More space than renters in St. John's, lower demand for high end digs

A St. John's real estate agent says the demand for high end, short-term rentals in the city is dropping, with a year's worth of inventory now on the market.

It's a renter's market for the fully furnished executive home, according to Larry Hann of the Hann Group, and tenants can bargain for a better deal.

"Typically, it's the travelling executive, the oil executives primarily who rents these places, paying $1,500 to $5,000 a month," Hann told the St. John's Morning Show Wednesday.

"It's flattened out. There's no new executives coming into the market, and that's the problem."

With the softening demand, the real estate agent says prices are coming down and properties are sitting on the market longer.

Landlords getting nervous

Hann said there are 90 properties available for executive lease, including 35 condos.  He said that's about a year's supply.

"People are getting stressed and they need some relief. They need warm bodies on the ground."

Hann encouraged landlords to be patient.

"In 2005, 10 years ago this winter,  the same sort of thing happened," he said.

"Terra Nova and White Rose were under construction. The market was going mad. Nothing came behind it. Hebron was supposed to get started in 2006 but Danny Williams put a stop to that."

Hann said things picked up in 2007 but has slowed again during the past couple of years.

His advice — "Refresh, reshoot and reduce if necessary," meaning landlords should update their properties, market them aggressively, and lower rents if they can.

"A lot of these executive rentals are owned by investors, so it's not their primary source income, so a lot of them have flexibility," he said.