5 04, 2022

JUST LISTED! 2 Frances Loring Lane

With over 1150 square feet of living space, this wonderful 3 bedroom townhome checks all of the boxes!

The main level features an open concept floor plan with large windows allowing for plenty of natural light. The spacious kitchen overlooks the living and dining rooms and features modern white cabinetry with black hardware, stainless steel appliances, lots of storage and ample counter space. The living and dining rooms are generous in size with impressive views of the downtown skyline. This space is ideal for entertaining or for enjoying some quality time with the family!

For added convenience, the main floor also includes a front hall closet, a powder room and a walk-out to the front patio for summer barbequing!

The second level includes 2 spacious bedrooms and a nicely appointed 4-piece washroom. The primary bedroom has a large west facing window and plenty of storage in the built-in closets.

The third level features a fantastic flex space which can be used as a bedroom, a home office or as a family room depending on your needs. There is another built-in closet and laundry as well as a walk-out to the impressive west facing rooftop terrace. Perfect for relaxing with friends as you take in the sunsets over the downtown skyline.

Parking and a locker are included! Just move in and enjoy everything that this wonderful residence has to offer!

For more photos and info, check out 2FrancesLoring.com

Listed for $899,000
Reach out to book a private showing!

31 07, 2017

SOLD OVER ASKING! 201 Carlaw Ave, Loft 129 – Leslieville


This stunning 2-level loft is located in the original section of the building revealing soaring ceilings and exposed brick with plenty of character. Located on Carlaw just north of Queen St. E, the location is what we consider the heart of Leslieville.

1120 square feet of interior living space provides ample room to enjoy. Open concept living, dining, and kitchen feature light laminate wood flooring throughout. Stainless Steel appliances, beautiful granite counter tops and a handy kitchen island to provide the perfect setting for your cooking creations.

The upper level boasts an impressive bedroom with plenty of natural light, exposed brick walls, 12 foot ceilings, and a triple wide closet for plenty of storage. This level also features a beautifully appointed 4 piece bathroom with modern tiles accented with granite counter tops and a large den area that has potential to be converted to a 2nd bedroom if desired.

2 separate entrances provide easy access to the street level for everything Leslieville has to offer or to the parking area, perfect for carrying in your groceries from the car!

Just move in and enjoy this spectacular home!

31 07, 2017

SOLD OVER ASKING! 233 Carlaw Ave, Penthouse Loft 815 – Leslieville


Welcome to Penthouse 815 in the renowned Garment Factory Lofts!

The interior features trendy style at every turn with a wonderful openness and abundant natural light. The interior and exterior flow is seamless so it is truly an amazing space morning, noon and night.

Recent interior updates give this loft a nice edge while keeping it very comfortable.

The open concept floor plan is perfect for entertaining with enough space for separate living and dining areas and space for a home office if desired.

The loft features engineered hardwood floors throughout, soaring 10’6” ceilings, exposed ductwork and custom industrial style light fixtures. The kitchen includes granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and a large centre island as well as a modern subway tile backsplash.

The bedroom is a fantastic space to wake up in as the morning sun fills the entire space. There is a large double closet with built ins for added storage and a sliding glass door. The spa like bathroom features a new wall mounted vanity and impressive slate tiles.

The balcony accommodates comfy seating. Perfect for reading a good book and plenty of space for enjoying a barbeque in any season.

The unobstructed expansive lake views are enhanced by a blanket of lush green trees in the summer months and a coat of glistening snow covered roof tops in the winter.

Move in and enjoy this wonderful space!

14 03, 2017

INDUSTRY LEADING STAGING SERVICES

We are proud to offer industry leading staging services to all of our clients!

We believe that creating an environment that feels warm and welcoming along with having the balance of function and visual appeal is so important.

Depending on your home and the prospective audience of buyers, we tailor the look to suit their style. Using soft and neutral colours as well as positioning furniture to make all the spaces flow together; your home will look and feel airy and elegant.

Working with esteemed designer Alicia Sass, we proudly offer complimentary staging to all of our clients.

8 01, 2017

How laneway houses could help solve Toronto’s real-estate woes


The GTA housing market has been operating within a policy of intensification for more than a decade now. This has caused a shift away from ground-oriented homes and moved the market toward higher-density housing, such as condominiums.

Our real-estate market has seen consistent increases in the cost of housing, with the average price of a detached home in Toronto increasing by over 32 per cent this past November from the same month last year, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board.

While those who prefer urban living have embraced higher-density housing, folks looking for traditional ground-oriented housing must move farther and farther away from the city to find it.

So what if there was a way to introduce new ground-oriented housing in the heart of Toronto that could accommodate up to 100,000 people, and the solution was literally in our backyard all along? That is, if your backyard is along a laneway.

Laneway housing is an innovative concept first introduced in Toronto back in 2006. And while it ultimately went nowhere here, it did inspire Vancouver, Ottawa and other cities to introduce policies that embraced it.

The original concept a decade ago contemplated a separate dwelling being legally severed and requiring new municipal services, resulting in the digging up of laneways.

The new groundswell of interest in laneway housing (call it laneway housing 2.0) is focused on taking a different approach, where the new structures will be treated as secondary dwellings on the existing property.

That means the garage at the rear of the property could be rebuilt by the owner to include a secondary dwelling unit, potentially serviced through the existing municipal connections, limiting neighbourhood disruption and creating new appropriately sized, ground-oriented housing units that could range in size from 700 to 1,500 square feet.

This could represent one of the most innovative solutions to a wide range of the city‘s housing needs, including multi-generational households where the owner can provide accommodation for parents or children or introduce much needed rental housing stock and help generate new income from their property. And it would be creating new ground-oriented housing in areas close to transit and existing community amenities, with minimal neighbourhood disruption.

There is no silver bullet solution to solve all of our housing challenges in the GTA, but with approximately 300 kilometres of laneways in the City of Toronto, laneway housing could be a good start.

But this innovation will require that everyone works together: citizens, government and industry. And community consultations are underway. If you’re interested, you can participate by going online to: lanescape.ca/survey to learn more about the initiative and provide your input.

Remember: The best way to predict the future is to help create it.

SOURCE: THE TORONTO STAR

14 11, 2016

First-time home buyers to get $4,000 land transfer rebate

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Finance Minister Charles Sousa is giving first-time home buyers a $4,000 land transfer tax rebate.

Sousa used Monday’s fall economic statement to announce the tax break for eligible purchasers is being doubled from $2,000.

“Purchasing your very first home is one of the most exciting decisions in a young person’s life, but many are worried about how they will be able to afford their first condo or house,” the treasurer told the Legislature.

The change, which takes effect on Jan. 1, means first-time buyers will not pay land transfer tax on the first $386,000 of the cost of their homes.

“For many this will mean no land transfer tax on the purchase for their first home,” said Sousa.

“The housing market is an important source of economic growth and employment in Ontario and improving housing affordability will help more Ontarians participate,” he said.

Under the land transfer tax break, more than half of first-time home buyers won’t have to pay land transfer tax at all — although those in Toronto will still face the city’s levy implemented in 2008.

Renters are also getting a break, as the government freezes the property tax on apartment buildings — which are taxed at more than double the rate of other residential properties and condos, for example — while it reviews how the “high property tax burden” impacts the affordability of rentals.

To fund the breaks, the government will increase land transfer rates on houses that cost more than $2 million.

For every dollar over and above that, the rate will rise from 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent.

But the tax on the portion of the purchase price between $400,000 and $2 million will remain at 2 per cent.

The rate between $250,000 and $400,000 stay at 1.5 per cent and between $55,000 and $250,000 at 1 per cent.

And the first $55,000 of a purchase price will remain at 0.5 per cent land transfer tax.

Those changes only affect properties with one or two single-family residences.

For other types of properties, such as apartment buildings, the only increase will be on the portion over and above $400,000, which will jump from 1.5 per cent to 2 per cent.

Despite a controversial accounting change from Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, Sousa said the Liberals would balance the books in 2017-18 as he has promised.

The deficit for 2016-17 will remain at $4.3 billion as he had projected in the February budget.

That figure would have been lower but for Lysyk surprising the Liberals last month by announcing two government-sponsored public pension funds should no longer be booked as assets — even though they had been since 2001.

The actuarial adjustment — which is now being reviewed by an independent expert panel — wiped $10.7 billion from the assets column and is the equivalent of a $1.5 billion hit on next year’s budget.

“We will balance the budget in 2017-18 and remain balanced in 2018-19 as scheduled. It’s not going to be easy, but … we will make the right choices to bring Ontario to balance,” said Sousa.

Lysyk said she amended her interpretation after examining the province’s claim to the co-sponsored Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Pension Plan and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

In other measures — most previously announced — Sousa reminded Ontarians the government will waive the 8 per cent provincial share of the harmonized sales tax in electricity bills starting in January and bring in savings up of up $540 a year on hydro for some rural Ontario residents.

The first of 100,000 promised new child care spaces by 2022 will come this school year, with 3,400 spots at a cost of $65.5 million, while the more than 100 hospitals across the province will share an additional $140 million in base funding.

Schools will get another $1.1 billion over two years to help address a backlog of much-needed repairs and upgrades, with another $60 million going toward an effort aimed at boosting math skills in elementary school pupils by giving them one hour of math instruction daily from Grades 1 through 8.

In terms of consumer protection, the government plans to ban door-to-door sales of water heaters, air conditioners, furnaces and water filters and will pass legislation to licence and set qualifications for home inspectors.

As well, fees for special occasion permits allowing the serving of beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages at weddings and other events will be cancelled.
SOURCE: THE TORONTO STAR

6 06, 2016

Toronto Real Estate Board ordered to open up online sales data

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The Toronto Real Estate Board must let its member brokers release more home sales data to the public via the internet, the federal Competition Tribunal ordered Friday, in a move that could resonate across Canadian real estate markets.

The tribunal’s order, which follows an April ruling that TREB was stifling competition by restricting access to data on its proprietary Multiple Listing Service, says TREB must let its members offer searchable online databases called “virtual office websites.”

Those databases allow access to important information held in MLS, including data like sales prices, broker commissions, and withdrawn listings, as well as archived data.

“We’ve always taken the position where the more information that consumers have, the better decisions they can make,” said John Pasalis, president of the Toronto real estate brokerage Realosophy and a witness in favour of opening up the data.

“We’re going to look at making it more widely available on our website now,” said Pasalis.

Some Toronto-area real estate agents are champing at the bit to take advantage of the Competition Tribunal’s order as quickly as possible. Ara Mamourian, owner of Spring Realty, wrote in his blog that releasing the previously restricted information via his company’s search tool will save time and hassle for brokers and buyers alike.

Even brokers outside of Toronto have their eye on the Competition Tribunal’s order, and expect it to impact their local markets.

“Most likely because TREB is the biggest board, I think it’s going to trickle down right to the smallest board out there,” said Mayur Arora, a realtor with Oneflatfee.ca and a member of the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board.

Limits on home sales data

Still, the Competition Tribunal’s ruling does set some limits on exactly which MLS data can be released online.

Consumers who want to access the data will have to have a password-protected account with the broker providing it, and individual home sellers can request that TREB exclude their home sale information from the online databases. TREB can also keep certain private information about a home seller confidential, including mortgage and security information.

The Tribunal also said “TREB may limit members’ use to being directly related to the business of providing residential real estate brokerage services.”

The order represents a victory for the federal Competition Bureau. In its original application to get the data released, the bureau said the data will allow real estate agents “to offer consumers the convenience of data-driven insights into home sales prices and trends via the web and to improve the efficiency and quality of their services.”

TREB has 60 days from June 3 to implement the changes, and was also ordered to pay the Competition Commissioner’s legal costs of more than $1.8 million. In a statement, TREB CEO John DiMichele said TREB has filed a notice of appeal, but is reviewing the order with its lawyers before commenting publicly.

An ongoing legal saga

The tribunal’s ruling is the latest development in a case that goes back years. In 2011, the Competition Bureau sued TREB, Canada’s largest real estate board, for restricting the ways in which its member agents could release data from the Multiple Listing System.

The Competition Bureau said TREB’s practices were anti-competitive, and kept customers from accessing information that would help them buy a house. At the time, TREB said it was “legally and morally required to respect” the private information involved in real estate sales. The Competition Tribunal dismissed that case, but hearings began again in 2015 following a successful appeal by the Competition Bureau.
SOURCE: CBC NEWS

30 05, 2016

RECORD BREAKING SALE IN RIVERSIDE!

We’re incredibly proud of this one!
* Highest sale ever on DeGrassi Street
* Highest sale ever in the area (E01 – South Riverdale) for a detached home without parking
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6 05, 2016

Toronto House Prices Are Rising By $550 A Day

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Every day you own a detached house in Toronto, your net worth rises by $550.

Or put another way, every day you delay buying a house in Toronto will cost you another $550.

The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) reported Wednesday that single-detached home prices hit an average of $1.258 million in April, up a massive 18.9 per cent in a year.

That breaks down to price growth of $16,820 per month, or roughly $550 per day.

That’s for single detached homes in the city itself. The average price for all home types in Greater Toronto rose by $104,000 in a year, to $739,082, up about 16.3 per cent in a year.

Condo owners aren’t seeing nearly the same rate of growth, though. Condo prices in the city rose 7 per cent, to $436,545, and in the suburban 905 region they rose 7.8 per cent, to $343,439.

So if you own a condo in Toronto, you’re seeing price growth of $2,411 per month, or “just” $79.26 per day.

Detached home owners can be forgiven for thinking they’ve won a real estate lottery.

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