The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, Feb. 1, edition that rent prices in Canada soared last year as supply struggled to keep up with demand, leading to the lowest national vacancy rate on record since the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. began tracking that data in 1988. A Canadian Press dispatch to The Globe reports that CMHC said in a report Wednesday the vacancy rate for purpose-built rental apartments sat at 1.5 per cent during the first two weeks of October, 2023, when it conducted its annual survey. That was down from 1.9 per cent a year earlier, which at the time had been the lowest national vacancy rate in more than two decades. The report "confirms the extreme imbalance between supply and demand for homes that characterizes Canada's housing sector," said a note by National Bank of Canada economists Stefane Marion and Daren King. The pair predicted that imbalance is "likely to persist for the foreseeable future" as the Bank of Canada forecasts population growth of about 800,000 in both 2024 and 2025, "with only a limited increase in housing starts." CMHC economist Kevin Hughes says, "Very tight markets usually entail heavier increases in rent, which we've seen."