Car­olyn Ire­land – Globe and Mail

Jesse Blacker is an up-and-coming young hockey player who is cur­rently lac­ing up for the Toronto Mar­lies and fer­vently work­ing toward being called up by the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Now, when he’s not on the road, Mr. Blacker can head back after prac­tice to his own com­fort­able two-storey loft.

Mr. Blacker and I talked about his recent pur­chase after I invited read­ers to send in their sto­ries about buy­ing and sell­ing real estate in the cur­rent market.

He is just set­tling into the loft in the Mys­tic Pointe build­ing near Lakeshore and Park­lawn. His fur­ni­ture arrived a few days ago.

Mr. Blacker is happy with the pur­chase: The unit had an ask­ing price of $304,900 and he struck a deal at $298,500.

The Toronto native says he liked the fact that the open-concept loft, with just less than 1,000 square feet, has two sto­ries. The bed­room over­looks the liv­ing space below.

He had been look­ing for a cou­ple of months and most of the other condo units he saw were very cramped. “This is like a big house.”

Ira Jelinek of Har­vey Kalles Real Estate Ltd. rep­re­sented the seller, actor and pro­ducer Brigitte Kingsley.

Mr. Jelinek says the loft, which is in the for­mer L.J. McGuin­ness Dis­tillers build­ing, has an authen­tic hard loft feel, and it includes park­ing, which is rare for a unit priced at less than $300,000 in and around the city.

“It had a ton of space,” Mr. Jelinek says. “It’s more of a value play.”

The same-sized unit in a build­ing about six to 10 years old would fetch $450,000 to $500,000 if it were right down­town, he estimates.

Paul Golini, chair­man of the Build­ing Indus­try and Land Devel­op­ment Asso­ci­a­tion and exec­u­tive vice-president at Empire Com­mu­ni­ties, says units may have shrunk as far as they pos­si­bly can. “There is a limit and we’re very close to it now. There are only so many bed­rooms you can fit into 500 square feet.”

Mr. Golini was speak­ing at a gath­er­ing last week to release year-end sta­tis­tics for new build­ing in the Greater Toronto Area in 2011 and pro­vide an out­look for 2012.

At the same con­fab, Real­Net Canada Inc. reported that the aver­age price per square foot for a high-rise condo came in at $529 in 2011, a 4% increase over the 2010 figure.

Mean­while, the aver­age condo unit shrunk 6%, to 820 square feet. That’s 52 square feet less than the pre­vi­ous year’s average.

Mr. Golini says builders have been mak­ing units smaller to keep them affordable.

Accord­ing to Real­Net, high-rise “home types” as they like to call condo units, reached a record 62% of all new home sales. The low rise sec­tor – in other words, houses, town­houses and semis – accounted for a record low 38%.

That means apart­ment con­do­mini­ums out­sold tra­di­tional detached homes three-to-one.

Let me know what you think about this shift in mar­ket dynam­ics: Are condo tow­ers ris­ing too quickly and becom­ing squeezed too far? Will demand keep up with this pace of build­ing? Would you, like Mr. Blacker, put a pre­mium on space?

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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