{"id":116046,"date":"2025-09-03T06:13:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116046\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T06:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T06:13:11","slug":"free-rent-move-in-bonuses-among-incentives-as-kelownas-rental-vacancy-rate-skyrockets-okanagan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116046\/","title":{"rendered":"Free rent, move-in bonuses among incentives as Kelowna\u2019s rental vacancy rate skyrockets – Okanagan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vacancy signs are rampant across Kelowna<\/a>, B.C., as roughly 1,100 new units have been added to the rental pool so far in 2025, with up to 2,000 more more coming over the next year or so.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRental housing has been persistently one of the big problems in our community, really low vacancy rates, really high prices,\u201d said James Moore, manager of the housing policy\u00a0 and programs department with the City of Kelowna.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, we\u2019re starting to see a lot of new housing coming into play and that\u2019s really starting to relieve a lot of pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The influx of rental units\u00a0 is the result of government incentives to boost what\u2019s been a stagnant market, with builders focusing largely on the construction of condominiums in recent years.<\/p>\n

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For Troika Developments, those incentives have translated into 85 per cent of its current construction involving rentals.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAs financing became certainly more available and less expensive to deliver rental housing and the other incentives that were available, you know, that was a property type that made a lot of sense,\u201d said Jeff Kennedy, Troika\u2019s chief financial officer.<\/p>\n

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The rental boost has pushed up Kelowna\u2019s vacancy rate in a\u00a0 big way.<\/p>\n

According to the city, the rate has gone from 1.7 per cent in June of 2024 to 4.5 per cent in June of this year, benefitting renters with lower rental costs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also turned the tide and now has landlords competing for tenants instead of renters competing against one another for housing.<\/p>\n

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The competitiveness has some landlords offering major incentives for renters looking for a place to live.<\/p>\n

That includes incentives at Troika\u2019s newest purpose-built rental building called \u2018285 Dougal\u2019 that was completed two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re offering up to two months of free rent. We\u2019re offering move-in bonuses, you know, we\u2019re offering incentives on parking. We\u2019re offering incentives on internet,\u201d said Kennedy.<\/p>\n

They are the types of incentives that, according to experts, aren\u2019t typically seen in cities like Kelowna.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn markets with tight rental markets historically, such as Kelowna and especially in Vancouver, that\u2019s a little bit rare,\u201d said Micheal Mak, an economist with the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut across the country \u2014 you know, in markets in the Prairies, especially in Calgary, for example \u2014 that\u2019s not exactly a new thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The incentives, however, aren\u2019t expected to be long-term as rental unit construction is expected to slow down over the next couple of years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are expecting a slowdown over the next couple of years, as kind of broader economic conditions and interest rates and construction costs start to weigh on the construction of new housing,\u201d Moore said. \u201cBut we really want to make sure that we continue to build new purpose built rental.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we stop now, the vacancy rate will go back down to an unhealthy level and we\u2019ll start to see more price growth. And we don\u2019t want to see that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sentiment echoed by Kennedy.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe need to continue to push, continue to engage with policy makers on what does it look like to deliver an adequate amount of housing to keep that vacancy rate between three and five per cent,\u201d Kennedy said, referring to that as a healthy range.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we should, as an industry, take our foot off the gas. There\u2019s more work to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vacancy signs are rampant across Kelowna, B.C., as roughly 1,100 new units have been added to the rental…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,2081,65001,65002,65003,61],"class_list":["post-116046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-kelowna","tag-kelowna-rental-market","tag-kelowna-vacancy-rate","tag-renters","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}