Rational Ideas: I suspect the CMHC's average rent surveys are essentially meaningless for apartment hunters as they appear to include rents paid by sitting tenants. (I challenge you to find those elusive $1,340 one-bedroom apartments for new tenants in central Toronto in regular apartment buildings. And you just won't find them in condos. I suspect you'll be looking for a long time. You might find some bachelor units in that price range.) Market rents for new tenants are the only figures that count. In my very ordinary 1960s/70s-style building near a subway station in the north downtown area a sitting tenant pays roughly $1,200 to $1,500 monthly for a one-bedroom apartment, varying due to length of tenancy, floor number and unit size. Monthly rents for new tenants moving into those same apartments range from roughly $1,500 to $2,000, depending on floor number and unit size.