Portage la Prairie posted the highest vacancy rate among all Manitoba centres listed in the latest survey by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Lai Sing Louie, CMHC's Regional Economist for the Prairies and Territories, says province-wide the vacancy rate moved to 2.8 percent in October of 2016 while here in Portage it moved to 4.7 percent. Louie notes the survey also found that the primary reasons people move from rental suites are home ownership or job relocation, and that will affect the vacancy rate. He says Portage had the highest same sample rent increases in the province, adding rent increased by 4.3 percent here compared to an average of 2.1 percent in all of Manitoba.

Louie notes the average two bedroom apartment in Portage la Prairie rents for seven hundred and fifty-seven dollars a month---up more than twenty dollars from just one year ago. He says as rents go up, sometimes that discourages people from renting another unit or looking for an alternative place to live. Louie adds this year the CMHC's survey also asked landlords for the first time about the turnover rate. He notes, for example, a one hundred unit building in Portage saw almost twenty-five of those suites turn over in one year. Louie says that kind of turnover rate is pretty average across Manitoba.