Extending rent cap could drive small landlords out of market: property owners group

The executive director of the Investment Property Owners Association of Nova Scotia says extending rent control could mean smaller landlords might not be able to afford to stay in the market.

Last week, Premier Tim Houston and Housing Minister John Lohr announced plans to tackle the housing crisis by implementing a residential rent cap to limit rental increases to two per cent per year until December 31st, 2023.

Kevin Russell told CityNews this decision will hurt many landlords who are already dealing with rising operating costs.

“We're experiencing spiking costs, particularly in insurance premiums as we're receiving reports 40 percent to 50 percent in insurance premiums,” he said. “Also, we're seeing spiking energy costs and we're not even into the winter season. So landlords are going to be under a lot of pressure to maintain their operations on a profitability basis and that will impact tenants.”

Russell said larger operators will be impacted, not nearly to the extent that smaller landlords will be.

“There's 5,000 smaller landlords in Nova Scotia,” said Russell. “Those will be the most impacted. If they haven't been managing their business aggressively over the years, they may find themselves in some more problematic areas than the larger landlords.”

Meantime, the province said it will be investing $35 million to support the building of more than 1,100 new affordable housing units and making 425 new rent supplements available immediately.