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The average price of a rental in both Metro Vancouver and Greater Toronto is now the same, $2,239 per month, while it is $1,709 in Montreal.
With Ottawa telling many foreign students to delay plans to attend classes, real estate analyst Stephen Punwasi, of Better Dwelling, says “students that have been paying rent and living overseas (away from their homelands) are unlikely to renew their digs in Canada into the school year. … With their extended absence, hundreds of thousands of homes will be sitting empty.”
The number of people who obtained a study permit to come to Canada was down 40 per cent in the second quarter of this year, after COVID-19 hit, compared to the same quarter last year. In B.C., foreign students have dipped by 38 per cent.
International students are typically renters, Punwasi said, but it is becoming more common for many of them to buy homes.
The housing market in Vancouver and Toronto is more complicated than the rental scene, where the decline of foreign students is contributing to tenants having more choice after years of almost zero-vacancy rates.
In light of restrictions to combat the coronavirus, the number of new permanent residents moving to Toronto has dropped by 41 per cent, and to Montreal by a whopping 63 per cent. (The latter is partly due to Premier Francois Legault’s commitment to reducing immigration levels.)
For some reason, the immigration plunge has been milder for Metro Vancouver, where the dip has been just 19 per cent, according to Better Dwelling. This may partly explain why prices have so far been more or less holding compared to 2019, a relatively down year.
