Do you need to own a home to be wealthy in Canada? How renters can get ahead – National [Video]

Graham Isador says it feels strange to think about himself as one of the “lucky ones” in Toronto’s notoriously unaffordable housing market.

The 35-year-old freelance writer is a renter, and pays just under $2,000 for a two-bedroom apartment in the city’s downtown core. That’s well below the market rates his friends in the neighbourhood are paying, Isador says.

It’s a relatively affordable apartment, but it’s also become something like a pair of “golden handcuffs,” he tells Global News.

Isador says he’s only been able to hold on to a steady rate of rent because he’s been in the same unit for the past six years. But paying for that apartment on his own is already eating up a “pretty big portion” of his monthly expenses, and the prospect of having to move and probably see those payments spike hundreds of dollars fills him with a certain dread.

“The biggest thing …