Penticton's apartment rental market vacancy rate is being aided by the construction and completion of several apartment projects in the city.
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November 30, 2018 - 3:00 PM
PENTICTON - The completion of two new apartment projects in Penticton may have helped ease the low vacancy rate, but rents continue to climb.
The last two years have seen two rental apartment complexes completed on Duncan and Kinney Avenues, which alone added more than 200 new units to the city’s inventory, but prices continue to rise even though availability has increased.
Several other projects are underway in the city's downtown core.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which released its annual Rental Market Report this week, indicates vacancy rates have improved slightly from 2017 for one and two bedroom apartments, while there is no data available for bachelor and three bedroom units.
The vacancy rate for one bedroom units is up from 1.5 per cent in 2017 to 2.1 per cent in 2018, while the rate for two bedroom units rose from 0.5 per cent last year to 1.5 per cent this year. Overall the apartment vacancy rate rose from 0.9 to 1.7 per cent over the same time frame. The number of new apartment units built climbed from 2,079 last year to 2,232 so far in 2018.
The monthly rent charged for an average apartment in Penticton was also up, from $838 in 2017 to $950 this year, with the biggest increase in three bedroom units, which rose from $1,137 last year to $1,482 in 2018.
The rent on an average bachelor suite was $697 this year, up $40 a month from 2017, and rent on a two bedroom unit rose more than $100, up from $943 in 2017 to $1,059 this year.
Penticton’s apartment vacancy rate is slightly higher than the provincial average, which currently sits at 1.4 per cent, compared to Penticton’s, which is at 1.7 per cent.
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