Apartment vacancy rates fall to nearly zero in some N.B. communities
CBC
Help for New Brunswick renters is being considered as part of next month's provincial budget, with even rent control of some kind coming up in deliberations, according to Social Development Minister Bruce Fitch.
"The last chapter is not written on this whole file," said Fitch in an interview Wednesday
Asked if the province might reconsider its opposition to rent control, given a new national survey that shows apartment rents rising faster in New Brunswick than in any other province and vacancy rates shrinking to almost nothing in some communities, Fitch did not dismiss the idea.
Instead, he acknowledged government "staffers" had met with landlord and tenant groups "to see if there's a way forward on something like this."
He would not say whether a consensus was reached or change will be coming as part of the budget.
"I'm not going to give anything away that could be there," he said
"It's a subject that's very, very important to this government and the last chapter is not written."
The plight of New Brunswick tenants has surfaced again following the release of a comprehensive national survey about apartments by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
In a good news-bad news snapshot of New Brunswick rental markets taken in October, the report found the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment in the province had risen to $969 per month.
The good news is that's $198 below the Canadian average for a two-bedroom apartment. The bad news is it is 15 per cent higher than the average in New Brunswick two years ago – the largest increase recorded among provinces over that period.
More startling is a rapid drop in New Brunswick apartment vacancy rates, which the survey found dropped from 3.1 per cent in 2020 to just 1.7 per cent in 2021.
Included in those numbers are Miramichi and Campbelllton, where the number of vacant apartments dwindled to a barely detectable 0.3 per cent in each community.
In the case of Miramichi, only three of the city's 1,026 apartments were unoccupied and available to rent at the time of the survey. That's down from 41 available units last year.
Gail MacDonald, who has been looking for a place in Miramichi for most of the winter, believes those numbers are accurate.
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