The average rent price for a Toronto region condo was $2,110 in November, a decline of more than $450 when compared to the same period a year ago.
Rentals.ca, which released the November data ahead of the holidays, found that rent prices dropped across all property types in the Toronto region, with condo rentals seeing the largest annual decline at 17.7 percent.
The average monthly rent price for single-family homes in the Toronto region fell 8 percent in November to $2,501 while purpose-built rental apartments — a separate category from investor-owned rental condos — dropped 9.1 percent to $1,972.
“Many owners and landlords are offering one or two months of free rent, as opposed to dropping their asking rent. This is more common for the most expensive properties on the market, including several purpose-built rental apartments completed over the past three years,” said Rentals.ca in a press release.
The rental search site noted that 18 Erskine, a new Yonge and Eglinton purpose-built rental, was offering two months of free rent and a $1,500 move-in incentive for one-bedroom rentals as of the report’s publication date.
No matter how you slice the November figures, it was another tough month for Toronto region landlords. The Rentals.ca report, published along with Bullpen Research and Consulting, found that the average rent had declined across all property by 16 percent to $2,056 in November. It was the 12th consecutive month that aggregate rents had declined, according to the Rentals.ca data.
Bullpen President Ben Myers is forecasting further rent price declines in the first half of 2021, followed by a gradual uptick in the second half of the year. By 2022, monthly rents are expected to start climbing rapidly again amid what Myers calls “a mad rush back into the downtown Toronto market” supported by vaccine distribution, a reduction in virus transmission and improved consumer confidence.
However, prices are still not expected to reach the peak achieved in 2019 even by the end of 2022.
