Purpose-built rental housing under construction in Calgary on April 11.Sarah B Groot/The Globe and Mail
Since 2024, Calgary tenant Ash Gonzalez has been spending 45 per cent of her take-home income in rent, a share that makes it difficult for the PhD candidate to focus on her studies.
“I’ve looked to move out of my place,” said Ms. Gonzalez, who currently pays a monthly $1,450 for a basement suite not too far from the University of Calgary’s main campus. “But anything that’s comparable to my current living situation is about the same price, or more expensive.”
Ms. Gonzalez is not alone.
According to Reid Hendry, chief housing officer at the City of Calgary, a 2025 survey the city commissioned found that roughly half of Calgary tenants spend more than 30 per cent of their income in rent, as wages lag.
“Since 2020, the average rent a Calgarian pays has gone up by 47 per cent,” he said. “In that time, wages have only gone up by approximately 10 per cent.”
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When a household spends more than a third of their pretax income in rent, or 40 per cent of their spendable income, their capacity to cover basic expenses – such as food, utilities and transportation – decreases. Because the impact of overspending on rent is more severe for lower income tenants, the City of Calgary is focused on meeting the needs of this group.
“The Housing Capital Initiative is $60-million for over 1,000 non-market rental units, which will go to groups making 65 per cent or less of the median household income in Calgary,” Mr. Reid said.
Statistics Canada’s latest income survey pegs the real median income for renter households in Calgary at $74,800, or 65 per cent below the city’s median. This means that close to 50 per cent of tenants in the prairie city would qualify to access non-market rentals.
Because expanding the supply of non-market rentals takes time, Calgary tenants will continue to rely on the private market’s capacity to meet their needs. However, even as vacancy rates rise, the alternatives moderate-income tenants can access are limited.
“There’s a lot of choice out there for tenants making $100,000 a year,” said Edan Lindenbach, principal and CEO of Jemm, a Calgary-based developer and landlord. “But there’s a rental rate associated with making a project viable to build, and it’s not for the $70,000-a-year income earner.”
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In October, the vacancy rate in Calgary reached 4.9 per cent, but while the vacancy rate at the bottom end of the market remained below 5 per cent, the top quintile recorded a vacancy rate of 6.2 per cent.
As a result, new rental supply is set to slow down in Calgary, and keep rents stable.
“Given the amount of product that’s come onto the marketplace, I think it’s healthy to pause new development in this market,” said Frank Lonardelli, CEO of Arlington Group, a Calgary-based investment group that currently owns six purpose-built rental buildings in Calgary.
As the prairie city’s population expanded by 15 per cent between 2022 and 2025, developers completed nearly 30,000 rental units over the same period, or twice the number of rentals built in the decade prior.
“Developers were quick to get product to the market,” said Fred Cassano, national real estate leader at PwC Canada, adding that as Calgary’s population stabilizes “we’re seeing vacancies go up and rents go down, because we have more supply.”
After a record 10,150 rental units reached completion in 2025, competition for tenants in Calgary’s primary market is set to heat up this year, said Robert LeParque, vice-president of operations at unitiiPM, a property management company whose client portfolio includes institutional landlords in Calgary.
“Landlords are offering anything from early move-ins to a whole rent-free month and free parking,” he said. “With big lease-ups, you might see even more incentives being offered, because if landlords don’t lease up by October, they’re carrying vacant units until the spring.”
New rental supply is set to slow down in Calgary, and keep rents stable.Sarah B Groot/The Globe and Mail
CityVibe, a division of Calgary-based developer Calrlisle Group, is currently offering up to two months free across the company’s nine rental buildings, alongside reduced security deposits and referral rewards.
According to Carlisle Group’s general manager, Jim Mackey, the vacancy rates in some of CityVibe’s rental properties are nearing 10 per cent.
Real estate developer Truman Homes, whose rental portfolio comprises 1,795 units, has also waived pet fees and introduced free underground parking in some of its Calgary properties.
Last month, the developer announced a rent-to-own program that allows Truman’s tenants to use their monthly rent, accumulated over a maximum of two years, towards a down payment for a Truman property.
“Truman’s decision to introduce a rent-to-own program is not a reaction to any short-term shift in the rental market,” said Abby Woitas, digital marketing manager at Truman. “It is something we see as a natural extension of our broader housing platform and our long-term commitment to creating more pathways to home ownership.”
Although rental incentives effectively lower the actual amount renters pay each month, these cost savings do little to expand the options available to moderate-income tenants, as base rents remain high, relative to their income.
Andrea Melito at her rental unit in Calgary on April 11.Sarah B Groot/The Globe and Mail
Renting a two-bedroom apartment in Calgary’s Beltline can cost Andrea Melito up to 50 per cent of her disposable income, depending on her workload as an independent contractor.
“When I moved here in 2022, my rent was $1,400,” she says. “It was outside of my budget, but I was leaving a bad situation.”
As Ms. Melito’s rent rose each year, reaching a monthly $1,850 in 2025, she had few choices.
“Sometimes I go online to see what else is in the area,” she said. “But I’m actually getting a pretty good deal compared to other buildings – I can’t move to pay less.”
In March, rentals.ca estimated Calgary’s average asking rent at $1,869, a 4.2 per cent drop year-over-year, but rents are unlikely to drop much further.
Because base rents largely determine the value of a rental building, which affects financing and insurance costs, landlords can only lower rents so much to attract tenants.
“These are very expensive buildings, and you’ve got bank loans associated with them,” Mr. Lindenbach of Jemm said. “So the building has to maintain a certain value for you to stay within the confines of your bank loan.”
This situation points at the systemic roots of Canada’s housing affordability crisis.
“Part of the problem is that banks expect a certain level of return from market landlords, based on rents increasing faster than incomes,” said Carolyn Whitzman, an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities.
To address this, she proposes bringing back limited dividend housing, a federal program that bolstered the supply of moderately priced market rentals starting in the 1930s, to support private landlords committed to producing annual returns of 5 per cent or lower.
“The expectation that you’ll be providing 20 per cent returns is great for investors,” Ms. Whitzman said. “The problem is when that housing has been overwhelmingly treated as a good retirement investment and not as a necessity for people – and a right.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the name of Calgary-based Arlington Group.