Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.
Moving into a new apartment anywhere in Quebec now comes with some never-before-seen price tags, and tenant groups say they’ve seen a pattern of rent increases that shows what they say is a “nightmare” market.
“The most amazing numbers are outside the centers of the big cities. It’s much higher than the inflation rate,” said Cédric Dusseau, a member of the Regroupement des Comités Logement et Associations de Locataires du Québec (RCLALQ).
Using data found in classified ads for apartments offered for rent on platforms such as Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, the group showed in a new report that in cities such as Trois-Rivières and Rimouski, property owners are now demanding 50% more than five years. , even though the inflation rate has reached 17 percent in the same period.
In Montreal, rents have risen 27% in four years despite a boom in housing construction.
One of the issues raised by the housing activists is that despite the construction of more and more apartments by the private sector, it has not led to a reduction in the prices of the old units.
Snapshot of rental price increases based on classified ads in parts of Quebec. (Source: CTV News)
“The trickle down theory doesn’t work in economics, and it doesn’t work [and] It works even less, especially in Quebec,” Dussault said.
The most common explanation, he says, is that “when someone leaves the apartment because there is no rent control, automatically, we lose this apartment as a unit at a reasonable price. The data we have done in the last five years is clear when there is a change of tenants.”
The organization says landlords rarely respect a clause that forces them to disclose what previous tenants paid, leaving them free to raise prices and ignore annual guidelines set by the rental board. Despite the strong tenant laws, housing activists say that apartment owners have found loopholes over the years and openly take advantage of the fact that tenants will not complain for fear of being denied an apartment. The landlords reject the accusations, even if they demand relaxation of the rental laws.
“Quebec rents are among the cheapest in Canada. So we don’t really give much weight to this report because it’s their analysis, you know,” said Melissa Lemieux, of the Quebec Homeowners Association (APQ).
Landlords base their statistics on those provided by the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation, which bases its market prices on the average rent paid by tenants. RCLALQ says that the published prices in the current market offer a more accurate portrait.
Landlords have long complained that Quebec laws and rental board rules are too strict, discouraging businesses from investing in housing. Getting a building permit and getting a good return on investment is often impossible, says Lemieux.
“At the end of the day, clients who want to build buildings are just like, forget it, it’s too much work,” she said.
They also complain that the existing rules regarding renovations, which the tenants mock as “renovations”, also prevent them from investing in old buildings. Tenants say renovations are used as an excuse to get rid of low-rent tenants, while landlords say they can’t renovate efficiently while having to pay for the tenant’s move-in and move-out costs that will take decades to recoup.
“Construction and renovations are expensive and the interest rates are not helping,” Lemieux said.
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
source link https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/rent-prices-in-some-quebec-cities-are-out-of-control-tenant-group-says-1.6933545
