Before people rush to Montreal to live their best life, they should know my city's beautiful veneer is starting to crack

• Montreal's low cost of living and high quality of life have made it a hot spot in recent years.
• But the city has been dealing with a housing shortage, making it hard to move here.
• French-language laws and endless construction have also made it harder for businesses to thrive.

My newsfeed seemingly tells me to move to a different city every month.

These lists and rankings of the best places to live are fun to scan through — maybe I would be happier in Finland — but seeing my own city make a list gave me pause.

According to Mercer's annual cost-of-living report for 2024, Montreal has a low cost of living and a high quality of life. Of the 226 global cities the report compared, only eight fell into the honorable category.

Montreal is a gem of a city: It's safe and walkable, with a vibrant nightlife and a cultural calendar packed with events. It's also one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada, so why wouldn't you want to get in on the action?

I've lived here with my family for over 50 years and relish ambling through the different boroughs, each with its distinctive history, charm, architecture, and culinary delights.

But that notion of a magical, miracle city "everyone should move to" is a mirage — no matter how many "best places to live" listicles we end up on.

Finding housing in the Canadian city can be incredibly difficult

Although we're known for our quaint cobblestone streets, Montreal is far from a fairy tale for some renters.

Montreal native Lisette Jemmott knows too well how difficult navigating the market can be. At 26, she returned to the city after living in Toronto for 10 years, longing for the high quality of life and phenomenal food scene she remembered from her youth.

At 39, Jemmott is looking to upgrade after living in a basic two-bedroom apartment without included amenities and utilities.

Even though she has a steady job in event planning and marketing that pays market value, all the new apartment listings she found were too expensive for her budget of 1,500 CAD, or about $1,112 a month. Worse yet, rental prices seemed to jump by at least 50 CAD every time she searched.

Thanks to provincial protections that limit and regulate rent increases for existing leases, Jemmott's monthly payment has only gone from 900 to 1,100 CAD over the last eight years.

But similar units in her building now cost 1,500 to 1,700 CAD a month, and things only seem to worsen for new renters. According to The Coalition of Housing Committees and Tenants Associations of Quebec, Montreal rental prices have increased by an average of 27% between 2020 and 2024.

Even after Jemmott decided she was willing to downsize from a two-bedroom to a one-bedroom apartment to live in a building with more amenities, her search ended in vain. For now, she's staying put.

Michael Falduto, a ReMax real-estate broker who serves Montreal and its surrounding suburbs, isn't surprised by Jemmott's experience.

He said that before the pandemic, renters could secure a "luxury condo in a big complex with a pool and all kinds of amenities" for 1,500 CAD a month. Now, renters are getting "a standard two-bedroom" for the same cost.

The broker added that when one of those "unicorn" affordable luxury apartments comes on the market in Montreal, he's inundated with 10 to 15 tour requests almost instantly.

Now, Jemmott is keeping her fingers crossed that home prices fall next year, so she might have the opportunity to buy. But Falduto noted a troubling new trend for first-time homebuyers: Starter homes in Montreal cost at least 40% more than they did in 2020.

Even if buyers qualify for a mortgage, the broker said it's often not enough for them to close a deal.

Consequently, people who would otherwise buy stay in rental properties longer, leaving fewer units available for the next wave of renters.

My husband and I rented in the city for over a decade before we bought our starter home in the late 1990s. But back then, it was a buyers' market.

Given the condition of Montreal's housing market, our "starter" is now just our forever home. It's made more sense for us to renovate instead of trying to find something bigger.

Rising rent prices aren't the only thing making it harder for young professionals to stick around

In a city of 1.8 million, there are nearly 200,000 students — about 11% of the population — largely because of top-notch schools like McGill, Concordia, and Université de Montréal.

However, local business developer Glenn Castanheira said Montreal can be a bit of a fly trap for bright-eyed professionals.

"We have the perfect ingredients to attract that talent because of quality of life and higher education," he told BI.

But 20% of those aforementioned students are international, and the lack of affordable rentals makes it more difficult for them to stick around after school. What should be a vast, diverse talent pool becomes more of a puddle.

Those who do stick around require higher starting salaries to cover their rent, which only drives up business costs.

To make matters worse, if young professionals don't speak French, there isn't a lot of incentive for them to stay and strengthen the Quebec market.

New language signage laws in Quebec, which will come into effect in June 2025, state that businesses must give French at least twice as much space on their storefronts as any other language.

Erkan Yönder, an associate professor of real estate and finance at Concordia University, told BI that he's seen new graduates get driven away by this pressure to be bilingual.

As a Montreal native, I grew up in a home where four languages (sometimes more) could be heard throughout the day. I thought this was the norm for everyone. The city's language rules may send the wrong message to foreign students who want to make Montreal their home but aren't native French speakers.

"Learning a new language shouldn't be a threat or a burden," Yönder said. "I think there are better ways to motivate young kids to learn French and to integrate French into their lives rather than harsh policies."

People can come here looking for joie de vivre, but they'll run into some roadblocks — literally

Businesses also have to compete against the city's carousel of construction projects, which can reduce foot traffic, among other issues. After all, at 382 years old, Montreal requires a lot of upkeep.

According to the City of Montreal website, more than 500 construction projects are carried out within the territory annually, which is why locals quip that Montreal has two seasons: winter and construction.

"It's not even a joke when I say even if the city opens up a 6-inch hole in the pavement, something like 12 cones appear all around it," Castanheira told BI.

Although it's been a big year for new housing construction in Montreal — up 226% since June 2023 — which we surely need, most of these seemingly never-ending projects are infrastructure repairs.

Roads are ripped up or blocked, parking spots are reduced, and in some cases, slabs of plywood are placed over ripped-up sidewalks and roads at the entrances to buildings.

The dust alone can be enough to discourage customers from weaving through the metal construction fences to find a store.

I'm not mad that the city is trying to make these improvements, but it can get a bit exhausting when the projects are stacked one after the next. Sometimes, I just want to walk to the store in peace.

If everyone moves to one shiny city, the problems behind its curtains only worsen

When the weather warms up in the summer, we gather on restaurant terraces, savor amazing food, and temporarily forget about politics and potholes.

But Montreal is far from a fairy tale. Like any city, we have flaws.

Beneath the enchanting facade lies an imperfect reality, including housing scarcity, restrictive provincial regulations, and the steady multiplication of our ubiquitous orange cones.

Before you hastily pack up your things or apply for your Canadian visa, dive below the surface of that "best places to live" listicle by doing some of your own research.