Over the weekend SOLO had the pleasure of being invited to the Ontario Landlord Watch (OLW) Housing Conference held in Cambridge, Ontario. Representing SOLO at the event was board member Varun Sriskanda. While at the event Sriskanda sat as a member on the LTB panel and the RTA panel. Both panels had the task of addressing preselected topics surrounding fixing the LTB and RTA. The crowd also had the opportunity to chime in.
This was an enthusiastic crowd packed with landlords, paralegals, lawyers, realtors, mortgage brokers, politicians, media personnel, advocates, property managers, investors and more. Everyone wanted to hear what the panel had to say about the backlog at the Landlord and Tenant Board, the frustrations small landlords are feeling on an everyday basis and what can be done to bring about change.
The group had questions for the panel relating to what changes can be made to the Residential Tenancies Act to help struggling landlords. Sriskanda, representing SOLO, stated the RTA needs to be amended to allow a landlord to increase rent by the same amount as what the property tax and utilities have increased by. As an example, in the City of Toronto property taxes went up by 2.9% in 2022 but landlords were only allowed to increase rent by 1.2% this year. Sriskanda mentioned legislative changes like fair rent increases coupled with fixing the backlog at the LTB can help attract more investment in residential real estate in Ontario. Over the years we have lost valuable investors to commercial real estate or they focus on residential rentals in other provinces like Alberta. As a result we have reduced rental housing stock and increased the cost of rent.
The event was sponsored by Front Lobby and Coffee & Mortgage amongst others and was strategically held to allow for easy access from all the major cities. We were able to connect with landlords and industry professionals from Windsor, London, Chatham, Kawartha Lakes, Oro-Medonte & Scarborough.
The OLW event was a fantastic opportunity for us to spread the word of SOLO to landlords in Ontario who have not heard of us. We as well met a number of industry professionals that are coming up with cutting edge ways to screen tenants, manage rentals, find mortgages to buy more investments and so much more.
If you want to attend future events that SOLO is at subscribe to our mailing list. Photo of the conference courtesy of Coffee & Mortgage.
