The Ontario Landlord Tenant Board is currently tussling with a considerable backlog, market names say
![Ontario landlords contemplating rental unit conversions amid regulatory logjam](https://cdn-res.keymedia.com/cdn-cgi/image/w=1000,h=600,f=auto/https://cdn-res.keymedia.com/cms/images/us/074/0321_638318454444239181.jpg)
Several Ontario landlords are considering the conversion of their long-term rental units into short-term leases, according to groups representing rental operators.
Such repurposing will allow landlords to make more profit and face fewer challenges with the Ontario Landlord Tenant Board, which is currently wrestling with a considerable backlog.
The shared fear among the province’s landlords is that they might end up paying for their outsized mortgage amortizations on their own without the help of reliable rental income, Bosley Real Estate broker Davelle Morrison said in an interview with BNNBloomberg.ca.
“It takes landlords eight months just to book an appointment with the tribunal if their tenants are giving them problems and (they) often feel the board’s rules are not on their side,” Morrison said.
“These landlords know that if they have a short-term rental property, they get the rights back in their favour, they have more control over their own properties, and quite frankly they can make more money.”
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Toronto continues to labour under severe lack of housing affordability
In Toronto, the average one-bedroom condo apartment rent went up by 11.6% annually to reach $2,532 per month during the second quarter, data from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board showed.
A recent report from Zoocasa found that people in most of Toronto’s neighbourhoods will need 16 months or more of rent to save up for the minimum down payment of a condo apartment unit.
“For the City of Toronto as a whole, it would take the average renter 17.9 months to come up with the $51,983 down payment necessary to purchase the average condo apartment priced at $769,832,” Zoocasa said.
“Not only has the average price of a condo in the city increased in the last two quarters, but the average condo lease rate has also increased by over $100.”