Rental prices in the Toronto area continue to climb, with the median rent for any property hitting $ 2,167 in November, with no end in sight, with average double-digit increases forecast for 2022, according to the latest rental report from GTA from Bullpen Research and TorontoRentals. com.
The report contrasts with last November, when rental prices plummeted. Across the GTA, the report found that rental prices had fallen 15.6 percent between 2019 and 2020, but rose 4.3 percent in the past year, with a jump of more than 10 percent in the old city of Toronto.
“It’s the same story that it’s been for the last six months,” Bullpen’s Ben Myers said of the November data. The real estate advisory firm now predicts an average 10 percent rental cost increase across the GTA in 2022, though not a complete return to pre-pandemic numbers.
“It seems that we were returning to our normal market with a shortage of supplies, with several people trying to get the same apartment.”
The steepest rent increases have been in condos, which fell the most during the first months of the pandemic. Analysis of the listing data found that condos had dropped in price by 17.7 percent between November 2019 and November 2020. In the last year, prices increased 13.8 percent.
It’s been a different story in specially built rentals, which saw an average price drop of 7 percent between 2019 and 2020. In the past year, prices for those units increased just 0.5 percent. House rental prices fell 7.8 percent from 2019 to 2020, but have risen 12.3 percent since then, as rental costs for townhomes, which had fallen 4.5 percent. percent last year, rose 11.4 percent.
Although Bullpen predicts that rents will become increasingly expensive, Myers said his company does not expect rental prices to fully return to their 2019 levels over the next year.
“We clearly have not returned to where we were before the pandemic,” he said. While some people had returned to the downtown offices, many had not returned full time, he said.
“There is still some uncertainty,” he said, noting that there may be other complications from the new variant of COVID-19.
Industry representatives, meanwhile, are warning of an impending supply crisis in the homeownership sector, with an analysis by the Altus Group for the Construction Industry and the Land Development Association on Wednesday that found that the number of condominiums GTAs in pre-construction, under construction, or recently completed declined between October and November, while the inventory of single-family homes remained near historic lows.
Demand for housing remains high, and Altus Group’s analysis notes that November sales of new homes across the GTA were 29 percent above their 10-year average.
“It really erodes affordability,” said Justin Sherwood, senior vice president of communications for BILD.
Dania Majid, provincial director of the Tenant Counselor Program, pointed out what is at stake for individual tenants when housing costs rise throughout the Toronto region.
“It affects all aspects of a person’s life,” Majid said Wednesday. “It’s a house that they may no longer be able to afford, or it could mean a community they can no longer belong to.”
Myers believes that rising rental prices were likely an incentive for tenants in rental-controlled units to try to keep their homes, and a push for those who had to move to act quickly.
“I don’t expect any kind of rent decrease in the future,” Myers warned.
Reference-www.thestar.com