Montreal's February Rent Report Is Out & Here's Where You Might Be Able To Afford To Live
It's still cheaper than most places in the GTA, though.
A row of colourful Montreal apartments during winter.
Buying a home is feeling increasingly unachievable for many Canadians, who turn instead to a life of renting someone else's property in order to avoid sleeping on the street. The hunt for a good apartment to rent in Montreal is somewhat easier than searching for a house to own, but folks here and everywhere are disillusioned.
As of 2022, 33 per cent of non-homeowners "believe they will never be able to buy a family home," 15 per cent more than in 2021, according to a survey by Mortgage Professionals Canada (MPC).
But the rental market in Montreal isn't rainbows and unicorns either, with prices steadily on the increase year over year and month over month. If you want some positive news, Montreal's rental market remains better than other major cities, namely Vancouver and Toronto, but it's still not pretty.
The cost of an unfurnished one-bedroom apartment is still over $1,500 monthly, sitting at $1,573 according to information compiled by liv.rent. In February 2021, the same unit would have cost $1,414.
Montreal's most expensive neighbourhood this month was St-Henri, where an unfurnished one-bedroom goes for an average of $1,834 — still much lower than Toronto's overall average rent for the same unit type this month. In the GTA, the average unfurnished one-bedroom costs over $2,000 per month, according to liv.rent. Bargain hunters may also want to avoid the downtown and Westmount areas, which are the second- and third-priciest neighbourhoods, respectively.
For Montrealers looking for cheaper options, the neighbourhood with the lowest rent remains Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, with an average of $1,332 per month for (say it with me now) an unfurnished one-bedroom apartment. If you can't see yourself gentrifying Oshlag, you can try Notre-Dame-de-Grace or Villeray-Parc-Extension, two other neighbourhoods whose cheap rents stand out among the rest.
Furnished apartments will run you a higher bill, even in cheaper areas like Cote-des-Neiges, where a furnished one-bedroom costs an average of $1,260. You may notice that this is less than an unfurnished unit in St-Henri — many of the cheaper furnished options end up costing less on average than unfurnished apartments depending on the area.
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
