Move Up the Condo Ladder

Recently, TD released a report saying they predicted a shift to a buyer’s market over the next 18 months, which will mean softer conditions for the condo market, i.e. more choice and better affordability. Economist Diana Petramala said its “knock-on effects” on the single-family home market will lead to a widening of a price gap that already stands at about $200,000.

“As such, move-up buyers who would like to upgrade their condos to a single family home may find it difficult,” she said. “After increasing by an estimated 8 per cent this year, single family home prices are expected to rise 2 per cent next year.”

It’s a traditional take on the home buying agenda: get into whatever you can afford, which very often is a condo unit when you’re young and it’s your first home purchase, then, as life’s circumstances change or you build up some equity, you start looking around the single-family home market. It’s certainly true that lots of people love their yards and tolerate their commutes, but these days, the assumption that everyone wants to head further out as they age is a false one.

There’s a reason situations like the one that inspired last week’s column – where plans are approved in Liberty Village for larger family-friendly units but the neighbourhood lacks the necessary child-rearing infrastructure – are becoming problems: many contemporary Toronto residents want to raise their families in the city. It’s not 1956. In many households, both parents work. People are waking up to the fact that commuting is horrible for your health and your happiness. (Commute times are connected to both obesity and divorce!) Some people simply love city life and all its attendant culture, and are eager to raise children who love it just as much.

I think embracing more population-dense living is good for people’s attitudes, too. We are more likely to learn to behave ourselves with others if we don’t labour under an entitled illusion that we should all have a half-acre buffer between us and the rest of humanity. The exchange of cultures and ideas creates inspired art and architecture to boot.

Who says you have to move up to a house? Why not move up in the condo market? Go from your 500-sq.-ft. bachelor (or bachelorette) pad to an 800-sq.-ft. marital aerie to a 1,200-sq.-ft. family unit or a 1,500-sq.-ft. downtown townhome. Encouraging the idea that condominium living is temporary means that we’ll never fully embrace our communities, nor invest the time and effort to create businesses there, support infrastructure there, vote there, spend our leisure money there, and do all the other things that create sustainable urban neighbourhoods.

We use the phrase “aging in place” to talk about being old. Like when you hit your dotage, only then do you start thinking about permanence. But there’s nothing wrong with aging in place right from young adulthood. Toronto is a great city, and it’s just getting better. Developments like the Canary District, Regent Park and Bayside Toronto get me excited about what the future holds for those who embrace condominium living as a way of life.

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The Sam the Record Man sign is in its new home now, looming over Dundas Square from the corner of Yonge and Gould. What do you think? With all the billboards that now dominate this block, the frequent live events and plethora of shops, it’s been compared to New York’s Time Square more than once. More than a thousand times, I’m guessing. I say if you’re going to go kitsch, go all the way. I welcome it as another element of a neighbourhood unlike any other in the city. Kind of New York light, befitting this rapidly growing high-rise city of ours. Those of us who remember Sam’s Yonge Street store before the Ryerson Student Learning Centre took its patch of ground in 2007 will always look up fondly and remember our misspent youths. The rest of you can just enjoy it as the future landmark it deserves to be. Welcome back, Sam.