House prices jump, housing starts slide as affordability takes a blow to start the year
Stephanie Hughes
The Vancouver Sun
A Rentals.ca report says last month the average rent for a one-bedroom home in Vancouver was $2,163 while a two-bedroom place cost $3,003.
Rental costs continue to soar in Vancouver, according to a couple of reports this week. Photo by Getty Images /PNG
Lower-income families are struggling to find a place to live, as Vancouver continues to be the most expensive city in Canada to rent a home, according to a pair of rental reports.
The vacancy rate for purpose-built rental apartments in Metro Vancouver dropped to 1.2 per cent last year from 2.6 per cent in 2020 because of higher demand following economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation report Friday. Vacancy rates for recently completed new units fell to 2.3 per cent last year from 9.1 per cent in 2020.
The tightening conditions intensified existing imbalances in the Vancouver rental market, CMHC said, adding the data show that lower-income households are facing “significant challenges” finding units that they can afford.
The report says less than a quarter of market purpose-built rental units are affordable to households earning less than $48,000 a year, and only one in 1,000 units are affordable to those with the lowest one-fifth of incomes.
Most of the lowest-priced units are small and unsuitable for families, said CMHC.
In another report, on Thursday, Vancouver topped the list of 35 cities for average monthly rent in January for a one-bedroom home at $2,163 and for a two-bedroom at $3,003.
That’s according to Rentals.ca’s February report, which said Vancouver has the most expensive rents in the country for all property types at $2,550 a month, an increase of 16.2 per cent in the previous 12 months. Toronto was the next most expensive city at $2,317 a month, up 14.5 per cent.
Source: Rentals.ca
In Vancouver, average rent for single-family homes was up to $2,987 a month in January from $2,758 the same month last year, a jump of 8.3 per cent.
Condo apartments average rents rose 7.1 per cent to $2,756 a month in January from $2,573 last year, while condo rents were up 8.4 per cent to $2,456 from $2,265.
Average monthly rent in the whole province for all property types was also the highest in Canada at $2,181, up 9.6 per cent.
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