Rentals.ca has announced that it is partnering with Statistics Canada to develop a new index to track trends in the Canadian rental housing market.

For the new tracker, called the Rental Market Industry Index, Rentals.ca will be providing Statistics Canada with listings data from its platform, while the federal statistics agency will be responsible for analysis and aggregation.

Rentals.ca said it hopes the index will be “a comprehensive and reliable resource for the rental housing industry and beyond.”

“In supplying rental housing pricing data to Statistics Canada, we take the responsibility very seriously and we feel that this partnership further solidifies and validates our leading position and authority on asking rent data across Canada,” said Max Steinman, CEO of Rentals.ca parent company Rentsync, in a news release Thursday.

“Through this new partnership, we’re able to get data into the hands of institutions, and help policymakers, developers, and the Canadian public as a whole to make more informed decisions to help tackle the rental housing supply crisis.”

Rentals.ca is a rental housing listings platform that currently boasts more than 47,000 listings across Canada. The website is also known for its monthly national rent reports, tracking the average price of listings on the platform in each city and for each type of housing.

In December, Rentals.ca said the average asking price for one-bedroom apartment in Canada averaged $1,931, marking a 0.29 per cent increase from the previous month and a 13.28 per cent increase from the previous year. Vancouver was once again the most expensive city in Canada, with the average price of a one-bedroom listed at $2,866, while Burnaby, B.C., Toronto and other cities in the Greater Toronto Area followed were close behind.