It has all the makings of a Hollywood hit: a sympathetic protagonist on a near-impossible search for the urban holy grail: a $1,300 one-bedroom apartment in the downtown core.

Fed up with sharing space with four roommates, 27-year-old Huy Do just wanted a reasonably priced place of his own. So, inspired by all the great films he’s seen at TIFF, he made his quest into a movie poster, marketing himself as the perfect tenant on sites like Facebook, Reddit and Kijji.

“For anyone who really wants to find a place, at this point with how competitive it is, it’s just necessary to stand out,” Do explained.

“One man, one dream, one bedroom near the core of Toronto,” the poster proclaims, adding rave reviews about Do such as “never parties” and “very likeable” as well as “employed full time” and “can pay by any method.”

While some critics are panning the price — one Reddit user said they’d rent him their bathroom for that pittance — his search may just have a happy ending.

“Fingers crossed, I’m going to sign something today,” Do said Tuesday of a one-bedroom basement in Leslieville that’s in his price range.

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While that may not be a cinematic accomplishment in other cities, it’s turning into an epic find in Toronto, where the vacancy rate is just one per cent.

Average rent for a one-bedroom in the centre of Toronto is now $1,498, according to November 2017 figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

Do thinks the poster, and a song he made on his Mac with GarageBand called “Closer to a one-bedroom apartment,” show landlords he’s both creative, and serious about his search. He said he’s lost track of how many reached out to him after he released his personal branding campaign last week.

While not everyone is making posters, rental resumes are becoming more popular in a market rife with bidding wars, said Conrad Rygier, a real-estate broker with Keller Williams Neighbourhood Realty Inc.

He said he’s been advising clients for a while now to offer a bit about themselves and personalize their paperwork to stand out.

That’s not going to compete against someone offering $100 or $200 more in rent, but “if offers are very similar and they’re in competition, it gives them a slight edge,” Rygier said.

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He added that downtown rentals at around the $1,500 to $1,600 mark are becoming a “dying commodity,” at least from what he’s seen on MLS, an online database of listings.

While Do is happy that his effort seems to have paid off, he recognizes not every tenant has the creativity, time or Photoshop skills to mount such a search.

“I don’t think what I did could be scalable, or even repeatable,” he said. “Hopefully it shines a light to kind of a different story as well, that it’s just a tough market out there.”