Vancouver healthcare worker facing eviction considers moving back to Ontario

Priced out of Vancouver to rent or buy, healthcare worker facing eviction considers moving back to Ontario

Vancouver's Kerrisdale neighbourhood (lucasinacio.com/Shutterstock)

“Housing in the Age of Inflation” is a Daily Hive feature series where we speak with renters and homeowners in Metro Vancouver about how meteoric interest rate hikes, ballooning rents, and lack of availability are impacting them. Have a story to tell? Email us at [email protected]

A Vancouver healthcare worker who’s been served a family occupancy eviction is weighing whether to buy, rent again, or move across the country — and each option requires a sacrifice she’s not sure she can make.

Meaghan Zerebecki and her partner live in Kerrisdale with their dog in a pet-friendly apartment they’ve rented for three years. They pay just over $2,000 for their one-bedroom plus den, but they’ll have to leave on January 15 because her landlord’s parents are moving in.

She’s sympathetic to her landlord’s struggle with increasing mortgage payments. After all, she’s keeping an eye on the real estate market herself for a starter home and knows that high interest rates make ownership less affordable.

The landlord initially offered to sell the Kerrisdale apartment to Zerebecki and her partner, but the list price north of $600,000 was too high. The condo sat on the market for months. After it didn’t sell, her landlord decided to move her parents in.

“If I knew that my landlord was going to say in three years, ‘I’m going to put this property up for sale or my parents are going to move in,’ I wouldn’t have rented from her,” Zerebecki said.

Now, heading into the holiday season, she doesn’t know where she’ll live in the new year.

“It’s Christmas time, our family is back in Ontario. We’re asking, should we just pack it in?”

Fruitless quest for a condo in the Lower Mainland

lucasinacio.com/Shutterstock

Zerebecki and her partner are both professionals, with their household income in the six figures. Maybe, she thought, it’s time to buy.

They’re working with a realtor to track down any condo in the region that’s $500,000 or less to qualify for the First Time Home Buyers’ Program, a provincial incentive that eliminates property transfer tax for homes.

But so far, they haven’t had much luck. Condos that cheap are few and far between in the Lower Mainland, and ones that fall in that price range often have maintenance issues that would become costly after purchase.

Zerebecki and her partner placed one offer on a spot they liked but were outbid by $40,000.

“The current market [with] our budget, there are no units available to purchase in Vancouver or even the Lower Mainland.”

Canada’s rising interest rates have softened home prices in Metro Vancouver, but the income required to buy a home is higher than ever because it’s more expensive to borrow money right now.

AevanStock/Shutterstock

The Bank of Canada’s key interest rate sits at 5%, holding steady after the central bank hiked it seven times in 2022. That rate influences the prime rate (7.2% right now in Canada), which is the minimum interest banks can charge on loans — including mortgages.

What’s more, potential buyers are subject to a stress test that forces them to qualify at interest rates two percentage points higher than what they currently are to make sure prospective owners can pay their mortgage.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says homeowners today are facing the fastest and largest interest rate hikes in more than 40 years.

Zerebecki hopes a listing pops up in their price range in the next few weeks or that the government raises the threshold for the First Time Home Buyers’ Program, which could add room to their purchase-price budget.

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Sky-high rent prices for one-bedrooms

Apartments for rent in Metro Vancouver on Craigslist on December 7, 2023. (Craigslist)

The couple is also looking at moving into another rental, but this time Zerebecki would only go with a rental-exclusive building. She’s not willing to have her housing security hinge on her landlords’ personal finances.

“Based on this experience, I’m very hesitant to rent from a private landlord,” she said. “When they’re making money that’s great for them, but when things are tough there’s no commitment.”

The couple’s maximum budget is $2,600 for a rental, but everything in that range she’s seeing is either a studio or not pet-friendly.

She looked at the recently completed Arbutus Residences near 33rd but was told studios there start at $2,500 per month and one-bedrooms start at nearly $3,400 per month. That’s not including parking from $150 per month.

“I don’t know anyone who can afford that. Who are their clientele? Are people just signing onto these buildings out of desperation?” Zerebecki said.

Zerebecki ultimately questions if staying is worth it — if it means paying 30 to 50% more for an equivalent apartment.

Average rents across Metro Vancouver and much of Canada have risen meteorically post-pandemic. Between spring 2021 and 2022, asking rents in Vancouver shot up 30%, according to Rentals.ca. November 2023 figures from Rentals.ca and Zumper indicate Vancouver rents increased another 6 to 7% from where they were a year ago.

The average asking rent for a one-bedroom in Vancouver sits at just under $3,000.

Market rents are now much higher than what many long-term tenants pay. Established renters who’ve been in their place a year or more pay about three-quarters of what recent renters do, on average.

This, coupled with costly mortgage renewals for private landlords, creates the perfect storm for evictions to bring rents up. There are only a few reasons landlords can legally use to get tenants out of a unit, and family occupancy is one of them. It’s not unique to private landlords either — a Marpole tenant paying $1,060 per month got a family-occupancy eviction notice this year even though he rents from a property management company.

BC’s provincial government doesn’t track evictions. The Residential Tenancy Branch is only involved in cases where the tenant disputes the eviction. Looking at that as a proxy, there’s been an increase in eviction disputes for landlord use since 2021.

In 2021, the RTB saw 1,528 landlord-use dispute applications. That figure increased to 1,918 in 2022, and the RTB has already seen 2,201 in the first 11 months of 2023. (Daily Hive)

Earlier this week, Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon also denounced landlords who may be evicting tenants in bad faith to jack up rents in their units.

“As people are struggling to find a home they can afford, it’s frustrating to hear that some landlords continue to exploit the housing crisis,” he told Daily Hive Wednesday.

Housing prices force couple to think about moving back to Ontario

Flystock/Shutterstock

Zerebecki and her partner both have family in Ontario. While they don’t want to go back, they acknowledge it may be the only option that makes sense.

It won’t come without cost, though. Zerebecki would have to give up her job in healthcare.

“It makes me very concerned for the future of the Lower Mainland,” she said. “David Suzuki said 25 years ago that there will come a point when public service workers are not able to live where they work. And you’re seeing that right now.”

Zerebecki believes housing is a human right and doesn’t agree that it should be used as an engine of profit for some. For now, they’re hoping, praying, and picking up extra shifts in the hopes they might find a unit in time to put an offer on or a miraculous affordable rental.

“I just really think that the housing market has failed. For those who have money it’s great. But for those who are middle income or low income … I’m concerned for those who make less than us. It is so stressful.”