About 80,000 Montrealers are bundling tables, beds and chairs on to trucks this weekend in the annual moving ritual.
Apartments were slightly harder to find this year in Montreal, as the apartment vacancy rate in April-- as measured by CMHC's Rental Market Report -- had dipped from 2.5 percent to 2.2 percent one year earlier.
That’s still a more comfortable figure than that of a few years ago when the rate hit near zero percent in the city for a couple of years, causing a housing crisis that required the city to provide temporary shelters for those temporarily without abode.
Those with moving trucks are advised to contact local municipal authorities (dial 311 in the case of Montreal) to clarify the rules regarding parking of trucks in front of homes, as possible parking fines can rise to an astronomical $1,100.
A special permit to park in front of a parking meter can cost between $75 to $350.
Migration statistics have demonstrated that many Montrealers are moving off the island or into smaller cities in the province.
The apartment vacancy rate in certain cities in Abitibi is said to be around zero percent.
The average price for a two bedroom apartment in Montreal is about $700, just marginally higher than last year.
Rents in Quebec City and Gatineau are just slightly higher.
Apartments in Saguenay are among the cheapest in the province, coming in at about $550 for a two bedroom flat. However that region also saw the province’s only major statistical shift from last year, as its vacancy rate fell from 1.9 percent to 0.7 percent.
Montreal has traditionally had a higher-percentage of renters than other Canadian cities, as about three out of four residents rent their homes. The higher rate of renters is thought to have started as a result of lower-priced travel fares from Britain during a time of high immigration to Montreal. That policy tended to attract poorer immigrants to Montreal than those who travelled to the United States.
Quebec is also unique in that such a high percentage of tenants have leases that end on the last day of June. Nobody apparently has been able to determine where that tradition came from, although some have linked it to ancient Scottish customs.
Quebecers used to move May 1 but in the 1970s the Parti Quebecois government decreed that the date be changed to July 1, to allow children to finish their school years and increase the chances of avoiding bad weather.
