Ontario family offering two years' rent in advance, can't find a home in the GTA
CTV
A Canadian family offering to pay rent for the next two years in advance can't find a place to live in a suburb north of Toronto. Adrian Ghobrial reports on the rental housing crisis that has demand soaring and prices skyrocketing.
Forced to move out of their rental home in Aurora, Ont., the Eliesen family have been struggling for months to find a new place to live in the town. Their offer of two years' rent up front, or "nearly $100,000 cash," according to David Eliesen, has been declined multiple times.
"(We) put in an offer of $200 a month over the asking price," David's wife, Kayla, told CTV National News. On top of that, they've tried offering other deal-sweeteners, such as $2000 damage deposits, but nothing seems to be working. Each of their multiple offers to rent a family home in the area north of Toronto have been declined.
In June, thanks in part to the recent surge in immigration, the country's population surpassed 40 million. While a growing population is being touted as essential to Canada's economy, real estate experts believe the country has forgotten an important piece of the equation.
"Government really should have tried to solve how to build more homes first before increasing our population growth, because the side effect of that is skyrocketing home prices," John Pasalis, president of Realosophy Realty, told CTV National News.
When it comes to housing affordability in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and the rest of the country, Pasalis believes "the weight of this crisis quite frankly is felt by renters, because they're seeing their rents surge and they're not benefiting the way home owners are from rising home prices."
The Eliesen family have lived in the same home for the last eight years, but their landlord has family immigrating to Canada from Ukraine, and now the landlord needs to move into the home.
The family's rent had been a manageable $1900 dollars per month, but due to current market demands, a similar three- to four-bedroom home in Aurora is going to cost the young Eliesen family roughly $4,000 per month, maybe more.
