Why Kelowna’s vacancy rate doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story

Kelowna’s rental vacancy rate drives important government policies like the return of short-term rentals, but how that number is determined is far from perfect.

Vacancy rates are essential for informing rental housing policies, but they are determined by a point-in-time survey that leaves room for changes and omits certain types of rental stock.

Kelowna’s vacancy rate is around 6.2 per cent, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the City of Kelowna’s own research, up from 1.7 per cent at the end of 2024.

The city gets quarterly surveys done by Knew Research and publishes the data, while CMHC only conducts vacancy rate surveys once a year.

CMHC conducts a survey each October over a two week period and only samples from purpose built rental buildings with three or more units.

The city’s housing policy manager James Moore said while the number isn’t exact and can change it’s still the best way to measure available rental stock.

“Vacancy rate is based on a survey at a point in time. It doesn’t last for more than the moment that survey occurred. That’s why the quarterly snapshots help us get a sense of what’s happening with the directionality of the vacancy rate,” Moore told iNFOnews.ca.

CMHC and Knew Research use similar methods where they call landlords, property managers and building superintendents to find out how many of their units are sitting empty and ready to rent.

Aoife O’Neill is a Kelowna property manager who’s surveyed about the vacancies at the properties she manages, and she said that the rate isn’t as accurate as the city and CMHC want people to think.

“The vacancy rate is absolutely not even close to accurate,” she said.

O’Neill said omitting units that aren’t purpose built rentals leaves a significant gap in the market. As well, the turnover for bigger buildings is lower.

“They don’t know the mom-and-pops. They don’t know what’s actually sitting vacant,” she said. “They don’t ask me about my single families or any of my other ones… they ask for the bigger buildings and the vacancy rates are significantly different.”

O’Neill said that not every property manager, landlord or building superintendent is diligent about providing accurate counts of their vacancies.

Not every city conducts quarterly vacancy rate surveys, but Moore with the City of Kelowna said it’s important to get a look at what’s happening between the CMHC’s surveys.

“We call it a snapshot because the scope and scale of the survey is not as comprehensive as CMHC’s. Right. But it gives us a pretty good sense of what’s going on in the rental market between those annual reports,” Moore said.

CMHC said in a written statement it does everything it can to get the most accurate picture of the rental market.

“To ensure the highest quality possible, CMHC applies a complete and thorough statistical verification process that includes extensive data validation, consistency checks and review procedures before results are finalized,” CMHC said.

The provincial government relies on CMHC’s vacancy rate for allowing cities to opt-out of short-term rental regulations, that’s why Kelowna couldn’t use its own data to persuade the province to lift the ban sooner.

Moore said there is a margin of error, like with any data collection, but it’s accurate enough to direct policy.

“The quarterly snapshots help us get a sense of what’s happening with the directionality of the vacancy rate. Is it trending up? Is it trending down over time?,” Moore said.

“I think we’ve really tried to make a more robust set of information available to inform decision-making both for the public but also for us.”

While O’Neill has doubts about the accuracy of vacancy rates, Moore said the current methods work.

“Broadly speaking it’s telling a pretty consistent story,” he said.