Rents to keep rising

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by GEORGE MADDUX

Although the idea that rents are a bargain might not occur to you when you hand over your rent, local rents are, in fact, under-priced and should rise significantly next year, according to Pierre Aubry of the Property Owners League. The cosmic shift he predicts in the local rental galaxy will be prompted by the simultaneous ascension of home-heating oil costs, municipal taxes and a low vacancy rate. Aubry likes the shortage of available apartments because it "allows us to choose our tenants a little more delicately, to pick the good ones and to reject the bad ones. We're no longer scared to have an empty apartment." He says that rents here cost half what they go for in Toronto, where sentimental mom-and-pop operations are more rare and large buildings are run as businesses.

 While Aubry wants the Rental Board to allow for five per cent hikes, Francois Saillant, coordinator of low-cost housing group FRAPRU counters with a suggestion of zero per cent. He points out that only 17 per cent of Montreal homes are heated with oil. Meanwhile, most Montrealers are tenants, and one in four tenants pay half their entire income on rent and electricity, he says. "Even during 1981-'86 when rents went up by 62 per cent, Aubry always said, 'Oh we're going to ruins.' Landlords are always crying, but they don't make me feel sorry for them."

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