Vacancies up, but so are rents

水管工

Increase in supply mostly at high end of market, analyst says
" X6 L, x% L) B8 i1 D: CBill Mah, The Edmonton Journal
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EDMONTON - There are triple the vacant apartments in Edmonton than there were at this time last year. So why can't Meghan Hetchler find a place to live?

The 20-year-old Edmontonian, seven months pregnant, has been looking for two months to find a larger place to live for herself and her boyfriend before she gives birth to her first child in August. Hetchler has been staying with a relative while her boyfriend has a roommate.

& @! ]" m8 K- c2 C2 l/ y( u. B# fIn May, Hetchler posted an ad on a home-rentals website describing how a non-partying, clean-living, non-smoking new mom and dad needed a place to live. No one has called.
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1 j% L$ w5 A. ODave Taylor protests a spike in the price of rental housing at a rally at the legislature in May 2007.
4 G# Q" J) |, }/ Q. |$ u* xJohn Lucas, The Journal
/ f" _" v+ C- M! m1 |5 G3 j6 r"I'm trying to be optimistic, but it's a little harder to be optimistic when you're getting so close to your due date and you don't really have a place to go," Hetchler said. "We're just looking for a nice apartment, a two-bedroom downstairs suite or something like that in a nice neighbourhood -- something that's easy to access by bus routes."
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Metro Edmonton's vacancy rate rose to 3.4 per cent in April from 1.1 per cent for the same month last year, says the spring rental market survey released Thursday by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
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$ I% y. O, O- p  e3 E6 g, dStill, the statistics aren't helping home-hunters like Meghan, who got laid off from her lingerie store job in February, and her chef boyfriend, who are trying to find a place for $900 a month or less.
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That could be because the national housing agency's figures also show that the average monthly rent of a two-bedroom in metro Edmonton also rose by 13.7 per cent to $1,000 a month in Edmonton, despite the higher vacancy.
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8 c" b( b& q' M" F7 A+ cFinding vacancies is less of a problem than the price landlords are asking, Hetchler said.

  b! A# _$ A- S# h# k; D"We've seen a lot of places, but they're not two-bedroom. They're either one-bedroom and they only want one tenant or they're big houses outside of our price range."
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The places they can afford "are pretty plain and not in the best neighbourhoods," she said.
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# `, [7 G- Y$ gCMHC Edmonton senior market analyst Richard Goatcher said the higher vacancy rate, despite few new apartments being built, is the result of more rental condos on the market.
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He described a vacancy rate around three per cent is usually considered a "good, healthy rental market" with both a reasonable selection for renters and rate of return for investors.

  d7 R. A! N% p2 o6 H. U) |3 x# ["Typically, once you get below (a) two-per-cent vacancy rate, that's when you start seeing real rent increases, rent increases above the inflation rate."

1 o* Q$ V, N& `2 j& Q$ EWhy rents rose at the same time that more apartments became available is tougher to explain.
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"The trends seem to be that the vacancies are arriving at the upper-rent ranges, largely because the new competition for the rental market is condominiums."
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$ w6 B! C8 }9 s/ [2 u5 g$ sSharp declines in people moving to the province and competition from the condo apartment market were also provincial factors in the rise of vacancies.

6 n5 d0 U1 h5 e. V2 u" G7 i1 J# eAcross the province, two-bedroom rents averaged $1,049 per month, up from $932 in April 2007.
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% y0 ^0 k- C) d2 N/ k( [+ MWood Buffalo, which includes Fort McMurray, had the lowest vacancy rate at 0.1 per cent and the highest two-bedroom rent at $2,350. For a year, that's $28,200.
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In the Calgary census metropolitan area, the apartment vacancy rate went from a record low of 0.5 per cent in April 2007 to two per cent in April 2008.
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7 S& o5 r; J" fbmah@thejournal.canwest.com

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© The Edmonton Journal 2008