It was another hot month for housing starts during what has been a year of unprecedented rental construction for Kelowna.

According to statistics from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), August saw a dramatic rise in new multi-unit housing starts, particularly the construction of a large number of apartment rental buildings.

"We saw another big bump in new apartments and multi-unit construction in the Kelowna CMA, continuing a trend of higher rental starts that we saw in the spring, which has been the story for Kelowna real estate in 2017," said CMHC Market Analyst Taylor Pardy.

"We've seen an unprecedented amount of rental construction within the first 8 months of the year." 

photo Credit: Contributed.

 So far in 2017, construction has begun on a total of 1366 rental units, which is good news considering Kelowna has been dealing with a dismal rental vacancy rate for the past two years.

"Kelowna has been dealing with a historically low vacancy rate of 0.7 for apartments in 2015, 0.6 for apartments in 2016," explained Pardy.

"The city has  also had much stronger population growth, which has resulted in greater demand for all types of housing, so those are the big drivers behind the new rental starts."

Officially the CHMC defines a "housing start" as when the foundation for a building project has been laid.