Burnaby knocks Victoria off the top three list of the most expensive places in Canada to rent an apartment

Burnaby has knocked Victoria off the top three list of the most expensive cities in Canada to rent an apartment.

Previously, Burnaby was lumped into the metropolitan Vancouver number, but starting in May, Burnaby was introduced as its own trackable city.

Therefore, Victoria, which previously was consistently No. 3 behind Vancouver and Toronto is now No. 4, with Burnaby taking up third spot.

Apartment rent statistics come from Zumper (formerly PadMapper), the online platform that lists apartments for rent and creates the monthly Canadian National Rent Report.

Median rents for one-bedroom apartments are used as the yardstick for 24 cities in Canada.

So, when it comes to median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment, Vancouver is priciest at $2,240, Toronto No. 2 with $2,200, Burnaby third at $1,960, Victoria No. 4 at $1,840 and Barrie fifth with $1,760.

Victoria's $1,840 is a slight increase from the $1,800 it was the month before and a 15% jump from what it was last year.

Burnaby's appearance on the list and Barrie's surge in May knocked Kelowna, which was traditionally No. 4, right off the top five list.

When looking at two-bed rents, the top-five list shapes up like this -- Vancouver at $3,300, Toronto with $2,630, Burnaby at $2,610, Victoria with $2,500 and Kelowna at $2,310.

Barrie is No. 6 at $1,940.

Some cities in the country are seeing a slight cooling of rents and house prices as people start to balk at record-high rents and prices.

It's started to happen in Kelowna, for instance.

However, not in Victoria yet because those one-and-two bedroom rents for May are still records and the benchmark selling price of a single-family home is still a record at $1.2 million.

The cheapest rental markets in the country are Edmonton (one-bed: $950 and two-bed: $1,220) and St. John's ($880 and $950).

The full report is here.