growing divide between affordable and luxury apartment vacancies, montreal survey shows
4 minute read
the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment across the region is $1,346 this year, an increase of 7.2 per cent from 2024.
john mahoney
/
montreal gazette
apartment vacancies are way up in montreal, fuelled by new construction and lower demand, but the growth in rents paid by tenants has accelerated and is making it more difficult for low-income households to access housing, a new report by the canada mortgage and housing corporation reveals.
the overall vacancy rate in the greater montreal region rose to 2.9 per cent in 2025 from 2.1 per cent last year, says the cmhc’s latest annual rental market report, released on thursday.
however, the softening rental market didn’t stop quebec from bucking the national trend by seeing an acceleration in rent increases in 2025. places like ontario and british columbia saw lower, or decelerating, rent increases this year, said francis cortellino, a cmhc economist who is responsible for quebec.
the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment across the montreal region is $1,346 in 2025, an increase of 7.2 per cent from 2024. the average rent in 2024 had risen by 6.3 per cent from the previous year.
the acceleration in rent growth in the montreal region was largely driven by units where tenants were renewing leases, cortellino said. the tribunal administratif du logement (tal) recommended a record-high annual rent increase of 5.9 per cent this year, he noted.
“every landlord i talked to basically told me that for those rents that are less expensive, (they) put the rent increase at 5.9 per cent this year,” cortellino said. the cmhc data shows the average rent increase for apartments where the tenants were renewing their lease was six per cent. at the same time, apartments that had a turnover of tenants in the montreal region in 2025 saw a 17.2 per cent average rent increase.
“affordable units, with rents below the median, are becoming scarcer than higher-priced units,” the cmhc report says.
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“as a result, fewer tenants are moving, making it harder for low-income households to access housing.”
rent increases outpaced income growth, the report notes, “making it increasingly difficult for households — especially the most disadvantaged — to access housing.”
the cmhc data prompted an immediate call from tenants’ advocacy groups for the government to temporarily freeze rents until solutions to the affordability crisis are found.
“the main conclusion that we draw from the report is that government strategies aren’t working,” said émile boucher, a community organizer with the regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du québec (rclalq).
“the logic has been to build more housing and that if we increase the supply, it will lower the price. that’s not at all what we’re seeing.”
recent government policy has been to subsidize rental apartment construction because the prevailing thinking has been that building even luxury apartments will take pressure off affordable units. at the municipal level, the city of montreal has used its zoning power to encourage the construction of highrise apartment towers.
“for us, this solution doesn’t work,” boucher said. “the vacancy rate is increasing and the price isn’t going down at all.”
among other demands, the rclalq is calling for tighter rent control on units where tenants vacate and the units are re-let, he said.
however, martin messier, president of the association des propriétaires du québec, called the cmhc data a “yellow flag” for landlords, especially smaller building owners.
“we haven’t seen such a situation, where it’s difficult to rent, in many years,” he said. many of the association’s 17,000 provincewide members are small building owners, and one of them told him this week that her tenants had lost their jobs in the technology sector and were worried about paying their rent.
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“it’s difficult for many landlords when vacancies are high, and the landlords paid high prices for their buildings and have mortgage payments to make,” messier said. landlords can’t afford not to raise their rents when maintenance, heating and other costs are going up, he said.
the cmhc findings on vacancy rates for the most affordable apartments versus expensive apartments reveal two realities.
in the montreal region, the average vacancy rate for the most affordable units under $1,299 per month was 1.5 per cent for 2025, and the vacancy rate for the most expensive units over $1,900 per month was 5.9 per cent.
the availability of apartments on the island also varies greatly by lower- and higher-income neighbourhoods.
for example, the vacancy rate for two-bedroom apartments in downtown montreal and nuns’ island, which the cmhc combines into one sector, was 8.3 per cent this year. it was 4.6 per cent in 2024. by comparison, montreal north had a vacancy rate of 0.9 per cent for two-bedroom apartments this year, compared with 0.1 per cent in 2024.
the overall vacancy rate on the island of montreal alone rose to 3.1 per cent in 2025 from two per cent last year.
there was increased supply of new apartments, while demand for rental units slowed in the montreal region — particularly on the island of montreal – cortellino said, noting that demand was reduced by fewer immigrants, fewer international students and a more difficult labour market for young people.
one-third of new apartment units constructed on the island of montreal in the last three years were in downtown montreal, he said. the vacancy rate for these new downtown apartments was eight per cent in 2025, but from 2021 to 2023, the vacancy rate for apartments built downtown in the previous three years was three to four per cent.
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downtown montreal, cortellino said, “is the perfect example of bringing more supply and having weaker demand because of decreasing international migration.”
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