Renting a home became tougher in Kamloops and the Okanagan in 2020

Rental housing became harder to find in the Thompson-Okanagan’s largest cities in 2020.

Recently released data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation shows that Kamloops had the smallest change in its vacancy rate amongst the region's five largest cities. If fell from 2.1 per cent in 2019 to 2.0 per cent last year.

The survey only counts rental units in buildings with three or more suites but is generally used as a city's official vacancy rate.

There were 3,886 rental units in Kamloops last year, an increase of 391.

Penticton’s rental vacancy rate fell to 0.8 per cent and Vernon’s to 1.0 per cent. Both were at 1.9 per cent in 2019.

West Kelowna came in at 1.4 per cent but there is no comparative data from earlier years.

The survey only includes cities with more than 10,000 residents where there is sufficient data.

Of the region’s five largest cities, Kelowna had the lowest vacancy rate historically at 0.2 per cent in 2017. That grew to 2.7 per cent in 2019 before slipping to 2.1 per cent last year. That's still the highest in the region.

This comes despite the fact that Kelowna’s 6,905 “private apartment units” was 2,061 more than in 2017 and 205 more than in 2019.

But, over the past four years, the city’s population has grown by roughly 8,000.

The vacancy rate may have dropped even lower had the city not started licencing short term rental units in 2019.

That came at a time when there were 2,400 to 2,700 active listings for short term rentals through on-line services like Airbnb.

Those dropped to 1,020 listings last year, meaning some of the units might have gone into the long term rental pool.

In terms of prices, all cities saw increases.

Kamloops’s average rent for a two-bedroom suite jumped $118 to $1,218 per month while a similar unit in Kelowna only went up by $6, on average, to $1,391.

Two-bedroom units in Penticton and Vernon were $1,189 and $1,185 respectively in 2020.

West Kelowna showed the highest rental cost at $1,564 for a two-bedroom unit but there was no comparable data for previous years.

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