02-06-2017, 04:48 PM
(02-06-2017, 04:05 PM)taylortbb Wrote:(02-06-2017, 03:37 PM)timc Wrote: Something doesn't seem right about that math. If you have 5000 extra student apartment beds, that doesn't necessarily mean that you will have 1000 more single family homes available. Won't you also end up with a bunch of student apartments that are unrentable because there simply aren't enough students to fill them? Are we approaching the point where there are literally more apartments than there are renters to fill them? Isn't it possible to have a glut of a specific type of apartment while experiencing a shortage of another?
I think most students prefer the northdale high rises, and they appear to have no issues with being rented. This certainly appears to be true among friends that are still in that rental market, with many telling me they pay $650-700/month for one bedroom with roommates in the towers near the university. Very few students seem to actually prefer living in houses in lakeshore, beechwood, etc.
So, it's true that if enough students preferred houses over the towers then we could see empty towers and no new availability of houses, but I don't think this is actually the case. Friends that rent houses in those neighbourhoods only do so because they're cheap, and not because they prefer it. I think we'll see more tower construction reduce prices for towers as supply catches up with demand for close to campus living, and houses converting back to owner occupied as they become more profitable to sell than to rent to students.
And if the prices do drop on the Northdale tower rentals, even more students will be drawn there rather than living further afield.