This month, Kelowna has been ranked as the seventh most expensive rental market in Canada.
The report recently released by PadMapper analyzed hundreds of thousands of listings last month to examine rent prices across the 26 largest cities in the country, according to PadMapper.
One and two bedroom units are settling at medians of $1,130 and $1,600. From this time last year, the price of one bedroom unit is up 15 per cent.
Doug Gilchrist, divisional director of community planning with the city, said Kelowna is tacking a number of housing initiatives.
“We have purpose-built rental incentives. We have land supply capabilities through our Official Community Plan… we’re currently doing a healthy housing initiative under our Healthy City strategy that will talk about supply and availability. We did a housing needs assessment recently that was presented to council,” said Gilchrist.
“I wouldn’t say (PadMapper’s data) is surprising,” he said, but questioned the reliability of it, adding the city relies on Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation data.
There’s a lot of effort going on right now for sure, he said, adding there is a huge amount of places currently under construction.
“We try to see a good mix of unit type but we don’t try to predict the market to that level of detail.”
The province has also encouraged the building of smaller units, or micro suites having no development cost charges, he said.
The city has also provided financial incentives for three-bedroom units in the last year.
The full PadMapper report can be found at https://blog.padmapper.com/canadian-rent-trends.
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