Kelowna eighth worst city in Canada for rental rates

Kelowna is now the eighth most expensive city in Canada for renters, according to a new report.

PadMapper, an online service that helps people find rental units in their city, released its Canadian Rent Report recently. For the first time ever the report ranks Kelowna as one of the top 10 cities in Canada with the highest rental rates.

According to the report, which combines third-party information with data from hundreds of thousands of Padmapper listings, the average price of a one-bedroom rental unit in Kelowna is $920 a month, while a typical two-bedroom will run Kelowna renters $1,460 a month.

Those jumps were enough to rocket Kelowna from 11th on the list in August (when average prices were $930 a month for one-bedroom units and $1,420 for two-bedroom), to eight place in September.

Brian Coyne, working in data analytics at Padmapper, said the jump is likely due to a combination of factors, including rising rental rates in Kelowna and falling prices in other cities.

He also pointed out that major changes from one month to the next can also be caused by new and pricier developments opening in a city, or cheap units being filled.

In a smaller city like Kelowna, with extremely high occupancy and very low vacancy rates, the data can become a little more “noisy,” but Coyne said the trends laid out in the report are “pretty representative of what the market is doing.”

He also pointed out that the report reflects current market prices in the city, meaning it looks at what new renters are being charged, not necessarily what everyone (such as people who have been in their units for a long time) is paying.

“What is true is that’s what it felt like to rent during that month,” he said.

Kelowna has the smallest population of any of the cities on PadMapper's top 10. Coyne said Kelowna’s relatively low population and high rental prices indicate to him that “something’s going on there.”

“It tells me it’s a desirable place to live,” he says.

According to the report, Vancouver remains the most expensive city for renters in Canada, with a one-bedroom unit costing a whopping $1,750 a month.

Toronto keeps the second-most-expensive spot, with a one-bedroom unit going for $1,310 a month there.

Of the 25 metropolitan areas in Canada PadMapper's report covers, Saguenay, in Qubebec, is the cheapest. There, a one-bedroom unit costs an average of $500 a month.