help
A broader improvement in rents does not pay someone’s moving costs or let them stay near their school, work or neighbours during redevelopment.
Vancouver’s relocation policy includes stronger provisions for eligible tenants in specified plan areas. Those include a right to return at the lower of their current rent or 20% below the city-wide average market rent, alongside a temporary rent top-up. Eligibility and the applicable policy need checking for each building.
We would like strong, usable protections to reach more tenants. We also want public and co-op housing, and the preservation of older rentals where that keeps homes affordable. People with very low incomes need help that does not depend on waiting for a market-wide effect.
Those priorities belong alongside more room to build. Let more neighbourhoods accommodate apartments and shops, help projects reach completion, and hold the City to what happens to the people already living there.
Sources and calculations
Sources were reviewed October 30, 2026. The asking-rent calculation is (89.8 / 100 − 1) × 100 = −10.2%. The vacancy change is 3.7 − 1.6 = 2.1 percentage points. These measure different things and are shown in separate charts. The asking-rent index is rebased to 2024 Q1 = 100; the line chart’s vertical scale is 85 to 105. No 2026 annual vacancy result is inferred.
The Auckland figure normalises the study’s modelled no-reform level to 100 and illustrates its preferred 23% relative reduction as 77. It is not a reconstructed historical rent series. We use the published July 2026 paper rather than percentages from earlier working-paper versions. Studies use different places, methods and time horizons; their results are not pooled.
The Vancouver before-and-after figures do not isolate the contributions of construction and changing demand. Auckland’s estimate is relative to a modelled alternative, not a 23% fall from 2016 or a forecast for Vancouver.
Download the figure data. The position expressed here is Side Street’s opinion, separate from the election guide and compass.
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