According to the latest pricing report from website Rentals.ca for January 2022, the town of Oakville is now the most expensive municipality for rental housing in all of Ontario - and the second most expensive in all of Canada.
The report, called the January 2022 Rent Report, calculates the average cost of rental housing of every municipality in Canada according to tens of thousands of listings for rental housing, ranging from studios to full houses.
In the report, Oakville's average rental listing price is the highest in the entire province of Ontario. Second nationally only to Vancouver, British Columbia, in terms of ranking municipalities by the highest cost, the report says, "Oakville had the next highest average rent at $2,473 per month - an annual increase of 9.9% from its December 2020 average of $2,251 per month."
Oakville's average cost, just under $2,500/month to rent (not including insurance or utilities), is almost $200 more per month than the next most expensive average price in Ontario. Oakville's average price has also nearly doubled in the last nine years, from when it was only $1,420 in April 2013.
The five most expensive rental markets in Ontario (Dec. 2021, average rental cost):
- Oakville - $2,473/month
- Vaughan - $2,278/month
- Toronto - $2,266/month
- Etobicoke - $2,171/month
- Markham - $2,144/month
The average costs calculated in this report factor the average of single-family housing, townhouses, rental apartments, condominium apartments, and basement apartments in each municipality.
London is Ontario's least expensive city for rental housing, currently at an average of $1,752/month. Even there, prices are exploding at an unsustainable rate, with prices having risen more than 70% in just the last three years.
Listed below is a chart showing average rental prices of most municipalities with a population over 200,000 people in Canada (excluding the Atlantic provinces, which would only include Halifax) and comparing them to Oakville:
According to the same report, "The average rent for all Canadian properties listed on Rentals.ca in December was $1,789 per month, up 3.8% annually."
One way of looking at how out-of-control Oakville's rental prices have become is looking at what percent the average rental cost has changed since last year. Instead of the recommended 2.2%, Oakville's prices are up 9.9% from the same price last year.
Even with lower prices in December 2020 from the pandemic (when average rent was $230 less per month), Oakville last year was actually the most expensive place to rent in all of Canada.
Findings from the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC) corroborate these figures, with their latest Rental Market Report citing low vacancy and "rent growth far exceeding the Ontario Rent Increase Guideline of 2.2% per year."
The CMHC also says high costs mean "fewer renters transitioned into homeownership" in the last year. "Fewer renters could afford median-priced homes the since last survey in January 2021." More details will be shared in the next CMHC report set to publish in early February.
Note: A detailed breakdown and further analysis from this report can be read online at this link here. Additional files in this story come from the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC).