5 takeaways about Halifax’s rental housing picture, based on the CMHC’s latest report

It’s not often our Maritime city gets to claim a “first” in Canada, but here we are: The average price of a two-bedroom rental unit in Halifax climbed more over the past year than in any of Canada’s largest municipalities, according to the latest Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation rental market report. If you rented a purpose-built two-bedroom apartment in the HRM today, you could expect to pay, on average, about $1,450/month per the CMHC’s latest numbers. That’s a much lower bar than the latest Rentals.ca numbers, which put a two-bedroom Halifax unit at $2,243/month, but it’s still a 9.3% jump from 2021—a steeper climb than Toronto, Vancouver or Victoria. And those who work to help Haligonians secure affordable housing are worried about what the numbers forecast.

When we asked Coast readers earlier this month about what issue they felt was most pressing in 2023, nearly two in five—the second-highest response of any group—replied they most wanted politicians to tackle the province’s housing crisis. Only health care provoked a louder call for action.

And so, in the wake of the CMHC’s latest report, we pored through its findings to unearth what they mean for Halifax. Here are five of the biggest takeaways for the HRM’s rental housing picture:

1. Affordable housing is scarce. Gone are the days of Halifax holding up as the affordable alternative to its Canadian peers. As of the CMHC’s latest report, the average two-bedroom apartment was $191 more per month here compared to the Canadian average. But the discrepancy isn’t just playing out across the median range of rental prices: Halifax’s surge in pricing is also affecting its supply of affordable housing—and that, in turn, is putting more Haligonians at risk of losing their housing altogether.

The CMHC defines affordable housing as one where a household is spending no more than 30% of its gross monthly income on rent or a mortgage. (You could argue that other shelter costs—heat, water, electricity—ought to fall under the same umbrella, but let’s keep those separate for now.) By the CMHC’s definition, just 3% of all Halifax rental units are affordable to the lowest-income Haligonians: Households earning less than $28,000/year. (By contrast, that same share in Quebec City is 25%.) And fewer than two in five Halifax rental units (37%) are considered affordable if you’re earning less than $46,000/year.

Plus, for the ones that are available, the competition is fierce: The most affordable units in Halifax also come with the lowest vacancy rates, at 0.6% for units deemed affordable to the lowest-earning tier and 0.8% for those affordable to the next lowest.

What this means, says Katie Brousseau, a community legal worker at Dalhousie Legal Aid, is self-evident but pressing: Low-income renters have fewer options for housing.

“It’s what we’re seeing every day at the clinic,” she says, speaking by phone with The Coast. Brousseau calls the CMHC’s findings a “stark reminder” of “just how severe a [housing] crisis” Haligonians and Nova Scotians face. She says that her clinic has seen a rise in tenants filing appeals to the director of Residential Tenancies to settle disputes with landlords—“and that,” she writes in a release, “is largely because tenants are looking to use every option they can just to stay housed.”

2. Nova Scotia’s rent cap helps tenants if they’re already housed, but not if they’re forced by circumstance to move. To help address Nova Scotia’s affordability crisis, former premier Stephen McNeil’s government introduced a temporary 2% rent cap and banned “renovictions” in November 2020. Premier Tim Houston’s government has extended the rent cap until the end of 2023—but Nova Scotia’s ruling Progressive Conservatives have been mum on whether they’ll offer any extensions beyond Dec. 31.

The current rules bar landlords from raising the rent on current tenants by more than 2% in any single year—but they don’t limit landlords from raising the rent between tenants. And therein lies the loophole. As we’ve reported at The Coast, the province’s changes have sparked a surge in landlords and property management companies opting for fixed-term leases, which allow them greater control over setting their prices. (If a tenant’s fixed-term lease comes to an end today, a landlord could raise their unit’s rent by 5%, 10% or 100% before re-renting it, if they wanted to—and even if the tenant wanted to keep renting the unit, the landlord has no legal obligation to extend the lease.)

The numbers suggest this is exactly what’s happened: Per the CMHC’s latest report, year-over-year rents in Halifax climbed by more between 2021 and 2022 than in any other single year dating back to 2002.

Housing advocates like Hannah Wood, co-chair of ACORN Canada’s Halifax Peninsula chapter, have lobbied for a permanent rent cap to be tied to units, rather than tenancies, along with a landlord licensing system to ensure the quality of rental units.

“It’s about how do we go forward from here with that mosaic of solutions, operating in good faith to all involved, and create something more liveable for people,” she tells The Coast, “because really, people are not only getting priced out of the HRM; they’re getting priced out of Sydney, they’re getting priced out of Antigonish.”

3. When they can, renters are staying put. In 2022, Halifax saw its lowest turnover rate of rental units in the past five years. Roughly one in nine private apartments in the HRM changed hands last year, compared to more than one in six in 2021. The gap was widest for one-bedroom apartments, where 11.5% of units turned over, compared to 19.5% in the year prior. The logic for this is fairly simple: If you’re renting a $900 or $1,000/month apartment and the going rate is $1,450, that’s a compelling argument to stay put—if you’re able.

4. Outpriced Haligonians are leaving—but they’re outnumbered by people moving to the HRM. Outward migration was one of the bigger trends highlighted by the CMHC’s latest report. More than 13,500 Haligonians left the HRM for another province in 2022—a figure that works out to about one in 35 residents, and a third more than the roughly 10,200 who left in 2021. Meanwhile, per the latest Census results, 124 more Nova Scotians moved out of Halifax to elsewhere in the province compared to those who arrived.

Outrageous rents and shortage of doctors is keeping me from moving back home to Dartmouth
— Triple B 🇨🇦🌻🙃☘️🌈 (@spyderbev) January 20, 2023

But while some Haligonians are leaving, the HRM’s population continues to boom. Halifax saw twice as many newcomers arrive as left the region last year—and no urban centre except Moncton saw as much population growth by percentage as Halifax in 2022 (4.4%).

As of July 1, 2022, Halifax’s population had reached just shy of 480,600, and the upward trend is expected to continue. Statistics Canada has forecasted that Halifax’s population could rise as high as 541,000 by 2041.

5. Dartmouth and Bedford saw the highest rise in rental rates. Nowhere in Halifax saw a steeper climb in the monthly cost of a one-bedroom apartment than in Dartmouth and Bedford, where the average rent rose by 12.3% and 10%, respectively. On the peninsula, rents went up between 6.2% and 6.3% in Halifax’s north and south ends, and across the entire HRM, the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment rose by 7.6% from October 2021 to October 2022.