A softer youth job market and competition from the condo sector made it a bit easier to find an apartment in Ottawa’s tight rental market this year, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
CMHC’s annual Rental Market Report pegged Ottawa’s vacancy rate at 1.6 per cent in October, up from 1.5 per cent at the same time last year. This bucked a provincewide trend, which saw apartment vacancies drop from 3.5 to 2.9 per cent.
“Although the vacancy rate in Ottawa edged up slightly in 2010, Ottawa continues to have one of the lowest vacancy rates in the country,” said Sandra Perez-Torres, CMHC’s senior market analyst for the Ottawa region. “Increasing prices in the home ownership market coupled with high migration into the city kept the rental market tight.”
