The market will be largely characterized by sustained, strong housing demand this year
Montreal’s apartment vacancy rates have dropped to their lowest levels since 2005, data from CMHC indicated.
The latest measurements by the Crown corporation showed that the average rental vacancy in Montreal last year stood at a significantly tight 1.5%, while the average rent cost grew by 3.6% annually to reach $841.
The supply shortage was even more apparent in Montreal’s larger apartments (vacancy of 1.4%) and units with three or more bedrooms (vacancy of 0.7%).
For perspective, the average vacancy rate for all rental housing types throughout Canada was 2.2% in 2019, slightly lower than the 2.4% seen in the year before. The nation’s condo rentals vacancy was at 1%, noticeably shrinking from the already tight 1.4% in 2018.
In a recent forecast, the QPAREB said that home sales activity in the Greater Montreal Area will likely go up by 6% this year, reaching a new record high of 54,600 deals completed.
Much of this will be due to the region’s very strong employment, robust purchasing power, healthy inbound migration, and prevailing low interest rates.
“Montreal has entered a phase of exuberance,” QPAREB head of market research Charles Brant stated, as quoted by the Montreal Gazette. “There is a clear lack of supply.”
