[URBAN NOTE] "How does Montreal maintain its enviably low rents?"

[rfmcdonald]

As Eric Andrew-Gee explains in The Globe and Mail, relatively weak demand driven by relatively low levels of migration, abundant if aging rental stock, and government policies explain the low rents of Montréal.

The only thing missing was a wrought-iron staircase.

Otherwise, the apartment that Bronwyn Ford shared with her university friends in Montreal’s bohemian Outremont neighbourhood was a pure product of its place. High ceilings. Creaky wooden floors. A Hasidic landlord named Israel.

It also shared a more important attribute with its neighbours: It was cheap. Four bedrooms at $1,800 a month. That sort of price for a handsome, spacious apartment might look like a typo to the rest of Canada. But in Montreal, it rates as unremarkable.

The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the Montreal metro area is $760. The Toronto average is $1,288. In Vancouver, it’s $1,368. In all, just a handful of Canadian cities have cheaper rent than Montreal – and then only much smaller, sleepier communities such as Saint John and Trois-Rivières.

Even as stratospheric housing costs in Toronto and Vancouver dominate headlines and bankers warn of a Canadian housing bubble, the country’s second-largest city continues to churn along with bargain-basement rents that would make most of North America salivate.