FML Listings

Toronto Real Estate at its finest

2 Bedroom, 1 bathroom bungalow - $879,900.00

“Extremely rare opportunity to become house poor own a tudor style bungalow”. 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom perfect for the first time buyer $879,900.00. So that’s a $175k down payment, a 27k land transfer tax, and $3,500.00 a month for your mortgage, plus property taxes, plus your car payments, plus your bills, plus your insurance, plus your food, plus daycare, plus whatever else it is you feel like you should go into debt for and buy.

CMHC tells me you need to be making minimum 150k a year to buy this house, BUT that’s without any other debt. As soon as you add any debt (car, line of credit, credit card, student loans, etc…) you no longer qualify to buy this house. And this is all assuming it doesn’t go into a bidding war, which it will of course.

3 Bedroom, 3 Bathroom Toronto Bungalow Vs. Pierce Brosnan's Malibu Mansion

http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=11862907&PidKey=-1986899819

This is a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom house at Bavyiew and Finch. Apparently it’s on a “ravine oasis” so that ups the listing price by like 2 million kajillion dollars. It’s listed for $2,450,000.00. I bet it’s near Earl Haig too! Best. deal. ever. 

OR

Here’s Pierce (James Effing Bond!) Brosnan’s mansion in Malibu, California, for $2,600,000.00. While not on a “ravine oasis”, it does back onto the Pacific Ocean… so I’m going to call this a “beachfront oasis”, and also has mountain views. Meheheheh it’s only like $150,000.00 more than Toronto, but not really because we KNOW that Toronto house is going to sell for like 200k over asking anyway.

2 Bedroom, 3 bathroom Townhouse - $809,900.00

Yesterday’s poll “How much did this bungalow sell for” was a failure once again. The winning result came in at $1,040,000.00 with 45% of the vote. That would seem correct (OR NOT) considering the house was listed at $899,000.00.  But, the house actually sold for $1,112,000.00 after 7 days on the market. That’s $213,000.00 over asking, in case you’re trying to calculate it. 

http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=11728298&PidKey=-965862599

Here’s a 2 bedroom townhouse in the very sexy and classy upscale clean and safe neighbourhood near Moss Park, listed at $809,900.00. And a $573.00 maintenance fee.  After you put down your $161,000.00 minimum down payment to live right near the Hells Angels headquarters (seriously, it’s just down the street) your monthly costs are over $4,000.00… To live in a 2 bedroom townhouse in a craptastic area. Did you feel your dreams just punch you in the face? 

To compare, here’s the same size townhouse in West Hollywood (an amazing part of LA), 5 minutes to Beverly Hills, 5 minutes to the Sunset Strip, a view of the Hollywood sign, etc…  and of course it’s $200,000.00 less than Toronto. And of course the listing has photos, unlike the Toronto property. Whatever you don’t need to see inside of the Toronto townhouse, you’re already asking for too much, you’re being so picky, you have no right to want these extravagant things!

This is how Toronto Real Estate makes me feel sometimes (most of the time) (all of the time).

3 Bedroom Bungalow - Sold Price??

I think my favourite thing in the world right now is that yesterday’s poll results “how much would you pay for this bungalow” shows that the losing option is 600k with only 8% of the vote. Why is that my favourite thing?  Well, because the house was listed at 600k.  Way to go everyone. 

This bungalow near Bayview & Finch was listed for sale at 899k…and it sold in 7 days, but how much did it sell for? Vote below! (Note for estimation purposes, that the listing says it’s close to Earl Haig, a school that is amazing apparently but your kid isn’t going there because it’s full.)

2 Bedroom, 2 Bathroom Bungalow - ???

How much would you pay for this 2 bedroom 2 bathroom bungalow at Pape and O’connor?  When you start estimating please MAKE SURE you take into account that the listing says “close to a new Starbucks” - this is important in your estimation exercises. 

Good luck…







(Thanks to Barb for the awesome submission)

3 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom - $700,000.00 (+ bonus rant)

Here is a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house that was on the market for 6 days for an outrageous $599,000.00. Although, I guess not so outrageous because some a-hole (or a bunch) actually ended up bidding $700,000.00 for it and got it. And… here are the info/photos from what the $700,000.00 house looks like:

Side note…. I spent most of my day yesterday researching some things, and while I can’t write all of it down because it’s no doubt boring, I figured people need to know at least the following - in fun easy to read numbered list form!:
1. Media is reporting that economists now say we are NOT in a bubble and there will be no crash here. (While I believe their can’t be a crash here, this still isn’t sustainable the way it is…)

2. Realtors and others are saying contrary to popular belief there is not a lot of foreign investment in Toronto (I wonder why CityPlace has ads running in newspapers in China then? and why they sell their units in China before opening them up for sale here? And why some lawyers I spoke with say that most million dollar tear downs are cash sales from other counties?)

4. The average household income is $77,000.00, yet the average house cost is now nearing $800,000.00

5. The average household debt is 154% (weeeee let’s all buy Porsches!)

6. The average downpayment on a house is only 6%

7. CMHC apparently is now at its maximum they’re willing to insure

8. Low supply is happening for a lot of reasons, but one reason being most people didn’t put enough down payment in their homes when they bought the past few years, and now don’t have enough equity to actually sell!! And if they do even sell, it’ll be too hard to get back in even though they’d be selling for so much higher than they bought, that’s how much prices have risen. This also means they can’t refinance should they have to.

9. Maintenance fees in this city average 50-60 cents a square foot (More than double vancouver, and more than triple Montreal *so stop emailing me telling me it has to do with snow removal.*)

10. “Pre-construction” condos which have always been significantly cheaper than resale, are now selling for more money than resale.

11. Out of the 3,424 houses on MLS 1,200 of them are over $900,000.00, 1,300 are over $500,000.00 and a paltry 600 are under 500k. *numbers maybe slightly skewed as I had to hand count since I’m not a realtor and don’t have access to their data*

This isn’t a funny post, I’m just at a maximum annoyance level with the rhetoric being spewed right now by Realtors, Lawyers, Economists, etc… saying that everything in Toronto is just fine and everyone who’s making only 70k a year should continue to buy a million dollar house. 

It’s Friday!!!!! And I think it’s warm out!  Let’s all drive our Porsches* to expensive patio dinners.

*Porsches are owned by Porsche finance, not you.
(Thanks to ToSolds.ca for that 700k listing up there)

3 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom bungalow - $949,000.00

I read a few articles yesterday saying that Toronto is not in a housing bubble, and that everyone should just keep buying. Of course the people they interviewed for these articles were Banks, Realtors, and some chick who works for CityPlace…  They also claim there is hardly any foreign investment. They should talk to the residents in CityPlace who know that there have been vacant units in all of the buildings for years, just because investors are just holding onto them. Or to the lawyers and realtors I’ve spoken to that have told me just the worst things I’ve ever heard about foreign investors just “needing somewhere to put their money, and not really caring where”. But, no no no… I’m sure the Realtor that works for CityPlace wouldn’t we be wrong, I’m sure she knows more than me, and I’m sure she believes we’re all really stupid enough to believe her. And  I think some of us are stupid enough, otherwise these 600k 1 bedroom condos wouldn’t be selling. 

Anyhoo…that photo above is for a 3 bedroom 1 bathroom bungalow listed for $949,000.00 which I can guarantee will go for in the millions after a most likely probably awesome foreign bidding war. Why do I know this? Because I’ve been following the Homes Sold (that’s the best site ever btw) in this area and I’ve yet to see any of them not go into bidding wars and not sell for under a million. 
http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=11887515&PidKey=-868049487

The realtor notes that “No basement, everything on one floor”. Amazing. 

And, here’s what that price will buy you in France. Choose wisely…

http://www.christiesrealestate.com/PropertyDetails/265933/1683449/412/

Also comes with a separate cottage and a barn…

2 Bedroom, 2 Bathroom House in Scarborough - $599,000.00

http://www.realtor.ca/PropertyDetails.aspx?PropertyID=11836320&PidKey=455990331

2 bedroom 2 bathroom house in Scarborough for $600,000.00.  Sigh, there’s nowhere left.  

Question:

If we all have 600k to buy houses now, then why weren’t we all buying big 600k mansions 5 years ago when mansions were only 600k?  I guess debt wasn’t at 154% back then… but don’t you all feel like jerks (myself included) knowing you could have spent 600k on a beautiful massive house since you don’t want to be smart with money, but now you have to spend it on a bungalow. 

Not that this is comparable but the average house price in Toronto is now hovering near 700k….the average house price in Montreal is $312,000.00 and the average house price in Fredericton, NB is $159k…  you could buy 5 houses in NB. You could be a tycoon!

So  you need to be making around $144k a year with almost no other debt to now qualify for that Toronto mortgage, and you need $150k down payment
OR
To buy a house in NB you need a $10k down payment and need to make $48k a year.  

In other news, the average house price in February in Vancouver was $823,000.00  and in March it was $730,000.00!!  #ThisIsHappening

I’m gonna throw a huge Crash party if this ever happens (it won’t happen, don’t get excited).

(Thanks to the submitter who sent this in)

3 Bedroom, 2 Bathroom Semi - $779,000.00


http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=11837120&PidKey=-226686684

This $800,000.00 3 bedroom 2 bathroom semi comes with two baby gates.   FYI:

I know people are going to email me and say “but but but it’s at Yonge and Lawrence! Of course it’s expensive that’s a rich area.”  Feel free not to email me that, because I don’t care. Because every area is a “rich area” now, and matter of fact a friend of mine bought almost the same house in this “rich area” 3 years ago for under 500k. Inflation does not equal a 300k+ price increase in 3 years, I don’t care how “rich” the area is. Did any of you get a raise that would mean 3 years ago you could buy something for 500k but now you make enough to buy something that’s 800k? (Not to mention this is obvious bidding war bait.)   

This isn’t anywhere near the worst listing I’ve posted, but I’m posting it because it just sucks that it’s a small cute home not being sold for land, in a nice area, great for a new family… but still unaffordable to most people. And when I say most people, I guess that’s wrong since it’s going to sell anyway. So maybe just unaffordable to people who understand interest rates, what house poor means, and those who don’t have a massive down payment from their parents (generalizing,  I know, but I’m jealous. Damn my understanding of finances, it’s truly a curse).

Everyone seems to think the solution is to move to the Danforth. Back in the day the solution was to move to Leslieville. Now that Danforth is busting, I’m assuming the new solution is Scarborough. I can’t wait for Pickering to happen.