Affordable apartments are becoming increasingly difficult to find across the GTA, with vacancy rates hitting a 16-year low amid steadily rising rents, a new report shows.The details around the rising costs of rent and the decline in available apartments are spelled out in the latest Rental Market Survey for the Greater Toronto Area, from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.The overall vacancy rate for the GTA was at 1.1 per cent, down from 1.4 per cent in 2016. The Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), which covers much of the GTA, was at 1 per cent, down from 1.3 per cent the previous year.The average cost of an apartment rose to almost $1,300 a month, across the GTA.“Rising costs of home ownership forced more people to seek and remain in rental accommodation. The resulting average vacancy rate for private purpose-built apartments in the Toronto CMA declined to reach its lowest level in 16 years,” the authors wrote. That lack of supply and high demand, the authors wrote, also allowed landlords to charge “significantly higher rents” after tenants moved out and still remain competitive. The average cost of a purpose built apartment in the GTA, according to the report, was about $1,300 and almost $2,080 to rent a condominium.Greg Suttor, a senior researcher at the Wellesley Institute said $1,300 was a bit of a milestone, in a rental market that has been ticking up for years. In Canada, spending 30 per cent of annual gross income on rent is defined as affordable. Suttor pointed out that an annual gross income of $52,000 would be needed, to meet that standard in what is now the average cost of a Toronto apartment. That means lower-income residents must choose between living in housing they can’t afford, or being pushed to the margins of the city, he said. “We know that the market is very tight, there is only so much supply and there is huge demand,” said Suttor, noting that average rental costs have gone up more than ...
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