like, it's not like they get here and start looking. no. the indian rentiers bought up all the cheap propety and put the ads up in india, and then bring them in. they advertise on kijiji, but they don't call you back. so, the result is that huge swaths of the city are taken off the market.
worse, there's a handful of local property companies - the worst is marda - that have bought up the remaining properties, and seem to have agreements with the local governments for refugee resettlement. they'll leave units open and sit on them - they won't rent to white people "on welfare". it's like they've taken over a government contract, like the state outsourced the process. and, the result is that you can't find bottom tiered housing here anymore unless you're brought in from overseas, explicitly - either by the university or by the government.
and, the few small property owners out there are all ethnically driven. i can get a white person to rent to me, maybe - and maybe those white people won't rent to brown people. but, this city has a high minority population, and the brown people won't rent to the white people, either. so, my skin colour is kind of frustrating, actually, given that my ancestry is more southern than northern (although i'm both).
listen: i've been searching through this market for years, and i've figured this out.
i won't get through the property companies like marda, but i can hope the ponzi scheme slumlords take a break and i get a chance to move in while they're chasing something else. the wrench is that they might sell to retirees moving in from toronto, in which case the market just dries up - and the school is going to find itself with a housing problem, as the issue becomes critical.