The second half of my headline on this blog isn’t much of a surprise. Burnaby residential rents are out of control and have been for years.
According to a national rent report by Rentals.ca, Burnaby finished ninth in all of Canada on the list for average monthly rent in June for a one-bedroom home at $1,669 and fourth for average monthly rent for a two-bedroom at $2,243. Month over month, average rent for a one- and two-bedroom home in June are up slightly in Burnaby.
The numbers have been terrible for so long and they’ve pushed people out of Burnaby. As an experiment, I spent some time on some rental websites to see what your money gets you.
In many cases, it’s not much.
Take, for example, the photo that leads off this blog. You can see that it’s allegedly a kitchen in a Burnaby rental unit, but you’ll have to duck a bit in order to use the stove so you don’t injure your head.
I suppose if this unit was available for $800 it wouldn’t be so bad but it’s actually for rent at the ridiculous price of $3,200.
Yep, you read that right.
The place is only 1,200 square feet, but allegedly has three bedrooms and so the landlord went for it and is asking for that much. Apparently, having an extra bedroom means you can ask for the moon no matter how dark, dingy and dirty it is.
It makes me want to cry. You can scroll through the other photos if you’d like.
One landlord place a tiny piece of furniture by the door to denote that it’s a “living room” but it’s right next to the fridge and is nothing like you would expect out of a living room.
In the other photos you can see another alleged kitchen, plus some of the dirtiest carpets I’ve ever seen posted in a rental ad. What's wild is that some of the rents for these awful units are that much lower than the ones for rentals in new apartments that are bright and modern.
The problem is people are so desperate for rental housing that some landlords don’t even have to try to make the place look nice. And they ask for ridiculous prices that people have no choice to pay because there are so few options.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
