Community by Evgeny Tchebotarev on 500px

Toronto is the condo capital of North America. For a number of years now, there have been more condos under construction in this city compared to any other in North America, including New York.

But recently the real estate community has become incredibly interested in building multi-family apartments (also known as purpose-built rental buildings). Which is why about 7 months ago I wrote a post called, Rise of rental.

It has been decades since Toronto built rental apartment buildings at any sort of scale. That means that our existing stock is generally pretty old and that condominiums – rented out by individual investors – have been almost exclusively fulfilling the need for rental apartments in this city.

But given that purpose-built rental apartments are on the rise, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about them and about the consumer perspective. 

And so here’s my question to you:

If you were looking for a place to rent, would it make a difference whether it was a condominium (rented out by an individual investor) or whether it was a professionally managed apartment building? You can assume that the suite itself is identical.

There are obviously many differences between both forms of tenure, but I’m curious to what extent that factors into the decision making process for consumers. It hasn’t really been an option in recent years, but that seems destined to change.

I hope we can have a discussion in the comment section below.