Housing crisis impacting moving season Montreal

As moving day across Quebec approaches July 1st, moving companies like Meldrum The Mover in NDG are facing an irregular season. They say compared to previous years, there has been a delay in when residents are moving, which means many on their team are working overtime to keep up with the sudden surge in demand.

As moving day across Quebec approaches July 1st, moving companies like Meldrum The Mover in NDG are facing an irregular season. (Felisha Adam, CityNews)

“At this stage of the game everyone helps out everyone, so if someone’s finishing a bit earlier we send them for reinforcements somewhere else…everyone’s out, everyone’s out,” says Josh Schwartz, the co owner of Meldrum The Mover.

Josh Schwartz, co-owner of Meldrum The Mover (Felisha Adam, CityNews)

“They’re long days,” says Teryn Fairfax, a Mover and Driver, with Meldrum The Mover, “we’re looking at 12 to 13-hour days usually,” Fairfax added.

With rent in Montreal continuing to rise and the price of homes up, the housing crisis is only getting worse. Many in the city aren’t able to afford or even find available housing, something Schwartz says he’s seeing with the late start of the moving season.

“The fact that there’s less supply on the market that housing is not as affordable as it usually is that is certainly a contributing factor as to how the moving season has started a bit later.” 

According to a report by housing advocacy group RCLALQ, the average rent prices in Montreal saw an increase of 14 per cent from 2022 to 2023, and a rise by 19 per cent in the province as a whole. 

As of June, Montreal hit another new yearly high for the average cost of rent for an unfurnished, one-bedroom unit costing 1,717 dollars, according to liv.rent data.

This compared to the previous year when the average cost was at fourteen hundred. The trend of rent increases also seen in major cities like Toronto and Vancouver according to the same website. 

Teryn Fairfax, a Mover and Driver, with Meldrum The Mover (Felisha Adam/CityNews)

“It’s been a little bit less,” says Fairfax, about 2023’s moving season. 

With the lack of housing available and prices continually increasing, advocates say Bill 31 the province’s new housing bill will only make the problem worse. 

If passed, the bill would put an end to lease transfers, which have become a common way for tenants to control rent by preventing landlords from hiking prices between tenants.

“People are locked into leases and trying to keep that cost down, and obviously the longer you stay in one place, you build a rapport with the landlord, you have better pricing opportunities, so that’s definitely discouraging people from packing up and finding somewhere new to go,” Fairfax added.