Besides the cap on international study permits, university efforts to build more student housing over the last few years – particularly in British Columbia, where the province has provided incentives – have added hundreds of units.James MacDonald/The Globe and Mail
For the last 10 years, Amélie Brack’s property-management company had no trouble renting out both halves of a duplex near St. Lawrence College in Kingston, one of Canada’s most notable student-dominated cities renowned for its high proportion of out-of-town students, with both St. Lawrence and Queen’s University in the area.
This year, it’s still not rented out as the fall school term is about to start – a first for her. It’s not the only unit going empty, after demand for student housing in Kingston drastically fell in the past few months.
“Up until last year, we would get 25 to 50 inquiries per week in August. This year, it’s been crickets. It’s quite a surprise,” said Ms. Brack, leasing manager for Limestone Property Management.
Other rental brokers and property managers in major Canadian university cities are noticing the same downturn.
It’s a phenomenon that hasn’t shown up yet in any official statistical reports. But it’s one that many at ground level are observing, a noticeable U-turn from the last few years where there were often frantic bidding wars for student housing in the months leading up to the start of the fall term.
They point to the cap on international students as a significant factor behind the drop.
“The international student reduction has definitely affected us,” said Ms. Brack, who said that large, multibedroom houses in what’s called the student ghetto in Kingston are also going unrented and owners are finding themselves having to list them for rents closer to what a family could afford, rather than what five desperate students (or their parents) might be willing to pay: $2,700 a month for a four-bedroom, rather than the previous $4,000.
The number of international study permits was drastically curtailed throughout Canada in January by the federal Immigration Minister after a public outcry over extraordinary large increases in the number of international students coming to Canada, which was putting pressure on housing, health care and other services. Many of the students were headed to questionable private colleges.
The cap for 2024 was set at 360,000 study permits for the country, a 35-per-cent reduction from the previous year.
Each province then allocated those study permits in new, restricted numbers for their postsecondary institutions, often allowing greater numbers for public-funded colleges and universities than private ones.
As well, Canada, along with Australia and the U.K., has declined in popularity among some international students, owing to recent changes made to requirements about how much money they need to have in a Canadian bank prior to arriving (from $10,000 to $20,635) and to the number of hours they’re allowed to work (limited now to 24 hours a week).
Besides the study permit cap, university efforts to build more housing over the last few years – particularly in British Columbia, where the province has provided incentives – have added hundreds of units.
In B.C., there’s been a massive push by the government to bring new rental housing on the market, between incentives for purpose-built rental housing and new restrictions on short-term rentals.
“We have noticed a reduction in enquiries. There’s definitely a decline and drops in traffic from other countries,” said Matisse Yiu, a marketing manager whose Vancouver-based company liv.rent acts as a broker between landlords and students for about 3,500 units primarily in Ontario and B.C.
“On the landlord side, they’re definitely a little more desperate.”
In Surrey, B.C., she said, there’s been an 11-per-cent drop in rental rates over the summer this year, compared with the 27-per-cent increase the city saw in the summer months last year. Surrey is a popular place for international students because many have ties to immigrant families already living there, plus it’s cheaper than elsewhere in the Lower Mainland and close to universities and colleges both in and near the city.
Ms. Yiu’s company tracks internet search queries for housing near public or private universities and has seen those numbers drop. Searches for housing near the University of British Columbia are down 19 per cent; for Simon Fraser University, down 35 per cent; and for the British Columbia Institute of Technology, down 59 per cent.
One of B.C.’s biggest private colleges that has catered almost exclusively to international students, University Canada West, is getting anywhere from 58- to 100-per-cent drops in Google searches depending on the search terms used, according to her data. UCW has enrolled about 15,000 students a year in the past. (UCW did not respond to requests for comment by The Globe and Mail.)
The advocacy organization Landlord BC has also been getting signals that something has changed.
“Some of our members have started to see less demand for their student housing properties located around UBC for the upcoming September term,” said Landlord BC chief executive David Hutniak. “A comment by one was that in past years, they would not have any vacancies for the fall term, i.e. they would be full by end of July typically.”
In Ontario, internet searches for student housing near universities in Waterloo, Hamilton, and Kingston are down 46 per cent to 55 per cent, Ms. Yiu said. Search numbers for housing near the University of Toronto have remained the same, but many rental-property observers have noted that Toronto rents have been falling steadily throughout this year.
The U of T increased their number of beds by 600 from last year for a total of 10,900. They are able to guarantee all first-year, first-time students a bed.
Spokespeople from UBC, the University of Victoria, and Simon Fraser University in B.C., as well as Queen’s University in Ontario note they’ve all added student beds in the last two years: around 600 in Victoria, 500 at SFU, 426 at Queen’s, and 300 at UBC, which brought its student-bed total to 16,003.
UBC has seen its summer waitlist for student housing drop from 8,000 last year to 7,000 this year. Others reported no changes, but UVic and SFU said they had been able to accommodate all first-year students who applied for housing by their deadlines.
Ms. Brack said it looks as though federal government policies are having the effect that was intended: reducing rent. But it is proving difficult for those who bought properties, intending to rent to students.
“It’s putting those people who invested years ago into a difficult position.”
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