Now is a pretty good time to be looking for Toronto apartment rentals... relatively speaking. 

On one hand, average asking rent prices are lower right now they have been in more than a year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, Toronto is still the most expensive (or second-most expensive, depending on how you're measuring) place to rent a place in Canada.

Could you get a much larger place for much less money in literally any other major Canadian city except for Vancouver? Yes. But could you even imagine scoring a two-bedroom in downtown Toronto for less than $2,000 a month before COVID came to town? Heck no.

And average rent prices just keep on falling.

Image via Bullpen Research & Consulting and TorontoRentals.com.

The latest GTA rental market update and assessment report from Bullpen Research and torontorentals.com shows that the average monthly rent price for all property types across the region declined in February of 2021 for the 15th month straight.

Year over year, rent prices are down a whopping 16.3 per cent, hitting a new average of $1,986 — and that's not just for one-bedroom rental units, that's for all property types of all sizes in all parts of the Greater Toronto Area.

For downtown Toronto specifically, condos and apartments did experience a nearly 20 per cent decline in average rental rates compared to the year previous.

Average rents for condo apartments are down 18 per cent in the Greater Toronto area as a whole, but rent on single family homes hasn't quite plummeted in the same way: Houses were down only eight per cent in February of 2021 compared to February of 2020. Still down, though. We'll take it.

Image via Bullpen Research & Consulting and TorontoRentals.com.

One home type that saw significant price drops for renters is the micro-condo (units around 300 square feet or less). This makes sense, as downtown office workers flee their tiny shoeboxes in search of better work-from-home situations and Airbnb-lords ditch their ghost hotels.  

According to the report from Bullpen and torontorentals.com, the average rent for micro-condo units in Toronto have fallen by a staggering 27 per cent from their 2019 levels.

You can see a full breakdown of how different unit sizes, neighbourhoods and even specific condo developments stacked up in terms of price-per-square-foot here, but the main takeaway is that spiralling rents haven't stabilized yet.

"The spring rental market is now upon us, and that will be a test for the resiliency of the market, as this period typically experiences the strongest demand of the year," said Bullpen's president, Ben Myers, of the market at present.

"Are tenants willing to return downtown in anticipation of a re-opening of offices, or wait until it becomes a reality?"