New TAL Calculation: Renovated Apartments Already Cost 10% More
Apartments listed as "renovated" in Quebec cost 10% more than listings without that label. That's $130 per month, or $1,560 per year.
The TAL is releasing its new calculation grid on Monday, the first update in 40 years. One of the key changes is a fixed 5% rate for renovations, which shortens the timeline for landlords to recover their investment.
Ahead of this announcement, I analyzed 250,000 apartments listed in the past 6 months. Since I was already working on a new feature that will let users filter by renovation status on Dwellup, the data was already available to me.
The Numbers
For apartments listed in the past 6 months, all sizes combined:
- Renovated apartments: $1,475/month (median rent)
- Standard apartments: $1,345/month (median rent)
- The premium: $130/month (10%)
This is based on 65,195 listings mentioning renovations and 187,481 listings without that mention across Quebec.
What's Next?
Historically, the TAL limited rent increases for renovations to amounts generally below 5%. Yet our data shows landlords are already charging 10% more for renovated units, well above what the official calculation allowed.
With the new fixed 5% rate, legal increases will potentially be higher. But perhaps clearer rules will encourage landlords to actually use the TAL's official calculation. And who knows, it might even have a positive impact on the number of rent-fixing requests at the Tribunal.
It'll be interesting to compare these numbers in the future to see the real impact of the changes. I'll definitely be back with the data.
A Note on the Data
The "renovated" status is self-reported by landlords in their listings. There's no standard definition, it could mean anything from a full renovation to a coat of paint. This analysis simply compares listings that mention a renovation versus those that don't. All figures use median rent to avoid skew from outliers and include both rented and still available listings.
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