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ANGUS HENDERSON
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A slowdown in natural gas drilling in the area is a major reason for an increase in private apartment vacancy rates in Medicine Hat, according to a province-wide report released this week by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
And although it hasn’t led to a lowering of rents, it has served to keep rent increases to a minimum.
“Another cause is competition with the secondary rental market,” according to Calgary-based CMHC market analyst Lindsay Kendall. “We’ve found talking with realtors and others in the Medicine Hat market that there are an increasing number of people taking their homes off the real estate market and deciding to rent them, because of the record amount of active listings on the resale market.”
According to the results of the Fall Rental Market Survey, the vacancy rate in private rental apartments in Alberta centres with a population of 10,000 or more increased from 1.6 per cent in October 2007 to 2.5 per cent this October.
In Medicine Hat, the vacancy rate last October was zero per cent for bachelor apartments, compared to 3.8 per cent this year. One-bedroom apartments had a vacancy rate of 1.3 per cent last year and 4.9 per cent this October. Two-bedroom units went from 1.6 per cent to 4 per cent; three-bedroom units went from 0.9 per cent to 6.7 per cent. The average for all units went from a vacancy rate of 1.4 per cent last October to 4.5 per cent this October.
Province-wide, the highest vacancy rates this October were in Brooks at 9.1 per cent and Grande Prairie at 8.5 per cent. Lethbridge had an average 1.8 per cent vacancy rate and Red Deer had an average of 4.4 per cent.
On the rental price side, Medicine Hat had the cheapest rents of the communities surveyed in every category except three-bedroom apartments.
From last October to this year, bachelor apartments on average increased from $515 a month to $525 this October. One-bedroom apartments increased from $556 to $573 on average. Two-bedroom units increased from $659 to $678 and three-bedroom ones from $744 to $785. Only Brooks, which increased its three-bedroom average price from $663 to $762 this October, was lower.
The most expensive rental property in Alberta remained Fort McMurray (the Wood Buffalo census area), which increased from an average of $1,263 to $1,444 this October for bachelor apartments.
Three-bedroom apartments increased from $2,263 to $2,468. |
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