What's the difference between Halifax and Vancouver's rental prices? For newcomers, it's closer than you think

Perry DeNure and his family were ready for a change but have found Halifax to be priced similarly to the place they left.

They had been intrigued by life on the East Coast for some time and packed their bags in May, leaving behind their life in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland.

But trying to get an apartment, never mind the prices, in Halifax Regional Municipality proved to be a taller task than anticipated.

“There’s a lot of competition, for sure,” DeNure told The Chronicle Herald, adding they applied for many places before landing their current Dartmouth rental.

“The rents are similar here to there. We’re paying a similar rent to (British Columbia).”

Like many, DeNure said his long-term goal would be to buy a home but given the cost of living, he’s unsure how he and his wife will be able to save enough for a down payment.

“It’s thin, we’re scraping by, basically,” he said.

Halifax recently ranked ‘an extreme-burden city’ by index report 

DeNure and his family aren’t the only ones feeling the squeeze in HRM.

According to The Urban Stress Index (USI), which measures how much a typical household spends on housing and essential food through data from rentals.ca and Statistics Canada, Halifax is an affordability outlier in the country. 

The index report ranked Halifax (76.35 USI) ahead of cities like Vancouver (73.5) and Toronto (73.1).

The index notes that Halifax’s higher USI score doesn’t mean it’s more expensive by dollars than other cities, but rather there’s an affordability mismatch given incomes in the region.

Many families who rent but want to buy are struggling to put away enough money each month given they are living month to month.

DeNure and his family are amongst those feeling stressed.

“To get a down payment will take forever,” he said.

‘The issue with Halifax is availability’ 

Kelvin Ndoro is the lead economist for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s insights division for Atlantic Canada.

He explained that the average rent for a two-bedroom in Halifax ($1,800), according to CMHC’s data, is still lower than a city like Vancouver ($2,400).

However, the lack of available units has made it so that units coming onto the market in HRM are similar to the average rental price in Vancouver, giving the appearance that Halifax has caught up to bigger cities.

“The issue with Halifax is availability. There just aren’t enough available homes on the low end of the market,” said Ndoro.

“Somebody moving here would see that and say, ‘There’s no difference between here and Vancouver.’ But I think the issue is vacancy rates are so low, and there’s a lot of new construction coming in on the high end of the market, that’s what people see. There isn’t much available at the low end of the market.”

Ndoro added the vacancy rate has climbed slightly – from 2.1 per cent last year to 2.7 – and that more supply is on the horizon with construction numbers up.

Understanding a decade worth of growth 

But the supply challenge in Halifax is more dire than some people realize.

Ndoro said the city experienced a decade’s worth of growth between 2022 and 2025, with roughly 63,000 moving in. A 10-year span between 2012 and 2021, in contrast, saw the city’s population grow by 56,300 people.

New units, he said, haven’t kept up to Halifax’s rapid growth.

“When we look at the number of new residents and completed homes in the last four years, there’s been 4.8 residents per completed home. The decade prior, it was 2.2 residents (per completed home),” said Ndoro.

“What I’m trying to show is how undersupplied the Halifax market has been. Population growth has been much stronger than completions have been.”

Ndoro noted there’s reason for optimism: Halifax is building more aggressively than most cities in Canada, with some middle housing options like row housing being built.

However, there remains a lack of single-family homes.

DeNure said he and his family are still settling into their new lives and are happy that their rental is nicer than their last place in the Lower Mainland.

But they’ll be looking into different supports to try and offset their living costs.

“We have to find out how we can access all these income sources and grants that are available,” he said.