In October 2016, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation found 8.4% of Alberta’s purpose-built rental apartments standing empty, the highest provincial rate in a series that runs back to 1990. The average rent in its survey slipped from $1,161 the year before to $1,113. For a tenant, it was as strong a bargaining position as the province had offered in a generation.
Seven Octobers later, the same survey counted 2.1% empty across Alberta. In Calgary the rate was 1.4%, and rent on the same two-bedroom units had climbed 14.3% in a single year, the fastest increase in Canada. Those two readings are the measuring stick I would hold against this summer’s forecasts, which point the loose way again.
The corporation’s summer update to its 2026 Housing Market Outlook, published on 22 July, expects Calgary’s vacancy rate to reach 5.9% this year and Edmonton’s 4.8%, up from the 5.0% and 3.8% the corporation measured in 2025. The room is coming back. What an Alberta renter needs to know is how long it tends to stay, and who gets to use it.
Key facts
- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s summer update to the 2026 Housing Market Outlook, published 22 July 2026, forecasts 2026 rental vacancy rates of 5.9% in Calgary and 4.8% in Edmonton.
- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s historical rental data put Alberta’s purpose-built apartment vacancy rate at 8.4% in October 2016 and 2.1% in October 2023.
- Calgary’s vacancy rate fell to 1.4% in 2023 while same-sample two-bedroom rents rose 14.3%, the highest growth in Canada, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Rental Market Report of January 2024.
- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s 2026 Mid-Year Rental Market Update, published 9 June 2026, puts Calgary’s balanced vacancy range at 3.0% to 5.5% and Edmonton’s at 3.5% to 6.0%.
How long Alberta’s last loose rental market lasted
The provincial series answers the first part. After 2016 the vacancy rate stayed at 5.4% or higher for six straight Octobers, reading 8.4%, 7.4%, 5.5%, 5.4%, 6.9% and 6.5% through 2021. Then it fell to 3.7% in 2022 and to 2.1% in 2023. By our reading of the corporation’s own table, a slack market that took six years to wear out was gone in two.
It had happened before. Alberta’s rate stood at 7.0% in 1995 and 1.3% in 1998, and the average rent in the survey rose from $496 to $558 across those three years. The corporation’s June mid-year update explains why. It says Calgary and Edmonton have historically shown wider volatility and need higher vacancy before average rents stabilize; below that line, “the market tightens quickly, and rents rise sharply.”
It also gives each city a balanced range, the band of vacancy at which rent growth after inflation sits near zero. For Calgary that band runs from 3.0% to 5.5%, and for Edmonton from 3.5% to 6.0%. This year’s forecast puts Calgary above the top of its band and Edmonton well inside its own. That is a tenant’s market in Calgary and a fair one in Edmonton, and the record says neither condition lasts long here.
Which Alberta renters gain from a higher vacancy rate
The worry that more empty apartments help only those who can afford the new ones holds up well in Toronto and Vancouver. In those cities, the June update found pressure persisting in the cheapest quarter of the market and concluded that new supply was doing little to filter down.
Alberta’s two large cities told a different story in 2025. For Calgary and Edmonton, the same update found high vacancy and turnover across every rent quartile, the cheapest included, and described that as a sign of how strong supply growth can widen renters’ mobility across a whole market. Nationally, it still reports tighter conditions in older stabilized buildings and family-sized units.
The divide in Alberta runs between the renter who moves and the renter who stays. Asking rents measured against the combined income of two average earners aged 25 to 34 fell across most large markets, and the declines in Calgary and Edmonton were among the most pronounced. For existing tenants the measure went the other way. Affordability worsened in most key markets in the first quarter of 2026, and Calgary stood out, with Halifax, for the sharpest deterioration in recent years, with ratios approaching Toronto’s.
A Calgary household that signed its lease in 2023, the year two-bedroom rents there rose 14.3%, is still carrying a rent set at the top of the squeeze. A loose market rewards the tenant who shops, and it does little for the one who stays put.
What the 2016 cycle says about the next two years
The province does not start this cycle where it started the last one. Alberta’s purpose-built rental universe held 141,564 units in the 2016 survey and 201,761 in 2025, an increase of about 60,000 units, or 43%, by our arithmetic. Rental construction’s growing share of Alberta housing starts is why the stock looks so different from the one that emptied in 2016.
That difference argues for a longer slack season than the last one. It does not repeal the pattern. The slack of 2016 came out of an oil shock and a recession; the corporation’s 2018 Alberta report still described some centres as recovering from both. The slack of 2026 comes from new buildings. Room made by supply closes just as fast when people arrive faster than the cranes can finish, which is what happened between 2021 and 2023, and the corporation’s summer update already expects modest rent increases on the Prairies this year, reflecting stronger demand. Its forecast average two-bedroom rent for 2026 is $1,948 in Calgary and $1,624 in Edmonton.
Anyone who remembers 2016 uses this year rather than admiring it, shopping the newer buildings and signing for as long as a landlord will hold the rate.
A high vacancy rate in Alberta is a harvest, and anyone who lived through 2023 knows better than to leave it standing in the field.
Frequently asked questions
What was Alberta’s rental vacancy rate in 2016?
In October 2016, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation found 8.4% of Alberta’s purpose-built rental apartments standing empty, the highest provincial rate in a series running back to 1990. Average rent in the survey slipped from $1,161 the year before to $1,113. Seven Octobers later, the same survey counted 2.1% empty across Alberta, with Calgary at 1.4% and same-sample two-bedroom rents there climbing 14.3% in a single year, the fastest increase in Canada.
How long did Alberta’s last loose rental market last?
After 2016, the vacancy rate stayed at 5.4% or higher for six straight Octobers, reading 8.4%, 7.4%, 5.5%, 5.4%, 6.9% and 6.5% through 2021. Then it fell to 3.7% in 2022 and to 2.1% in 2023. A slack market that took six years to wear out was gone in two. It had happened before: Alberta’s rate stood at 7.0% in 1995 and 1.3% in 1998.
What is CMHC forecasting for Calgary and Edmonton in 2026?
The corporation’s summer update to its 2026 Housing Market Outlook, published on July 22, 2026, expects Calgary’s vacancy rate to reach 5.9% this year and Edmonton’s 4.8%, up from the 5.0% and 3.8% measured in 2025. Its June 9 mid-year update calls a market balanced when Calgary’s vacancy sits between 3.0% and 5.5% and Edmonton’s between 3.5% and 6.0%, which puts Calgary above the top of its band and Edmonton well inside its own. Below those bands, CMHC says, the market tightens quickly and rents rise sharply.
Who gains when Alberta’s vacancy rate is high?
The renter who moves. In 2025, CMHC found high vacancy and turnover across every rent quartile in Calgary and Edmonton, the cheapest included, a sign that supply growth widened renters’ mobility across the whole market. The renter who stays gains far less: affordability for existing tenants worsened in most key markets in the first quarter of 2026, with Calgary showing some of the sharpest deterioration in recent years. A Calgary household that signed its lease in 2023, the year two-bedroom rents there rose 14.3%, is still carrying a rent set at the top of the squeeze.
Why is the 2026 slack different from the 2016 slack?
Alberta’s purpose-built rental universe held 141,564 units in the 2016 survey and 201,761 in 2025, an increase of about 60,000 units, or 43%, by the Tribune’s arithmetic. The slack of 2016 came out of an oil shock and a recession; the slack of 2026 comes from new buildings. Room made by supply closes just as fast when people arrive faster than the cranes can finish, which is what happened between 2021 and 2023. The corporation’s forecast average two-bedroom rent for 2026 is $1,948 in Calgary and $1,624 in Edmonton.
