When it comes to housing, young Canadians just can’t catch a break. After watching prices soar ever higher over the last decade, potential buyers are finally seeing them drop — just as rising interest rates push the cost of ownership as a percentage of household income to record highs. Waiting out the market isn’t exactly a winning strategy either, given that rents in most major cities are now skyrocketing.
In Toronto, rents have gone up as much as 20 per cent this year, with some aspiring tenants even facing the sort of ludicrous bidding wars that buyers were contending with before interest rates started to rise. In Vancouver, meanwhile, the average monthly rent for an unfurnished one bedroom has gone up $320 since March. The biggest winners in this latest act of Canada’s housing market drama are those who have already won big: existing homeowners without a mortgage and…
