Vancouver wants to increase construction of family-oriented rentals

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – As the price of a detached home gets more and more out of reach for Vancouver families, more households are resigned to live in condos and apartments.

The City of Vancouver will be adopting new measures to encourage the construction of more family-oriented units in rental buildings.

According to the city, there are only 500 three-bedroom apartment units in all of Vancouver.

Jim Brander of UBC’s Sauder School of Business says because of low profit margins, developers have been reluctant to build apartments, especially ones with big units.

“A lot of people who own rental accommodation made their money by profiting from capital gains when selling their land. The economics of rentals hasn’t been that attractive.”

But he believes that’s changing. Demand for family rental units will act as an incentive.

“Sooner or later the developers will respond to demand. Developers don’t want to rush into building rental accommodation. But if house prices stay high for a while, we will see more family-oriented rental accommodation emerging.”

As it stands now, 50 per cent of people in Vancouver rent.

Earlier this week, the city pointed out it is very close to its target of seeing 5,000 new rental units built in the city by 2021, thanks to various rebates and other incentives offered to developers.

Brander says that while the city could be congratulated for encouraging the construction of apartments, he does point out the vacancy rate is still at 0.5 per cent.

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