According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Canada’s purpose-built rental apartment vacancy rate increased, year-over-year, in October 2014. The CMHC’s Rental Market Survey, released Dec. 16, indicated that the average Canadian rental vacancy rate rose to 2.8 per cent. Inventories and average rents also rose over the course of the year.

“Between October 2013 and October 2014, the supply of purpose built rental housing units rose by 2.7 per cent,” says Bob Dugan, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre. “Overall, this increase in supply outpaced the rise in occupied units, slightly pushing up the national vacancy rate. That said, demand for rental housing was supported by net migration and steady levels of full-time employment in the 15 to 24 age group.”

Across the country’s larger centres, the highest purpose-built housing vacancy rates were found in:

• Saint John, N.B. – 9.0 per cent;
• Moncton, N.B. – 8.7 per cent;
• Ottawa – Gatineau, Que. – 6.5 per cent; and
• Charlottetown, P.E.I. – 5.9 per cent.

The country’s lowest vacancy rates were seen in three British Columbia cities including Vancouver, Kelowna and Victoria, as well as Guelph, Ont. and Calgary, Alta.

The CMHC found that average rents increased, year-over-year, across Canada’s major centres, by 2.5 per cent.