Ellen Moor­house – Toronto Star

Talk to real estate agents, and most express dis­be­lief at how the Toronto mar­ket keeps defy­ing the doom­say­ers month after month.

Com­ment: I believe it, I just can’t believe oth­ers cannot.

What’s fuelling it? Those bargain-basement mort­gage rates keep afford­abil­ity in line, even as prices have risen, says Toronto Real Estate Board ana­lyst Jason Mercer.

Com­ment: Because peo­ple buy based on the cost per month, not the pur­chase price!

Fac­tor in the num­ber of poten­tial buy­ers per house, and you’ve got a recipe for price hikes. Mer­cer says recent sales totals pro­jected annu­ally could make 2012 the second-best year on record (after 2007), even as list­ings have lagged.

Com­ment: And it is the lack of list­ings that is really dri­ving the prices these days. With 10 buy­ers for every seller… And there are so many pent-up buy­ers out there right now, we could see list­ings jump 500% and sell THEM ALL.

There is also a rush of for­eign money look­ing for secu­rity, as trou­ble spots mul­ti­ply over­seas. Re/Max Real­tron bro­ker Bill Thom says his immi­gra­tion con­sul­tant friends are report­ing new inter­est from the well-heeled in Greece, Italy and Spain, and real-estate board pres­i­dent Richard Sil­ver recently wel­comed a vis­it­ing group of real­tors from India.

But not all neigh­bour­hoods are on the boil. Mag­nets include (com­par­a­tively) afford­able prices, good trans­porta­tion, top-notch pub­lic schools and a major dol­lop of cool.

High-priced houses move slowly. “The real bril­liance is in what we would call the lower end, which is around the aver­age of $500,000 now,” says Silver.

Here are five Hog­town hotspots:

East Willowdale/Bayview Village

Who can for­get the headline-making story of 300 Dud­ley Ave. last month. A stu­dent, whose fam­ily lives in China, bought the bun­ga­low for about $1.18 mil­lion, a shock­ing $421,800 over asking.

Thom knows the area: between Shep­pard and Finch, run­ning east from Yonge to the Don River.

He offers another mar­ket mea­sure: A bun­ga­low at 59 For­est Grove Dr., on an extra large lot, sold in 2010 for $1.65 mil­lion. Just 22 months later, it resold for $2.53 mil­lion. No changes: just a hefty $900,000 gain.

Afflu­ent immi­grant buy­ers, mainly from China, Korea and Iran, are drawn to the area. It started with the excel­lent pub­lic schools, such as Earl Haig Sec­ondary, says Thom, but there are other attributes.

The loca­tion is close to the sub­way and major high­ways, and the orig­i­nal hous­ing stock is uni­form: post-war bun­ga­lows on large lots, which lend them­selves to rede­vel­op­ment. Prop­er­ties with “knock­downs” go for about $1.3 mil­lion, but with a brand new house, you’re look­ing at $2.4 to $2.5 mil­lion, Thom says.

“I don’t think this is the end of it, because there’s still a lot of money com­ing in. This area will con­tinue to attract more investment.”

Mimico-New Toronto

Real­tor Lynn Trib­bling is no doubt biased. She lives in a condo in south Etobicoke’s Hum­ber Bay Shores, with one of the city’s hottest hous­ing mar­kets to the west.

She loves the water­front, a prime rea­son for the area’s renais­sance. Another draw: it can sat­isfy a range of buy­ers, from the clus­ter of condo tow­ers at the east­ern edge to the family-friendly streets of Mim­ico and New Toronto, with mod­est older homes, as well as newer town­house infills on indus­trial land.

Her sur­vey of 20 recent single-family sales shows the hottest price points are in the $400,000 to $500,000 range on 30-foot lots, where 95% sold over the ask­ing price within days.

“When you get into Mim­ico,” explains Sut­ton Group real­tor Bill Mohan, “a cou­ple years back we were see­ing $359,000, but now $499,000. And they’re still sell­ing, for $510,000, $515,000, $520,000. It’s just afford­abil­ity. Because every­thing else has got­ten expen­sive, it’s pushed peo­ple into these areas.”

That starts an evo­lu­tion: “If enough peo­ple move into an area, then it’s all of a sud­den cool. They’re bring­ing their friends over there. I’ve always found that has been the trend, the last 10–15 years.”

What’s the future for Mim­ico, in the dol­drums until recently as a low-income indus­trial area? Planned new con­do­minium projects will boost the pop­u­la­tion by many thou­sands, con­tin­u­ing to trans­form the area’s com­mer­cial ameni­ties, even as it poses traf­fic and tran­sit challenges.

The Junc­tion

One of the strongest year-over-year price hikes took place in the Junc­tion and adja­cent neigh­bour­hoods. The real estate board’s “bench­mark” prices, which smooth volatil­ity, showed a 16.3% gain for single-family detached homes ($717,900 in March) and 21.5% for semis ($593,700).

Says Sut­ton Group’s Bill Mohan: “I was just up there the other day, dri­ving, and I couldn’t believe how many peo­ple were out there walk­ing and shop­ping. That’s what’s changed in the last cou­ple of years. It’s really got a good neigh­bour­hood feel.”

Dun­das St., west of Keele, is a strik­ing com­mer­cial streetscape, but it lan­guished for years in the lee of pol­lut­ing indus­tries and the pun­gent stock yards to the north. Plus, the area was dry until a 1997 referendum.

Now, it has some of the coolest archi­tec­tural antique and fur­ni­ture stores in the city, busy cof­fee shops (includ­ing a recently opened Star­bucks) and restaurants.

The neighbourhood’s appeal has lit a fire under the rail­way delin­eated Junc­tion Tri­an­gle to the east, as buy­ers seek more-affordable options on streets such as Perth and Syming­ton Aves. Not much is avail­able, but some detached houses have recently gone over list in the $500,000s. A Perth Ave. semi is cur­rently listed for $469,000.

Duf­ferin Grove

Real-estate board pres­i­dent Richard Sil­ver picks this area, bounded on the north by Bloor, run­ning west from Dover­court Rd., past Lans­downe Ave. to the tracks and south to Col­lege and Dun­das Streets.

The name, of course, comes from Duf­ferin Grove Park, where vol­un­teers have built, and are fight­ing hard to retain, a remark­able array of programs.

It gives the area a strong cen­tre, says Sil­ver, and store­fronts along Col­lege and Dun­das are rein­vent­ing them­selves, as the pop­u­la­tion changes.

He says houses in the area, both north and south of Col­lege, “are fly­ing off the shelves.”

He just sold a unique 800-square-foot, two-bedroom coach house sit­ting right at the edge of the park for more than its $549,000 list price. Sub­stan­tial three-storey semis in the area are sell­ing for $700,000 to $850,000, well above list prices in the high $600,000s.

“Per­son­ally, I think the mar­ket is dri­ven by the fact that Ron­ces­valles (super hot, as well) to the west and Lit­tle Italy to the east have increased in pric­ing, mak­ing Duf­ferin Grove seem like the afford­able option,” says Silver.

Wood­bine Corridor

Here’s another neigh­bour­hood that Sil­ver high­lights for ris­ing inter­est and prices. It’s bounded by Coxwell Ave. and Wood­bine, and runs from north of the Dan­forth to Queen St. E.

Says Sil­ver: “Prox­im­ity to the Beach and the Dan­forth sub­way are big drivers.”

The hous­ing stock includes more detached homes, (the March “bench­mark” price was up almost 11% from a year ear­lier), as well as the ubiq­ui­tous semis.

While the board’s aver­age period on the mar­ket is 25 days, homes in this area are snapped up in only 13, Sil­ver says, sell­ing for an aver­age of 102 to 105% of the ask­ing price.

“Years ago, young fam­i­lies chose to move to the 905 when they could no longer afford larger detached houses in the 416,” he points out. “Now, and in the future, because of trans­porta­tion issues, it will be harder than ever to live in the 905, yet work in the 416.”

You can find some of the clas­sic east-end, two-storey semis in the area priced from a low of $375,000 to $450,000, while a few detached are on the mar­ket in the $500,000 range. An older-style, two-storey semi on Moberly, south of the Dan­forth and west of Wood­bine, just sold for 120% of list at $601,000.

Look­ing out­side the city?

As Toronto prices rise, so do those in the sub­urbs, dri­ven by afford­abil­ity, lack of inven­tory, and value for money com­pared to the city.

WEST: Asked to iden­tify a Mis­sis­sauga hot spot, Sut­ton Group agent Cyn­thia Shaw points to Lorne Park, south of the QEW. A more-affluent fam­ily neigh­bour­hood, it includes older homes from the 1950s-’70s, some of which are being demol­ished and replaced. She esti­mates prices are up 25% year over year, but says you’ll still get twice the house and a big­ger lot in Lorne Park com­pared to Toronto’s west end.

EAST: Re/Max bro­ker Mary Roy says the hot spot in Whitby and Ajax is actu­ally a price point: $350,000 to $400,000 for a detached 1,500– to 1,600-sq.-ft. home. Even in this high-demand, first-time-buyer cat­e­gory, prices are only $10,000 to $20,000 ahead of last year, she says.

NORTH: Look for the best schools, and that’s where you find the action. Pierre Elliott Trudeau High School ranks high, and Markham’s Berczy Vil­lage feels the impact. Just about every sale in the area draws mul­ti­ple offers, says Sut­ton Group agent Mar­tin Mac­Far­lane. He esti­mates increases over the past year at about 10%. Detached homes range from $550,000 to $1.1 million.

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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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ron­ces­valle home sells for $1 3 million

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