The overall office unit vacancy in Canada has decreased from 13.2 percent to 11.4 percent between 2016 and 2019. The Canadian office space net asking rent per square foot has stayed more or less stable in that time period, at around 20 Canadian dollars. Due to the high demand for office space, there was about four million square feet of new office space supplied in Canada in 2018, with about 15 million square feet under construction in that same year.
Toronto, the most populous city in Canada, has an abundance of major corporations such as Capital One, IBM, and Unilever to name a few. The majority of the office space in the city is located in the suburbs. The vacancy rates in suburban office buildings are about five times higher than the vacancy rates in the downtown office buildings, showing that the downtown offices are in higher demand.
Unlike Toronto, Vancouver has most of its office space located downtown. Although Vancouver is much less populous than Toronto, it is known for being a very dense city with a thriving downtown area. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the downtown office space in Vancouver is much more expensive than the national average, at about 36 Canadian dollars per square foot.
