Commercial rents are creeping up in Vancouver, according to Statistics Canada data released Thursday.
StatCan’s commercial rents services price index increased about 2.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2024 compared with the same period one year ago for the Vancouver market. The index was up 8.9 per cent compared with the same quarter three years ago and up 15 per cent compared with five years ago.
The quarterly index rose in Vancouver for all three segments included in the data: office buildings (up 0.4 per cent from Q3 2023), retail buildings (up 2.1 per cent), and industrial buildings and warehouses (up 3.9 per cent).
Looking at B.C. more broadly, the index increased about 1.7 per cent in Q3 2024 compared with the same period a year earlier, and the index increased about two per cent nationally during this time.
StatCan’s index “measures the change over time in the net effective rent for occupied commercial building space in Canada,” according to its website.
“Estimates are produced on a quarterly basis. Prices collected are the average rents, measured in price per square foot, of a sample of commercial buildings.”
Net effective rent is defined by StatCan as the “price charged to all tenants to physically occupy space in the building each month, including any inducements and excluding all operating costs, taxes and additional rents.”
It is calculated as “the monthly total net effective rent revenue, on an accrual basis, over the tenant-occupied space at the start of the month for the commercial buildings in the sample.”
The data, which is also available monthly, is not seasonally adjusted.
Looking ahead to 2025, some observers say things are heading in the right direction.
During a regional market outlook event on Nov. 7, commercial real estate services firm CBRE said demand and fundamentals are steadying.
“Leasing markets are either returning to or maintaining historical averages,” said CBRE Vancouver managing director Jason Kiselbach at the event.
“Market metrics such as vacancy rates and rental prices are either returning to historical averages after periods of fluctuation or maintaining their long-term averages.”
