Some new data about the rental market in cities across Canada is making a move to somewhere like New York City (or at least St. John's, Newfoundland) seem like a viable financial option for some.

Rentals.ca has just released its annual rent report, in which it analyzes all of its listings coast to coast from the previous year.

Toronto topped the list for the priciest one-bedroom apartments in the country from December 2018 to December 2019 — beating out even Vancouver — with units listed on Rentals.ca for an average of $2,299 per month. (By comparison, the average rent for apartments in some parts of Brooklyn is around $2000 CAD).

Two-bedroom units in Toronto were listed, on average, for $2914 on the site last year. 

One-bedrooms in Toronto suburbs like Oakville and Mississauga were next on the list, with Vancouver coming in with the fifth most expensive one-bedroom units at an average price of $1940 per month. Vancouver did the second most expensive average rent for two-bedroom units though, at $2895.

Given the chart above, it's no wonder Ontario had the highest average rents out of all provinces: $2,318 in the last quarter of the year.

The most shocking numbers were in the changes to overall average rent prices year-over-year: in Montreal, this number skyrocketed a staggering 25 per cent, from $1,286 per month to $1,611 per month.

Rents in Vancouver, on average, jumped by 11 per cent from 2018 to 2019, and in Toronto, rose by 9 per cent, as compared with 4.3 per cent in Canada overall. Weirdly, basement apartments saw the highest increase in rent from one year to the next versus other types of units.

Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton were a little more fortunate, with average rents actually decreasing over the course of last year.

And many Canadian cities — such as St. John's, Saskatoon, Lethbridge, Quebec City and Red Deer — proved themselves to be quite affordable, with one-bedroom and two-bedroom rents averaging at $855 to $966 and $1,022 to $1177, respectively.

These numbers are, of course, only based on the listings available on Rentals.ca, but they are pretty reminiscent to similar ones from other rental sites, like Padmapper.

At least Canadians have some options for cities they can relocate to if they don't want to spend such a huge chunk of their income on rent in Toronto.