Renting in Woodstock and Leamington in 2026

Woodstock and Leamington aren't neighbours — Woodstock sits in Oxford County between London and Kitchener, while Leamington sits on Lake Erie near Windsor, about two and a half hours away. They're covered together here because both are smaller Ontario rental markets where houses, not apartment buildings, do most of the work. In both towns, single-detached houses make up a larger share of the rental stock than the Ontario average, so this page leads with house-forward context for each rather than the apartment-building framing that fits a bigger city.

Woodstock is a city of 46,705 residents as of the 2021 Census, up 14.2% from 40,902 in 2016 — one of the faster-growing small cities in this size range in Ontario. It's the county seat of Oxford County, sitting on the Thames River roughly 56 km (about 41 minutes) east of Kitchener and around an hour and a half from Toronto.

Woodstock's economy centres on automotive and parts manufacturing, anchored by Toyota's assembly plant and a large GM parts-distribution warehouse, alongside Woodstock General Hospital and a Hino Motors truck-assembly plant. Just west in Ingersoll, the CAMI Assembly plant has been idle since GM cancelled Chevrolet BrightDrop electric-van production in October 2025 — worth knowing if you're evaluating rental demand across the wider area, since it's a live, unresolved situation rather than a settled one. Within Woodstock itself, single-detached houses make up a larger share of the rental market than in most Ontario cities, giving the market a house-forward character.

The local economy runs on the following:

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  Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada — assembles RAV4s at its Woodstock plant, one of the city's largest single-site employers
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  GM Woodstock Parts Distribution Centre — roughly 1 million sq ft parts warehouse
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  Woodstock General Hospital — roughly 600 staff plus about 270 volunteers, serving a catchment of about 55,000
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  Hino Motors Canada — truck-assembly plant near Woodstock, on the order of 45 workers building roughly 2,000 trucks a year

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  Old Oxford County Courthouse and Gaol, a National Historic Site in the city's downtown core
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  Southside Park, along the Thames River
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  Woodstock Museum National Historic Site

Leamington is a municipality of 29,680 residents as of the 2021 Census, up 7.6% from 27,595 in 2016. It's a lower-tier municipality within Essex County (the county seat is Essex, not Leamington), on the north shore of Lake Erie roughly 50 km southwest of Windsor.

Leamington is one of the largest greenhouse-growing regions in North America, with roughly 1,969 acres under glass and poly, and is home to Highbury Canco's food-processing plant on the site of the original Heinz factory. The greenhouse sector draws a substantial seasonal agricultural workforce into the area each growing season, which shapes local housing demand at points in the year. Leamington's occupied housing stock leans more heavily toward single-detached houses than the Ontario average, making it, like Woodstock, a market where house-forward rental demand outweighs the apartment-building pattern seen in larger cities.

The local economy runs on the following:

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  Greenhouse agriculture — Leamington and area have roughly 1,969 acres under glass/poly, one of the largest concentrations of greenhouse growing in North America
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  Highbury Canco — food-processing plant (formerly Heinz's original Leamington plant), roughly 250 workers
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  Seasonal agricultural operations that draw a large seasonal workforce into the area each growing season

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  Point Pelee National Park, roughly 10 km south — the southernmost point of mainland Canada
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  Leamington Marina on Lake Erie
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  Seacliff Park, along the Lake Erie shoreline

Every rental in Woodstock and Leamington is governed by the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act. Key rules that apply regardless of town size:

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  Rent increases are capped by the annual provincial guideline.Most existing tenancies can only be raised once every 12 months, up to that year's guideline percentage, with 90 days' written notice.
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  No separate damage deposit.Landlords may only collect last month's rent as a deposit; it cannot be used for damage.
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  Landlord entry requires 24 hours' written notice.For repairs, showings, or inspections.
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  Disputes go to the LTB.Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board handles applications from both landlords and tenants.
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  No legally required move-in inspection report.A written move-in inspection is good practice but is not an Ontario RTA requirement.

Deep guides for each of these topics are in the SQRFT guide library.

• Statistics Canada 2021 Census Profile
• Thames Valley District School Board
• London District Catholic School Board
• Greater Essex County District School Board
• Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board
• Ontario LTB