GTA August 2022 by MediaEdge

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CONTENTS 101808 EXTENSIONVIRTUALREAFFIRMEDRECOVERYJUGGLINGJANITORIAL Multifamily rents now topping pre-pandemic Pandemic-relatedlevelscondo rule relaxation continues to September 2023 Contractors embrace automation in the midst of a labour crunch 14 A ONSQUEEZER&D Lab space scarcity portends investment opportunity COVER STORY IN THIS ISSUE 04 THEUNGIRDINGGRID Electricity system capacity central to achieving GHG reduction targets 1008 TABLE OF CONTENTS For more information, call 416.449.4100 ext. tony@trivestdev.com24 TRIVESTDEV.COM TRIVEST WILL MANAGE ALL THE DETAILS OF YOUR RESIDENTIAL OR COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES CUSTOMER SERVICE Make sure tenants feel heard and supported in their living community or business environment. REGULAR MANAGEMENT REPORTING Accurate and timely ﬁnancial statements. DETAILED OPERATIONAL UPDATES Regular maintenance, reporting, marketing and developing each property to its best potential. “VIRTUAL MEETINGS HELP TO CREATE WORK-LIFE BALANCE FOR PROPERTY MANAGERS AND AUDITORS.” – ANGEL-MARIE REINER, PRESIDENT, ONYX CONDO MANAGEMENT

BY BARBARA CARSS

Electricity system capacity central to achieving GHG reduction targets THEUNGIRDINGGRID 4 GTA & BEYOND ■ SEPTEMBER 2022

“If we go to electrification, we’re going to see a higher load in the wintertime,” Scott Rouse, managing partner with the consulting firm, Energy@Work, observed earlier this year during the annual seminar the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Greater Toronto sponsors to discuss the GA and electricity cost issues. “We’re accustomed to those peak hours in the summer, but we may start seeing more in the winter. That’s another scenario that you need to think about.”

“The capacity of the grid to allow for more electrification really depends on our ability to manage the peaks,” added Jeff Ranson, BOMA Toronto’s senior director of energy, environment and advocacy.

Electricity grid capacity is critical to enable the building and transportation sectors to move away from fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

“THE CAPACITY OF THE GRID TO ALLOW FOR MORE ELECTRIFICATION REALLY DEPENDS ON OUR ABILITY TO MANAGE THE PEAKS.”

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Large commercial customers participating in Ontario’s industrial conservation initiative (ICI) program pay GA costs linked to their electricity use in the five hours of systemwide highest demand during the period from May 1 to April 30. A wide-scale switch from gas boilers to electric heat pumps — as envisioned in Canada’s emissions reduction plan and related decarbonization strategies — could influence when those five peaks occur and make them trickier to predict during the transition period.

Conservation and demand management (CDM) is likewise considered key to ease the pressure on the electricity system as Canada pushes toward a targeted 40 to 45% reduction in GHG emissions relative to 2005 levels over the next eight years. In Ontario, building decarbonization is expected to bring new variables to the already byzantine mechanisms for allocating global adjustment (GA) costs, further bolstering the case for simply reducing electricity loads as much as possible.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT

RETROFIT RESET

Energy management specialists stress the importance of infrastructure investment to support clean generation, stable transmission and the integration of smart technologies that will be central to monitoring demand and dispatching a complicated supply mix.

The Canada Green Building Council (CAGBC) points to the same likelihood in its 2021 evaluation of the technical requirements and costs of deep carbon retrofits. Researchers found that buildings of 1990s’ vintage, in

6 GTA & BEYOND ■ SEPTEMBER 2022 ENERGY MANAGEMENT

“ALL

particular, could experience higher annual peak demand and a shift from summertime to wintertime peaks when heat pumps replace gas-fired space and domestic hot water heating. Fuel-switching could even necessitate expansion of a building’s electrical capacity, although that risk was deemed to be rare. “The anticipated energy demand shifts illustrate the importance of demand reduction strategies to minimize both project costs and the potential increased strain on regional electrical grids,” the CAGBC report states. “If a building owner pursues electrification measures without first investigating and mitigating potential peak-demand increases, project costs could soar as a result of needed building electrical distribution upgrades and localized improvements to electrical grid distribution.”Alternatively, early adopters in Ontario might see cost benefits while summer peaks are still the norm, provided they qualify as Class A customers — with annual average monthly demand of at least 1 megawatt (MW) — to participate in the ICI program. Edward Newton, an energy analyst with Energy@ Work, told BOMA Toronto webinar attendees that has been the case for some electrically heated residential buildings in his firm’s client base.“With the current system the way it is, they’re taking great advantage of that because all the peaks are occurring in the summer and they’re seeing lots of savings in the winter paying the Class A [GA] rate,” he reported. “For Class A customers, there are definitely advantages for electric heating.” Rob Edwards, private sector business manager with Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), told webinar attendees many of these issues are being examined in a current IESO consultation and study. “We are quite aware of folks pursuing GHG reductions and decarbonization through electrification. The broader public sector has been pursuing this quite a bit and now large commercial, retail and hospitality are doing so,” Edwards said. “ESG (environmental, THIS NEEDS TO BE CONTROLLED REAL-TIME. IF IT’S NOT, IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT WE DO; IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH ENERGY WE PUMP; THIS GRID IS NEVER GOING TO DELIVER WHAT WE NEED.”

An intimidating array of complicated and capital-intensive components will have to come together fairly quickly if the electricity system is to be net-zeroready in line with national and global targets. Beyond an ample supply of low-carbon generation, it needs to be effectively delivered to users with controls in place to safeguard against the inherent fluctuations in some forms of supply — notably, wind and solar. Energy storage is tapped to be pivotal, but it’s still at an embryonic stage that will have to be vastly and rapidly scaled up to be economically feasible and widely integrated into the system. Tallying some of the challenges during a recent online media briefing sponsored by the United States Energy Association, Andres Carvallo, an engineering professor and specialist in smart technology applications based at Texas State University, noted that the U.S. currently has about 1,100 gigawatts of electricity production capacity nationwide. Meanwhile, the 280 million registered automobiles in the country would represent 28,000 gigawatts of demand if they were all somehow magically converted to electric vehicles (EVs) with 100-kilowatt batteries. “We are going to add 28,000 gigawatts [of demand] in the next 20 to 30 years. This needs to be done in a very, very, very wellintegrated and thoughtful way,” Carvallo cautioned. “Otherwise, we will start having serious brownouts.” Also participating in the briefing, John Bear, chief executive officer of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) reported there is about USD $30 billion of investment in transmission expansion and upgrades slated or underway in the jurisdiction, which encompasses 15 U.S. states and Manitoba. That’s largely to make way for new renewable generation caught in an “interconnection queue” as it is added to the system.

social, governance) is going to really impact the grid. So we’re quite aware of it.”

ENERGY MANAGEMENT

“We’ve got to get the transmission in place so we can allow that interconnection and get rid of the congestion,” he said. The gross required investment is smaller in Canada, of course, but the federal commitment to phase out most fossil-fuel-fired generation by 2035 arguably makes enhanced electricity grid capacity an even more urgent priority. Much hinges on commercially viable energy storage and smart technology.

CHALLENGING COMPONENTS

“Broadband is the single most important missing piece of the whole thing being stitched together,” Carvallo asserted. “All this needs to be controlled real-time. If it’s not, it doesn’t matter what we do; it doesn’t matter how much energy we pump; this grid is never going to deliver what we need.” In the interim, he urges governments, system operators and utilities to prioritize energy efficiency and make demand response programs more lucrative. “A negawatt should be compensated pretty similarly to the price of a megawatt,” Carvallo maintained. “It doesn’t happen. This is something that should be changed to entice behaviour change at large scale.” ■

Phillippe Mack, senior vice president of customer service and U.S. expansion at Bee-Clean, who also served as discussion moderator, highlighted the role technology and automation can play in streamlining time management and payment processes, as well as quality control.

The discussion kicked off with a look at evolv ing technologies in the industry and how they can increase return on investment. Chris King, senior vice president at Hallmark Housekeep ing Services Inc. noted that while technologic al development in the industry has historically been linear — a company or vendor’s new

TECHNOLOGY

singular product is implemented by service providers for one particular task — automation now allows for broader application and expo nential gains, and is redefining cleaning and scheduling.Particular technologies gaining promin ence in recent years include: robots for floor cleaning and vacuuming; unprecedented automation and data collection; and sensory intelligence. Those shifts look set to dominate the landscape in the coming years. Of particular interest to the panelists was IOT-based (internet of things) sensory tech, which allows building and cleaning staff to identify, in real-time, the areas of a facility that are due for cleaning. For example, some washrooms may have experienced high traffic on a given day, while others have been used infrequently. The technology supports dynamic scheduling and deployment of re sources in place of static cleaning schedules so workers can direct their efforts where they are needed most.

8 GTA & BEYOND ■ SEPTEMBER 2022 Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sanitation and real estate indus tries are facing some major challenges. Whether it is hiring and retaining workers, increasing operational efficiencies, wages, in flation, education and training, or the balance between several of those factors, these are serious issues that must be spotlighted and addressed.Thisspring at the 2022 REMI Show in Toronto, a keynote panel of leaders in the cleaning contracting and property management sectors delved into these issues and assessed the potential path forward.

Contractors embrace automation and acknowledge workforce hesitancy

JANITORIAL JUGGLING

“Moving from manual timekeeping processes to automated time and attendance BY TOM NIGHTINGALE

John Castelhano, vice president of strategic sourcing at BGIS, maintained that technology and automation are “absolutely critical” for the modern property manager or sanitation provider, and are proving useful in everything from recruiting and training new employees to procuring products and services to improving service delivery validation.

“Our clients want service validation. They have been repeatedly telling us that,” Castelhano reiterated. “Tech solutions can certainly help with that, as well as increasing their efficiencies and pushing the boundaries of what they can do.”

LABOUR

The employer-contractor relationship anchors it all — underpinning collaborative adoption of efficient processes with embedded training and education. “It’s not just about how tech factors into our staffing model,” asserted Elspeth Evans, director of the east office region at QuadReal Property Group. “It’s about how we can boost that staff retention and ensure that our cleaners are reflective of us as a company. How can we work with our janitorial provider to share a team feel and culture?”

Applying another emerging term, Raposo referred to “techwash” assumptions about automation that don’t acknowledge that employees may have a different perspective on whether new devices are labour-saving or come with an inherent expectation for even greater output on their part.

“Technology is naturally concerning for employees as a potential threat to their livelihood,” Polyak agreed. “Service providers like us need to show employees and contractors that it is a help, not a threat. Engage staff in discussions about technology and automation. Seek their feedback.”

COLLABORATION

“That responsibility is not solely on building service contractors and it’s not solely on property managers,” Castelhano stressed. “It has to be a joint effort.”

The increasing adoption of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) lends itself neatly to that demand by automatically logging and tracking tasks and performances. Tony Raposo, regional vice president of operations at GDI Services Canada, listed some areas where technology’s potential has not yet been fully implemented explored, such as chemical production, waste management, and carbon footprint reduction. However, he sees a clear return on investment from those that are in use. “Set against the context of inflation and wage increases, automation can provide a significant boost to your bottom line by streamlining your operations, but we must ensure that we act on the intelligence we derive from technology,” Raposo said. Other panellists concurred that technology should be viewed in context of required functions, not as a speculative investment. “We need to adapt robotics to meet the specific needs of sites,” Train advised. “Don’t try to do too much. The technology you implement needs to solve an actual problem or deficiency to be worth the investment.”

“The applicant pool is shrinking. Turnover is rising and quickening,” King tallied. “Some of the big factors in these challenges include the demand for workers and the need to balance wages against inflation. The industry still has some catching up to do. Money is the big allure.”

“Client happiness, employee care, budget management — this is all a real balancing act,” Polyak concluded. “A new and heightened level of collaboration is required to create a win/win situation for all parties. Increased transparency at all levels is a must. That’s the key to successful and lasting partnerships and helping to mitigate the unfortunate reality that the pandemic and inflation have imposed upon our industry.” ■

The facility management and cleaning industries have been confronting a labour problem that has intensified since the depth of the pandemic. The panelists were unanimous that attracting workers was the foremost challenge as of mid-2022. Workers are also expecting, or demanding, higher wages than the industry has typically offered.

TOM NIGHTINGALE IS EDITOR OF FACILITY CLEANING & MAINTENANCE.

9www. REMInetwork.com OPERATIONS platforms streamlines process, and the same could apply to manual quality control,” he said. “Think of the benefits of replacing manual inspections with real-time tabletbased QA (quality assurance) platforms.” Kimberly Train, director of platform services and procurement at OMERS, emphasized the role that technology can play in visibility and performance reporting. “As a head office person in property management, I have the luxury of robotics reports, but not reports about the fulfillment of cleaning,” she noted. “Our customers and contractors want that visibility. They — and we — want to ensure that high-priority tasks are fulfilled to the required quality.”

While she ranks compensation as a key ingredient of employee attraction and retention —“Meet them with money,” Polyak suggested — she also sees a role for company culture. “As well as the obvious bottom-line concerns, it’s all about the well-being of employees,” Polyak added. “The right culture, training and recognition equate to a stickier relationship with associates, which displays opportunities for advancement and lowers“Yourturnover.”company’s beliefs and values will pass onto your employees if you are vocal and consistent with them,” Raposo echoed.

Roberta Polyak, vice president of human resources at Bee-Clean, lamented that the industry has a persistent image problem. “How do you attract employees and break the stigma and stereotypes that still, unfortunately, surround the cleaning industry?” she mused. Polyak describes the prevailing attitude as “the great “Workersexpectation”.wanttoknow what you are going to do for them,” she said. “That’s a question that employers are increasingly needing to answer right off the bat.” Asked what keeps them up at night these days, the panelists cited the balance between labour constraints and the need to protect the bottom line as a key dilemma. Train called it “the great squeeze”. “It becomes a question of what has to be reduced or eliminated in order to allow us to raise wages, while also delivering what our customers demand,” she said. “Cutting or limiting costs, but paying attractively and fairly is an exceptionally difficult line to walk.”

The Condominium Management Regulatory Authority of Ontario (CMRAO) recently published data on the status of transitional general licences, as this year’s condo manager licence renewal cycle came to an end. This class of licenses temporarily recognized condominium managers who had at least two years of experience, obtained between Nov. 1, 2012 and Nov. 1, 2017, but had not yet completed the educational or examination requirements for a general licence. Transitional general licenses were not eligible for renewal after May 31, 2022.

Pandemic-related condo rule relaxation continues to September 2023 VIRTUAL

Of the 805 managers the CMRAO approved for a transitional general licence, 418 obtained a general licence, 69 obtained a limited licence, and 289 allowed their licence to expire at some point between 2018 and 2022. There are 18 licensees who have been granted temporary extensions either as an accommodation under the Ontario Human Rights Code, or to give the CMRAO more time to review their general licence application. – REMI Network

LICENSING REQUIREMENT SPURRED CONDO MANGER TURNOVER

ondominium boards and property managers are assured of an extension to Ontario’s unencumbered allowance for virtual annual general meetings (AGMs) and online or telephone voting. Arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, condo corporations have been able to employ these measures without first adopting an authorizing bylaw.

Nearly 36% of the condominium managers who were granted transitional licenses when Ontario’s Condominium Management Services Act came into force did not pursue permanent accreditation.

10 GTA & BEYOND ■ SEPTEMBER 2022 REGULATORY UPDATE

The temporary freedom had been due to expire on September 30 this year, but that termination date was recently pushed to September 2023. Fans of online meetings and voting say they hope the provincial government will use the next 12 months to amend the Condominium Act to simply allow the practices outright so that expectations that have now become routine could be met without intervening administrative complications. EXTENSION

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“Attendance since the launch of virtual meetings for AGMs has increased dramatically. Before virtual meetings, it could be challenging to get a quorum. Now, technology has made not being able to achieve a quorum a thing of the past,” reports Angel-Marie Reiner, president of Onyx Condo Management. “The thought of the potential of having to go back to in-person meetings, and not being able to vote in advance digitally, has our industry taking several steps back.” Condo lawyer Denise Lash addressed the issue in a recent blog post, prior to the announcement of the extension. “It is hard to believe that, after more than two years, the Ministry would bring back this requirement to put a bylaw in place when virtual meetings and e-voting have had a positive impact on condo governance and accessibility for owners in attending and voting at owners’ meetings,” she observed.Intheevent that the provincial government doesn’t permanently change the rules, condo corporations will at least have another year to get an authorizing bylaw in place. That would entail holding an owners’ meeting to vote on adopting theInbylaw.addition to straightforward allowance for vir tual meetings, condo corporations have also been able to send electronic notices to all owners dur ing this pandemic-related relaxation of rules. After Sept. 30, 2023, the rule could potentially revert to requiring owners’ consent to receive documents digitally. Nor is there leeway in the Condominium Act to pass a bylaw to automatically authorize elec tronic“Hopefullycommunication.wewill see a permanent change to this requirement,” Lash said. “We have heard from many managers that the thought of having to produce those 30+ page AGM packages to send to owners is something that they thought they would never have to deal with again.” Reiner maintains that virtual meetings have been positive for condo owners and property managers. She cites owner feedback that AGMs are more “enjoyable” and notes that it has been less burdensome for the property managers and auditors who, prior to the pandemic, were invariably spending many evenings travelling to inperson“Virtualmeetings.meetings help to create work-life balance for property managers and auditors. It means they are already home after a long day and an evening meeting,” she says. “This is improving the industry. This option has, and will keep the industry thriving with talent who want to work in property management. Property management is a busy profession. Why add an extra step to something that has worked well for over two years?” ■

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14 GTA & BEYOND ■ SEPTEMBER 2022

Life sciences enterprises have few options to secure space in multi-tenant facilities outside of two highly in-demand R&D campuses in Toronto and Hamilton — MaRS Discovery District and McMaster Innovation Park — and have often invested their own capital to get accommodations suited to their needs. This has translated into a fragmented supply of predominantly smaller owner-occupied buildings.

Market analysts see a vibrant niche of investment potential in current lab space scarcity across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). A new report from CBRE pegs the vacancy rate at 0.2% within approximately 12.3 million square feet of inventory. Meanwhile, there’s presumed demand for about 3.6 million square feet of either research and development (R&D) or good manufacturing practices (GMP) space.

“The concentration of lab space in smaller facilities greatly limits the ability for occupiers to expand and grow at scale. The shortage of true multi-tenant lab properties has limited options of occupiers over the years, forcing them to buy or Lab space scarcity portends investment opportunity ON R&D

It’s estimated that about 70% of the GTHA’s existing R&D and GMP lab space is found in venues no larger than 100,000 square feet. Pharmaceutical and bio-manufacturer firms typically operate most of the larger facilities.

A SQUEEZE

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The same patterns play out in prospective space demand. Lacey and Lee project a need for 1.9 million square feet of R&D lab space, with the majority of proponents seeking between 10,000 to 20,000 square feet.

“The laboratory real estate market in the GTHA is a nascent one, but ballooning demand domestically and from abroad is attracting growing investor interest,” they maintain. “Combined with the success and growth of the lab sector seen in the U.S., investor demand has also grown as they come to better understand the nuances and associated costs with building and leasing highly sophisticated lab space.” LAB MARKET AT WWW.CBRE.COM/

REPORT CAN BE FOUND

It all amounts to what Lacey and Lee present as a lucrative void for investors and developers to fill, particularly through the delivery of multi-tenant facilities. Taking the MaRS and McMaster campuses out of the mix, other multi-tenant options make up just 2.3% of the current lab space inventory.

R&D space represents a range of sectors including from companies specializing in advanced materials, medical devices, biotechnology, agri-tech, clean tech, genomics, infectious diseases and energy. Contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMO) and vaccine manufacturers are leading the push for GMP space.

Preferred timelines for the delivery of new lab space ranges from within the next 18 months for R&D firms focused on deploying venture capital to up to three years for GMP users with complicated facility requirements. Both types of users are placing a priority on “wet lab” space that accommodates the safe and environmentally appropriate handling of chemicals and hazardous materials.

In characterizing the demand, Lacey and Lee sketch out the differing profiles of R&D and GMP operatives. Research and development firms occupy about 8.5 million square feet of existing lab space, including 3 million square feet in the MaRS and McMaster campuses, the small 280,000-squarefoot quotient of multi-tenant facilities elsewhere and 5.3 million square feet in single-user Manufacturersbuildings.occupy fewer, but larger buildings — nearly 4 million square feet in single-use facilities, of which 54% are larger than 50,000 square feet and about 27% are larger than 100,000 square feet.

■ THE TORONTO

IT’SINSIGHTS/FIGURES/TORONTO-LAB-MARKET-H1-2022.ESTIMATEDTHATABOUT 70% OF THE GTHA’S EXISTING R&D AND GMP LAB SPACE IS FOUND IN VENUES NO LARGER THAN 100,000 SQUARE FEET. 16 GTA & BEYOND ■ SEPTEMBER 2022 MARKET OUTLOOK

“These smaller requirements are best accommodated by multi-tenant facilities,” they contend. Meanwhile, the estimated demand for 1.7 million square feet of GMP space, would typically be in portions of 100,000 square feet or Demandlarger.for

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Many are also interested in the synergies of the GTHA’s existing lab space clusters, which — along with MaRS and McMaster — include the Pill Hill pharmaceutical node, located near the Mississauga campus of University of Toronto, and the Sheridan Research Park in south Mississauga. As well, convenient highway access is on many space seekers’ wish list.

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Toronto ranks seventh among the 33 surveyed markets with 25,185 units of purpose-built rental units under construction. New York tops the list with nearly 57,000 units under construction, followed by Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Atlanta and Los Angeles. Currently, there are nearly 853,000 units of purpose-built rental housing under construction across the U.S.. With approximately 47,700 purpose-built units in progress, Canada is adding the equivalent of 5.6% of the new U.S. inventory in a country with a population roughly 11.6% the size of the U.S.. Together, Toronto and Vancouver account for 75% of current Canadian construction. When viewed in relation to the status quo, Vancouver is expanding at a greater pace than Toronto. Vancouver’s in-progress complement is equivalent to 7.7% of its existing inventory of purpose-built rental housing, while new construction in Toronto amounts to 6.6% of the existing purpose-built inventory.

Looking at existing stock, transactions ebbed in the second quarter of 2022, but sales value volume in the Greater Toronto Area was only slightly behind last year’s pace due to a 16.5% year-over-year increase in the average price per suite. Colliers Canada’s GTA multifamily market report pegs that average at $358,390 along with an average cap rate of 3.13%. Spring saw a total of 1,721 units trade in 19 deals for an overall sales volume of $647.7 million. That’s down from Q1 when 34 transactions encompassing 2,138 units totalled $794.4 million is salesMuchvalue.of2021’s activity — representing nearly $3.3 billion in sales value as vendors offloaded 10,305 units — occurred in the third and fourth quarters. Sales volume for the first half of 2022 was just 1.3% short of the June 30, 2021 tally. ■

18 GTA & BEYOND ■ SEPTEMBER 2022 MARKET OUTLOOK

Multifamily rents now topping pre-pandemic levels

Lee & Associates analysts report 9.2% rent growth across the U.S. during the first half of this year, a pace that has nevertheless slackened from the 11.2% growth of 2021. Rents are roughly comparable to or lower than in Toronto and Vancouver in six of the surveyed U.S. cities: Spartanburg, South Carolina; Indianapolis, Indiana; Saint Louis, Missouri; Cincinnati, Ohio; Omaha, Nebraska; and Cleveland, Ohio.

“The Greater Toronto Area continues to see unprecedented rent growth with monthly increases exceeding 3% in May, June and July,” reports Ben Myers, president of Bullpen Research & Consulting. “The average rent in the GTA in July of $2,482 per month has now topped the previous market-high recorded in November 2019 of $2,460. With further interest rate hikes coming, uncertainty in the ownership market and the high-demand fall rental season upcoming, expect further outsized rent increases over the next few months.”However, Toronto rents are moderately ranked when lumped in with the largest urban centres in the United States. Data for the second quarter of 2022 from Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services pegs average market rent in Toronto at USD $1,113 (CAD $1,427), well below the U.S. index average of USD $1,640 (CAD $2,115).

RECOVERY REAFFIRMED

Cleveland bottoms out the list with average market rent of USD $1,066 (CAD $1,375).

Toronto and Vancouver recorded the lowest vacancy rates among 33 surveyed markets, of which 31 are located in the U.S.. In fact, the Canada-wide vacancy rate, cited at 1.9%, is 10 basis points lower than the tightest U.S. market, Santa Barbara, California.

emand for rentals in downtown Toronto soared in July 2022, and looks likely to escalate in the short term according to projections from Bullpen Research & Consulting and TorontoRentals.com. Overall, average monthly rents across the GTA rose by more than $400, or 19.3% year-overyear, and by 3.3% month-over-month. At the high end for condo rentals, average rents reached $2,667 — up by nearly 25% since July 2021. Across 24 Toronto neighbourhoods, average rent-per-square-foot hit $3.73, repre senting a 20% year-over-year increase.

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