You walk into an apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows, an open-plan kitchen, and clean modern finishes. It photographs beautifully. Six months later you are paying noticeably more for heating and cooling than a neighbour in a similar-sized unit, you smell cooking from three floors away, and you hear every footstep above you. The building itself is the problem — and it
A single problematic tenant can cost a landlord thousands in missed rent, legal fees, and repairs. According to TransUnion, 44% of evictions among property management companies could have been avoided through better screening. That figure explains why Canadian landlords are digging deeper into applications than ever before. Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you make a
Sixty-eight percent of Canadians believe buying a home is less attainable now than it was for their parents, according to a BMO survey. That number climbs even higher among Gen Z and younger Millennials. In Vancouver, housing costs now sit at 14.5 times the median household income. Toronto is at 11.8 times. Victoria is at 10.7 times. For a growing
First-time buyers now take an average of 4.4 years to save for a down payment, and 41% rely on a financial gift from family to make the leap. Many don’t realise that the total cost of buying goes far beyond the purchase price — and that ignoring a few key programs can cost them tens of thousands. Disclosure: Some links
Canadian cities are shutting down the short-term rental market. The era of buying a condo purely to rent on Airbnb is ending fast. Cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal are now strictly limiting short-term rentals to primary residences only. The goal is to return housing to long-term residents. With an estimated 235,000 homes currently acting as tourist stays, the pressure
If you own a home in Canada worth $500,000, your annual property tax bill could be anywhere from $1,350 in Vancouver to over $7,000 in Saint John, New Brunswick. That is not a small difference — it is thousands of dollars a year, every year, for the same priced home. Most buyers focus on mortgage rates and purchase price, but
For the first time in years, Canadian renters have a meaningful edge. Average asking rents have fallen year-over-year in 24 of 40 major markets, with Toronto down 3.9% and Vancouver down 5.9% compared to last year. A successful negotiation can save between $600 and $1,800 per year — money that stays in your pocket rather than going to a landlord.
Back in 2012, Canada saw about 10,000 apartments built inside mixed-use developments — buildings where shops, restaurants, or offices sit on the ground floor and homes sit above. By 2021, that number had jumped to 43,700. That’s more than a fourfold increase in less than a decade, and it tells you something about how Canadian cities are being built right
In 2023, the median renting family under 35 held just $12,000 in liquid assets. To buy a home at the national average price forecast for 2026, you would need roughly $137,791 for a 20% downpayment alone. That gap explains why more Canadian families are pooling resources to buy homes together — not as a fallback, but as a deliberate strategy.
In 2023, 38% of Canadian homebuyers waived their home inspection — up from 22% in 2021. That single decision has since cost thousands in unexpected repairs for buyers who thought they were saving time and winning a bidding war. What many don’t realise until after closing is that the average cost to fix latent defects runs about $15,000, compared to
Canada lost hundreds of department stores and anchor tenants over the past decade as e-commerce and the pandemic rewrote retail. Malls that once anchored suburban life now sit half-empty on some of the most service-ready land in the country — large lots with road access, utilities, and transit already in place. That same land is now being looked at as
You drive past a house with a realtor’s sign out front, and you see the “Open House” placard. A few years ago, that probably meant a steady stream of visitors. Today, it could mean a realtor sitting alone for four hours, or it could mean a line of buyers waiting outside. It depends entirely on where in Canada that house
