Insights

According to a recent report by Colliers on the 2026 Real Estate Investor Outlook, after sitting on the sidelines through recent market volatility, institutional investors, particularly in the US, are starting to reposition themselves and they're looking north of the border. Canada is positioning itself as an attractive destination for global capital in 2026, even as economic headwinds create uncertainty elsewhere. The shift is driven by something counterintuitive: Canada's n

Over the past year, the most important change in Canada’s multifamily market hasn’t been construction volume or headline vacancy rates. It’s been pricing behaviour. Asking rents have softened across most major markets, and that shift matters far more for underwriting than it does for media narratives. By the end of 2025, average asking rents were declining year over year in most large Canadian cities. This wasn’t a one-month anomaly or a seasonal dip, it was a sustained trend

We’ve been watching Canada’s multifamily market quietly change over the past year. Not collapse. Not boom. Change. And the latest CMHC rental data confirms what has been showing up on the ground: the era of extreme tightness is easing, but affordability pressures haven’t gone anywhere. Nationally, the vacancy rate for purpose-built rentals moved up to 3.1% in 2025, well above last year and above the ten-year average. That’s a meaningful shift after several years of near-zero