Average Toronto renter earns more than $94k but still can't afford to buy

Average rent prices in Toronto are on a downslide, having fallen more drastically than in any other metropolis in the country over the last year. But, the cost of living in the city is still far from affordable — so much so that even those making an impressive salary of nearly $100k are choosing to (or being forced to) serve as long-term tenants rather than buying a place of their own.

This revelation comes from yet another new report on the state of the market; this one, from tenant screening platform SingleKey, which sifted through data from across the country — namely, hundreds of thousands of rental applications — to paint a picture of what renting in Canada is like in 2025.

Of interest to Toronto residents, of course, is how our numbers differ from other hubs. And yes, the contrast is quite substantial. 

While T.O.'s tenants pay noticeably more for a place to live than their counterparts in four of the five other cities surveyed (an average of $2,581, says SingleKey), they are also the most financially stable.

They earn more than renters in Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal, Halifax, and even Vancouver — about $94,370 each, compared to the national average of $67,536  — and, despite carrying higher debt in dollar amount than said other cities (to the tune of around $693 per month), they have the best credit scores, as well as lower rent-to-income and rent+debt-to-income ratios than the typical Canadian renter.

Also, fewer renters in the 6ix face bankruptcy and collections issues than anywhere else surveyed: 1.1 per cent and 4.3 per cent, respectively, vs. 3.3 and 11.6 per cent nationally.

But, while this is all pretty good news for those living in or considering living in T.O., there are some data points that have changed for the worse in recent years. 

More people are renting for longer than in past eras, with the average Toronto tenant now 34 years of age.

As the study notes, "Renting [in Canada] is no longer a short-term stage of life. The median renter is now between 31 and 33 years old, and about 12 per cent of households have children. This signals that many renters are settling into long-term rental housing rather than transitioning to ownership."

It adds that the "traditional" model of '"rent in 20s, buy before kids'" is collapsing, as "renters are now in their mid-30s, and whether they have families depends more on regional affordability than age... they're staying longer in their rentals and building families in them, further illuminating the unaffordable nature of home ownership across the country."

And yes, the unaffordability problem, prompted in part by rapid population growth, has become unignorable, with more of people's hard-earned money — in Toronto and also across Canada — now being devoted to keeping a roof over their heads than in earlier decades.

Though the percentage of their pay that Torontonians devote to rent falls right in the middle of the cities analyzed in the study, at 30.6 per cent, it is still creeping into unfeasible territory. The standard model for living wage calculations — that is, what someone would have to make to live "comfortably" in a given place — advises that one expend no more than 30 per cent of their earnings to housing costs.

This ratio is even worse in Vancouver (35.6 per cent), but also in Montreal (32.3 per cent) and Halifax (34.2 per cent), despite these cities having cheaper housing and other costs.