So many renters breaking their rental agreement and leaving early.

[cdr108]

Maybe. It's probably common amongst student rentals where they sign a 1 year lease but are only in the city for 9 months.

With vacancy rates under 1% and rents increasing by another 10% over this year it doesn't hurt the landlord all that much. TREB listed 1 Bedrooms with no parking are up $25 from May.

think you're drinking too much of the TREB koolaid

 

[rbt]

think you're drinking too much of the TREB koolaid

It matches what's happening at X-Condos, so I went with it. I follow unit pricing for the upper elevator bank. Craigslist/Kijiji show 1+1's are asking $1850 and 2 beds $2300; electricity, parking ($150), and storage ($50) are extra.

~18 months ago 1+1's were $1800 and included parking.

I'm not aware of any public statistics for condo rent information other than TREB. If someone has a good source of condo rental rates bordering Bloor/Yonge, please let me know.

 

[UserNameToronto]

think you're drinking too much of the TREB koolaid

Trolling isn't helpful.

Is there any evidence to suggest it's easy to rent in Toronto? That vacancy rates are at a high level, or rising? That landlords are having to hustle to find tenants? I think not.

 

[marsh]

I think there is a dichotomy in the rental market. I think the overall rental market is pretty tight - I seem to remember that from somewhere. It seems particularly tight in the rental market for condo units (again impression from stories I read over the past year). At the sametime if I go by older apartment buildings, that dont' have all the bells and whistles of a new condo, there are always vacancy signs.

 

[rbt]

I think there is a dichotomy in the rental market. I think the overall rental market is pretty tight - I seem to remember that from somewhere. It seems particularly tight in the rental market for condo units (again impression from stories I read over the past year). At the sametime if I go by older apartment buildings, that dont' have all the bells and whistles of a new condo, there are always vacancy signs.

A 0% vacancy rate doesn't mean that nobody intends to move out. In a 200 unit apartment building there would be a 5 to 20 units turning over in any given month.

They don't wait until the unit is actually empty before trying to rent it out again.

A 1% vacancy rate, despite being very low, means 4 or 6 completely empty units in a typical large apartment building.

 

[Alistriwen]

From my personal perspective, I might be looking at leaving a lease early very soon. I have been in my brand new "luxury" unit for just under a month and have been unable to reasonably, quietly enjoy my living space since more tenants have started to move into the building. The noise levels between units are insane, unlike anywhere else I've ever lived and the developer and pm company aren't willing to do much of anything to help me. I can't be expected to pay thousands of dollars in rent to live in a prison. The landlord is nice, and I suspect it won't be an issue since the unit will be re-rented easily. From the landlord's perspective, he can guarantee I won't be staying past the term of my lease anyways, so he may as well try to find someone who will rent for a few years at least. The building itself also hasn't delivered on many of my expectations and things I was promised from a luxury building so I feel deceived to some extent. The concierge team is unprofessional and frankly, rude which makes it an unfriendly environment to be in. These were not things I could have determined in a 10 minute visit to see the place. My unit is also unregistered though and I found out the landlord has been trying to hide my presence here as a renter so I think the incentive is there for him anyways not to make an issue. I will probably end up moving back into the building I just moved from at great cost to myself so it's not like I'm saving a buck here. I can't be expected to stay in a place where there is noise from 6 am - 3 am with no chance of it stopping when my job requires me to be rested and alert to do it successfully. Where you live is the most important place in your life, you have to be reasonably happy there (with realistic expectations based on how much you are paying or paid if you're a buyer). For $1500+ a month I think condo renters can reasonably expect a clean, quiet, well maintained building with friendly attentive staff. I've had that everywhere else I've lived, as do my friends, but this place doesn't provide it. Should I really spend an entire year here miserable?

Obviously, my intention is not just to flee and obviously my situation is not typical of every situation but if renters are leaving early I'd wager some of them at least are in similar predicaments. In some cases, I'm sure the landlords are even aware of the deficiencies and simply choose not to inform their tenants. I've met quite a few super skeezy, sketchy landlords in my hunt for a condo to live in. One guy told me he would not be repainting the unit despite huge ugly brown smudges on the walls, would not be cleaning the unit prior to move in, and then went on to say he wanted a $200 fob deposit and a $500 damage deposit on top of that (illegal) and that he'd be doing a more in depth "character check" on prospective tenants than in other rentals. The arrogance was staggering and my friends and I were appalled. Anyways, I'm just speculating that there might be a lot more of this going on than people realize.

 

[Toronto Real Estate Agent]

i work with a lot of renters and very few over the years have moved out before the 1 year mark.

 

[onetimetoomany]

Alistriwen if you don't mind me asking what building is this?

 

[TrickyRicky]

I would never try to contractually force or otherwise coerce a tenant to stay in my property. With experience this becomes intuitively obvious. If you find yourself constantly in this situation as a landlord there is something wrong with either the value proposition you are making to tenants or the nature of how you deal with people in general.

 

[Regular]

There are alot of these. It's hard to judge the factors as it can vary from price to neighbour issues. Best would be to have a talk with the tenant to negotiate a better possibility.

 

[TheKingEast]

I heard from a real estate friend that there is a huge spike in renters leaving before their rental agreement is completed,has any condo landlords experience this themselves.

I have a friend going through this right now. You really have to hope you get a good tenant because some know that the laws are stacked in their favor. My friend's tenant is on a serious power trip. LOL.

 

[TheKingEast]

From my personal perspective, I might be looking at leaving a lease early very soon. I have been in my brand new "luxury" unit for just under a month and have been unable to reasonably, quietly enjoy my living space since more tenants have started to move into the building. The noise levels between units are insane, unlike anywhere else I've ever lived and the developer and pm company aren't willing to do much of anything to help me. I can't be expected to pay thousands of dollars in rent to live in a prison. The landlord is nice, and I suspect it won't be an issue since the unit will be re-rented easily. From the landlord's perspective, he can guarantee I won't be staying past the term of my lease anyways, so he may as well try to find someone who will rent for a few years at least. The building itself also hasn't delivered on many of my expectations and things I was promised from a luxury building so I feel deceived to some extent. The concierge team is unprofessional and frankly, rude which makes it an unfriendly environment to be in. These were not things I could have determined in a 10 minute visit to see the place. My unit is also unregistered though and I found out the landlord has been trying to hide my presence here as a renter so I think the incentive is there for him anyways not to make an issue. I will probably end up moving back into the building I just moved from at great cost to myself so it's not like I'm saving a buck here. I can't be expected to stay in a place where there is noise from 6 am - 3 am with no chance of it stopping when my job requires me to be rested and alert to do it successfully. Where you live is the most important place in your life, you have to be reasonably happy there (with realistic expectations based on how much you are paying or paid if you're a buyer). For $1500+ a month I think condo renters can reasonably expect a clean, quiet, well maintained building with friendly attentive staff. I've had that everywhere else I've lived, as do my friends, but this place doesn't provide it. Should I really spend an entire year here miserable?

Obviously, my intention is not just to flee and obviously my situation is not typical of every situation but if renters are leaving early I'd wager some of them at least are in similar predicaments. In some cases, I'm sure the landlords are even aware of the deficiencies and simply choose not to inform their tenants. I've met quite a few super skeezy, sketchy landlords in my hunt for a condo to live in. One guy told me he would not be repainting the unit despite huge ugly brown smudges on the walls, would not be cleaning the unit prior to move in, and then went on to say he wanted a $200 fob deposit and a $500 damage deposit on top of that (illegal) and that he'd be doing a more in depth "character check" on prospective tenants than in other rentals. The arrogance was staggering and my friends and I were appalled. Anyways, I'm just speculating that there might be a lot more of this going on than people realize.

Breaking a lease early because a place is noisy is pretty weak. If I was the landlord I'd actually go to the tribunal with this.

 

[DearSummer]

Breaking a lease early because a place is noisy is pretty weak. If I was the landlord I'd actually go to the tribunal with this.

Why not just rent it out to somebody that actually wants to be there? Nothing good comes of getting into a dispute with a renter who is still living in your property, especially when you could easily rent it to somebody else.

 

[interested]

Why not just rent it out to somebody that actually wants to be there? Nothing good comes of getting into a dispute with a renter who is still living in your property, especially when you could easily rent it to somebody else.

There are a couple of issues DearSummer.
While I fully agree that nothing good comes out of an unhappy tenancy, the reality is the landlord is incurring significant costs as is the tenant when the tenant moves out early. If there are touchups to be done, means the landlord has expense. If the landlord is using a real estate agent, there is 1 month rental + HST to pay. If one is paying this twice in 1 year, this is taking away from the landlords return rates which are already very low on condos. Furthermore, if the unit ends up empty even for a short period, this too costs the landlord.

That all said, the landlord really cannot control the noise level in a building. The tenant also is in the ackward position of not really being able to establish that beforehand. Perhaps the solution is for the tenant to ask some neighbours before signing "what is the building like" and " what problems have they noted ".

I can't condone the landlord violating the terms of his agreement with the developer and frankly the landlord in the case being discussed will not say anything because the tenant will simply tell him that he will inform the developer which will result in the landlord being in violation of the agreement and the developer telling him he can't be there...thereby achieving the result the tenant wishes at least in this case.

 

[interested]

In my experience as a small landlord with a few properties, I have had people leave early only when they were transferred. By early, I mean after 1 year on a 2 or 3 year lease. All my 1 year leases have extended to at least 2 years.
I have been fortunate perhaps that I have properties that are not overly noisy but I would also like to think that with good prescreening, being very up front at the onset of anything I am aware of, and being a very descent and attentive landlord, my tenants are happy. I will add for the most part my tenants have also gone out of their way to maintain my properties.

That said, I did have one experience where I had a tenant who left after 8 months. He complained there was a yappy dog next door. He informed me of it while saying he was leaving. It gave me no chance to deal with the issue at all. I informed the condo corporation. Of course the next door neighbour denied the dog was "yappy". It was just not worth to fight though I did get another tenant, discussed with the neighbour and the condo corporation.. New tenant moved in.... no further complaints...and remained in there for 2 years. He left because he left Toronto. So I really don't know if the dog was yappy, the 2nd tenant had a higher tolerance, or the first tenant just used an excuse.