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Calgary is no renter’s paradise, at least judging by the findings of a recent study showing its housing stock has the lowest share of renter households among Canada’s largest cities. The study by Point2Homes, an online marketplace for homes for sale and for rent, found the city had roughly 155,060 renter households, making up about 31 per cent of all dwellings.
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That ranked the city 34th out of 50 cities in the study.
Among large cities, however, Calgary had the lowest share, ahead of Ottawa with about 145,655 renting households, or 36 per cent of all households.
Edmonton had the third-lowest share at 36.2 per cent with about 142,970 renting households. Winnipeg had the fourth lowest (about 110,335 renter dwellings) at about 37 per cent.
The largest rental market in Canada, Toronto, had approximately 551,290 renting households, or about 48 per cent of all dwellings in the city. That was the fifth most among all cities in the study, and also fifth among large cities.
Quebec City — while having only about 128,735 renting households — was fourth all municipalities regarding the highest proportion of renters at nearly 49 per cent. It trailed Sherbrooke, Que., in third where about 50 per cent of households are occupied by renters.
Vancouver was second among all cities with nearly 55 per cent of households being renters. Statistics Canada data showed only Vancouver had only about 165,455 rental dwellings. That said, its housing stock does not include other Lower Mainland municipalities like Richmond and Burnaby.
The city with the highest share of renters among its housing stock was Montreal at more than 63 per cent, or roughly 512,775 dwellings.
Although Calgary had the lowest share of rentals among large cities, it did see the largest percentage increase in renters between 2016 and 2021 (the Census data used in the report) up 2.7 per cent — 16th among all cities, but top among those with populations of more than 500,000 people.
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