Two of Canada’s major cities have long been in the news for skyrocketing house costs. Both Toronto, Canada’s biggest city and urban area, and Vancouver on the west coast, have made international headlines for the ever increasing costs to buy a house or condo.
But that’s only part of the story.
Rental costs are also rising, to the point where people can’t afford to live in or near the downtown areas.
This creates a “hollowing out” of the city core, where there are stores, but fewer people living there.
In many cases young people and those on fixed incomes, have to leave the city entirely.
Vancouver for example was rated as the third least affordable city for housing purchases, after Sydney Australia, and Hong Kong, but that pushes people into the rental market where the two citis have average rental prices where a small one-bedroom apt costs typically costs $2,000 a month on average.
In Toronto, it’s almost the same at an average of almost $1,800 a month, up 7.4 percent from the same time last year. In addition, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board, rental price increases for bachelor and one bedroom apartments have added another $1,500 to yearly leases in the Greater Toronto Region (GTA) just since last year.
Interviewed by CBC Toronto, Karlene Nation was hoping to move downtown but was surprised by the costs of a small rental.
“If you’re finding that 60 or 70 per cent of your income is going to rent, then you’re cutting back in a lot of other areas. It’s a problem,” she says
Several people with relatively good salaries have found they simply couldn’t afford to move downtown or even continue living there as rental costs increased, and when finding cheaper rentals in areas further away, realized that any rental savings were eaten up by commuting costs. As a result many have found they have to move to different cities entirely.
With housing and rental costs continuing to climb in both cities, and in their surrounding communities, it seems likely the numbers of people, especially young people, having to leave these major cities is likely to continue
Additional information-sources
Better Dwelling Jan 31,2017- Toronto rental costs
CBC: S Martin: Feb 21,2017: forced to couch surf
Toronto Real Estate Q4 2016 rent report
CBC: M Zeidler: 2016: rental bidding wars Vancouver
Bloomberg News: K Dmitrieva: 2016: millenials flee Vancouver
Vancouver Metro- W Li, Feb 15 2017- Vancouver rent costs
Globe and Mail: R Carrick: Feb 24, 2017- Toronto rental jump
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