High bids, high rent holding back first time home buyers

It's even harder for Windsorites to make the transition from renting to buying.

The new Rental Market Report by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) said the average cost of rent in Windsor has gone up by 5.9 per cent since 2020.

"Demand is significantly greater than supply and so we have a very tight housing market," said Tad Mangwengwende, CMHC's senior analyst of economics.

The cost of buying a home in Windsor has gone up by 30 per cent since 2020. So more residents are forced to stay in the rental market for longer, and it's adding more pressure on an already compressed rental housing supply, he said.

"A lot of potential homeowners have wanted to move out of the rental space into the home ownership space. But looking at the increase in the house prices, many of those potential homeowners have remained in the rental market, so it's even squeezed the supply even more."

The CMHC Rental Market report found the number of units being rented out in Windsor has increased by 245 units or by 1.6 per cent since 2020. It noted that is the largest annual supply increase seen in Windsor in more than 10 years.

But despite that increase in rental units, the availability of vacant units since 2020 has stayed relatively steady at 3.5 per cent because of a rapid increase in demand.

Mangwengwende said on top of that, even more demand is expected to come once COVID restrictions loosen up.

"We haven't had people travelling... [fewer] temporary foreign workers and students from the University of Windsor. All these things have dampened the demand side of the story. And yet, even with these record increases on the supply, vacancies are flat."

According to the report, less than half of all vacancies in 2021 were affordable, even for mid-income renters with a yearly income of $48,000.