‘How much would you pay?’ Ad asks roommates to name their price as B.C. rents slide

It’s different motion that unit connected Vancouver’s rental marketplace could yet beryllium easing up.

A Vancouver pistillate looking to rent retired a country successful a shared location says aft getting nary takers for months, she yet asked would-be tenants to sanction their ain price.

Kate Ferguson has lived successful her Vancouver stock location for astir 4 years, and arsenic the leaseholder has been liable for uncovering roommates erstwhile a abstraction opened up.

In erstwhile years, she says, listings were ever snapped up immediately. This clip was different.

“It has been getting harder, progressively, implicit the past year,” she said. “The marketplace indispensable beryllium changing, I guess.”

In November 2024, Ferguson listed an 11-foot by 15-foot chamber with a south-facing window, a backstage bath and net and utilities included for $1,200.

“Maybe 2 oregon 3 radical wrote to maine to say, ‘Hey, is it available?’ … and past they ne'er got backmost to me,” she said.

“Eventually I enactment up an advertisement that had conscionable $123 arsenic the terms and said, ‘How overmuch would you wage for this room?’ I person ne'er had occupation successful 18 years renting a country similar this.”

Many of the radical who replied suggested rents successful the scope of $800, Ferguson said, which is what she and the home’s different tenant wage for rooms fractional the size and without a bathroom.

Vancouver Realtor Steve Saretsky says Ferguson’s communicative is simply a motion of the region’s changing rental environment.

“The world is not lone is it taking longer to find tenants, but you are getting a little rent, and that’s conscionable a achy accommodation for [landlords] that I deliberation successful Vancouver aren’t truly utilized to,” helium said.

Statistics backmost that cognition up.

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After years of double-digit growth, rents successful Vancouver yet flattened, past began dropping successful 2023.

According to Rentals.ca’s January 2025 rent report, the rent for a Vancouver one-bedroom fell 7 per cent twelvemonth implicit year, portion a two-bedroom slid 6.3 per cent.

“You’ve got a grounds fig of rental lodging nether operation … that coincides with CMHC’s [Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation] financing programme that has been precise beneficial to that sector,” Saretsky said.

“You’ve got that combined with the changes successful immigration, clampdowns connected impermanent workers, overseas students — I deliberation the penning is connected the wall.”

Ferguson, meanwhile, said she spent astir of January panicking, worrying she’d beryllium near covering the other rent herself.

The situation was averted astatine the past infinitesimal — she recovered a roommate Tuesday night, with conscionable days to spare earlier the extremity of the period astatine the $1,200 price.

“I person been terrified,” she said. “A mates of days agone I was doing not truthful good.”