Featured Post, Local Kitchener Waterloo, Real Estate Investment

Waterloo Vacancy Among Canada’s Lowest

Waterloo’s vacancy rate is among the lowest among Canada’s real estate rental markets, according to a recent Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) report (which we covered here: Vacancy rate in Waterloo falls to 1%), “thanks to a crush of high-tech workers and university students looking for short-term housing.” (via The Record)

The one-per-cent vacancy rate in Waterloo also means that city has the highest average rents in the region, according to the fall 2009 rental market report complied by Canada Mortgage and Housing. The data looks at the Kitchener census area, including all of Waterloo Region except Wilmot and Wellesley townships.

For example, (average) two-bedroom units go for $937 a month in Waterloo, compared with $835 in Kitchener, $850 in Cambridge and $709 in Woolwich and North Dumfries townships.

Nationally, the highest average rent for a two-bedroom apartment was $1,169 in Calgary, where the vacancy rate was 5.3 per cent. Toronto was second at $1,099, with a 3.1 per cent vacancy rate. The lowest nationally was $518 in Saguenay, Que., with a vacancy rate of 1.5 per cent.

“It’s more than the availability; it’s the cost of it,” said Trudy Beaulne, executive director of Kitchener-Waterloo Social Planning council.

High-tech workers and student housing are king in the city of Waterloo, creating a challenge for low-income families looking for options to live there. They may have to move to Kitchener to find an affordable apartment, she said.

“It’s different housing stock, too. If you’ve got a pretty high income, you have more choice . . . it’s not like if you’re on Ontario Works (social assistance).”

…

“[High Tech Workers] typically move to the area, rent for a year or two before they buy… you have a market where if they were in another area, they just buy a house.”

Kitchener is more of a balanced rental market, but there’s an “upscale pocket” growing downtown around the new satellite university. “It kind of mirrors Waterloo.”

In Cambridge, tenants are eager to rent within a few minutes drive of Highway 401 [emphasis added], because it makes for an easy commute to work in Mississauga. Move away from the freeway and the rental market is soft, Traschel said.

A one-per-cent vacancy rate in Waterloo doesn’t surprise Mike Belanger, director of residential services for students attending Wilfrid Laurier University.

That’s the usual fall vacancy rate for apartments to serve the 50,000 post-secondary students in Waterloo. The vacancy rate jumps to about eight per cent in mid-winter as students take out-of-town work placements. In summer, when school’s out, the student vacancy rate bounces to 30 per cent.

In the early 1980s, Belanger remembers student housing vacancy rates as low at 0.5 per cent. That student housing crisis eased long ago — just look at all the student lodging built along Columbia Street — but Belanger wonders if another crunch is looming.

As Laurier and the University of Waterloo continue to expand to help fight the recession, bank financing for new student housing projects has “dried up,” Belanger said.

“There is some anxiety if the universities grow and the private accommodation does not.”

The note about being close to the 401 in Cambridge is spot on.  We just bought, along with a number of our clients, in a new construction Cambridge development just off the 401, on Fisher Mills Rd (which turns into Maple Grove which turns into Sportsworld Dr and connects up with the Kitchener Expressway), and we’re seeing very healthy rents there (between $1250 and $1399 a  month plus utilities)

If you have any questions about the current conditions in the rental market or how you can take advantage of investment opportunities in Kitchener Waterloo & Cambridge, Ontario you can email me or call me at 519-772-4376.  You can also follow me on http://twitter.com/BenjaminBach for up to the minute updates

Related posts:

1. Vacancy rate in Waterloo falls to 1%
2. Vacancy Rate Falls in Kitchener Waterloo – Again
3. Bauer in Waterloo filled, Cambridge place still half empty
4. Commercial Real Estate news heard on Twitter
5. Market Update: Real Estate selling fast in Kitchener Waterloo