Undead said:
Renters have precisely zero leverage in this market.
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And as such they will be treated like garbage by developers/landlords, and there will be zero effort by legislators to do anything to fix the problem as they all own homes themselves and do not care. There is a reason why every political party mentions "homeowners" constantly in every platform but "renters" gets 1 or 2 mentions at the most, despite being a huge percentage of the population.
 
Micheal, I edited my comment with more detail and context. It's absolutely the case that renters currently have very little to no leverage. The situation is worse than pre covid and that was already pretty bad.
 
Undead said:
Micheal, I edited my comment with more detail and context. It's absolutely the case that renters currently have very little to no leverage. The situation is worse than pre covid and that was already pretty bad.
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I appreciate it. Any private individual can reject anyone without having to provide a reason, so we have to examine the overall rejection rate to see if it has anything to do with leverage. If there are 1.5x more rental applications compared to pre-covid, but only 1.45x more rejections then the situation has improved, going by that metric alone. Relying on individual anecdotes doesn't help in this case.
 
MichaelZ said:
I appreciate it. Any private individual can reject anyone without having to provide a reason, so we have to examine the overall rejection rate to see if it has anything to do with leverage. If there are 1.5x more rental applications compared to pre-covid, but only 1.45x more rejections then the situation has improved, going by that metric alone. Relying on individual anecdotes doesn't help in this case.
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It was also a terrible time to be a renter pre-covid, to be fair. We simply lack rental stock in this city, to the point where landlords have the advantage the vast majority of the time. Saying "oh it's slightly less awful", does not mean it still isn't awful. Only in the early pandemic when people moved out of the city to work remotely did renters have any real power. Buildings were offering things like "one month free rent" because they were actually competing for tenants at the time. That is no longer the case.
 
MichaelZ said:
Renters care about elevator density, maybe implicitly because no one likes waiting in long lines, but they definitely care. So it will negatively affect rental prices. Maybe this location can't support premium rental units, but even a shady investor would care somewhat of how much they can rent it out for in the future.

EDIT: Then again one should never underestimate human stupidity, so maybe there are 'investors' like that.
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In my experience, most people care about long waits for elevators, but don't know how many elevators it should take to have short waits.

That's a comparatively technical bit of knowledge. Not hard to understand, but obscure to most people.

I don't know any renters who have ever asked "How many on-site maintenance staff do you have?"

What's the average response time to something wrong in the building, by management?

etc etc.

That is not to suggest people don't care about such things; or would not give them weight if they knew about them.

It's to suggest many people don't know what to ask or how to evaluate such information.

Additionally, in a landlord's market as @Undead correctly notes, if you find something in the location you want, a size you can work with, in superficially decent condition, at a price you can afford/are willing to pay..............

I'm not sure how far down the wish list the deal-breakers go.

***

For sure, doing everything better should, all other things being equal yield higher rent, and lower vacancy..........

But in a market where a miserable building has 2% vacancy or less..........
 
TossYourJacket said:
It was also a terrible time to be a renter pre-covid, to be fair. We simply lack rental stock in this city, to the point where landlords have the advantage the vast majority of the time. Saying "oh it's slightly less awful", does not mean it still isn't awful. Only in the early pandemic when people moved out of the city to work remotely did renters have any real power. Buildings were offering things like "one month free rent" because they were actually competing for tenants at the time. That is no longer the case.
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Landlords compete against one another to offer the most attractive place and/or lowest rent. Those renters who are seeking bottom of the barrel deals and can't increase their price obviously have little negotiation room since nobody don't want to leave money on the table any more than anyone else. Renters in the middle price brackets and above have much smoother experiences since they can simply go down the quality ladder if they're feeling ignored. But no one owes anyone else attention just because they exist.
 
Northern Light said:
In my experience, most people care about long waits for elevators, but don't know how many elevators it should take to have short waits.

That's a comparatively technical bit of knowledge. Not hard to understand, but obscure to most people.

I don't know any renters who have ever asked "How many on-site maintenance staff do you have?"

What's the average response time to something wrong in the building, by management?

etc etc.

That is not to suggest people don't care about such things; or would not give them weight if they knew about them.

It's to suggest many people don't know what to ask or how to evaluate such information.

Additionally, in a landlord's market as @Undead correctly notes, if you find something in the location you want, a size you can work with, in superficially decent condition, at a price you can afford/are willing to pay..............

I'm not sure how far down the wish list the deal-breakers go.

***

For sure, doing everything better should, all other things being equal yield higher rent, and lower vacancy..........

But in a market where a miserable building has 2% vacancy or less..........
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Well of course people differ in perception, intelligence, critical-thinking skills, willingness to expend effort, etc... Thus differential outcomes arise over the course of life. This is true even with identical twins, let alone with everyone. Yet in a city of 2.8 million there should be enough savvy renters to have a noticeable effect on the market.

Though again if there's a similar number of renters at the opposite end there may be a mutual negation.
 
But that's the thing. Often even the most basic units attract bidding wars. Not to mention many landlords are now demanding to see your resume, character references and even cover letters to rent a room in a student ghetto townhouse.
 
MichaelZ said:
Landlords compete against one another to offer the most attractive place and/or lowest rent. Those renters who are seeking bottom of the barrel deals and can't increase their price obviously have little negotiation room since nobody don't want to leave money on the table any more than anyone else. Renters in the middle price brackets and above have much smoother experiences since they can simply go down the quality ladder if they're feeling ignored. But no one owes anyone else attention just because they exist.
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I would agree those with highest incomes have flexibility; I would disagree for those with middle incomes. Vacancy rates speaks volumes. They remain very, very low. Room for negotiation is low. You don't like the price, someone else will be by in an hour who will take it......(ok, that, on average, is an exaggeration, but if I said 'tomorrow', it would not be.)
 
Northern Light said:
I would agree those with highest incomes have flexibility; I would disagree for those with middle incomes. Vacancy rates speaks volumes. They remain very, very low. Room for negotiation is low. You don't like the price, someone else will be by in an hour who will take it......(ok, that, on average, is an exaggeration, but if I said 'tomorrow', it would not be.)
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The middle income renters can easily secure places next to Moss park at $2500/month, and I visited there quite recently.
 
MichaelZ said:
The middle income renters can easily secure places next to Moss park at $2500/month, and I visited there quite recently.
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I don't want to go back and forth to excess Michael, but factually, the vacancy rate is at 1.4%, (Q2, 2022) that is incredibly low by historical standards and is very much a landlord's market.
 
Well the vacant rate is highly dependant on the location and budget, using city-wide averages simply obscures the problem. The availability for a $2500/month budget in Rosedale is 0, thus implying a catastrophic vacancy rate. Whereas the availability around Moss Park for $2500/month is probably closer to 100%, thus implying an extreme surplus.

EDIT: And around Jane & Finch it's probably so high the landlords will rush and meet anyone who is willing to spend $2500/month renting there, probably even shower them with appreciation gifts and compliments too.
 
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Undead said:
But that's the thing. Often even the most basic units attract bidding wars. Not to mention many landlords are now demanding to see your resume, character references and even cover letters to rent a room in a student ghetto townhouse.
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Those 'room in a student ghetto townhouse' are likely in a very desirable location. Where a spacious condo, if there are any close by, may easily rent for $5000/month.

Landlords also sometimes underprice their properties to attract bidding wars. Those low prices are just marketing because no comparable property has actually rented out for that cheap in quite a while.

Anyone paying above average rent will have landlords jumping to their feet whereas those paying below average are going to experience the opposite. That's how a market works whatever the vacancy rate is in any city. The average price is obviously affected by it with some lag.
 
MichaelZ said:
Those 'room in a student ghetto townhouse' are likely in a very desirable location. Where a spacious condo, if there are any close by, may easily rent for $5000/month.

Landlords also sometimes underprice their properties to attract bidding wars. Those low prices are just marketing because no comparable property has actually rented out for that cheap in quite a while.

Anyone paying above average rent will have landlords jumping to their feet whereas those paying below average are going to experience the opposite. That's how a market works.
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This was in the YorkU Village area!
 
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