Areas
Renting in the West End, Where the Rent Is Lower and the Space Costs More
Updated August 13, 2026 · 4 min read
The West End is the cheapest way to live downtown without living downtown, and it is one of the most expensive places in the region to buy floor area. Both of those are true at once, and which one matters depends on whether you are comparing rents or comparing what you get for them.
What it costs
| Size | Homes we are tracking | Median asking rent |
|---|---|---|
| Studio | 32 | $2,050 |
| 1 bedroom | 138 | $2,262 |
| 2 bedroom | 71 | $3,500 |
| 3 bedroom | 17 | $4,490 |
Against the rest of the city
| Area | Median 1-bed asking rent |
|---|---|
| Downtown Vancouver | $2,700 |
| Mount Pleasant | $2,400 |
| Kitsilano | $2,378 |
| West End | $2,262 |
| Vancouver overall | $2,100 |
| East Vancouver | $1,850 |
A one-bedroom asks $438 a month less than downtown, which over a year is $5,256. That is the argument for the West End and it is a real one.
The other number
| Area | Rent per sq ft | Median floor area |
|---|---|---|
| Downtown Vancouver | $4.47 | 721 sq ft |
| West End | $4.30 | 650 sq ft |
| Mount Pleasant | $4.02 | 645 sq ft |
| Kitsilano | $3.91 | 718 sq ft |
| Vancouver overall | $3.33 | 800 sq ft |
| East Vancouver | $3.25 | 700 sq ft |
Pooled across all sizes, the West End is the second most expensive area in Metro Vancouver by the square foot. Kitsilano is the nearest comparison and it is cheaper per foot on larger flats; East Vancouver is cheaper on both counts. The reason the total rent is lower than downtown is that the flats are smaller, not that the space is cheaper.
This page used to say the opposite. Until today the West End was described here as "the best value per square foot" and as the place where "you get the most floor area for the money", in the page title, the meta description, the blurb and on every card linking to it. That was wrong in the direction that flatters us, our own listings say so, and it has been corrected.
Still looking for the place itself? Describe what you want once and we email you when a matching rental is listed, usually within a few hours of it going up.
Get told when it appearsWhat the age of the stock costs you
| Area | In-suite laundry | Parking included | Air conditioning |
|---|---|---|---|
| West End | 31% | 73% | 5.1% |
| Kitsilano | 48% | 46% | 2.9% |
| Mount Pleasant | 53% | 76% | 7.8% |
| Vancouver overall | 66% | 61% | 8.5% |
The West End has the lowest in-suite laundry share of anywhere we measure. 28 of the 91 homes that mention laundry have it in the unit; the other 63 have it in the building. If a machine in your own flat matters to you, this is the neighbourhood where you will have the hardest time and where you should filter for it rather than hope.
Parking is the pleasant surprise, and it is where this page was previously wrong in the other direction. 68 of the 93 homes that mention parking say it is included, above the Vancouver average. Older West End buildings were built with underground parking more often than their age suggests.
Air conditioning is rare at 5.1%, though that figure is a share of all 254 homes rather than of those stating, because almost no advertisement says a flat lacks it.
Almost entirely flats
Of the 93 West End homes that state a housing type, 90 are apartment-form and three are houses. It is the most apartment-dominated area we measure, which is what a neighbourhood of 1960s and 1970s towers on a peninsula looks like.
One home in 254 has four or more bedrooms. There is essentially no family-sized market here, and the 17 three-bedrooms in the table above are the whole of it.
Whatever the building, the Residential Tenancy Act applies, including the rent increase cap and the deposit limits. In stock this old, repair and maintenance obligations are the ones that come up, and they do not soften with the age of the building.
What this page cannot tell you
We hold no rent survey for the West End, so unlike most areas on this site there is no independent figure to check these medians against.
161 of the 254 homes here say nothing about housing type, so the split above describes the 93 that did. 230 state a floor area, which is what the per-square-foot figures rest on.
Building age is not in this data. The claim that the stock is old rests on what listings say about laundry and cooling, which is indirect evidence rather than a survey of construction dates.
The three-bedroom row rests on 17 advertisements and the studio row on 32, so read both as indicative.
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 the West End?
On the listings we are tracking the median asking rent in the West End is $2,262 for a one-bedroom and $3,500 for a two-bedroom. The one-bedroom is $438 a month below downtown Vancouver at $2,700, which is the whole reason people choose it. We hold no rent survey for the West End, so these asking rents are the only figures we have for it.
Is the West End good value?
It depends which number you mean, and the two point opposite ways. The headline rent is lower than downtown. The rent per square foot is $4.30, the second highest of any area in the region behind downtown at $4.47, because the flats are small: a median 650 square feet against 721 downtown and 800 across Vancouver. You are paying less in total for less space at a higher rate.
Do West End apartments have in-suite laundry?
Usually not. Of the 91 homes that say anything about laundry, 28 say it is in the unit and 63 say it is in the building. A 31% in-suite share is the lowest of any area we measure, well below Kitsilano at 48% and Vancouver overall at 66%. It follows from the stock, which is mostly 1960s and 1970s concrete and wood-frame.
Is parking included in West End rentals?
More often than you would expect from the age of the buildings. Of the 93 homes that mention parking, 68 say it is included, a 73% share that is above Vancouver overall at 61%. This page previously said parking cost extra when it existed at all, which our own listings do not support, and that has been corrected.
What size are West End flats?
Small. The median across everything stating a floor area is 650 square feet, and a studio runs a median 438 square feet. Only Mount Pleasant and Kitsilano are comparably tight, and both are cheaper per square foot than the West End is.