The Globe’s list of renter-friendly cities looked at four attributes: affordability, availability, stability and livability.COLE BURSTON/The Canadian Press
On Nov. 13, data editor Mahima Singh and reporter Salmaan Farooqui answered reader questions about Canada’s renter-friendly cities, and the state of the rental market in the country.
Renting is no longer just a stepping stone to buying a home, it’s increasingly become a lifetime proposition for many Canadians. To keep up with this changing landscape, The Globe built a tool to help Canadians find the best cities for renting. Using monthly listing data from Rentals.ca, we ranked 235 cities (each with a population exceeding 20,000) on four attributes: affordability, availability, stability and livability.
Readers asked about what went into making the list of renter-friendly cities, why Albertan cities ranked at the top, and what’s going on with rent prices in Canada. Here are some highlights from the Q&A.
Creating the list
How is this ranking different from the Livable Cities project?
Singh: The Livable Cities project focuses much more on the actual “livability” of a city. We ranked the cities in that project using 50 variables across 10 categories: Economy, Housing, Demographics, Health Care, Safety, Education, Community, Amenities, Transportation, and Climate.
This rent ranking focuses mainly on affordability and availability. Although we have a livability index for this project, it is weighted the least in the ranking. We also recognize that renters value access to employment opportunities and vibrant amenities, and we gave a special focus to cities within 50 kilometres of a census metropolitan area.
Our population cut-off is also different for each. For Livable Cities, we ranked cities with a population of 10,000 or more. For the rent ranking, we looked at cities with a population of 20,000 or more.
One thing I’m really proud of in this project is that we have postal code-level rent data, which is rare. We help you find where in a city you can afford to live based on our data.
Reporter Salmaan Farooqui says Edmonton and other cities in Alberta ranked so highly due to their affordability and relative ease for building.The Globe and Mail
Many of the top cities are in Alberta. Why did the province rank so highly?
Farooqui: The short answer is that Alberta is very affordable and seems to have a pretty good amount of listing for rentals.
One thing that experts consistently note about Alberta, and the Prairies in general, is that it’s relatively easier to build there than in other areas. There’s less red tape, and a flat, sprawling landscape is both cheaper and easier to develop than some other types of terrain. I think that has contributed to a pretty good supply of housing that helps keep prices a bit lower.
Why was there a separate ranking for Toronto and Vancouver?
Farooqui: When we started this project, we understood that not everybody would be able to move across the country just because a certain city has cheap rent.
Given that Toronto and Vancouver are two major cities with lots of communities in the vicinity, we thought people would benefit from the whole region compared.
Also, Toronto and Vancouver are some of the most expensive cities in Canada, but they’re major economic centres with lots of jobs. We wanted people to understand where they could move in those areas without having to change their jobs or their entire lifestyle.
Canada’s rental market has gotten cheaper, but that won’t last
Different provinces each have their own rules for rent control. How is that factored into the list?
Farooqui: Rent control laws aren’t factored into this list, but it’s a great idea for the future. Certain provinces like Quebec have some pretty robust rent control rules, especially compared to provinces like Ontario where there is no rent control at all on properties that were established after 2018.
Are job prospects factored into what makes for a rentable city? In some places, it might be cheaper but harder to find a job.
Farooqui: Job prospects weren’t necessarily factored into our ranking. Instead, we used average wages in a community to count towards how affordable a city was considered in our ranking.
What surprised you most about the results?
Singh: I had a great time wrangling the data for this one. When we first looked at the list, all these suburbs were at the top. When I looked them up, they made so much sense. They were all satellite cities of the usual suspects: Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto.
Farooqui: I was surprised by how high Toronto ranked! It is 57th on our list. It’s not an incredible score, but it is pretty good for a place that’s so expensive. I think that reflects the sheer number of available units in Toronto. It’s a city where renting is an established way of life. I think it also helps that there has been a surge of supply from new condos as of late, which means there are more available properties than usual.
Were there any areas that had too little data to properly represent its rental market?
Singh: Our project focuses on cities with populations of 20,000 or more. This ensures that all the cities have enough data for analysis.
Yes, some cities didn’t have enough data. We tried our best to supplement that by either averaging it with its nearest neighbour or filling in CMHC data. In the end, if they were still missing data, we removed them from the list.
The Globe and Mail
Renting in Canada
Why is the price of rentals going down? Does it have to do with the housing market?
Farooqui: Three things are happening in Canada that are bringing rents down in most places. First, there’s been an unusually high number of housing projects completed this year. You have tons of landlords who are getting possession of their units and many are struggling to rent them out.
Canada is also cutting immigration levels significantly, and that’s affecting demand across the country, including in markets near colleges.
The current economic outlook is pretty glum right now too, and there’s a lot of uncertainty around our trade relationship with the U.S. People are concerned about their jobs, and I think it’s hard to have a booming rental market in a time like this.
Are you seeing that renters are mostly people in transition phases in their lives, or are settling in long-term?
Farooqui: The number of renters in this country is growing faster than the number of homeowners. An RBC report from a couple years ago found that the number of renter households grew at a pace three times faster than the growth of homeowner households.
To me, that implies that more people are renting for longer, and there are certainly a lot of young people in particular who consider renting a lifelong form of housing.
Can renting really be as good as owning? The debate continues as home prices soar
Montreal used to be a haven for young renters. What changed?
Farooqui: As someone with ties to Montreal, this question resonates with me. Montreal is still quite cheap compared to other cities in Canada, and it did rank quite highly on our list (23rd).
But rent has been increasing at a pretty fast pace. Lately, the provincial government has made it easier for landlords to refuse lease transfers from one tenant to another. That was one tool that tenants had to help keep rents low.
Quebec also does have a limit on how much rent can be increased between a departing tenant and a new tenant coming in (this is unique to Quebec!). However, this has to be enforced by the tenant, and it’s not automatically enforced by the government. Because of this, some renters accept higher rents than they’re required to because they may not be aware of this rule, or of how much the previous tenant paid.
