A friend of mine, who owns another rental site in a different country, has typically done very well because the vacancy rate where he is is so high (almost 10%). I think it’s actually even higher than that. So, naturally, property managers and landlords need to advertise more, and thus, more money being spent on advertising.
He has also said that if the vacancy rate is very low (like in many areas of Canada), that landlords and property managers only have to put a sign in the window of the rental for a day to rent it out. Sounds like pretty good logic.
I know that the vacancy rate, especially in the western provinces of Canada is very low….sometimes close to 1 or 2 %. I don’t personally live in those areas, but I’d be interested to find out from property managers living there if it is, in fact, that simple – putting a “For Rent” sign in the window to rent out a property, and if vacancy rate is the main variable that determines how much they spend in advertising and online listings.
Category Archives: Roommates
Roommate Finder Canada
I finally added my roommate finder on the site – it is a service provided by easyroommate. I will be interested to find out if it is helpful to my visitors or if it isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. I have looked into their website, and service and it looks pretty good to me. I know that finding a roommate can be a daunting process, and their service seems to be able to screen people and match people based on their interests and personalities. I have added a little section on this page too where people can add their roommate stories – I think everyone has at least one. A few people have offered their tales from the roommate abyss.
I hope this was a good addition to the site. I plan on keeping it on the site for 2 months, and at that time I’ll decide whether I’ll keep it on there or not. You can also post an ad on there if you have a room to rent.
Looking for good roommate stories
I think just about everyone has a good roommate story, or nightmare to tell. I sure have mine. I lived in a house in college (many years ago) with 9 other roommates. It was a big house, but with 9 other souls within arm’s reach of me, I almost went crazy. The room I lived in was separated from the next room with a large piece of plywood. There was never a clean dish in the house, and at any given moment there was some big drama or girlfriend/boyfriend fight going on. Seems like the police were there about every other night for some kind of noise complaint. I think there were also 3 dogs and several cats in the house.
Sometimes I wonder how I got through that year. I finally moved out and got an apartment of my own – all to myself.
Yesterday, I was surfing around and tried Google’s “Street View” service – if you haven’t tried it, you must! You can basically drive down city streets in virtual reality – and I drove past this old house I lived in with the 9 other roommates. It still looks the same, but only one car out front this time, so I am guessing it was bought and is not being rented out to college kids.
Anyways, the point of this post is that I would love to hear any nightmare roommate tales – and post them on the site here. I am about to create a ‘roommates’ section for the site (due to popular demand) and I am sure people would appreciate a few good stories about the psycho roommate! You can use my contact form to send me your story!
Finding a roommate in Edmonton
Edmonton is a tough market for renters right now. Anyone trying to find a place to live there has probably heard the word “no” or “not available” as the standard responses to most of their rental inquiries. It is also very, very expensive to rent in Edmonton right now. If you have a pet, or if you smoke, that complicates matters even more.
So why not try to find a roommate? Sharing a place obviously means sacrificing privacy and space, but if you need a place right now, and money is tight, this may the way to go. The economy of Canada is expected to tighten even more due to higher gas prices and grocery bills. You can expect that this will trickle into rental prices, making the cost of living even higher than it is now. Sharing a house or condo can make your dollars stay in your wallet a little longer.
Canadarentals.net will be partnering with Easyroomate in a few weeks to offer a roommate finding service on this site. We are excited, since Easyroomate is one of the premier roommate finding services in Canada. We also encourage anyone with a room to rent, or anyone looking for a roomate to post a free ad on our Edmonton page.