Kelowna vacancy rate up
Kirk Penton - Nov 28, 2018 - Biz Releases

Photo: Contributed

As expected, the rental vacancy rate in Kelowna has increased by nearly two per cent over the last year.

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation announced Wednesday in its annual Rental Market Survey that the city’s vacancy rate has increased to 1.9 per cent. It was only 0.2 per cent in October 2017.

The report found the new supply of purpose-built rental apartments outpaced growth in demand, and that resulted in apartment vacancy rates increasing across all bedroom types.

Even though vacancy rates went up, the average rental prices continued to surge. The monthly cost of a two-bedroom apartment in October was $1,267, which was up over the $1,151 mark in October 2017.

Overall, the average cost of any apartment in the Kelowna census metropolitan area is $1,133, which represents an 8.1 per cent increase over last year at this time.

When broken down by bedroom type, the vacancy rate for bachelor pads is 0.3 per cent, 3.5 per cent for one-bedrooms, 0.9 per cent for two-bedrooms and 1.4 per cent for three or more bedrooms.

The report found Kelowna’s rental market expanded by 499 units in the last year, with a significant number of them being two-bedroom apartments.


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