It's pretty rare that the penalty for breaking a lease is that you have to pay the entire remaining term of the lease. Usually you only have to pay until a new

It's pretty rare that the penalty for breaking a lease is that you have to pay the entire remaining term of the lease. Usually you only have to pay until a new tenant can be found, and you can speed that up if you can find them a new tenant yourself. Quite often they're really happy to be rid of you, even if they won't say so, because if the market is up they can probably charge more for a new tenant than they can raise your rent (due to bylaw limits on rent raises). I don't think I've ever been aware of a situation where the cost of breaking a lease was actually, in practice, more significant than the costs in time and money associated with selling real estate. Obviously if your property has gained in value in the meantime you may still come out ahead when it's all done, but on the flipside you may also lose a lot of money. The costs of breaking a lease are much more predictable.