Back in September 2017, Amazon announced its intent to establish a “sister” installation to its Seattle headquarters, and a leading property portal predicted in its latest report that Toronto’s renters might have to pay at least another $137 annually should Amazon push through with building the new HQ in the city.
Just a few weeks ago, Toronto was named among Amazon’s short list of 20 finalists. TorontoRentals.com estimated that such a sister HQ in the city will bring as much as 50,000 highly paid Amazon workers and an assumed 66,250 supplementary workers over a 10-year period.
Consequently, annual rent increases could shoot up to as much as 2.8% to 3.1%.
“This would be mostly driven by the influx of workers with wages higher than the metro median who could afford higher rents, especially given Toronto’s highly competitive rental market and record low vacancy rate,” the TorontoRentals.com report stated.
“The other factor to consider is the total housing supply available for the population growth from the workforce expansion, but as luck would have it, Toronto maintains a healthy ratio of new jobs to housing starts.”
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“The projected rent increases would not impact the market equally — some neighbourhoods could see even bigger jumps depending on the final location that’s selected for the HQ. With Toronto’s record low vacancy rates, it becomes difficult to calculate the upward rise of rents. Of course, there would be no immediate impact for those properties that fall under rental control regulations” the report added.
TorontoRentals.com noted that these projections have precedent in Seattle’s prices, which saw a rent increase of around 3% since the first Amazon headquarters was established in the city.
However, “the numbers did see a slight drop in the last month of 2017. According to data from Zillow, Seattle’s rents grew by 42% since 2010, which is three years after Amazon set up shop. By 2017, the median rent in Seattle was $2,203, up from $1,553 in 2010.”
Ephraim is currently a journalist at Mortgage Broker News, Real Estate Professional and Canadian Real Estate Wealth.
Ephraim is a highly accomplished news reporter whose work has been published across North America and the Asia Pacific region. Before joining Key Media, Ephraim spent eight years working as a journalist with Reuters TV. His areas of expertise include real estate, mortgage, and finance.
As part of its response to Canada’s ongoing housing challenges, the federal government has added another 12 new properties to the Canada Public Land Bank,...
As part of its response to Canada’s ongoing housing challenges, the federal government has added another 12 new properties to the Canada Public Land Bank,...
