A major driver of the phenomenon is the city’s rapid population growth
Torontonians earning a little over $45,000 annually are dedicating as much as 40% of their earnings to monthly housing costs, according to the Canadian Rental Housing Index.
The situation intensifies in markets outside the downtown area. In the Peel or York regions, these households need to allocate 38% and 44% of their income, respectively.
Most alarmingly, low-income renters in Regina have to set aside more than half of their earnings. And the situation gets even worse in Calgary (62%) and Vancouver (91%), CBC News reported.
These trends have generally kept pace with Toronto’s inflamed home sale prices. In August, the average selling price in the city was $792,611, growing by 3.6% year-over-year.
“The national average price is heavily skewed by sales in the GVA and GTA, two of Canada’s most active and expensive housing markets,” CREA explained in a study.
“Excluding these two markets from calculations cuts more than $100,000 from the national average price, trimming it to less than $393,000 and reducing the year-over-year gain to 2.7%.”
The cost of living in rental homes has been exacerbated by supply unable to keep up with the need for more affordable housing. Data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation indicated that while roughly 37,000 new apartment units were built nationwide in 2018, demand surged by as much as 50,000 units.
Much of this is impelled by the city’s population growth, which is considered among the fastest in North America. With immigration being a major driver, Toronto saw the addition of more than 77,000 new residents from July 2017 to July 2018.
