How to find a rental place in Toronto?

Are you new to Toronto? Are you looking to rent a place to stay? This post will help you with some introductory information on renting a place to stay in Toronto, and different options that you can choose from

1) Real estate platforms

Real Estate platforms are online websites owned and operated by private real estate brokerages. They invest in such projects so they can get potential customers as leads through these sites. Regardless of their intention, in most cases, these websites do a great job in consolidating all the official real estate listings (a.k.a MLS Listings) for easy search and find. These websites publish only the rental listings registered through MLS by a realtor agent. This means that the rental opportunities listed here are not posted by owners directly, they are posted by the real estate agent hired by the owner

Here are a list of platforms that you can use to find rental listings:

  • Realtor.ca
  • Zoocasa.ca
  • Zolo.ca
  • HouseSigma.ca

2) Online Marketplace

Online Marketplaces are not controlled by any private or public organizations. However, they offer a great avenue for the condo owners and home owners to directly list their units for rent, and work directly with the tenants. This process eliminates real estate agents from the picture. There are both pros and cons to this approach, but most of the risk is for the home owners, the tenants have little risk. Tenants just have to make sure the lister is a real home owner and never transfer money to anyone without meeting them personally and verifying they are the real owners

Here are the two most popular platforms that successfully connect condo owners directly with their potential customers:

  • Kijiji
  • Facebook Marketplace

3) Apartment Rental Platforms

In Toronto area, there are some great online platforms that focus specifically on listing apartment units. Apartments are different from condominiums. Apartments are owned and operated by large real estate companies. All the units in an apartment building are owned by the same company and are managed centrally by a property management company. This is different from condos which are owned by individual owners like you and me. Hence, some of the online platforms have direct links with these property management companies and list their available units in their website

Here are some online platforms that have good coverage on apartment building rentals:

  1. padmapper.ca
  2. Viewit.ca

4) Apartment Websites

Some of the biggest apartment buildings are quite popular among the locals and they know the buildings by location or name. For e.g. Sheppard Centre Apartments is located in Yonge and Sheppard, and has 1000+ units. If you heard about the apartment from a friend or was recommended by someone you know at work, you can just directly go to their website and check prices and availability. Similarly, across Greater Toronto Area, there are thousands of apartment buildings and if you are looking for information on a particular building, you can always check out their website directly to get up to date information.

5) Real Estate Agents

If you are new to Canada or if you are someone who prefer not doing the search yourself, there is always the good old approach of finding yourself a real estate agent who can help you with the search. As a renter, you don’t need to pay anything to the real estate agent. The agent is usually paid by the owner who is looking to rent out his unit.

Final Tip:

Whatever approach you choose, make sure you do some research on the neighborhoods and understand the pros and cons of a particular location. This is especially important if you are a new immigrant in Canada and you don’t know much about the city

If you have any questions on finding a place in Greater Toronto Area or in any other areas in Canada, please leave your question in the comment below and we will try our best to answer it

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