FML Listings

Toronto Real Estate at its finest

3 bedroom, 1 bathroom bungalow - $1,249,000.00

http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=11936351&PidKey=-1641533534

“Great opportunity to live become house poor in Avenue Road”.  If you want to “live with wealthy people” at Avenue Road really bad, but you aren’t very wealthy so your solution you think is to buy a $1,249,000.00 3 bedroom 1 bathroom bungalow amidst other fancy houses… then you have incorrect life priorities, either that or you’re just doing it wrong. 

You know what this is like? It’s like in Jr. High when all the rich kids got Air Jordan’s and I still had to shop at Zellers for those crappy velcro shoes (which are now cool if you’re a hipster +1), but my parents would spend the extra $5.00 at Zellers that they didn’t have to pay for the sub-fake-brand “Air Gordon’s”, so not only did I look like an asshole trying to fit in, but my parents also had to waste money on fake crap.  This is the EXACT same thing. Almost.

2 bedroom, 1 bathroom bungalow - $802,000.00

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2 Bedroom, 1 bathroom super piece of crap tiny bungalow at Mt Pleasant and Davisville, listed for an outrageousely ridiculous $599,000.00 and sold in THREE Days for $802,000.00!!!!!!!!!  Who bought this?? I want to know right now who bought this, I want to have a polite and fair non expletive filled discussion with the new owner. 

3 bedroom, 1 bathroom in Thornhill - $1,000,000.00

There is honestly not even a need for me to write about this listing today. The Realtor has done a spectacular job at comedy by himself…. even though he’s trying to be serious. Like, where would I even begin?? The fact that it’s being sold for land in the first paragraph, or the fact that it’s being sold to live in near the end of the paragraph, or the fact that you cannot go look at it in the last sentence, or the fact that it’s a 3 bedroom 1 bathroom for  a million dollars, the offers to be conditional on viewing the inside even though he says you can’t see the inside, the smiley emoticon for no reason, the asterisks issue that’s going on?

Just in case you can’t read it in all of its glory in the screenshot of the listing, I’ve gone to the trouble of copy and pasting it:
”** 77 Foot Lot On Morgan!! ** Land Value Mostly ** Build Your Dream Home With Possible Circular Drive ** Fanatastic Location ** Surrounded By Expensive Homes ** Steps To Great Schools ** Why Pay 2 Land Transfer Taxes ? ** Build In Thornhill !! ** **** EXTRAS **** Pls Book All Appts Thru Office ** House Is Very Livable ** No Inside Showings Allowed ** Outside Showings Only ** Offers To Be Conditional On Viewing The Inside ** :-)”

500k Houses in Toronto

Well that photo up there is pretty depressing…

What’s your house budget? Is $500,000.00 reasonable for a small first time buyer’s house?  No it’s not lol, do you not read this blog??  I did some quick searching and saw that on MLS right now in Toronto there are about 700 houses for sale at or under 500k, but keep in mind a good chunk are priced at 475k or 495k so they’ll get into bidding wars and most of them will go over 500k so they aren’t really in your budget, and about 75% of them were either at Jane and Finch, super east Scarborough, Mimico, or Oakwood.  I guess it sounds picky to say you don’t want to live in those areas even though you’re spending 500k, so I guess there are houses you *can* afford to buy in this city if you suck it up and move to those areas. 

Conversely, there are 2,434 houses over 500k… and I’m not just talking Forest Hill. I’m talking everywhere, including the Junction, Leslieville, “Upper Beaches” (it’s so hard for my fingers to type Upper Beaches when my brain is telling them to type East Danforth Scarborough).

Lesson learned?  If you want to be a cheap-o and only spend half a million dollars on a super tiny house, you’ll need to move to a kind of ghetto area, that your Lying-So-He-Can-Make-20Grand-Doing-Nothing-Realtor will tell you is gentrifying so it’s gonna be great, just give it two weeks, he promises. 

FYI, for a 500k house you need $100,000.00 down.  It’s interesting since the stats say that most people have closer to 30k down.  I personally thought I had a pretty hefty down payment, but assuming I buy a 650k house (lol as if), the Land Transfer Tax and Closing Costs on that house take my down payment down by 30k, so if you think you’ve saved enough, I’d suggest saving at least another 30k, or use CMHC and pay interest for 30 years on the 30k you didn’t save, making that 30k eventually cost you closer to 100k. See?? Math can be fun!!

4 bedroom, 4 bathroom STOUFFVILLE house - $639,000.00

http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=11902581&PidKey=-676400104

Here is a 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom cookie cutter suburban house in STOUFFVILLE for $639,000.00.  What’s up with that?  By the time you add GO Train costs on it, you may as well suck it up and buy in Toronto. But this house isn’t even walkable distance to GO, so I have no idea what they’re doing with that price, it’s almost offensive. No, it is offensive.

Or you can just move to LA, since this house is basically the same price, and will probably sell under asking.
 

STOUFVILLE!!!! Gah!!!!!  

(Thanks to David for this submission!)

Side note:

I went to an open house yesterday in Leslieville (not even the good part of Leslieville, I don’t even know if I’d consider it Leslieville at this point), here’s a picture of the house:

That’s basically the whole house. No basement or anything, and the upstairs is just 2 small bedrooms. Note the width of the house, you can’t even fit a couch in there basically, and their dining room table is in the entrance way of the house before the living room.  It also smelled like sewage.  It was listed for sale at $688,000.00. Imagine what kind of asshole you have to be to say “i’m going to list my piece of crap condo sized house for 700k, because I know full well some other asshole is going to buy it”. I feel like I should have put an offer in at 100k just out of principle, but that still feels like too much money.

3 Bedroom, 3 Bathroom - $479,900.00

Look at this 3 bedroom house at Victoria Park and Danforth in The Beaches for half a million dollars. Oh wait, what? Vic Park and Danforth isn’t The Beaches?  I feel like Realtors in this city beg to differ.    Right now i’m noticing more and more realtors say EVERYTHING IS IN THE BEACHES. everything, I don’t care where you are. I saw a Moss Park listing yesterday in The Beaches, seriously.

So the listing says “5 min walk to the beach“… I wonder if he doesn’t realize that once you come check out the house you’ll see that it’s nowhere near any beach whatsoever. But he probably doesn’t care because he’s about to make 20 grand doing nothing. 

Let’s put it to the test… is this house a 5 minute walk to the beach?

Weird, I was so sure Danforth was like 2 seconds from the beach, not half an hour like Google says. I’m sure Google is lying to me though. Let’s continue to trust these amazing Realtors in every single thing that they say without doing our own research, and while we’re at it let’s continue buying half a million dollar semi’s in crap neighbourhoods so we can keep driving up the market to beyond the most random level that it’s at right now. 

2 bedroom, 1 bathroom - $1,399,000.00

I spent the weekend going to open houses, which I haven’t done in at least 6 or 7 months. Two things came from that:

1. Buyers… you need to do your research!! Just listening to people asking questions made me realize people aren’t doing enough research (if any) before checking out a house (unless they weren’t serious). 

Case in point: Do not ask the SELLER’s Agent if the listing price is a good deal. He will (and did) say yes, obviously. But if you look on MLS, you would have seen it was 50k over anything else in the area. 

Secondly, do not ask if a house will go into a bidding war from the Seller’s Agent… he will say he doesn’t know, or he’ll say no. Even though he’s holding back offers until Tuesday at 5pm to incite a bidding war.   Either use your own agent (it’s free) or do your research. I’ve worked with Linda Wheeler at My Condo Network, who is the most amazing person ever, she’s on your side and understands the bullshit that’s going on.  This isn’t an advertisement… I’m just saying, do not think you’re going to get a full honest story from a Seller’s agent at an overcrowded open house.  One house I was in smelled like pee and smoke, and the realtor was like “Oh yeah don’t worry about that, you’re standing beside a litter box”. !!!!!! #ThereMustHaveBeenALitterBoxInEverySingleRoomThen

2. Anything east of the DVP is now considered The Beaches. I don’t care if it’s Leslieville, if it’s Danforth, if it’s Scarborough… it’s all The Beaches now. That commands at least 100k more because everyone wants to live in The Beaches. I give it two months before Scarborough Town Centre is the new mall in The Beaches.  Oh also, Moss Park is now Riverdale.  City of Toronto will be releasing new maps soon.

Here’s today’s fun listing:

http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=11936351&PidKey=-1641533534

$1.4 million dollars for a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom bungalow that’s obvs in need of repair. Obviously it’s for someone with cash to buy it and tear it down and bla bla bla bla, but not the point! It should be 300k max! So people like myself or first time buyers can buy a small charming house.  OMG so angry today, eh?   Those open houses set me back like months in my real estate anger progress that I’ve made.

3 bedroom, 2 bathroom in Junction - $449,000.00

What the hell is going on with this listing?

“Location, Location, Location Plus Imagination, Imagination, Imagination, Divided By Tlc With A Little Work To The The Square Root Of Future Equals Holy Cow, ***Ai Carumba, Wowzers Baby*** We’re Talking Big Dosh ;O))) **** EXTRAS **** All Electrical Light Fixtures; All Window Coverings; Two Fridges; Two Stoves; One Gas Burner And Equipment; One Air Conditioning;”

2 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom bungalow - $866,500.00

So this little 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom shed house not in North York, was on the market for 6 days listed at the more-than-fair-stop-complaining $775,000.00.  It got into a wicked bidding war as it should have because of the amazing value obviously, and eventually sold (in less than a week) for $866,500.00. Almost 100k over asking. 

I still want to know who’s buying these places…  CMHC tells me you need a $173,000.00 down payment, and need to be making over $156,000.00 a year, and not have ANY OTHER DEBT. If I add any debt into the equation, then you no longer qualify and need to be making more than 156k. Maybe buy this house before you go buy your Audi that you can’t afford, just to make sure you get approved. 

So Mr (or Mrs). I-Make-156k -A-Year-But-Am-Obvs-Really-Bad-With-Money… your land transfer tax is almost 30k, your mortgage payment is $3,500.00 per month at current interest rates on this 1 bathroom house (if I up the interest rate just one point, you start breaking the 4k per month mortgage payment), plus your property taxes and insurance, you’re looking at over $4,000.00 a month. That doesn’t include any of your own expenses, your food, or your Audi payments. 

This blog post should be the definition in the dictionary under “house poor”.  Either that or “I don’t know what things are really worth and I’m really bad at budgeting but I read Toronto Life and know that I should buy a house asap and don’t care that I’m going to be struggling for 30 years, god I hope I don’t have two kids who I need to put into daycare for $3,000.00 a month, and I hope they don’t take my Audi away, oh man remember the days when we used to go to shows, vacations, and restaurants for dinner?” but that’s probably not in the dictionary.