The building report came out for January and it is so nice to see homes being built with basement suites. There were 8 permits that were pulled in Leduc in January. I love to see this, as affordable housing is a big thing for me. Being in the rental make for a long time, its hard to see people continually spying for houses that make them house poor, but there isnt that many options for houses they can afford. When you look at all the jobs that are coming into town with the mall, Costco, Century Mile Racetrack and Casino, these are jobs that cant sustain the around $2000 a month rent for a whole house plus utilities. So the basement suites and suites houses are a great opportunity for that income bracket that is not apartments.
I would just like to make aware of the tenant profile that you are renting too. There is some builders who will build a bedroom suite with 2 bedrooms for the same price as a one bedroom. I think that investors and homeowners should be thinking about the difference between the tenants that would be renting each one.
1 Bedroom Tenants
- Couple
- Single person
- Single parent (the turnover would be high as they will outgrow 1 bedroom)
2 Bedrooms Tenants
- Couple
- Single person
- Single Parent (could be 2 kids and they might be more inclined to stay as they have a backyard)
- Roommates
With basement suites turnover will always be higher but at least with 2 bedrooms your tenant profile is a bit stronger as they have more space.
According to Land Use Bylaw 21.7.1.7 states that the maximum number of people in a basement suite is three. So why not develop the space to fully utilize what is allowed and for the exact same amount of money.
You also can look at the amount of rent you could get from two bedrooms versus one. Right now with the market being the way it is there isn’t much of a difference from accessible rent from a one bedroom or a two bedroom, but when the market starts to change for the better it will be easier to increase the rent from two bedrooms versus one. So it really comes to ask, why are we building one bedroom suites when we could be building two bedroom ones?
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