For months, Nathan Armstrong has been sifting through apartment listings from a small motel room in Woodstock, Ontario. He and his wife have to live there for more than a year while they desperately search for a place to rent.
“There aren’t many out there and they seem to be going up. Fifteen, seventeen, nineteen hundred dollars for a one bedroom apartment,” he said. “Our price range is disappearing.”
Armstrong described the situation as frustrating and expensive. The couple couldn’t even cook their own meals at the motel.
“It’s very, very difficult,” he said. “Difficult to cook as we are not allowed to have our own cooking materials. No toaster, it’s against the fire code.”
The couple say they faced rejection after rejection, losing out on dozens of apartments amid stiff competition during their 16-month search for stable housing.
Rents are indeed rising rapidly in the area, according to a recent report by Rentals.ca and Bullpen Research and Consulting. Average apartment rents for the nearest major city — London, Ontario. — rose to $1,933 in June, up 28.5% from the same time last year.
WATCH | How Canadians get rental housing prices:
Skyrocketing rents are costing some Canadians
Some Canadians are finding themselves increasingly expensive as rent costs rise across the country.
Some analysts predict that the rental market could get even hotter in Canada.
Ben Myers, president of Bullpen Research & Consulting, a real estate consulting firm, says higher interest rates are pushing potential homebuyers away, putting pressure on the rental market.
“These two factors will keep tenants in their properties, further reducing the rental supply,” Myers said.
Renting is also an ongoing problem in Halifax. There, the vacancy rate is below one per cent, among the lowest in the country, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
“We have new construction and existing construction, but they can’t keep up with the pace of the number of people looking for rental housing,” said Leslie Dunn, program director of RentersEd, which educates Canadians about renting.
Rents are rising in Canada
She says lower-income households are quickly shrinking because rents are increasing faster than people’s wages. Dunn says the rental market is so hot that it puts unfair pressure on applicants.
“Now you’re required to pay three months’ rent before being considered for an apartment. It’s devastating,” Dunn said.
“For most newcomers, for most youth, for most people who are homeless, for most people who are on fixed incomes, there is absolutely no way they can afford that.”
The market is also tight for renters in the biggest cities, as they are the most expensive. The highest average apartment rents in Canada are in Vancouver at $2,936 a month, up almost 25% from a year ago, according to Rentals.ca. In Toronto, the average apartment price is $2,463 per month, up nearly 20% year-over-year. Experts pointed to a decades-long decline in the construction of purpose-built rental housing, known as targeted rentals, as another reason for the supply woes.
Murtaza Haider, a professor of management at Toronto Metropolitan University, says that purpose-built rentals provide more rental stability than condominiums, where investment-focused landlords are more likely to take their properties off the rental market. , to sell them when they think the time is right.
“Targeted rents provide security of tenure because you know it’s a rental property and it’s going to stay as a rental for them for the time being,” he said.
“Government has a big role to play”
Haider wants all levels of government to work together to encourage more construction.
“The government has a big role to play. They can incentivize builders to enter this market, changing the playing field … in favor of building more purpose-built rental housing,” he said. “The momentum is on us not to wait another 50 years or even five years and start making these changes.”
After 16 long months, Armstrong says he and his wife have finally found a place to call home.
Nathan Armstrong and his wife lived in a motel in Woodstock, Ontario, for over a year because they couldn’t find an affordable apartment. (Rob Krbavac/CBC)
“It feels amazing. A cooking kitchen to help you save money on food costs, especially now that the prices of everything are going up,” he said.
He hopes the rental market improves for others who are just starting to look.
“It should never have taken more than a year to finally get a permanent place to live,” he said.
Add Comment