With the housing crisis, has doing a swap become the only way to find a new apartment in Montreal? 24 hours chatted with four people who are currently looking for new accommodation.
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Andrea and her partner, who are expecting their first child, are looking for a new, larger apartment. To find the rare pearl, the couple wants to use their 3 1⁄2 in La Petite-Patrie, whose rent is $725 per month, as currency.
A swap is when two tenants agree to give each other their lease and exchange their accommodation.
“We are forced to do it, because there are only swaps that are available at low prices,” says Andrea, who says she does not do it lightly.
Swaps and more swaps
The Montrealer does not seem to be the only one to try the swap, which is very popular with tenants whose rent is below the current market. On Marketplace, swap ads are ubiquitous, as are on many tenant groups on Facebook.
In general, the tenant publishes photos accompanied by a description of his current apartment. He also indicates the type of accommodation he is looking for as well as the price range he is interested in.
And is it legal to “swap” his apartment?
It absolutely is, says housing lawyer David Searle. As this is a double assignment of lease, a landlord cannot oppose it, unless he has a serious reason. For example, if he believes the person cannot afford housing.
And does it work?
Since Andrea posted an ad in Marketplace and Facebook groups in early March, she has received hundreds of messages from people interested in repossessing her home. According to his observations, at least a third of these people were actively looking to make a swap.
However, she notices that some tenants claim to want to exchange apartments just to test the market.
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Beautiful inexpensive apartments
Like Andrea, Maryève, who pays $670 a month for a 3 1⁄2 in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, reluctantly turned to the swap.
“The apartments that are in swap are really cheap, they are beautiful, there are balconies and light, versus the apartments that are not in swap [qui sont chers et en moins bon état]», remarks the Montrealer.
“All the announcements that we saw of swaps, it annoyed us a little […]but we decided to go in there, because, otherwise, we couldn’t find anything”, continues the one who hopes for a larger accommodation to move in with her partner.
However, her plan seems to have fallen through: her landlady informed her that she wanted to take advantage of her departure to take over the accommodation for her daughter.
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Eve has wanted to leave the family home for some time. But with the state in the market, she feared finding herself with nothing. But now one of her friends has decided to leave her 3 1⁄2 at $560 a month in Villeray. Eve can therefore use it to make a swap.
“I was really lucky to have the opportunity to do a swap, because otherwise I don’t think I would have been able [de trouver un appartement à bon prix]“, she admits.
Good news for tenants?
On paper, swaps can help keep housing prices affordable.
Lease transfers allow tenants to circumvent significant rent increases, underlines Guillaume Dostaler, coordinator of Entraide Logement, a committee in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
People who don’t have an interesting home to swap, however, could suffer from the rise in popularity of swaps. This is the case of Maely, who still lives with her parents.
“Since I have nothing to swap, I feel taken,” regrets the young woman, who fears that the affordable apartments will remain in the hands of the same tenants.
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