After years of renting downtown, Casey Lewis and three friends are moving to one of Toronto’s wealthiest neighbourhoods. Their new shared home has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a two-car garage and more than one fireplace — it’s also much cheaper.

The four 20-something roommates took the unusual step of moving into a 3,000-square-foot brick home in Forest Hill on Tuesday, paying far less than what it would cost to rent four one-bedroom apartments downtown.

“Everyone I’ve spoken with is a little bit surprised about the area we’re living in,” said Lewis. “You look at all of the houses around us, and it’s all — most likely, at least — single families with BMWs and Audis in the driveways and multimillion dollar houses.”

Their move may not be part of a wave of newcomers to the neighbourhood, but it’s an example of the creative lengths Torontonians are going to in the search for affordable housing, experts and politicians told the Star.

“That it is more affordable for young people to live in a large Forest Hill home than an apartment demonstrates that Toronto’s rental market is out of control,” Ward 22 Councillor Josh Matlow, chair of Toronto’s tenant issues committee, said in an email.

“You’ve got to hand it to them — they’ve come up with a creative way to find the type of housing that they want,” said Jennifer Keesmaat, Toronto’s former chief planner.

“And I think that is a reflection of the fact that things are not staying the same, but our approach to housing is fundamentally changing.”

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment downtown is $1,995 a month, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board. Lewis and his friends will be paying an average of $1,050 each to rent the three-storey home north of St. Clair Ave. W. near Bathurst St.

With all four roommates working north of Bloor St., “it didn’t make sense to pay the premium if you’re not getting the benefit of walking to work,” roommate Jesse Helfand said.

Helfand is a data analyst on Canada Goose’s e-commerce team, and Lewis is the co-founder of an app startup called Feedback. Roommate Andrew Polychronopoulos is a music producer at Hotbox Digital Studios, and Sam Clarke works in wealth management at Scotiabank.

The four are only a minute away from the subway and streetcar, Lewis said.

“We can get all of those things that we’d be able to get living downtown, while also being able to be live in an actual, physical house that is a lot more comfortable and luxurious,” he said.

That young professionals would look to live together in a neighbourhood full of single-family homes “points to how critical it is to be building affordable rentals in a variety of configurations in our city,” Keesmaat said.

“The idea that a certain design of a house is only designed for a mom and dad and two kids is, of course, problematic because it’s not what most of our families look like, and it’s not the way most of us necessarily live.”

Residential home rentals in Forest Hill are “few and far between,” said Ward 21 Councillor Joe Mihevc, whose ward — St Paul’s — contains the roommates’ new home.

“I don’t know too many of those homes that are being rented out,” Mihevc said. “If they are being rented out, they’re being rented out to single families while someone else is on sabbatical, that kind of thing.”

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A four-bedroom, four-bathroom house down the street from the Forest Hill house was recently listed as a rental unit. For $6,950 a month, the home boasts a master suite, newly renovated kitchen, a library and recreation room.

According to the Canadian Rental Housing Index, there are over 524,000 rental households in Toronto, paying an average of $1,242 a month for rent and utilities (compared to the Ontario average of $1,109).

“There is stock in the downtown core. It’s just unaffordable for the average, working young guy,” said Margie Carlson, deputy executive director of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association.

Carlson said Torontonians tend to look at more suburban areas of the city “as if it’s always going to be families, when in fact it’s not always going to be families because of how unaffordable the rental housing is here in the city.

“Landlords get creative, people get creative, that’s what they do,” she said. “I don’t fault these young guys for being creative and solving their housing problem, but it does mean a bit of a shift.”

Lewis most recently lived in the Annex. Before that he lived with two roommates in a condo at Bay and College, where he “paid a little bit more and certainly got nowhere near as much space” as he has at the Forest Hill house.

“For me, the allure of being downtown ... having all-glass walls or whatever, and views of the skyline and being walking distance to cool stuff downtown, that sort of wore off,” Lewis said.

Moving to Forest Hill was also a chance to live together.

“The four of us were all friends from high school and before … it was an opportunity to get to live with our friends while we still can,” Helfand said.

But Lewis wants to assure his new neighbours that there will be no wild parties.

“We’re all working professionals,” he said. “I don’t want it to come off like we’re just gonna be trashing the place and running amok in the neighbourhood.”