THE WINNERS AND LOSERS OF THE
ABSOLUTELY
OUTRAGEOUS,
VICIOUSLY
COMPETITIVE,
RECORD-
BREAKING
MARKET
BY JOHN SEMLEY
For buyers and sellers and those who
simply consider real estate a spectator
sport, this was the nutty year when
the average price of a detached house
hit a million. And you’re lucky if those
seven figures buy a rickety bungalow
next to the tracks. Open houses now
require bouncers to control
the mobs, buyers eye one
another like competitors in
a boxing ring, and every week
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL NEUHAUS
there’s another story of a bidding war
that stretched all night and made the
seller a killing.
In the following pages, we present a
portrait of the manic market. We
surveyed the city’s top agents to find
the pockets where the fight to own a
house is fiercest, and gathered
stories from people who’ve
wandered into the real estate
trenches and barely survived.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAUREN TAMAKI
October 2014 toronto life 45
HOT BLOCKS
1
52 TWYFORD
In March, this detached
bungalow, walking distance
from the neighbourhood’s
schools, was LISTED FOR
$1,188,000 and SOLD FOR
$1,250,000.
3
1
THE STREET
WHERE
UNRENOVATED
BUNGALOWS
GO FOR
$100,000
OVER ASKING
47 MELBOURNE
In June, this two-storey
detached with four
bedrooms was
LISTED FOR $889,000 and
SOLD FOR $1 million.
THE STREET
WHERE THE
HIPSTERS PAY
A MILLION-PLUS
FOR SEMIS
TWYFORD ROAD, FROM KIPLING TO
PRINCESS ANNE CRESCENT
1
D
on’t tell downtowners this,
but Etobicoke is technically part
of Toronto. And for prospective
homebuyers looking for deals on large
lots and easy access to downtown (as
well as out of town, via the airport
and the nearby 400-series highways),
the cradle of Ford Nation has become
an attractive option. It seems especially true of Twyford Road, a popular street in the upmarket ­Princess
Anne Manor ’hood, which is walking
distance from the picturesque Glen
Agar park, a couple of golf courses
and a handful of elementary schools.
Twyford strikes a nice balance
between the busier thoroughfares
in and around The Manor (like The
Kingsway and Princess Margaret
Boulevard), and the area’s quieter
nooks (like Kingsfold Court and Blair
Athol Crescent, where houses are sold
privately to upsizing Manor-­
dwellers). “Most of my clients are people from downtown,” says realtor Ana
Santos. “They’re tired of being on top
of their neighbours in a 35-foot lot
with a one-car garage.” Downtown,
you’re lucky to get a renovated townhouse for just over a million dollars.
On Twyford, it gets you 80-by135-foot lots.
46 toronto life October 2014
2
MELBOURNE AVENUE, FROM DUFFERIN
TO COWAN AVENUE
W
1
3
2
28 TWYFORD
In February, this two-storey
detached with 6,600 square
feet of total living space, a
quartz kitchen island and a
101-bottle wine fridge was
LISTED FOR $2,499,000
and SOLD FOR $2,475,000.
14 TWYFORD
In May, this renovated
sidesplit property—four
bedrooms, three baths, with
a finished basement—was
LISTED FOR $1,099,000 and
SOLD FOR $1,375,000,
$276,000 over asking.
1
eek by week, walking along queen west
from Dufferin to Sorauren, you can practically see the 99-cent shops shutter and
reopen as hip restaurants before your eyes. At the
same time, young couples are fighting for houses
that have all the appeal of an Annex Victorian but
at a lower price point. This is especially true of the
housing stock on M
­ elbourne, where Keller
­Williams realtor Mike Gryspeerdt broke the
million-­dollar sale ceiling with a semi. Over 50
hopefuls snaked out the door at the open house,
drawn by the deep and wide lot as well the house’s
proximity to the Drake and Gladstone hotel-barparty compounds. Rather than flippers, the area is
bringing in end-users: buyers willing to pay a premium to make a place their own, and whose love
for the property makes the list price academic.
Re/Max agent Nicholas Bohr encourages clients to
hand-write letters to sellers to forge a personal connection and gain an advantage over competing
buyers. “I’ll also google a seller,” he says, “and see
if they went to the same university as the buyer to
try to create synergy.”
189 COWAN
In February, this two-storey
semi-detached, split into two
large three-bedroom
apartments, was
LISTED FOR $599,000 and
SOLD FOR $721,000.
11 MELBOURNE
In March, this semi with a
south-facing garden, a new
furnace and a greenhouse
was LISTED FOR $899,000
and SOLD FOR $1,008,000,
$109,000 over asking.
October 2014 toronto life 47
HOT BLOCKS
TALES FROM THE FRONT
The Sale
Gone Sour
2
3
1
2
1
CATHERINE STINSON, A
39-YEAR-OLD PHILOSOPHY
PROFESSOR
1
3
257 WYCHWOOD
In June, this three-storey
detached house with five
bedrooms and four baths
was LISTED FOR $949,000
and SOLD FOR $1,100,000.
9 MANNING
In April, this two-storey
townhouse divided into
three units was
LISTED FOR $815,000 and
SOLD FOR $885,000.
1
137 MANNING
THE STREET WHERE FLIPPERS
ARE MAKING A KILLING
In late 2013, this fixer-upper
two-storey semi was
dramatically
UNDERVALUED AT
$339,000, and
SOLD FOR $735,000.
MANNING AVENUE, FROM QUEEN WEST TO DUNDAS WEST
48 toronto life October 2014
100 MANNING
In May, this “as is”
townhouse was
LISTED FOR $399,000 and
SOLD FOR $541,000.
photograph of stinson by erin leydon
O
ne phrase keeps popping up when you comb through listings of recent
sales on Manning: “as is.” Those who want a downtown semi or detached
house in a great area, with access to trendy shopping and restaurants, all for
under $1 million, can still get it on Manning. But it’ll be as is, and they’ll need to
fight for it. The street, one of the last unpolished strips near Trinity Bellwoods
Park, is especially attractive to investors and house-flippers. One two-and-a-halfstorey multi-unit semi—which came with three fridges and three stoves, all tossed
in as is—sold for an astonishing $258,898 over the $649,990 list price. Sometimes,
the bigger the mess, the fiercer the bidding, as places requiring more substantial
overhauls tend to scare away dabbling flippers and attract more serious contractors willing to pay top dollar. But not everything on the street needs a total o
­ verhaul:
one two-storey townhouse just north of Queen, a stone’s throw from Trinity
­Bellwoods, sold for $803,000. With new windows, and a new roof and furnace,
the place didn’t require the sort of gutting and remodelling common on the street.
I recently moved back to Canada
from Germany with my partner,
Boris, and our four-year-old daughter. We sublet an apartment while
we looked for a house. We saw at
least 100 west-end properties and
lost out on five offers, sometimes by
as much as $100,000. In June, we
found a semi in Wallace-­Emerson—
it was rundown and an estate sale,
but to us it felt like a miracle when
the sellers accepted our offer of
$667,000. Our inspector found
water damage, asbestos, an old roof
and bad wiring all over the place, so
we dropped our price to $655,000
and asked for a mid-July closing.
The sellers agreed, but added a
condition of an extra 30 days if
they didn’t get their will probated.
Our agent told us that will probate is rarely a problem, but we
were getting nervous: I was due
to give birth to our second child in
July, and we were supposed to be
out of our apartment by the end
of August. As the closing day
approached, we heard the will
­probate would take at least three
months. The sellers refused to
rent us the empty house in the
meantime, even when we offered
to increase our deposit on the
house sale. By the end of August,
we gave up hope and signed a
mutual release form. We’d
already switched our daughter to
the new school district and lost
thousands on various fees. We’re
renting another house while we
continue to hunt.
THE STREET
WHERE BUYERS
BATTLE TO BE
NEAR THE
FARMERS’ MARKET
WYCHWOOD AVENUE, FROM ST. CLAIR
TO VAUGHAN ROAD
T
he mayor and small business owners
complained, but the St. Clair streetcar
right-of-way has proven successful for the
strip, especially the section nearest Bathurst.
St. Clair has attracted new businesses like the
lunch counter Baker and Scone, which offers 40
different varieties of scones, and brought more
traffic to trendy restaurants like the Stockyards,
where there’s a nightly lineup for takeout fried
chicken. The most competitive street to buy on
is the stretch of Wychwood running north from
St. Clair, where semis regularly break a million.
Buyers like how the street name evokes the
prestigious community to the south and are desperate to live within walking distance to the
nearby farmers’ market at Wychwood Barns
and excellent schools (including Humewood
Community School, St. Alphonsus Catholic
and Vaughan Road Academy, which offers the
International Baccalaureate program).
272 WYCHWOOD
In March, this detached twostorey house fitted with
premium appliances was
LISTED FOR $899,000 and
SOLD FOR $975,000.
177 WYCHWOOD
In May, this three-storey
semi-detached house, with
new stainless steel
appliances and framed by a
beautifully landscaped yard,
was LISTED FOR $875,000
and SOLD FOR $1,020,000.
October 2014 toronto life 49
HOT BLOCKS
1
2
3
29 CORTLEIGH
In May, this two-and-a-halfstorey family home with a
gourmet kitchen, southfacing garden, four
bedrooms and four baths
was LISTED FOR $1,895,000
and SOLD FOR $1,929,000.
1
THE STREET WHERE
HOUSES WITH NANNY SUITES
GET A DOZEN BIDDERS
18 CORTLEIGH
In April, this detached
three-storey drew 19 bids
on its already whopping
$1,895,000 LIST PRICE
and eventually SOLD FOR
$2.3 million.
CORTLEIGH BOULEVARD, FROM ROSEWELL AVENUE TO AVENUE ROAD
B
uyers in the multimillion-dollar price range are often too genteel
for bidding wars. But when it comes to Cortleigh Boulevard, a leafy patch
in Benzes-and-Botox Lytton Park, the gloves come off. It’s one of those rare
streets between the north-south arteries of Avenue and Yonge that’s not overrun
with traffic. The houses, many of which sport old-timey stone filigree on their
­exteriors and contain nanny suites, are set well off the street, making it feel nearly
suburban for a street so close to downtown. It’s a short drive to the establishment
private schools and walking distance from prestigious (by TDSB standards) John
Ross Robertson Public School, where students do extremely well on EQAO tests.
5 CORTLEIGH
In late 2013, an “as-is” house
was LISTED FOR $999,000
and SOLD FOR $1,225,000.
The buyers built a new house
in its place.
Cut out of a deal
HEATHER BLUMBERG, A
40-YEAR-OLD MANAGEMENT
CONSULTANT
50 toronto life October 2014
My husband and I found
a gorgeous Victorian we
really liked in Parkdale.
We ended up being one of
five parties bidding. Our
agent presented an offer
of $1,003,000 on our
behalf, and the top three
bids all came fairly close.
Our agent came back to us
to see what we wanted to
present as a new bid. In
that time, one party
dropped out. So it was us
and one other party. We
went up to $1,015,000 and
submitted our offer.
That’s when things took
a turn: the selling agent
struck a deal with the
other party’s agent so
that, rather than paying a
five per cent fee, the new
owners would only pay
two and a half per cent.
They’re supposed to tell
the other party, so you can
come up with a counteroffer, but by the time we
found out, they’d signed a
contract. Our agent said
this is the first time he’d
encountered this in his 20
years in real estate. We
filed a complaint with the
real estate council. It
makes us wary about
buying. You wonder what
else is going on.
photograph of blumberg by erin leydon
TALES FROM THE FRONT
HOT BLOCKS
THE STREET
WHERE
MILLION-PLUS
HOUSES SELL
IN A COUPLE
OF DAYS
309
BESSBOROUGH
In May, this four-bedroom,
three-bath detached home on
a rambling 38-foot lot was
LISTED FOR $1,339,000 and
SOLD FOR $1,477,100. That’s
$138,100 over asking.
BESSBOROUGH DRIVE, FROM MILLWOOD
ROAD TO GLENVALE BOULEVARD
B
essborough is the kind of placid
Leaside street that has always
been in demand. Houses, many
with extra-wide yards and centre-hall
plans, rarely go on sale, and when they
do there’s intense demand, with the
average property going a hundred
thousand or more over asking. Hopefuls put in bully bids and draft letters
to owners of nice houses encouraging
them to sell. (Agents also do a lot of
door knocking, to the same end.) Some
lots are so spacious, developers try to
subdivide them (one such proposal was
recently met with fiery opposition).
Open houses on the street draw 50-plus
potential buyers in one afternoon.
­“People call it ‘stupid street,’ because
people do stupid things to live there,”
says agent Patrick Rocca, whose own
house is on Bessborough. “But I paid
the highest price at the time,” he says.
“So if anything, I’m the stupidest one.”
1
1
2
3
52 toronto life October 2014
247 BESSBOROUGH
In May, this red-brick detached,
recently renovated to the tune of
over $200,000, was LISTED FOR
$1,299,000 and SOLD FOR
$1,530,000. That’s a full
$231,000 over asking.
214 BESSBOROUGH
In May, this 2,000-square-foot
detached two-storey house, with
original stained glass windows
and an elaborate garden, was
LISTED FOR $1,299,000 and
SOLD FOR $1,396,000.
HOT BLOCKS
3
2
1
77 HAMILTON
In May, this rental property was
LISTED FOR $699,000. The
house received seven bids and
eventually SOLD FOR $806,000.
“I accepted offers the day after
the Jilly’s sale was announced,”
the seller says. “The timing
couldn’t have been better.”
1
THE STREET WHERE
TEARDOWNS GO FOR
$100,000 OVER ASKING
148 HAMILTON
In late 2013, this oversized
detached bungalow, with a
huge rear deck and a
basement rental unit, was
LISTED FOR $749,900 and
SOLD FOR $747,900.
HAMILTON STREET, FROM GERRARD STREET TO QUEEN
T
he under-a-million neighbourhoods are where the most furious bidding
wars play out—especially on streets like Riverdale’s Hamilton. Ramshackle
aluminum-sided bungalows, cheap enough to rip down and start fresh,
offer some of the best bargains close to downtown. Buyers see a pocket in transition now that Bridgepoint Health has replaced the old Don Jail, and the infamous
Jilly’s strip club at Queen and Broadview has closed, likely to be redeveloped as a
Gladstone-type hotel. For fans of hootenannies and hoedowns, there’s also the
nearby Boots and Bourbon Saloon, which set up shop in the former site of the
seedier Blue Moon Pub on Queen. In 2014, the biggest sales on the street have
closed around $100,000 over asking.
192 HAMILTON
In April, this two-storey semi
was LISTED FOR $749,000
and SOLD FOR $845,000. It
last sold a year ago for
$545,000.
THE CLOSE CALL
IVY JOHNSON, A 28-YEAROLD TV WRITER
54 toronto life October 2014
My fiancé and I put in
a successful bid of
$450,000 on a loft unit
in a building on Dundas
West. We’d been looking
for a month, and we fell in
love with its exposed
brick and high ceilings,
and that it was a corner
unit with lots of windows.
It had character, as they
say. These kinds of deals
are dependent on a status
certificate getting
approved by our lawyer.
That’s when it all went
south. Our lawyer said
the certificate was one
of the worst he’d seen.
Turned out the conversion from factory to loft
had been shoddily done:
the basement flooded, the
bricks needed repointing,
the pipes had burst in the
winter, and the roof was
leaking. The condo board
was suing the construction company, and the
construction company
was suing the condo
board too. If we bought,
we’d never be able to
resell without these lawsuits affecting the price.
We immediately cancelled our contract and
ended up buying another
place in Parkdale.
photograph of johnson by erin leydon
TALES FROM THE FRONT
HOT BLOCKS
1
3
2
401 WELLESLEY E.
In May, this immaculately
renovated Victorian with two
parking spaces, 10-foot ceilings
and built-in speakers was
LISTED FOR $1,358,000 and
SOLD FOR $1,600,000.
357 WELLESLEY E.
In January, this lavish rebuild of a
Victorian-era home (complete
with a media room and a secondfloor study) was LISTED FOR
$2,369,000 and SOLD FOR
$2,400,000.
THE STREET WHERE A
MILLION FOR A SEMI IS
CONSIDERED A BARGAIN
WELLESLEY STREET EAST, FROM PARLIAMENT STREET TO WELLESLEY PARK
C
abbagetown’s rows of pretty, fastidiously preserved victorians are eerily
calm despite being so close to the downtown core. Wellesley is one of the
most idyllic streets in the neighbourhood, so whenever a house goes on the
market, it’s swarmed and the subject of intense bidding wars. Chestnut Park
sales rep Kara Reed booked 30 showings over a weekend for a semi, which ended
up selling for a couple hundred thousand over its asking price. The most prized
properties are on the eastern stretch, where Wellesley dead-ends at a park
of mature trees and the Toronto Necropolis. One bungalow on Wellesley
Cottages, a miniscule side street/alley running behind Wellesley proper, went
for $246,000 over its million-plus asking in June.
459 WELLESLEY E.
In July, this semi-detached,
two-and-a-half-storey
house was
LISTED FOR $899,000 and
SOLD FOR $1,040,000.
betrayed by
an agent
DAVID DI BIASE, A 28-YEAR-OLD
PARTNER AT A DIGITAL AGENCY
56 toronto life October 2014
Just before the Canada
Day weekend, my partner
and I put in an offer of
$745,000 on a house near
Mount Pleasant and
Eglinton, with a $35,000
deposit in escrow. The
inspection revealed that
the house still had knoband-tube wiring, so we
dropped our offer to
$725,000. Two hours after
our offer expired, the
s­ elling agent got back to
us and asked for a better
offer. When we declined,
she said we’d forfeited our
deposit to the sellers. We
demanded it back, but her
response was, “We shall
see.” At this point, we
were convinced she was
crazy, so we called her
broker, who made sure
the cheque was signed
back to us. For an entire
day, we thought we’d lost
$35,000. A week later, the
agent re-listed the house
for the exact amount we’d
offered! We found the
name of the seller and
sent him an offer directly.
Within four hours, the
deal was done. His agent
was still technically
­representing the homeowners, but we otherwise
circumvented her.
photograph of di biase by erin leydon
TALES FROM THE FRONT
HOT BLOCKS
3
2
1
14 MUNRO PARK
In 2013, this two-storey
detached house SOLD FOR
the asking price of
$1,869,000 to a buyer who
proceeded with a gut reno.
6 MUNRO PARK
1
In July, this reno’d fourbedroom detached was
LISTED FOR $4,295,000—
a new high for the street.
Unsold at our print deadline.
THE STREET WHERE
IT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE
TO SCORE A HOUSE
MUNRO PARK AVENUE, FROM QUEEN TO THE LAKE
T
here are only 29 houses on munro park avenue, the most prestigious
street in the Beach, and they rarely come up for sale—only three have gone on
the market in the past two years. They’re generally passed down from generation to generation, old money–style, because no one wants to give up the view of the
lake or the short stroll to the century-old Balmy Beach Club and its meticulously
groomed lawn bowling green. The houses tend to be ornate, stucco and stonefronted, many with early 20th-century period details like double-sashed windows
and stained glass. Lots are massive for the Beach, with 50-foot frontages, and
prices climb closer to the lake, often going for half a million or more over list. “It’s
hands-down the most coveted street in the Beach,” says Mark Richards of Re/Max,
who’s currently selling a renovated $4.3-million house on the street.
48 MUNRO PARK
In late 2013, this detached
two-storey home near the
businesses on Queen was
LISTED FOR $1,432,000 and
SOLD FOR $1,385,000.
the no-inspection
disaster
BRENDA MORRISON, A 49-YEAROLD PR CONSULTANT
60 toronto life October 2014
When my partner and I
started looking for a
house, we hired an
inspector before bidding
on a place we didn’t get.
It felt like a wasted $400.
They are vague to cover
their own rear-ends for
liability. We decided not
to bother with the
inspection when we
found a house we loved
in Leslieville. We bought
the place for $621,000,
which was $42,000 over
the list price. After taking possession, we found
out we had to rewire the
whole place—it was a
mix of new wiring and
knob-and-tube. While
that was being done, we
stored all our stuff in the
basement, which was
exactly when a sewage
line, strangled by the
roots of a maple tree,
burst. The problems
didn’t end: the roof
leaked, the dishwasher
leaked, and, oh yeah, the
eavestroughs were ducttaped to the house. Right
as we were moving in,
the kitchen cupboards
fell right off the wall and
smashed to pieces. So
far, we’ve spent at least
$50,000 on repairs.
photograph of morrison courtesy of brenda morrison
TALES FROM THE FRONT