A new national report suggests Canadian renters are changing where they search for homes, and Victoria is quietly gaining ground.
RentCafe.com‘s latest Canadian Renter Interest Report for quarter three of 2025 tracked renter behaviour in 25 cities across the country by analyzing listing views, saved searches, favourited properties, and available rentals.
The findings show major reshuffling in renter attention, with some markets cooling and others picking up steam.
Victoria landed at 8th place nationally, rising two spots from the previous quarter.
The city ranked especially strong in how often renters save local listings as favourites and create saved searches for Victoria rentals, suggesting steady, committed interest from people actively planning moves to the region.
According to RentCafe’s city-by-city breakdown, Victoria’s overall score came in at 71.32, placing it well above Vancouver, Toronto, London, Montréal, and other large urban centres that saw sharp drops in renter engagement this quarter. Vancouver jumped nearly a dozen places to rank number 11, but Victoria remains the stronger performer of the two.
Victoria ranked:
- 4th in the country for favourited rentals
- 6th for page views
- 10th for saved searches
- 19th for availability of listings
While the low availability ranking reflects the city’s well-known supply shortages, renter behaviour shows people are still searching and saving units at a high rate, keeping Victoria firmly in the top 10 national markets for renter interest.
Nanaimo also made the list at 13th, showing stable renter engagement and further signalling that Vancouver Island continues to draw housing demand despite affordability concerns.
The upward movement in renter attention comes as Victoria’s rent prices show rare signs of softening.
See also: Report shows rent in Victoria is down since this time last year
Recent figures from Rentals.ca show that one-bedroom average: $2,014 per month (unchanged from last month, down 6.4% year-over-year)
Two-bedroom average: $2,630 per month (down 0.8% from October, down 8.6% year-over-year)
This places Victoria 18th among Canada’s most expensive rental markets, lower than previous years where the city consistently hovered near the top 10.
Across BC, rents fell 5.8% year-over-year. Western provinces saw the largest declines overall, while Saskatchewan and Manitoba were the only regions to see an increase.
The national decline in rents has now continued for 13 consecutive months, though October’s decrease was the smallest in almost a year.
Analysts suggest this may signal that the period of steep declines is ending.
Victoria’s rise in the national rankings suggests renters still see the region as a desirable place to live, even as affordability remains a challenge.
According to the report, high levels of listing engagement show that people are browsing, saving, and planning for possible moves to the capital. That steady attention, combined with cooler rent prices, could indicate a more balanced period ahead for renters after several years of rapid increases and tight supply.
With Vancouver Island communities now featured twice in the top 15 for Canadian renter interest, the island remains an active and competitive rental market drawing attention from across the country.
With files from Curtis Blandy
