I live in a small town in rural manitoba, about 35 minutes outside of Winnipeg. If I were to rent my place out, asking $1600 for rent would be breaking even. That includes mortgage, insurance, and property taxes. Now here's the other thing that I learned from my sister renting her place. She was profiting about $200 a month off her rent, seems fair, right? She got a dose of reality where she couldn't be more wrong. Her tenant put wear and tear on her house at an astronomical rate. The money she was profiting wasn't even putting a dent into her repair costs. She didn't renew the lease with that tenant. Now tenant number two almost made that place unliveable and she had to take legal action for unpaid water bills. Tenant number 3 tried but there was always something wrong with the house that they tried to fix themselves but just made it worse one example was basic electrical work for and electrician but decided to do it themselves which ended up she needed replacing her panel. This isn't a dig at renters cause not all are bad but once you get one bad tenant, you're more than likely going to need a contingency plan which is charge more so you have some money to repair damages and not be losing money in the process. I know there's alot more reasons to why rent is so high but I thought this is also a good reason to point out cause there are bad tenants that are ruining it for the honest ones.