BRIAN'S BLOG
Toronto’s housing market: Part 2
September 11, 2014
In the last post, I discussed how couples find ways to afford a home in Toronto. But what do you do if you’re not part of a couple who are both earning six figures or you have kids? That’s the subject of this Toronto Life article.
For parents who want to raise their kids in the downtown core, many are opting for condos. The three couples profiled all have one child and are all living in the core. What they are going to do when they have a second child remains a mystery because there are limited options for three bedroom condos downtown and those that are available are pricey – and when you include maintenance fees, comparable to a house.
The average size of a condo being built in Toronto is now 695 square feet, according to the CBC, down from 822 square feet in 2012. The average size of a home in Canada is now 1950 square feet, up from 1050 in 1975. The average size of a house in the UK, according to the Daily Mail, is 1044 square feet.
Why am I throwing these figures at you? To show that the idea of ‘spacious’ is relative. A whole generation of us were raised in the suburbs where there was more space but fewer amenities. Now, we want to have access to the amenities in the city and space. And that comes at a price.