Apartment, townhouse rental vacancy rates fall in Waterloo region

The number of available rentals in Waterloo region has shrunk compared to last year, according to new numbers provided by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

CMHC breaks data down into separate categories for apartment and townhouse rentals. 

Vacancy rates for private apartments were 1.9 per cent in October 2017, which dropped compared to 2.2 per cent in October 2016. Vacancy rates for private townhouse units were at 2.1 per cent in October 2017, a full per cent down from the rate of 3.1 in 2016.

• Availability of rental housing in GTA falls to 16-year low, CMHC says

The overall vacancy rate decreased to 1.6 per cent last month across the province — a record low in recent years. 

"An improving job market, eroding ownership affordability and high levels of international migration drove the Ontario vacancy rate to the lowest level since 2000," said CMHC regional economist Ted Tsiakopoulos in the report. 

The vacancy rate decline province-wide is also echoed across the country which "reverses the increases observed in 2015 and 2016," said the CMHC release Tuesday.

You can read the report on the CMHC website.

Cost to rent rises

The average rental rates have also increased across the board, year over year. 

The average cost to rent an apartment in the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge census metropolitan area is $1,040 — for all sizes from bachelor to over three bedrooms. The average rent for a townhouse is $1,065 for one to three or more bedrooms.

There's one exception: the cost of renting an apartment with three or more bedrooms. In October, 2016 the average cost was $1,480 but dropped nearly $200 in 2017.

It now costs an average of $1,291 to rent an apartment with three or more bedrooms. 

However, finding one of those apartments can be difficult. There are nearly 20,000 two-bedroom apartments in the region, but only 1,819 apartments with three or more bedrooms.