Primary Market Newly Built Units

With a growing population, new housing — including purpose-built rentals — is required. Although new rental housing units typically have higher rents, their addition increases overall rental housing supply, easing pressures on vacancy rates and average rents. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) provides data on purpose-built rental units in newly built structures.

Average rents of purpose-built rental market of any age by bedroom count (completed from July 2022 to June 2025)

Average rents of purpose-built rental market of any age by unit type (completed from July 2022 to June 2025)

Key observations

In 2025, newly built structures were defined as those completed between July 2022 and June 2025. In 2025, there were 9,678 purpose-built rental units in Metro Vancouver that were completed in the past three years.
In 2025, the average rent for newly built purpose-built rental units generally fell or remained stable. The regional average rent declined from $2,739 to $2,561 (-6.5%). This decrease is similar to the drop in the vacant purpose-built rental units that fell from $2,552 to $2,350 (-7.9%). In contrast, the regional average rent for occupied purpose-built rental units continued to rise modestly by 1.9% from $1,919 to $1,955.
The average rent for occupied purpose-built rental units increased for most municipalities across the region (+0.7% to 10.9%), except for Richmond, White Rock, and Tri-Cities with small decreases of 0.6%, 1.3% and 5% respectively.
In 2025, the regional average rent for newly built purpose-built rental units was $2,561, which was 31% higher than the average rent for occupied units. In 2024, newly built units were 42.7% higher than occupied units. The narrowing gap indicates easing market pressure and a declining rent premium for newly built units.
Amongst the municipalities with complete data for newly built, vacant, occupied purpose-built rental units, the City of North Vancouver was the only municipality with increases across all three categories at +7.5%, +2.6%, and +7.4% respectively. Although newly built average rent data is unavailable for the District of North Vancouver, the average rent for both vacant and occupied purpose-built rental units had a strong increase of +8.1% and 8.5%. Overall, the City and District of North Vancouver are notable outliers in an otherwise cooling regional market in 2025.

Profile of newly built units in purpose-built rental market (completed from July 2022 to June 2025)

Notes

The glossary provides definitions of each technical term, ensuring consistent interpretation.
Jurisdiction and Metro Vancouver totals may not equal the sum of individual values due to rounding, data suppression, or the omission of smaller data points to maintain visual readability. If a geography is not listed or appears missing, the associated data was either unavailable or did not meet reporting thresholds.
Electoral Area A includes UBC/UEL (University of British Columbia / University Endowment Lands).
Data includes purpose-built apartments and rental townhouses.
The CMHC purpose-built market rental universe excludes secondary suites, non‐market rental units, and privately rented condominium units.

Source
This information is from Statistics Canada census data, and the CMHC Rental Market Survey.

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