Saskatoon's vacancy rate rose to 3.3% and average rent to C$1,438, per CMHC's October 2025 survey. Unlike every other city in this series, Saskatchewan charges no land transfer tax at all — buyers pay a tiered land-title registry fee instead, which is structurally different and, at most price points, far cheaper.
Saskatoon's rental market
The CMHC October 2025 Rental Market Survey puts Saskatoon CMA's purpose-built private-apartment vacancy rate at 3.3% as of October 2025 (up from 2.0% a year earlier), with average rent across all bedroom types at C$1,438 (up from C$1,371). For 2-bedroom units, Statistics Canada's experimental rent table recorded an average asking rent of C$1,620 against an average paid rent of C$1,470 as of April 2026 — the lowest absolute rent levels of any city in this series, consistent with Saskatoon carrying the country's highest surveyed multifamily cap rates.
Statistics Canada's building construction price index recorded a 2.0% quarter-over-quarter rise in Saskatoon residential construction costs in Q2 2026 — a useful input cost for any capital-expenditure reserve line in a Saskatoon underwriting, and one of the larger quarterly increases among the cities StatCan tracks in that release.
No land transfer tax — but a real registry fee schedule
Saskatchewan levies no provincial land transfer tax. Instead, Information Services Corporation's land title fee schedule charges a title transfer registration fee that is tiered, not a flat percentage: free under C$500, a flat C$25 from C$500.01 to C$6,300, and 0.4% of the title's value from C$6,300.01 up. Financing the purchase adds a separate mortgage registration fee on its own tier schedule — C$200 for mortgages up to C$249,999.99, C$275 from C$250,000 to C$500,000, C$525 from C$500,000.01 to C$750,000, and higher tiers above that.
Capital cost allowance: sheltering part of the income this page's cap rate describes
Cap rate is a pre-tax, pre-financing yield. What an investor actually keeps depends partly on the CRA's capital cost allowance rules for rental buildings: a rental building typically depreciates at 4% per year on a declining-balance basis (Class 1), and in the year of acquisition the half-year rule limits the claim to one-half of the normal amount.
Methodology
Vacancy and average-rent figures are CMHC's October 2025 Rental Market Survey (purpose-built private apartments, Saskatoon CMA total, all bedroom types). Asking-versus-paid rent is Statistics Canada's experimental table 46-10-0092-01 for 2-bedroom apartments, April 2026. Registry fees follow Information Services Corporation's fee schedule effective April 15, 2026. The CCA example uses a hypothetical building/land split for illustration only — CRA does not publish a standard split ratio, and the C$450,000/C$400,000 figures in both worked examples are illustrative, not claimed market averages.
Sources
- CMHC — Rental Market Survey Data Tables, Saskatoon 2025 — accessed 2026-09-21
- Statistics Canada — Table 46-10-0092-01, asking and paid rent — accessed 2026-09-21
- Statistics Canada — Building construction price indexes, Q2 2026 — accessed 2026-09-21
- Information Services Corporation — Saskatchewan Land Title Fees — accessed 2026-09-21
- Canada Revenue Agency — Rental income, capital cost allowance — accessed 2026-09-21