Blog
Neighbourhood Exploration: What is it about Willowdale??
When you get a group of people from across the city in one room, talk often turns to Real Estate, both the insanity of Toronto’s market and the unwritten divide that exits in Toronto. People are either East Enders or West Enders, with Yonge St being the dividing line. Torontonians tend to stay in their corner of the city, taking comfort and pride in the familiar sights and sounds. Unfortunately, this thinking really limits your Real Estate options. It’s fair to say that if you are unfamiliar with or have never visited a particular neighbourhood it’s unlikely to be on your radar, but being open to all the city has to offer helps to avoid buying and paying more than you should in an overheated area. I have never found myself with any allegiance to the east or west end, but for those of you that get anxiety crossing over Yonge St, the thought of moving North of the 401 might send you into deep sweats. So let’s explore what is it about Willowdale that makes it such a desirable place to live for so many Torontonians.
Willowdale is considered downtown North York, and for many, the appeal is that it’s located smack dab in the middle of the GTA, bordered by Finch to the north, Bayview to the East, Bathurst to the West, and Sheppard to the South. Previously a suburban area north of Toronto, construction of the Yonge St. subway eventually led to a boom in condo development surrounding the Yonge St. corridor. As a result, freehold properties in surrounding areas have increased substantially in value. The average condo in Willowdale sells for just under $400,000 and you can expect to get a about 10-20% more space than what you would find at the same price point downtown. The inventory of detached homes in Willowdale is different from what you will find in neighbourhoods located closer to Toronto’s core, but don’t expect any price discounts. Willowdale attracts many of Toronto’s most affluent newcomers. In 2015, the average bungalow in Willowdale West has been selling for $1.1 M while a Detached 2 -storey will set you back $1.6M+. The West side of Yonge seems like a deal compared to the East where Bungalows have been averaging $1.3M and Detached 2-storey homes have been averaging almost $2 M this year.
So who is buying in Willowdale and why? The top languages spoken in Willowdale, aside from English, are Persian, Chinese, Russian, and Tagalong. Many Buyers find Willowdale appealing because you can find large recently built or brand new detached homes with lots ranging from 30’ to 60’ in width. The freehold inventory in Willowdale is made up of newer homes often with 3000 or more square feet and modern finishings. In the end though, it’s the home’s age and frontage that play the major role in the final sale price. The newer builds offer home buyers minimal maintenance compared to many of Toronto’s neighbourhoods to the south. These large houses often house extended families. The price tags are high, but the buying process is much less intense than Toronto’s southern neighbourhoods. Offer nights are not the norm these higher priced homes, and although they often sell close to asking price they might sit on the market for some time before finding the right buyer. Willowdale is quite walkable with a diverse array of restaurant options all along Yonge St. It’s transit friendly especially if you find something in good proximity to Yonge St. and most of the schools are well-ranked.
Willowsdale may or many not be the right option for you, but exploring what other neighbourhoods have to offer can lead to a better purchase. Before you even start looking at properties, it’s a good idea to have your Realtor do some neighbourhood analysis and recommend areas that match your price point. Have your Real Estate Broker send you ‘solds’ for similar priced properties across the city, and go visit a park, community event, or public space in a new neighbourhood to get a feel for all the city has to offer.
The Intricacies of Deciding When To Sell Your Home
The smell of fireworks has barely cleared the air and the number of new listings hitting the market this week compared to last is piling up. Active Listings in Toronto are currently 11% higher than they were on Monday and 15% higher than what they were 3 weeks ago. Often realtors discourage listing leading into a long weekend, and although this advice holds true for some properties, it shouldn’t be a hard and fast rule. After all, the rules of Real Estate are constantly changing. It wasn’t too long ago that holding an offer night in an area like Pickering would have been considered absurd by most agents, but this spring it has become fairly common practice.
Not listing prior to a long weekend has become an unwritten rule and usually results in a large increase in listings the following week. And while it’s true that some buyers have dashed off to New York, gone fishing, or have turned the weekend into a never ending bender (aka gone fishing), many home buyers stayed local hoping for an extra day to put towards their home search. Those dedicated Home Buyers staying in the city were likely disappointed with their lack of open house options.
The dramatic increase in listings that we are seeing this week could spell disaster for some Sellers, leaving them questioning what went wrong when they fail to attract the desired sale price for their home. Sure, if you have the most desirable home in your neighbourhood the increase in competition is unlikely to impact you; competition for those properties is less of a concern and exposure to a maximum number of Buyers is more important. For everyone else, the fact is Home Buyers are only able to give consideration to a limited number of properties in any given week. When you list on a week with a lot of inventory your offer night will attract fewer Buyers since they are spread out over multiple properties.
Opportunistic Buyers should take note of the increase in inventory and aim to see as many homes as possible this week. Those waiting for the summer or late fall months, where the average price for a home tends to be lower than the busy spring, might be surprised to see value in quality spring listings. Your Realtor can’t always predict how many listings are going to hit the market on any given week, but a little analysis, care, and strategic thinking should help you list your property at a more opportune time, leading to a higher sale price. Sellers should make sure their Broker gives proper consideration to these market dynamics. Staging is often seen as the top priority when selling, but I would argue that strategic guidance and analysis from your Realtor can be equally as important.
Don’t Have Kids? Don’t Want Kids? Don’t Even Like Them?
The thing is, kids or no kids, schools need to be on your radar when buying or selling.
What are your memories from Kindergarten? Playing in the sandbox, maybe your first crush, your first sleepover at a friend’s house, and who can forget Doug – glue eating champion. For many school boards, Kindergarten registration took place the past couple of months, and while Kindergarten is a simple time for kids, it tends to send many parents into a frenzy questioning whether they are sending their kids down the right path. It may surprise some people to know that this decision on where to send kids to school actually has a huge impact on people’s real estate choices.
It’s not uncommon to see a home on one side of the street sell for 10% higher than the other simply because it falls into a different school boundary. If you aren’t paying attention, you could end up over paying to be on the wrong side of the street, or undervaluing your property because you failed to consider school boundaries.
Schools are a major factor in many people’s minds when deciding when and where to buy or sell, and if you aren’t thinking about it, you should be. Take my friends Jeff and Nish for instance, they purchased their first home about 8 years ago prior to having 2 adorable little girls, one of whom will be starting kindergarten for the first time this fall. At the time they purchased (unfortunately for them with a different Broker, pffft), school quality wasn’t on the radar. Little did they know that if they purchased one block East, they would have bought in a better school district. Not a big deal right? 8 years is a long time in one house, maybe it’s time for a move anyway. As someone who makes my living off people moving, I’d like to say no big deal, but moving is a big deal. Whenever possible I encourage my clients to purchase for the long term because moving is expensive and a hassle. Land transfer taxes, legal fees, marketing and realtor fees, and moving costs add up to tens of thousands of dollars. Nish has taken to writing pleading letters with the principal at the better school district to allow them to enter, but they are now on the hunt for a new home in a better quality school district.
Maybe you are of the notion that school quality will change for the better as the neighbourhood does. My wife and I fall into this category; we did think about schools, a lot, but decided to hope for the best. We bought on a street where every second house has 2 kids under the age of 6. Frankly, if you don’t have a 3-6 year old and a baby or at least the intention to have one, you will feel like the odd man out on Woodfield (that’s what us wannabe cool parents tell ourselves anyway). We bought in Leslieville with our 1 year old daughter in the Duke of Connaught school district (one of the worst ranked schools in Ontario). We knew about the poor school quality and anticipated positive changes in the school, a reflection of the positive changes happening in the neighbourhood. After all, our neighbourhood’s income levels are increasing, we have a limited number of rental properties in the area, and many of the homes that fall into Duke’s boundaries are suitable for growing families; three correlations that generally lead to better rankings in school quality. While house values have increased above the city average, we have yet to see a change in school quality, sigh.
The challenge we are seeing is that families in our school district are apprehensive to send their kids to such a poorly ranked school and start to look at other options. Some neighbours are considering private school, which means spending an additional $1,600 a month per child, other people will skirt the system by using a relatives’ or a rental property address to get them into a better district. We have considered other options ourselves. Part of the reason my wife and I sent our kids to an all French daycare was so that we had an alternative plan in place, allowing us to send our kids to a well ranked French school in the area, instead of our not-so-highly ranked home school. It doesn’t matter how many amazing people you have in your neighbourhood, if you don’t buy in and commit to change, it’s not going to happen. We love our community and continue to see our neighbourhood grow, improve and appreciate. But if we ever want to see home values catch or pass other top-ranked neighbourhoods, a better ranked elementary school seems to be a missing part of the equation. And yes, school rankings are just a small measure in determining what makes a great school, but it’s often the only measurement rushed home buyers consider.
We have decided to be part of the change to improve our local school and hope others join. For us, the benefit to higher school rankings is more about our children obtaining a better education, but better rankings will benefit the community as a whole, and whether you have kids or not, it will lead to higher appreciation in home values. So kids or no kids, when you go to buy or sell your next home, make sure you give proper consideration to the school district.
Are housing costs more than they were in 1985
Anybody who reads this Blog probably knows that I don’t like it when people sensationalize Real Estate news, and that I prefer to look at past results to help us make better decisions. Which is why I love this article by Jason Heath in the Financial Post on whether homes cost more now than they did 30 years ago. This is a great read that goes nicely with my recent post on whether Toronto Can Afford Million Dollar Homes. It provides a great comparison to what home buyers were facing in the 1980s and looks at Toronto specifically which helps readers digest information specific to their location.
We are often inundated with simple data and bold statements which, I think, leads to great misinterpretation. For instance, our Bank of Canada Governor made headlines in December stating that Canadian home prices could be seen as overvalued by as much as 30%. Many people could have immediately taken this information and localized it; for Toronto Home Buyers, this might have created the expectation that home prices were due to drop in 2015. In actuality, the opposite has happened in Toronto as we see home prices – especially for single family detached homes across the GTA – continue to head higher and higher.
Toronto’s Real Estate industry produces some great headlines, but knowing that a home attracted 25 offers or sold for $200,000 above asking price provides less market insight than you think. Even headlines coming from the experts can be misguiding if we don’t look into cause and effect.
Can Toronto Afford Million Dollar Homes?
By now you have probably heard that Toronto’s average price for a detached home was $1,040,000 in the month of February. This is the first time the average for a detached home held above $1M for an entire month.
One Million Dollars!
Does that line ever catch our attention and make great headlines. This milestone is certain to cause many to claim the housing market has gone insane and that Toronto Real Estate is drastically overvalued. While large price appreciation should cause people to question whether housing remains a good investment, don’t let sensationalism trump rational thinking, and ask instead: can Torontonians afford to spend $1M for a detached home?
Earlier this year many people wrote about how there was such a large increase, 38% to be exact, in the number of homes that sold for more than $1M in 2014. I was about to write about it myself until I realized it wasn’t that ground breaking. As homes in Toronto continue to show strong appreciation, it’s natural to see an increase in sales in higher price segments. If you look at how many homes were selling between $900,000-$999,999 in 2013, you could have predicted a 30% increase in sales over $1M in 2014, given Toronto’s recent appreciation rates. What this increase did confirm, is that Buyers’ have an appetite to purchase homes above $1M, and we are continuing to see it in 2015.
In order to be able to afford a $1M dollar home with a 20% down payment and a 3% interest rate, you need to have a pre tax annual household income of about $165,000 (based on 32% GDS ratio). For me, the potential rental income is not as important a factor because the majority of this price segment is made up of owner or owner/tenant occupancy. The big question is: are there enough households in Toronto making over $165,000 to justify the average price for a detached being above $1M? According to Statistics Canada, in 2010, 15.6% of households in the GTA and 12.6% in Toronto made above $150,000. In February 2015, the GTA had 628 sales above $1M dollars accounting for 9.9% of Toronto home sales. This is an important number in my mind; it shows that inventory selling above $1M is in line/below the percent of people in the City who can afford a $1M home in current economic conditions.
What I find interesting about our market is the disconnect between income and home sales in the segment just below the $1M mark. In 2010, 17.3% of the GTA and 13.4% of Toronto households had incomes between $100,000-$150,000. If your household income is $100,000 with a 20%down payment, you are likely to be approved for a purchase price in the neighbourhood of $600,000. But February sales in the $600,000-$999,999 price segment made up 25% of the GTA’s sales. So we are seeing the number of sales in this segment exceeding the number of households you would expect to be able to afford to purchase in this price range (based on 2010 incomes).
In saying that, I’m not sounding the alarm. There are several reasons why this particular comparison might have some holes in it. For example, maybe this segment is made up of more first-time buyers than we would think. Many people in this price segment could be singles who subsequently combine their incomes to make their $700K house purchase. Perhaps we have seen a large increase from 2010 in the number of households with income over $100,000. Or maybe a larger than expected portion of these purchasers are being gifted a generous down payment by Great Aunt Dot (sounds like rich aunt name, right?) making their monthly mortgage payments that much more affordable. This price segment also has more potential to attract a larger number of downsizers who bought with equity from their $1M sale, but don’t have a household income to support the purchase.
Some people have used this Million dollar news to highlight the price discrepancy between condos and detached houses, I think that this can be misguided. The average condo continues to shrink in size while the square footage of a detached home and the amount of renovations invested in them continue to increase. We often see smaller detached homes taken down and replaced with brand new monster-size homes, which has an impact on the average price for detached in the city. More can be done to increase the value of a detached home than to a condo, and that will always be true; therefore, detached values will continue to far exceed condo prices.
There is always the possibility that the average price for a detached home could become overvalued, especially if we continue to see aggressive price appreciation in a short period of time. However, based on current interest rates and 2010 income levels, the average price for detached home is in line with the percentage of Torontonians who can afford them. If we see big changes in income levels, employment, interest rates, inventory, or strong price appreciation pushing too much of Toronto’s inventory above $1M, things could change. We should be keeping an eye on the number of Torontonians who can afford to spend $1M or more for a home and the number of sales in this price segment, but don’t expect us to see prices for a detached home in Toronto pull back in the immediate future. After all, Toronto should be a Million dollar city, right?!
Today’s First Timers: Here and Away
This week, we wrap up the series with a look at how our first time buyers fared in the 2000s and 2010s. We also spoke with buyers who purchased their first property in Australia to give you some perspective on how things are done differently in the land down under, that is, aside from the mind-blowing phenomenon that their toilets flush in the opposite direction.
First Time Home Buying in the 1980s and 1990s
1980s
Interest rates in the 1980s were in double digits for most of the decade and the Bank Rate actually reached 22% in 1981, a far cry from today’s 3%. Despite seeing some heart stopping interest rates, home prices in the 1980s increased by 260% from $76,000 in 1980 to $274,000 in 1989.
First Time Home Buying in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s
Do you remember your first time? You were probably nervous and worried you rushed the experience. With all the excitement, you were likely a little sweaty at some point in the process. For most it happens quicker than you anticipate, but for a few of us it seems to drag on forever. Immediately after it’s done, you should feel absolute delight, but it’s normal to have some self doubt. Like other first time memories, your first home purchase seems to be one most people don’t forget. Which is lucky for us, because we have gone all the way back to the 1950s to share First Time Home Buyer’s Experiences over the decades, a must read for anyone considering buying a home.
Has getting into the market always been this hard?! Have you ever considered asking your boss for a loan to fund your down payment? How much would you spend on a home if you were bringing in $3,500 a year? Check out what first-time home buyers were up against each decade, going all the way back to the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s!
Where to Buy and Sell This Week
Where to BUY in Toronto This Week: It’s been a long wait for home buyers/outdoor enthusiasts looking to buy in The Beach area where school quality is not a concern.
Why This Week: Inventory in The Beach, Woodbine Corridor, and Leslieville areas has been very limited throughout most of the summer and the majority of spring; however, active listings in The Beach and Leslieville have increased by over 50% since August and by approximately 20% from just 2 weeks ago. [..]
