AI Analysis: Commercial rents services price index, monthly

Executive Summary

Canada's Commercial Rents Services Price Index rose 41.4% over nearly two decades, climbing from 80.9 in January 2006 to a record high of 114.4 in December 2025, with accelerating growth observed post-2022 driven largely by industrial and retail segments. The dataset spans 27 geographic regions and 4 building types, revealing that Montréal's Industrial Buildings and Warehouses segment led all categories with an average index of 126.8 over the last 12 months — approximately 27% above the 2019 baseline. Across building types, industrial properties show the most volatility and highest growth, while office buildings remain the most stable, and the two sectors behave largely independently of one another.

Key Findings

• The overall index grew 41.4% from January 2006 (80.9) to December 2025 (114.4), with December 2025 marking the highest value ever recorded in the dataset.
• Montréal's Industrial Buildings and Warehouses segment recorded the highest average index value of 126.8 over the last 12 months, leading all 27 regions and 4 building type combinations.
• Industrial Buildings & Warehouses have the highest mean index (108.55) and greatest variability (std dev 8.05, max 130.2), while Office Buildings are the most stable with the lowest standard deviation of 6.02.
• Industrial Buildings & Warehouses and the Total Building Type index are almost perfectly correlated (r=0.930), whereas Office Buildings and Retail Buildings move largely independently with the weakest correlation of just r=0.253.
• Seven outlier months were detected between 2006 and 2025, with the largest single-month drop of -1.20 index points in October 2020 and the largest single-month rise of +1.40 points in July 2007.
• 50% of all 5,196 index values fall within a narrow 9.3-point band (99.60 to 108.90), reflecting the gradual and steady nature of commercial rent changes over the study period.
• The COVID-19 period (March–December 2020) produced three of the seven detected outliers, while post-2022 inflation drove a sharp acceleration in the index well above the 2019 baseline of 100.