Toronto sublets on the rise as wanderlust renters are `holding onto their apartment for dear life´
(The Star Toronto Raptors)

After a January trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Laura Cappell knew she wanted to move there, but she also knew if she gave up her rented midtown Toronto apartment she might not be able to come back. “I felt like I was being held hostage by the city of Toronto,� said Cappell, who pays $1,694 a month for a 1-bedroom unit near Yonge and Davisville, where she’s been living for the last year. Similar sized units in her building are now renting for $1,855 monthly, according to the building’s website. “I knew that I just could not financially walk away from a lease in Toronto.� Knowing she was protected from major rent increases as an existing tenant, Cappell, 32, decided to sublet her apartment for a year to a new tenant despite not knowing exactly when she’ll she come back. With Toronto’s heated rental market and lack of affordable housing, tenants increasingly fear being priced out of their neighbourhoods. People who are compelled to leave the city are increasingly hanging onto their apartments, subletting in order to remain locked into the price they’re paying.Dania Majid, a staff lawyer for Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO), told the Star that sublets have always been common but in the past were done primarily by students to avoid the hassle of moving ahead of each new school year. Read more: Roommate matchmaking event seeks to connect tenants in Toronto’s tight rental marketHow four Gen Z roommates ‘get squishy’ to afford a downtown lifestyleOpinion | Edward Keenan: Shared housing arrangements should be encouraged — not just toleratedNow, the tenants who are subletting are those “afraid of being priced out of the market when they come back.�Cappell, who works in communications with the option to work remotely, says she’s ditching the city for a place she described as “everything Toronto wasn’t.�“I realized that the quality of life was ...