PHOTO SUBMITTED — The Montreal housing market has seen a sharp increase in rental construction versus single-family homes, a trend that has been ongoing for a number of years.
“Not a lot of land is available, and land is expensive, so there’s not a lot of single-family homes being started,” he said.In fact, last year saw “the lowest point — 1,600 starts — since we recorded data” for new single-family homes, Cortellino said. For rentals it was 9,600 starts.“So, you can see there’s a huge gap between home ownership and rentals and also condos and rentals,” he said.Ten or more years ago condo starts were exploding.
In 2023 the vacancy rate for purpose-built rentals was 1.5 per cent versus condo rentals at 1.3 per cent, “one of the lowest” in two decades, CMHC’s new rental market report stated. Montreal, for various historical and social reasons, has traditionally been a renter’s market. It also has among the highest housing density, such as multi-storey buildings, in the country.
Immigration, interest rates and available labour are certainly factors thwarting builds but there are embedded issues like zoning and obsolete regulations.