A new report says more than one in every four apartment units in Cold Lake had nobody living in them in October.
The report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) shows that the area had a whopping 26.2 per cent vacancy rate for the month, by far the highest in the province. Only Grande Prairie and Sylvan Lake come even close at 19.8 and 19.2 per cent respectively. The rate has more than doubled from the same time last year, when the figure was at 12.3 per cent.
Average rent is down from last year as well, though nowhere nearly as steep as the 36.9 per cent crash from 2014 to ’15. 2015 to 2016 saw a relatively modest decrease of 5.7 per cent. The average renter is now paying 804 dollars a month for a one bedroom, 991 for a two and 1,067 for three or more.