I was chatting with a Realtor friend in Arizona when hot-water heater rentals came up. I mentioned that a recent Seller couldn’t even figure out what they were paying each month. My friend stared at me like I’d just said Canadians lease their snow.

“People rent water tanks in Canada?”

Apparently in Arizona, that’s not a thing. Maybe you can rent a fridge or a washer, but a hot-water tank?
No.

Ontario, on the other hand, has been renting these things for decades. Back in the 80s—Reagan, perms, Cabbage Patch mania—tanks were mostly electric and almost always owned. Then gas took over, and builders thought, “Hey, what if we stop paying for these and let someone else?” On a 100-home project, they could save roughly fifty grand by letting buyers rent the tanks instead of including them.

Buyers didn’t complain; they got a tank with a warranty, and everyone felt cozy.
Then the wolves arrived.

Throughout the 2010s, sales teams started going door to door, pushing rentals not just for water heaters but for furnaces, A/Cs, and water systems—contracts thicker than a Thanksgiving turkey. Many reps were… creatively honest. The government finally banned door-to-door appliance marketing in 2018, but not before plenty of homeowners found themselves locked into expensive leases they barely understood.

I still remember the first time I sold a house with a rented furnace and A/C. This was 2015. The Sellers were delighted—“Free service! Warranty!”—while I could feel every buyer silently wondering why they were being charged monthly for heat. The rentals were $130/month, and the payout if the Buyers didn’t want the contract?
Eight grand.
That’s a trip to Paris. Business class if you don’t check bags.

Fast-forward to this year. I’ve had several Sellers with rented HVAC equipment. Why rent? Usually three reasons:
(1) They don’t have $10K–$15K to replace a furnace and A/C outright.
(2) The furnace dies mid-January and a rental company can install tomorrow.
(3) They’ve been told it’s a selling feature (spoiler: it almost never is).

Some recent war stories:
A semi with wall-mounted heat pumps: cost to buy out → $14,000.
A Whitby townhome with a nine-year-old rented furnace: $5,000.
An Ajax home with rented furnace + A/C: $15,000, and the house is still for sale.

Here’s the unglamorous truth:
Buyers shrug at rented hot-water tanks.
Anything else is a problem.

About 80% of the Sellers I’ve worked with have ended up paying out their rented HVAC equipment to get the deal done. It’s not fun. It’s definitely not cheap. And it always shows up at the worst possible moment—usually when the Seller has already mentally moved to their new house and the moving truck is idling in the driveway.

I feel for anyone caught in it. I’ve been there myself—our A/C died in 2020 and the furnace was declared unsafe, like it needed a priest. Not everyone has thousands lying around for an emergency replacement.

Still… renting comes with a bill at the other end.

My advice: buy the equipment whenever you can. If you can’t, rent carefully—and compare payout terms like you’re reading restaurant reviews on a first date. Some companies are fine. Some are highway robbery dressed as monthly convenience.

If you’re selling and unsure how your rental contract might affect things, call me.
I’ll help you sort it without needing a séance or a second mortgage.

lindsay@buyselllove.ca • 905-743-5555