MoneyFlex

By Alicia Tyler on November 3, 2025
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

By Alicia Tyler on November 3, 2025
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

From micro-apartments to co-living, Gen Z is finding clever ways to balance cost, convenience, and lifestyle as offices reopen.

After years of remote work and suburban migrations, many young Canadians are being pulled back into city centres, where rental markets are more expensive. Toronto’s average rent, for example, sits around $2,600/month—about 20% higher than the national average, keeping the city among Canada’s priciest rental markets, after Vancouver.

Even as the Bank of Canada’s rate cuts make headlines, affordability challenges continue to squeeze Gen Z and younger millennials from both sides: rising rents and record-high housing costs.

“The return-to-office push has really redefined what ‘affordable’ means,” says Rishard Rameez, CEO and co-founder of Zown, a buyer-first real estate platform designed to help renters transition into ownership “faster, and with a lot less stress.”

Zown’s model is built for transparency, combining salaried realtors, trusted lenders, and instant pre-approvals. “Our goal is to put buyers first, not the system, by giving them more transparency, more support, and even up to 1.5% of the home purchase price back at closing,” Rameez explains. “So far, we’ve supported over $300 million in transactions and helped thousands of Canadians take that next step into homeownership with confidence.”

As more companies call employees back into the office, whether hybrid or full-time, young renters are being forced to rethink how—and where—they live. “A lot of young renters who moved to smaller cities during the pandemic are now faced with either long commutes or higher rents if they want to be closer to work,” says Rameez. “Many are choosing smaller spaces downtown, splitting rent with friends, or even taking on micro-apartments to cut travel........

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