When Canadians are searching for a home to rent, some turn to a roommate as a way to cut costs.
But a recent rental report showed that though the roommate rental cost has dropped in some of the biggest cities, it’s on the rise in smaller communities.
The report by Rentals.ca showed “roommate rents,” the cost for shared accommodation, dropped from a high of $1,773 a year ago to $1,481 per person in Vancouver and decreased in Toronto from an average $1,300 monthly to $1,230.
Yet the report also showed across the four provinces measured for shared accommodation — B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec — the average cost reached a record high of $1,011, a year-over-year increase of eight per cent.
In Burnaby, B.C., a two-bedroom apartment averages $3,109, meaning even with a roommate, the cost would sit at $1,579. Living in Saskatoon, with a rent of $1,469, would mean an average cost of $734 per person monthly.
Though that cost may seem low in a smaller city like Saskatoon, major markets like Calgary, Edmonton and Montreal are seeing shared accommodation rent increased compared to a year ago taking more money out of renters’ pockets.
Mike Moffatt, senior director of the Smart Prosperity Institute, said it shows “how large Canada’s rental crisis has gone.”
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“There’s very few places left that still have any kind of affordability if you are working for minimum wage or trying to have an apartment while in school,” he said.
He added in some places, people could have multiple roommates and still pay $1,000 or more — the average rent of a three-bedroom apartment in Vancouver sits at about $1,433 per person monthly and even in a similar unit in Guelph, Ont., people are paying $1,060.
Giacomo Ladas, associate director of communications for Rentals.ca, points to supply and demand as a key reason why.
While rent is dropping in bigger cities, it’s continuing to rise in others like Edmonton which has seen an eight-per cent increase for a two-bedroom or even a 16-per cent increase for three, compared to Toronto which dropped by seven and one per cent respectively.
Ladas told Global News the report shows trying to cut costs by having a roommate really comes down to where you want to live.
“It really depends on if you have to live in these metropolitan cores,” he said.
He said that while people might look to Prairie provinces because of a better cost of living, the rent affordability also equates to ongoing increases.
With more people potentially moving from high-rent cities to cities that haven’t traditionally seen rents be as high, that could result in a bigger demand for housing than can be managed.
“I do think if demand really does increase and we don’t meet the supply, who knows where it could go,” he said.
Rental increases are slowing
There may be some good news, though, as average rent across Canada rose at the slowest rate seen in three years, a rise of about 3.3 per cent compared to 9.6 per cent last September.
According to Ladas, there’s a variety of reasons noting apartment completions have reached their highest total in decades, resulting in a slight increase in supply. He added a slowdown in population growth, in part due to the cap on international students, meant less demand for housing.
Though the Rentals.ca report did not specifically name international students as an impacting factor, Moffatt said compared to past summers when students look for housing for school, the rental increase is much lower.
Rentals.ca showed a 15-per cent increase in rent in September 2022 in Ontario, whereas it dropped by four per cent this year.
“We have to realize that we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of international students, so it’s a massive number of renters,” Moffatt said. “You get a case where you get hundreds of thousands of extra renters and very new rental supply, you just have so many renters chasing so few places.”
Moffatt and Ladas caution while rent increases are slowing, it’s not going to change quickly and while costs could still rise for roommates, it still is a good option in trying to save, though it can also be timing that helps the most — searching in the spring versus three weeks before school.
“If you can find more bedrooms, you could obviously split the rent a bunch of different ways,” Ladas said. “But really, if you can start looking as early as possible, that is the way to do it.”
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