Landlords in Montreal say demand for rental housing has dipped sharply, leaving even well-located units sitting empty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many point to expensive new construction as a key reason vacancy rates are climbing for the first time in years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an issue because we have new units coming in the market. But we have a decrease in the number of people wanting to get an apartment at this point in time,\u201d said Martin Messier, the president of the Quebec Landlord\u2019s Association.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really affecting landlords, they\u2019re calling us saying, \u2018What am I doing? What can I do?\u2019 They have problems their mortgages, and it\u2019s difficult to rent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonathan Dahan, an independent rental agent, says, \u201cUsually, June, July would be really the hot, hot, hot season for renting apartments. This year it was the complete opposite. There was barely any demand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nirmila, a landlord, says, \u201cI find the new builds are often sort of like one, one and a half. So, like one bedroom in an office, and who really gets to live there? Maybe recent graduates or people who are single, but it doesn\u2019t really accommodate families.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rental agents and advocates also say the slowdown in immigration in Quebec played a role.<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually have a lot of people telling me, I\u2019m coming to Montreal or I just came to Montreal, I could have a co-signer, I could have a guarantor, I could pay in advance. But recently I haven\u2019t,\u201d said Dahan.<\/p>\n
In a bid to attract more tenants, some property owners are getting creative, offering incentives that weren\u2019t common until now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen promoters offering up to three months free rent, usually a sign that it\u2019s not easy,\u201d said Messier.<\/p>\n
But tenants\u2019 rights advocates urge caution, warning that these seemingly attractive deals can come with hidden risks.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s a scam, right? Because after two, three months, then you\u2019re stuck paying a rent that you can\u2019t afford, and it doesn\u2019t solve the problem,\u201d said Amy Darwish, the coordinator of the Parc-Extension Action Committee.<\/p>\n
They also note that while units are easier to find, affordability remains a challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s been this assumption that if you just expand the supply, that the rents will come down, and what we\u2019re seeing is that\u2019s obviously not the case. What that actually does is just flood the market with these units that are too small, that are too expensive, that nobody can afford, and they sit empty while tenants struggle to find a place to live,\u201d said Darwish.<\/p>\n
CityNews spoke to some renters who said that renting wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very different from 10 years ago. Ten years ago, it was affordable and you had a good quality of life. Today, we\u2019re still living in our small apartment with our two children because we\u2019re not in a position to find anything else,\u201d said Clementine Leduc, a renter.<\/p>\n
Karen Hanna, another renter who\u2019s lived downtown for years, says, \u201cIt\u2019s almost as if the city gives it\u2019s approval to raise the rent. And I\u2019m hoping this year it doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leslie Brocher, another renter, said, \u201cPrices kept rising and at one point it became prohibitively expensive. And now, well, I don\u2019t dare anymore. I would like to move, but I don\u2019t dare do it because I would have had a very hard time finding something that works for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Landlords in Montreal say demand for rental housing has dipped sharply, leaving even well-located units sitting empty.\u00a0 Many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-302943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302943","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=302943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}