By Lindsay Royston
People walking through Centretown are likely to encounter a once-rare sign: apartment for rent.
Ottawa’s vacancy rate now sits at 1.9 per cent, compared to just 0.8 per cent a year ago, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp.
Centretown landlords are still finding tenants, however several say it is taking more work to attract them. Jack Bigelow, assistant superintendent of Elphin Apartments on Metcalfe, says where 40 people used to call about a single unit last year, now only five call.
Jan Loveless, the building’s superintendent, says she has noticed that even those who tour her apartments are now more picky.
This month, she has already shown a one-bedroom apartment 15 times without luck.
Loveless says in recent years the apartment would have been rented within the first five visits.
“It is now back to the old days,” says Mike McGahon, president of Commvesco Levinson-Viner Group, which owns rental buildings on Cooper and MacLaren streets. McGahon says it is now a renter’s market.
To attract potential tenants, McGahon’s company is installing new kitchens, bathrooms, hallways and improved landscaping.
Other landlords in the area are offering incentives such as one-month’s rent free. Among buildings to make this offer were the Governor Metcalfe on Metcalfe Street, Wentworth Plaza on Lisgar Street, Kenson Towers on Somerset Street, and the Regency Towers and Montclair on Cooper Street.
David Brouse, property manager for the Regency and Kenson Towers and the Wentworth Plaza says he was losing interested callers.
He says many interested renters who phoned hung up because he wasn’t offering any incentives.
Brouse says since he made the one-month free offer on some units at the beginning of January, the phone has been ringing off the hook with people anxious to rent one of his 10 vacant units in Centretown.
Capital Properties, which runs the Governor Metcalfe and the Montclair, made the same offer in January.
The company’s general manager says they have used this incentive in past slow times.
All of the bachelor and one-bedroom apartments included in the promotion were filled within the first week of the offer, says the general manager.
All that remained was a single two-bedroom apartment.
Many other Centretown landlords, however, are not worried about the incentives offered by property managers whose apartments are in outlying areas. They say the attraction of living near downtown is enough to attract renters.
Very few Centretown landlords say they fear losing tenants to other areas of the city. “People will rent here whether there is a deal or not,” Loveless maintains.
Lorna Clarke, superintendent of the Edwardian on Frank Street near Bank Street, says six vacancies will be coming up in the next two months.
She says she is not worried about the competition’s incentives, as she has already heard from many potential renters in the first week since she began advertising.
Debbie Robillard, the superintendent of the Elizabeth on Somerset Street, has two February vacancies.
“I know that these two will be rented by Feb.1,” she says confidently.