Toronto and Vancouver residents must make at least $40 per hour working a full-time job if they hope to reasonably afford a two-bedroom apartment within the city, suggests a new report by an Ottawa-based think tank.
The report’s authors found that the rental wage needed to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver is over $32.30, while in Toronto it is just over $33.60.
Renting a two-bedroom apartment in Toronto requires a rental wage of around $40.00, while in Vancouver it comes in even higher at $42.60.
The British Columbia cities of Kelowna and Victoria are the next two most expensive cities in Canada for renting two-bedroom apartments as they both require rental wages of over $34.80, while Ottawa and Halifax are the fifth and sixth most expensive cities for two-bedroom units.
The report’s authors also found that each province’s rental wage is “considerably higher” than its minimum wage.
Toronto and Vancouver
Furthermore, the one-bedroom rental wage is higher than the minimum wage in all of Canada’s cities except for Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, and Saguenay, all of which are located in Quebec.“Vancouver and Toronto are the worst culprits,” the report says. “Even two full-time minimum-wage workers cannot afford a one-bedroom unit without spending more than 30 percent of their combined income on housing.”
Royal LePage added that the average rental price of a one-bedroom apartment in the Toronto area already increased more than 15 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2023.
“Chronic shortage of housing supply, due in part to sellers’ hesitancy to list, continues to put upward pressure on home prices,” the firm wrote.