REGINA -- The overall vacancy rate in Regina remains unchanged, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Rental Market Report released this week.

Despite growth in the number of rental units available over the past year, higher demand for apartment rentals has kept the overall occupancy rate relatively steady at 7.8 per cent in October 2019, compared to 7.7 per cent in 2018.

“In the past two years, we have seen some pretty strong increases in the rental [supply], so to some extent it’s encouraging that rental demand is keeping up with the amount of supply that is coming on the market right now,” CMHC Senior Analyst Taylor Pardy said.

Pardy attributes the high demand in the rental market to more people moving to Regina.

“Regina still continues to see fairly strong population growth, largely driven by international migrants moving into the area, as well as people from other parts of Saskatchewan moving into the city, those are key drivers of population growth right now and those continue to fuel rental demand in the city,” he said.

CMHC projects the vacancy rate to drop over the next few years.

“The new supply set to come onto the market has decreased now in the sense that there are only about 116 rental units that are currently under construction in Regina and set to come onto the market in the next year, year-and-a-half, and that’s relative to a large number of units that we were seeing a few years ago that were under construction,” Pardy said.

In the secondary market, which focuses on condominiums, demand has outpaced the supply. In October 2019, the vacancy dropped to 5.7 per cent from 9.6 per cent in 2018, despite an increase of 361 units.

“That was a very interesting result,” Pardy said.

“The secondary market tends to be condos and condos, particularly in Regina, tend to be newer or offer different amenities, so little things like that can make the secondary side a little bit more attractive sometimes.”

The average price to rent a two-bedroom has remained relatively unchanged as well, sitting at $1,128 in October 2019 compared to $1,130 the previous year.