It's become even tougher to find a place to rent in Prince George, the latest numbers from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation are indicating.
As of October 2007, the vacancy rate for all apartments in the city stood at just 1.9 per cent, the CMHC said in a report released Thursday, down from 2.6 per cent the year before.
CMHC market analyst Paul Fabri said that's the lowest vacancy rate since 1995 but it's still above the provincial average of one per cent.
Broken down the picture isn't quite as bad. The vacancy rate for bachelors stood at 2.7 per cent, down from 7.4 per cent in October 2006, for one bedrooms, it was 2.5, down from 4.7, for two bedrooms it was 1.8, up from 1.2 and for three or more bedrooms, it was 0.6, up from 0.2.
Fabri said the reasons for the drop in Prince George are pretty much the same as in the rest of B.C.
"We've seen fairly good economic growth that generated job opportunities and job opportunities attract people to an area and that means demand for all types of housing, including rental housing.
"Other considerations are, we've seen the cost of home ownership go up quite significantly and together with higher interest rates earlier this year, has certainly delayed the move of some renters to the homeownership market.
"Also, we haven't seen a lot of new supply come on stream over the last number of years because Prince George, up until recently, had experienced some fairly high vacancy rates.
So we have a situation of sharply increase demand, not a lot of new supply and of course vacancy rates came down."
Rents were also on the rise as the average monthly bill for a bachelor apartment rose by $32 to $502 per month, while those one and two bedrooms both increased by $20 to $552 and $642 per month respectively and the cost of a three-bedroom or more jumped by $182 to $859 per month.
However, Fabri suggested they may have to rise further yet before there is interest in constructing any new rental accommodation based on what he's seen elsewhere around the province. Rather, if there is a shift away from single-family homes, which appears to have peaked in many B.C. communities, he expects it will be towards condominiums.
(by Prince George Citizen)
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