It now costs nearly $600 more to rent a Toronto apartment than one year ago

Renting a place to call home in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is no cheap prospect, and it's only getting more expensive to live in the country's most populous urban area.

The Bullpen Research & Consulting and TorontoRentals Toronto GTA Rent Report for August highlights an alarming increase in rental prices in the region, with the monthly cost to rent a unit in the combined 416 and 905 rising 21 per cent compared to the previous year.

Average rent prices climbed to $2,528 region-wide in August from $2,098 the previous year.

That's a whopping $430 year-over-year increase for renters.

And it's a whole lot worse for those residing in Toronto proper, where the average month's rent for an apartment increased 30.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2022, from Q1 2021's low of $1,938, to the current figure of $2,533.

That's a difference of almost $600 per month.

And it's even worse for Toronto renters looking to lease a condominium apartment, where average monthly costs swelled to a whopping $2,963 in August, marking a 43 per cent leap over the pandemic low of under $2,100 in early 2021.

The August average rent sat 9.1 per cent above the pre-pandemic high-average of $2,715, witnessed in August 2019.

But that doesn't mean there aren't some good deals to be found, like in the O'Connor-Parkview neighbourhood, where it costs an average of $1,000 less per month to rent than in the Bay Street corridor area.

Driven in part by inflation and the Bank of Canada increasing interest rates, rental price averages in the region are now over 28 per cent higher than the lows experienced in the darkest days of the pandemic.

Experts suggest that further interest rate hikes — which the Bank of Canada has not ruled out — may "continue to increase [demand] in the rental market," while tight supply combined with high demand may "cause rents to reach new highs in the next few months."

"From May to August, the Greater Toronto Area rental market has experienced four significant monthly rent increases, as tenant demand has skyrocketed due to interest rate changes, a resale house price correction, and the typical seasonal fall uptick," says Ben Myers, president of Bullpen Research & Consulting.