Rent prices in Canada soared last year as supply struggled to keep up with demand, leading to the lowest national vacancy rate on record since the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. began tracking that data in 1988.

The federal housing agency said in a report Wednesday the vacancy rate for purpose-built rental apartments sat at 1.5 per cent during the first two weeks of October 2023, when it conducted its annual survey.

That was down from 1.9 per cent a year earlier, which at the time had been the lowest national vacancy rate in over two decades.

The average rent for a two-bedroom purpose-built apartment, which the CMHC uses as its representative sample, grew eight per cent to $1,359 in 2023. That growth figure was up from the 5.6 per cent average rent increase recorded in 2022 and above the 1990-2022 average of 2.8 per cent.