The rent is rising — but so is the vacancy rate. Here's what renters in Windsor-Essex need to know
Rental vacanies are up 3.3%, but rental costs are up even more
If you're a renter in Windsor-Essex, Canada's federal housing agency had some good news for you Tuesday: Rental vacancies in the region are up slightly in 2024.
But despite growing vacancies, rents are still growing in the city of Windsor, and it's still going to be tough to find an affordable one-bedroom rental.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released its 2024 fall market rental report on Tuesday. It shows that vacancies are up to 3.3 per cent, from just two per cent in 2023.
According to the data, central and west Windsor — the areas around St. Clair College and the University of Windsor — had the most vacancies.
"When we look at the change in the vacancy rate, a lot of that had to do with increases particularly in some of the zones where the post secondary schools are located," said Anthony Passarelli, the lead economist for southern Ontario at CMHC.
"When we supplemented that with some discussions with the local rental housing providers, it was clear that the international student cap had a pretty big impact on the demand in those markets."
Passarelli says that's a trend they saw elsewhere in the province as well where there were main college and university campuses, like in Waterloo, London and Hamilton.
Coming from a renter's perspective, Passarelli says that's good news after years of very low vacancy rates.
"There's still a long way to go in terms of affordability for renters, but this year was sort of a change in conditions that was, I think, a positive," Passarelli said. "You just need to see the continuation of more supply being added into the rental market.
"If we continue to see a couple more years where the demand is a bit softer — which is probably likely to happen because of the non-permanent resident targets and international student caps — we'll start to see some improvement on the affordability side."
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But while vacancies are up, so is how much it costs to rent. According to the report, in the City of Windsor specifically the average rent is up 7.4 per cent year-over-year.
The CMHC found that for low to mid-income renters, there were no vacancies among one-bedroom units that could be classed as affordable.
To be deemed affordable, a person would need to spend less than 30 per cent of their income to afford the rental.
"That's a big warning flag that more supply is needed on that, targeted to those people specifically," Passarelli said.
Rents are up about 6.8 per cent for the region that includes both Windsor and Essex County.
He said people gravitate to one-bedroom units, even if they're a household of two or more people, because they're less expensive.
But, there are more rentals being built recently than in previous years. While supply still isn't high enough to help the affordability issue, yet, Passarelli said it's positive, and some of those rentals are geared to be affordable.
Rentals may become more affordable heading into next year, he says, as the market feels the impact of mortgage rate cuts and more people start to buy homes. On the other hand, Windsor is experiencing population growth.
"After a couple of years where there has been little activity on that front, there might be a bit of an uptick which could free up some rental units as well."
With files from Jennifer La Grassa