Here’s How Much You Can Earn Renting out Your Basement in the GTA

Renting out the basement of a Greater Toronto Area house can potentially net owners tens of thousands of dollars and help offset higher carrying costs associated with single-family homes.

By Josh Sherman | 3 minute read

A finished basement, especially with a separate entrance, is high on some GTA house hunters’ wish lists.

Single-family home owners who rent out their basements in the Greater Toronto Area may earn between approximately $1,800 to $2,600 a month depending on location, new analysis from digital real estate platform Wahi suggests.

“Whether as a mortgage helper or a way to earn some extra cash, Wahi has seen strong interest for houses with rental potential,” says Wahi CEO Benjy Katchen. “Separate entrance was the most-searched term on Wahi in 2023, many buyers are on the hunt for houses they can partly rent out,” he adds.

The four communities with the highest median asking rents for basement were all located in the City of Toronto, according to Wahi’s analysis, although the Regional Municipalities of Halton, Peel, and York were represented in the top 10.

Old Toronto led at $2,600 per month — or $31,200 potential rental income in owners’ pockets per year — but it also had among the highest home prices. Oakville was the non-Toronto outlier in the top five:

To gauge rental-income potential for house hunters, Wahi analyzed median asking rents for one- and two-bedroom lease listings for detached and semi-detached homes in communities throughout the GTA. In some cases, the listing may be for a first- or second-floor rental, but the majority that Wahi’s data team reviewed were basements.

Data was sourced from Information Technology Systems Ontario (ITSO) and the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) and covers a 12-month period ending in June 2024. Communities with fewer than 120 samples were excluded from calculations. Overall, 29 communities met the sales minimum.

Wahi cannot guarantee that all rentals listed are legal apartments. Prospective homebuyers should do their due diligence before making plans to rent out part of their homes.

GTA Communities With the Highest Rental Yields Relative to Home Prices

The highest potential monthly rental income is only part of the investment equation.

For each GTA community, Wahi also looked at annualized rental yields (the median monthly asking rent, multiplied by 12) as a percentage of the local median home price.

While Oshawa’s median monthly rent of $1,875 was the third-lowest in the GTA, the city also had the lowest median sale price in the region by more than $200,000.

Therefore, added together, 12 months of the median rent represented the highest share of the median sale price at (2.8%) of any GTA community.

Seven other communities had a yearly rental yield greater than 2% of the median sale price:

Note that these calculations don’t take into account the interest rate, downpayment, mortgage term, or other factors that contribute to return on investment.

Key Regional Findings

When breaking the GTA down into its four surrounding regions and the City of Toronto, Wahi found that:

Durham provided the highest rental-yield percentage (2.4%) for basement apartments, followed by Toronto (2.1%), Peel (2.1%), Halton (1.8%), and York (1.6%).

Toronto had the highest median monthly rent ($2,300), followed by Halton ($2,050), Peel ($2,000), York ($1,980), and Durham ($1,900).

In terms of supply, Toronto also had the most basement listings (4,037), with York (1,563), Peel (1,384), Durham (959), and Halton (371) trailing.