Areas
Renting in Richmond, Where the Second Bedroom Costs the Most
Updated August 13, 2026 · 6 min read
Richmond is the one area where the size of the flat changes the answer completely. A one-bedroom here asks less than Vancouver does. A two-bedroom asks more. Nothing else we track behaves that way, and if you are choosing between areas it is the first thing worth knowing.
What it costs
| Size | Homes we are tracking | Median asking rent |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | 4 | $1,692 |
| 1 bedroom | 215 | $1,900 |
| 2 bedroom | 212 | $2,700 |
| 3 bedroom | 84 | $3,300 |
Four studios is not a market. Richmond has essentially never built them, and a median across four advertisements will move the moment one expires, so treat that row as a curiosity rather than a price.
The one- and two-bedroom rows are the ones with weight, and they are almost exactly the same size as each other: 215 against 212. Richmond's rental stock is a two-sided market with very little at either extreme.
The second bedroom is the expensive one
| Area | Median 1-bed | Median 2-bed | Step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Richmond | $1,900 | $2,700 | +42% |
| North Vancouver | $2,300 | $3,000 | +30% |
| New Westminster | $1,850 | $2,450 | +32% |
| Vancouver overall | $2,100 | $2,650 | +26% |
| Coquitlam | $1,900 | $2,300 | +21% |
| Burnaby | $1,850 | $2,236 | +21% |
| Surrey | $1,650 | $2,000 | +21% |
An extra $800 a month in Richmond, against $386 in Burnaby for the same step up. Put another way: a Richmond one-bedroom saves you $200 a month on Vancouver, and a Richmond two-bedroom costs you $50 more.
We can describe that step but not explain it, and it is worth being clear about which is which. It is not simply that Richmond's two-bedrooms are larger: the median is 870 square feet against 850 in Burnaby and 808 in Vancouver, which is not a difference that buys $800. Nor is it a general premium on Richmond space, because the asking rent per square foot is almost flat across the two sizes here, $3.20 for a one-bedroom and $3.13 for a two. What the figures show is a real and unusual gap. What produced it is not something these advertisements can tell us.
Against the rest of the region
| Area | Median 1-bed asking rent |
|---|---|
| Vancouver overall | $2,100 |
| Richmond | $1,900 |
| Coquitlam | $1,900 |
| Burnaby | $1,850 |
| New Westminster | $1,850 |
| Surrey | $1,650 |
On one-bedrooms Richmond sits level with Coquitlam and $50 above Burnaby and New Westminster, which puts it in the middle of the region rather than at either end.
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Get told when it appearsThe Canada Line, and the second zone
Richmond has four Canada Line stations and nine minutes separates the first from the last.
| Station | Ride to Waterfront |
|---|---|
| Bridgeport | 23 min |
| Aberdeen | 28 min |
| Lansdowne | 30 min |
| Richmond-Brighouse | 32 min |
These are modelled across the station graph rather than routed live, so read them as a comparison between stations and not a promise about your morning. What they do show is that the Canada Line is fast: Bridgeport to downtown beats most of Burnaby and all of the Tri-Cities.
Steveston is the exception and it is a large one. There is no station in the village, so the trip starts with a bus to Brighouse, and nothing on this page's figures separates a Steveston flat from a Brighouse tower.
The part that does not appear in any rent table is the fare. Richmond sits in fare zone 2, so a weekday commute into Vancouver needs a two-zone monthly pass at $156.70 against $117.20 for one zone, on TransLink's fares as of 1 July 2026. That is $39.50 a month, or $474 a year, and it belongs in the comparison whenever you are weighing a Richmond rent against a Vancouver one. How much rent you can afford sets out the rest of the monthly arithmetic that sits underneath a headline rent.
What the buildings offer
Much of Richmond's rental stock is newer than the regional average, concentrated along No. 3 Road between Bridgeport and Brighouse, and the advertisements reflect that.
Of the 220 homes that say anything about laundry, 156 say it is in the unit. Of the 220 that mention parking, 169 say it is included. Fifty-three state air conditioning, which is a higher share than most areas, though it is still not a claim about the ones that say nothing.
Pets are the field to watch here. Only 50 of 570 homes say anything permissive at all: 37 allow pets, 12 are cats only, one is dogs only. That is not evidence that the rest refuse, because most advertisements are silent, but it does mean you should expect to ask rather than assume. Renting with pets in BC covers what a landlord can and cannot refuse and what a pet damage deposit is capped at.
Not all of it is a tower
Of the 215 Richmond homes that state a housing type, 137 are apartment-form and 78 are house-form: houses, suites and townhouses, mostly away from the No. 3 Road corridor and out towards Steveston and the east side of the city.
The three-bedroom market is where that shows up in the numbers. Eighty-four homes at a median $3,300, and the median three-bedroom that states a floor area is 1,290 square feet, which works out at $2.57 per square foot. That is the cheapest square footage in this guide by a wide margin and it is the reason families end up here.
Whatever the building, the law is the same. The Residential Tenancy Act covers a suite in a house exactly as it covers a flat in a tower, including the rent increase cap and the deposit limits. The exception is sharing a kitchen or bathroom with the owner, which falls outside the Act.
What this page cannot tell you
Richmond is not one market and we do not publish separate figures for its parts. Brighouse, Steveston, Hamilton and the east side are genuinely different places, and the neighbourhood field on the advertisements we read is free text a landlord typed, too inconsistent to build a table from. Nothing published puts a defensible number on one against another, so this page does not invent one.
355 of the 570 homes here say nothing about housing type, so the split above describes the 215 that did.
The studio figure rests on four advertisements and should not be used for anything.
Aircraft noise is a real consideration in parts of Richmond and nothing in this data measures it. No advertisement states it, and we will not estimate it from a flight path.
The figures are asking rents from advertisements, not agreed rents. Nobody publishes what tenancies are actually signed at.
How we collect and group these listings sets out where the underlying numbers come from and what they leave out.
Common questions
How much is rent in Richmond?
On the listings we are tracking today the median asking rent in Richmond is $1,900 for a one-bedroom and $2,700 for a two-bedroom. Half of the one-bedrooms sit between $1,600 and $2,200. The Zumper rent research we publish on the area page, retrieved 9 August 2026, puts a Richmond one-bedroom at $1,997, close to what the advertisements ask.
Is Richmond cheaper than Vancouver?
For a one-bedroom, yes: $1,900 against $2,100. For a two-bedroom, no. Richmond asks $2,700 against Vancouver's $2,650, so the second bedroom costs more here than it does in the city. It is the widest one-to-two bedroom step of any area we track, 42% against about 21% in Burnaby, Coquitlam and Surrey.
How long is the commute from Richmond to downtown Vancouver?
Between about 23 and 32 minutes on the Canada Line, depending on the station. Bridgeport is the fastest at roughly 23 minutes to Waterfront, Aberdeen about 28, Lansdowne 30 and Richmond-Brighouse 32. These are modelled from the station graph rather than routed live, so read them as a comparison between stations. Steveston has no station at all and is a bus ride to Brighouse first.
Does living in Richmond cost more in transit fares?
Yes, and it is worth putting in the budget. Richmond is in fare zone 2, so commuting to downtown Vancouver on weekdays needs a two-zone pass at $156.70 a month against $117.20 for one zone, a difference of $39.50 a month or $474 a year. That is on TransLink's fares as of 1 July 2026.
Can I rent with a pet in Richmond?
You will have to ask, because the advertisements mostly do not say. Of the 570 Richmond homes we are tracking, 37 say pets are allowed, 12 say cats only and one says dogs only. The rest say nothing either way, and a listing that did not say is not a listing we can count as refusing.