Housing crisis in vancouver
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An “extreme shortage” of studio and one-bedroom apartments in Vancouver is driving parents, students and pet owners out of the rental market and leading to lineups for the city’s few vacant suites.
The vacancy rate for bachelor suites has plummeted to 0.3 per cent, compared to the national average of four per cent for major Canadian cities, according to the most recent data from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Vacancy rates for studio and one-bedroom apartments have been below one per cent in Vancouver since 2006.
“The market is astoundingly tight; 30, 40, 50 people are lining up trying to get into one apartment,” said David Goodman, a Vancouver-based rental housing expert. “It’s reached extreme levels of shortages.”
The city’s rental shortage is now a chronic condition, according to Kennedy Stewart, a researcher at Simon Fraser University who is authoring a study of rental affordability in B.C. municipalities.
“It comes with urbanization,” he said.
“A chronically low vacancy rate is the sign of a city that has to adjust its expectations of lifestyle,” he said, adding that people who want to live in high-density areas of “a teenage city” like Vancouver may have to sacrifice living space, vehicles and even furry friends until the new buildings age and owners aren’t as concerned about maintaining their pristine condition.
“Older cities have a much more flexible housing stock … we still haven’t developed that yet,” Stewart said.
The situation for tenants is the worst it has been in almost a quarter of a decade, said Martha Lewis, executive director of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre.
“The last year and a half it’s gotten especially bad,” Lewis said, adding that more than half the homes in Vancouver are rental units.
Pet owners are in an especially tough spot.
Before 2006, there were no provincial regulations that addressed landlords, tenants and pets, but changes now allow property owners to “choose to not have pets” or charge a deposit, said Marg Gordon, CEO of the B.C. Apartment Owner’s Management Association.
“Before landlords were at the mercy of tenants; it’s now very clear that they can choose,” she said.
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