UWindsor international students facing housing rental woes

To check the legitimacy of potential rentals, international student Shafkat Chowdhury says a few of his Windsor friends went to view a handful of homes for him. 

"Other houses that they checked, they actually didn't [meet] my expectations because the pictures are really good, showing that the house is in good condition, but when you go physically, the scenery was actually different," Chowdhury said. 

The University of Windsor master's student says trying to find a place to live while outside of the city isn't easy. And this year was all the more difficult. 

With programs making a return to in-person learning, more students were on the hunt for a spot to rent. But low supply has driven up prices and made it hard to find a good spot. On top of that, many international students said they're dealing with fake advertisements or ones that have little to no pictures of the house, and landlords who aren't flexible with leasing contracts. 

And this isn't unique to Windsor. Across Canada, the student housing market has taken a hit, according to Mark Taylor, co-founder of housing assistance organization Places 4 Students. 

"We've had a bit of a perfect storm in the last year and a half," Taylor said. 

"We've lost rental properties and then we have excess numbers of students coming back this year, so it's created this problem of finding available rentals at a cheap or reasonable rate."