Oakville Apartments for Rent

Searching for Oakville apartments for rent? There are some things that you should know about the market before you start your search. Finding out the average monthly rent, the demand for apartments, the type of apartments that are readily available, and information about the neighbourhoods of the town, will all help you to make an informed decision when it comes time to sign your rental agreement.

The Apartment Rental Market in Oakville

Oakville is a popular town situated to the west of Toronto and within the Greater Toronto Area. With its proximity to the big city there’s no doubting that Oakville is a very popular and desirable place to live but with this popularity comes expensive real estate. If you can’t afford to buy a home right now, but you still want to benefit from the Oakville lifestyle, then renting could be the answer.

Having said this, demand for rental apartments is high too. The vacancy rate actually dropped in Oakville to 0.9% in 2012 – this means that out of all the Oakville apartments for rent, less than 1% of them were vacant at the time of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation survey. The CMHC conduct an annual survey on the rental market and it gives us a good picture of what the market is doing in Oakville each year.

The surprising thing is that the Oakville vacancy rate is actually the lowest in the GTA, so there are no other towns or cities in the region with a lower vacancy rate. Of course, this could be because there are fewer apartments for rent in the first place, and if there are fewer apartments to begin with there will be fewer vacancies if the demand is high.

And with that high demand comes fairly high rental rates. If you look at the average rates in the CMHC’s report there are only a couple of places right in Toronto that command a higher monthly rental rate than Oakville does. Here are the averages for the town as recorded in October 2012: for a bachelor unit the average rent was $855; for a 1 bedroom apartment it was $1,081; for a 2 bedroom apartment it was $1,251; and for a 3+ bedroom apartment it was $1,436. This gives an average of $1,204.

Oakville apartments for rent cost less than only a couple of areas in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area: Toronto Central, Toronto North, and the Former City of Toronto – these are the only neighbourhoods that cost more.

Renting Compared to Buying

Even though the cost of apartments for rent is high, it’s still likely to be less than you would pay in monthly mortgage payments for a similar sized home if you were to buy it. Then of course you have all the other costs associated with home ownership such as property taxes, insurance and maintenance, so really if you’re hoping to live in Oakville, finding an apartment for rent is an affordable way to go.

You may also find that, when renting, you can live in an apartment or condo in a brand new building. Oakville has many new high-rise condos being built around the town in addition to the many low-rise condos and apartments that exist already.

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