Summerlanders looking for a place to rent received some good news in a new report tracking vacancy rates.
The vacancy rate for all types of private rental apartments in Summerland rose to 6.3 per cent from three per cent during the period running from April 2010 to April 2011, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
Paul Fabri, CMHC’s senior market analyst for Kelowna and the Southern Interior, said this increase in the vacancy rate for Summerland reflects a regional trend.
“We have seen rising vacancy rates throughout all centres in the South Okanagan,” he said. Consider Penticton. In that city, the rate rose to six per cent from 4.1 per cent.
Vacancy rates for all types of rental apartments also rose elsewhere in the Okanagan Valley. Kelowna’s rate rose to 6.3 per cent from 3.7 per cent, whereas Vernon’s rate rose to 7.7 per cent from 5.6 per cent.
Fabri, however, noted that this rising vacancy rates does not represent a large jump in the actual number of apartment rental units.
“The pool (of rental apartments) is quite small,” he said. Summerland, he said, has less than 50 units that qualify as apartment units. In fact, the actual number of units in April 2011 was 32 with two units reported as vacant.
A lot of Summerland, he said, do not rent apartment units per se. Many rent secondary suites in existing homes or condominium units that have come onto the rental markets, he said. The vacancy rate does not reflect said kinds of housing, he said. Therefore, it might be difficult to assess the actual availability of rental housing in Summerland, he said.
What about rental rates in Summerland? They have increased from $647 per unit in April 2010 to $750 in April 2011, according to CMHC’s Rental Market Report for the Spring 2011. This figure, however, might be quite misleading.
Fabri cautioned against reading too much into it because the number is statistically unreliable in light of the small available sample size.
Generally speaking, rental rates throughout the throughout the Okanagan have flattened out as the supply of rental units has gone up. “In other words, we have not seen the rental rates increases seen through the mid and late to 2000s,” he said.
In terms of the overall housing market, Summerland reflects broader trends that have appeared since the start of the financial crisis in 2008 that eventually led to the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Real estate transactions measured by sales and prices declined throughout 2009, stabilized eventually and are now starting to recover, along with the provincial economy, said Fabri.
“We do anticipate some modest improvement in sale activity,” he said.