Rental Demand Buoys Condo Market
Despite talk of overbuilding, condo completions can't come fast enough for the rental market, especially with few developers doing purpose-built rental buildings these days. In a new report, market tracker Urbanation says 85% of the units listed on MLS leased for at least 90% of the asking rent, and units are leased within 18 days on average. Urbanation EVP Ben Myers says people might worry that resales are down and prices are flat, but fewer investors are selling while the units are reliable revenue properties. It's a landlord's market, according to Urbanation's lease-to-listings ratio. To make it a tenants' market we'd have needed 3,500 more rental listings in Q4. Assuming the usual 15% to 20% of all newly completed units get listed, 18,000 Q4 completions would have been needed. "That's crazy," Ben says.
