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Apartments again hard to access across Greater Sudbury

Greater Sudbury's vacancy rate for rental structures with at least three units has dipped to 2.6 percent, down from 3.6 percent in an October, 2003 survey.

Greater Sudbury's vacancy rate for rental structures with at least three units has dipped to 2.6 percent, down from 3.6 percent in an October, 2003 survey.

The new rate represents the lowest vacancy rate in the Greater Sudbury market since 1992 when the published vacancy rate was 2.5 percent, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

This marks the fifth consecutive year the vacancy rate has fallen in Greater Sudbury, after reaching a peak of 11.1 percent in 1999.

?Employment news for the year bodes well for demand of all types of housing, but especially rental. Employment in younger age groups has been improving, full-time job growth is solid and Sudbury's service centre role continues to take hold,? said Warren Philp, Northern Ontario market analyst for CMHC, in a news release.

?In addition, net migration figures released by Statistics Canada in September show an improvement in Greater Sudbury, which signifies new potential rental demand. Out-migration, which was highly negative with 2,900 poeple leaving in 1998-99, has improved resulting in 326 in-migrants between 2002-2003.?

After having the second highest vacancy rate in the country for 2002 for centres over 100,000, Greater Sudbury now sits ninth lowest. Windsor now has the highest vacancy rate in the country at 8.8 percent, while Victoria has the lowest vacancy rate at 0.6 percent, primarily due to the lack of rental market construction.

Average two bedroom rents moved up again in Greater Sudbury and are now pegged at an average of $655 per month, up from $651 last year at the same time.

One bedroom rents jumped 1 percent to $529 from $524.

Lockerby continues to have the lowest vacancy rate in Greater Sudbury at 1.1 percent of rental units being available, which is slightly lower than New Sudbury.







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