Renting a home in Metro Vancouver becoming unaffordable: report
Posted July 7, 2016 8:23 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
METRO VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – In a housing market where owning is out of the question for many people, renting is often thought to be a good alternative.
But a new report finds even renting in Metro Vancouver is becoming unaffordable, particularly for young people.
The percentage that rents went up in the region between 2011 and 2015 was nearly double the percentage that weekly median wages rose in BC, according to the report.
Related article: Are bidding wars driving up apartment rents in Vancouver?
William Azaroff with VanCity points out renters are generally able to pack up and move to a different area more easily than owners.
“And so if there aren’t homes to rent available so that people can move where the jobs are within our market, that has a ripple effect to the whole economy that is really, I found the most fascinating aspect of the report.”
Azaroff says last year, millennial renters had a median household income of just over $40,000 and could only afford to rent in two neighbourhoods in Vancouver.
“At the end, it’s a supply and demand problem. So anything we can do to incentivize more supply [should be done]. For a long time, there was a focus only on condo development and no real development of rental, and we’re starting to see that shift. And so a big part of the solution — with a lot of these problems — it’s different levels of government, not-for-profits, developers, organizations like VanCity coming together and focusing on the problem. Anything that incentivizes more purpose-built rental will alleviate this problem because it will create more supply.”
Finance Minister Mike de Jong will be releasing the first batch of data on foreign ownership later today.
