No vacancy

Megan and Simon Byrne have been plugging away at paperwork since March, hoping to make St. Anthony their new home.

The Australian couple are coming to work at Curtis Memorial Hospital but, like so many others looking to move to the town, are finding out the pitfalls of trying to rent a home.

In short — there’s simply nothing to be found.

“I have romantic ideas about the far Northern Peninsula fuelled a lot, I’m sorry to say, by books and TV and I would love a little house by the sea, or looking out to the sea, but it seems rentals are for summer visitors and booked months in advance — or sometimes years I’m sure,” Ms. Byrne told the Pen.

“There doesn’t seem to be any houses for long-term stay or they are all taken.”

Ms. Byrne said although she and her husband aren’t keen on an apartment they’ll take whatever is available.

The couple vows the difficult search won’t stop them coming to the area, but it’s not making life any easier.

“The uncertainty of where we will be living in St. Anthony does cause some stress but Simon and I are very adaptable, laid-back people and we will deal,” she said.

In a sense the Byrnes are lucky — working for the hospital means they’ll have somewhere to stay for the first month, but come October they’re going to want a house.

The family is far from alone in their search for a rental home.

Real estate agent Kevin Simms says a chronic shortage of rental property in St. Anthony is hampering the relocation of professionals to the area and in turn hurting the local economy.

He is often the first port of call for people looking to rent in the area, but more often than not he has to give them the bad news that there just aren’t many options open to them.

“I had one lady from a relocation firm in Montreal call and ask what the rental situation was like and once I started telling her she said ‘stop right there - it’s just like the rest of northern Canada. You’ve pretty much got to wait for someone to die and then hope their relatives don’t sell the property.’ And that’s exactly what it’s like,” he says.

“It’s really tough for people moving here and I think it definitely impacts on people wanting to come.”

The St. Anthony town website shows a similar picture with a rental section where demand far outstrips supply. Marc Bastarache, who maintains the website, says this is nothing unusual.

“I’d say demand is about 10 times higher than supply,” he told the Pen.

“We need people to invest in the area but we don’t draw them here and that’s to the detriment of the town. We need to be confident about this area. We’re not investing in it and we’re suffering because of a lack of apartments and a lack of accommodation.”