Post by vvvWe would run a credit check on the person we finally decide on before
signing a lease.
I don't know the last time I saw as many vacancies as I see right now in
the city. It seems like every single building has unrented apartments and
it makes me shake my head at the amount of people who are trying still
trying to charge high rents and insist on the person being a single,
working female who has no pets, doesn't smoke and doesn't do anything
besides quietly read books by herself. Good luck to all of ya!
About a year ago I drove in from St. Catharines to the Mississauga
Krispy Kreme (had to give 'em a shot) and was amazed at the number of
new rental units that had gone up along 410 in Mississauga, all with
big banners advertising for tenants. Someone told me a slew had also
opened, as well, in the eastern reaches of Scarborough.
And then you get retired people like me who simply moved out of
apartments in Toronto suburbia and to places like Niagara, Brantford,
etc. (often their old home town) where they save hundreds a month on
larger apartments and are closer to facilities they use and, for me, to
golf courses that are not jammed with duffers and where greens fees are
still under $50 a round.
That opens a lot of apartment doors in Toronto.
Perhaps another reason that buildings in some parts of the city,
itself, have units available -- and I observed this on another jaunt to
the city, this one a couple of weeks ago from downtown on TTC (via
subway and bus) to Moe Pancer's deli on north Bathurst -- is that in
recent years, the old boroughs have become somewhat clustered with
people of similar origin and culture gathering together. For example,
along a few blocks north of Sheppard, what was once Jewish has become
quite Filipino ... and I noticed that buildings along there all had
apartments available. Similar population pockets can be seen on the
trip south on the Bathurst Street bus to Bloor Station.
Families were drawn to the farther reaches of suburbia across the GTA
because of lower rents than in the city, itself, and the fact that
industrial jobs moved out there decades ago. Earlier this summer, I
drove out of the city and through Mississauga along Dundas Street and
was intrigued at the Hurontario Street (Hwy. 10) intersection which has
become a heavily populated enclave of people of Asian sub-continent
origin. Fascinating. There are probably apartments available there.
The once closely contained ethnic neighborhoods of inner Toronto have
expanded outward to become sprawling areas of sub-division homes and
apartments buildings all across the GTA ... in what used to be strictly
white-bread territory. And since most folk look for accommodation in
areas where they'll feel comfortable in going about their daily
business, this ethnic pocketing of the 'burbs surely has some effect on
why many apartments are available in what is supposed to, or was
supposed to be, a lessors market.
- hm