Winnipeg Free Press
December 3rd, 2003
By Murray McNeill
WINNIPEG'S apartment vacancy rate has improved for the first time in more than six years, but not enough to make the challenge of finding an apartment any easier for most renters.
According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's 2004 rental market survey, which was released yesterday, the overall vacancy rate in Winnipeg rose by just a fraction of a percentage point to 1.3 per cent in October from 1.2 per cent a year earlier.
Outside Winnipeg, the vacancy rate in Brandon shrank to 1.1 per cent from 1.3 per cent, while the rate in Portage la Prairie increased to 6.8 per cent from 5.4 per cent and the rate in Thompson dropped to 7.9 per cent from 9.3 per cent.
Average rents in Winnipeg, on the other hand, increased 3.7 per cent for both one- and two-bedroom suites, the federal agency added. The average rent for a one-bedroom unit went from $490 per month to $508, while the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment climbed from $622 to $645.
In Brandon, average rents increased by almost three per cent, in Portage they grew by one per cent and in Thompson by 1.2 per cent.
Deanne Himbeault, CMHC's senior market analyst for Manitoba, said she wasn't surprised to see such a small change in the apartment vacancy rate in Winnipeg. She said there were few new rental units built in the city in the last year and the number of renters has remained stable.
Himbeault noted while apartments being built by Broadstreet Properties on Leila Avenue should help ease the vacancy rate in West Kildonan in the coming months, they won't have that big of an impact on the rate for the entire city because Winnipeg has close to 60,000 rental units altogether.
However, if the Broadstreet apartments are snapped up quickly by renters, maybe it will prompt other developers to build other new apartment blocks in the city, she added. The president and owner of Broadstreet said that's already happened with his company.
Impressed
Kris Mailman said in a telephone interview from Broadstreet's head office in Campbell River, B.C., that Broadstreet officials were so impressed with the initial response to the project that the company has decided to build four more apartment blocks, with a total of 202 units, near the corner of Quail Ridge Road and Saskatchewan Avenue in north St. James.
It will consider building more at other locations if the right opportunities present themselves, Mailman added.
He said the first 70 units in the Leila Avenue project are now completed and tenants are in the process of moving in. He said the units have been filling up as soon as they're completed and the bulk of the tenants are seniors who wanted to sell their house and move into an apartment, but preferred to rent rather than buy a condominium and tie up their capital.
Condos
Although there have been a number of new multi-family complexes built in Winnipeg in recent years, virtually all of them have been condos targeted specifically for the 55-plus age group. A good example is the new $5.3-million, 48-unit Chancellor Gate apartment complex under construction at the corner of Chancellor Drive, Pembina Highway and Bishop Grandin Boulevard. Although they're rental units, the apartments are targeted specifically to "baby boomers and older homeowners," rather than to the general rental market.
However, Himbeault said even the construction of those kinds of apartments can help ease the pressure in the general rental market because younger renters may end up buying the houses of the people who are moving into the new targeted units, thereby freeing up their apartments for others in the general population to rent.
The Professional Property Managers Association, whose members manage about 70 per cent of the rental properties in Winnipeg, has long blamed the dearth of new apartment construction in Winnipeg on provincial rent controls. It maintains rent controls, which limit most rent increases this year to one per cent, keep rents in existing buildings artificially low and make the rents that would have to be charged for a new building seem too high so builders don't build new apartments for fear no one will rent them.
PPMA officials could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Mailman said Broadstreet hasn't run into that problem with its new apartments. He added it charges $695 a month for its one-bedroom suites and $795 for its two-bedroom units. Those rates also include heat, water and parking.