I negotiated the price down

Journey from $650/month to owning a condo a modern impossibility

- ANDREA YU

In the fall of 2012, I rented my first room in Toronto. I had returned from a four-year stint working in Hong Kong and was living rent-free with my mom in her suburban townhouse in Newmarket, commuting two hours to a temp job that paid $12 an hour. That lasted three weeks before I found it — a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of an old townhouse in Trinity Bellwoods that I’d share with a 20something dancer and artist. It was just a one-month sublet, in a home owned by an older Portuguese couple. I found the listing on Craigslist and managed to negotiate the price down from $700 to $650 a month. I figured I’d start off at this monthlong sublet, building social connections in the city, and find a longerterm spot to rent afterwards.

That first sublet was the beginning of my housing journey in Toronto, leading me to buy a condo eight years later, in 2020. We often talk about entering the home-buying market at the right time, but renting when I did allowed me to live below my means, take career risks and save up to make condo ownership a possibility.

I don’t turn to other 20-somethings today and say: “Look at what I did. You can do it too!” The idea of negotiating down a room rental seems unfathomable today, as does sustaining a life downtown at such a meagre wage, and yet at the time I was able to budget for entertainment, like the occasional restaurant meal or drinks at a bar. But I recognize how incredibly different the housing landscape is now for young people moving to Toronto.