Canada’s rental market is sending mixed signals this fall, with national average asking rents falling even as Nova Scotia posts fresh increases and claims the title of the country’s most expensive province for renters, according to recent data from Rentals.ca, Urbanation, CTV News and other sources.
Across the country, average asking rents dropped 4.8 per cent year-over-year as of August, continuing a two-year decline, according to the monthly Rentals.ca and Urbanation analysis. That national softening reflects broader housing-market weakness: the Canadian Real Estate Association reported home sales down 6.9 per cent in August compared with a year earlier, while CREA’s Home Price Index was down three per cent annually. In Toronto specifically, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board said one- and two-bedroom rents fell around two per cent between the second quarters of 2025 and 2026, averaging $2,273 and $3,013 respectively — a trend the board says is giving renters “substantial choice.”
Nova Scotia Breaks From the National Pattern
Nova Scotia has gone against that national grain. In May, the province overtook British Columbia for the highest average asking rents in Canada, a position it has now held for four straight months, with landlords’ average ask reaching $2,356 in August — up 3.1 per cent year-over-year even as the national figure fell. In Halifax, a one-bedroom apartment on Tower Road near Dalhousie University was recently listed at $1,750 a month, for a unit just over 500 square feet. Five years earlier, in September 2021, the average one-bedroom listing in Halifax sat at $1,574, with two-bedrooms averaging $2,041 — roughly what a one-bedroom now commands.
Rentals.ca spokesperson Giacomo Ladas said Nova Scotia rents have climbed every year since 1990, but the pace has accelerated sharply since 2019. He attributed slow supply growth partly to construction delays, noting rental construction in Halifax takes about 70 per cent longer than the national average, driven by rising land, permitting and labour costs. Halifax-based Royal LePage Atlantic agent Scott Moulton said geographic and infrastructure constraints on the Halifax peninsula mean new buildings must go up rather than out, adding engineering costs.
Tenant Protections and Ownership Concentration
Advocates point to policy and ownership structures as additional drivers. Mark Culligan, a community legal worker at Dalhousie Legal Aid Service, said Nova Scotia’s system of fixed-term leases — which do not automatically renew — combined with a five per cent rent increase cap, leaves tenants vulnerable when leases end, since landlords can reset rents beyond that cap for new tenants. That cap is notably higher than British Columbia’s 2.2 per cent and Ontario’s 1.9 per cent caps set for 2027, both tied more closely to inflation.
A Dalhousie Legal Aid report titled “Who Owns Halifax,” examining roughly 1,400 large rental properties representing more than 50,000 units in the Halifax area, found that just 20 landlords own 56 per cent of those units, with financial firms alone controlling nearly a quarter. That echoes a Statistics Canada analysis of investor-owned residential properties in 2022 across six provinces, authored by economist Joanie Fontaine, which found Nova Scotia was the only one of the six where institutional investors — rather than individuals — owned the largest share of investment properties, accounting for 38 per cent of assessed rental property value.
Broader Market Context Shapes Rental Pressures
The rental divergence is unfolding alongside a wider housing market described by RBC Economics as increasingly uneven. In an October report, assistant chief economist Robert Hogue said conditions vary by region due to differing confidence levels, affordability, demographics and job markets, with Toronto’s tentative spring recovery reversing in September and Vancouver remaining in what he called correction mode, with active listings near a decade high. Calgary, by contrast, has stayed comparatively stable, though condo apartment resales there fell 14.3 per cent year-over-year even as single-detached home resales rose 4.4 per cent.
Nationally, CMHC reported housing starts edged down to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 229,046 units in August, from 229,360 in July, with Ontario contributing most to the decline. Economists including BMO’s Robert Kavcic describe the overall housing market as “soft” but not collapsing, with speculation and investor activity largely absent. For renters in most of the country, that has translated into more negotiating room and falling asking prices — a dynamic Nova Scotia, for now, has not shared.
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