Anyone paying attention to the current state of the Canadian real estate market will most likely want to start investing their money as soon as possible. Now that we’ve weathered the last few years of unprecedented price appreciation, investors can look forward to a brief cool down with expected interest rate hikes, followed by a gradual growth rate characteristic of the Canadian market pre-Covid.
Rental properties are a great investment for anyone ready with a lot of capital and a steady stream of income to rely on. As people scour for homes and condos for sale in Toronto, plenty get frustrated and just decide to rent. Now, as tempting as it might be to hunt for rental properties in downtown Toronto, you might have better luck broadening your scope to the many cities nearby. We’ve collected some of the best areas near Toronto for investing in rental properties, as well as a few reasons why you should invest in the first place if you’re not fully convinced it’s a good idea. Let’s take a look.
Where You Should Invest
The Greater Toronto Area
Just because downtown Toronto might be a little too out of your price range doesn’t mean you should forego Toronto altogether. There are plenty of great spots around the Toronto area ripe for rental investment opportunities.
Any property you can find anywhere along the Yonge Street corridor is a great bet as it’s a direct line right to the centre of downtown. Obviously, the closer you can get to the city centre, the better, but don’t forgo rising suburban areas like Richmond Hill and Brampton. As more and more Torontonians move further out from the city centre, satellite cities like those will soon run out of housing, and anyone with rental property will be happy they invested when they did.
You might be afraid of investing in the GTA with all the news of a ‘mass exodus’ of Torontonians to parts elsewhere in Canada. While a lot of people are indeed leaving the GTA, this isn’t an exodus; it’s a spillover. Plenty of people are still moving into the GTA to make up for all the people leaving. Picture Toronto as a big river that’s flooding over the levees. You don’t need to worry about the population shrinking anytime soon.
Kitchener
Located about an hour and twenty minutes from Toronto, Kitchener is a great city for investors looking to focus on a market that’s mostly independent from the GTA. Kitchener is far enough away from Toronto to have its own feel and flavour and that’s attracting many Torontonians to pick up stakes and try Kitchener out.
Kitchener is good for renting because many people moving to the area are young, well-educated, and moving for work and not to settle down with a family. This demographic is most likely looking for apartments, not homes for sale, which is great for anyone looking to invest in a rental property.
Niagara Falls
Believe it or not, Niagara Falls is developing into a highly competitive real estate market thanks to so many Toronto Residents seeing this ‘sleepy, tourist town’ as a great place to escape the city for the Ontario countryside. Niagara and nearby St. Catharine’s are great areas for rental investors and plenty of people can see it now. The secret is out, which means be prepared for some stiff competition for the best properties!
London
While in no way “near” to Toronto, London, ON is an area investors should keep their eye on. London is a great rental property opportunity for one big reason: students. London has two major schools, Fanshawe College and Western University, with several other universities drawing in even more students.
Students by and large are only going to be in the area for a few years, so they almost always rent at least a few of these years. As new students move in and out of the area each year, it’s a safe bet that you’re guaranteed low vacancy rates and a near-constant demand for apartments.
London, ON is a golden opportunity if you can invest in a rental property there.
Why Should You Invest in a Rental Property in the First Place?
The thing with money is, on its own, money is a depreciating asset. If you put a hundred dollars in a safe and waited twenty years, it wouldn’t be worth more than a hundred. It wouldn’t even be worth a hundred anymore. It would be worthless! Thanks to inflation, money is always depreciating slowly. That’s why people invest their money.
If you invest your money, it still depreciates, but if the asset you’re investing in appreciates, at the very least you’ll even out the value of your money and, most of the time, increase its value. The point is, if you don’t invest your money, it will definitely depreciate, but if you do invest it, you’ll make more in the long run.
Real estate is a great asset to invest in because people always have to live somewhere and, barring tremendous acts of nature and chance, land just doesn’t disappear all that often. Investing in rental property is even better because not only does the asset appreciate in value, people will pay you even more to access that asset.
You don’t necessarily need to invest in apartments either. Let’s say you have a three-bedroom house, but you only need one of those bedrooms. You can rent out one of those bedrooms and use that money you earn from the tenant to pay off your mortgage. Plenty of people in the GTA do just that.
If you’re looking to get into the Toronto area rental market, you’re in the right place. Toronto is an area with a notoriously small supply of homes and an inexhaustible demand for housing. Wherever you invest in and around the GTA, you should have no trouble finding tenants. Just try your best to invest in properties near schools, amenities, and nearby transportation centres, and you should have no trouble bringing in a profit.
