Making your Real Estate needs my Priority
Dave Dry
Realtor, Century 21 Vantage Realty Ltd
Website: www.davedry.com
Blog: blog.davedry.com
Office: 780 483 2122
Direct: 780 446 3727
Fax 1 866 217 4642
Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Century21ca/~3/7FScnxB-FIg/July_2016_Real_Estate_Newsletter
Address: 1 Bedford Road, Unit 2005
Neighbourhood: The Annex
Agent: Daniel Milstein, Forest Hill Real Estate Inc., Brokerage
Price: $2,499,000
A two-bedroom plus den on the 20th floor of one of the more notable condo towers in town. The suite has excellent views of Bloor Street and the ROM.
Here’s the foyer:
The living room, with cool combination shelving/desk:
The second bedroom:
There are two bedrooms in the suite. This is the master:
And the master ensuite:
One of two balconies:
And the view:
A busy medical professional has lived here since 2011. He hired Powell Bonnell to handle the the interior design, and opted for a masculine aesthetic. Now, he’s moving to southern France.
The building has must-haves for the rich and powerful, like a covered and heated driveway that prevents residents from catching chills while waiting for their cars. That could explain why it’s the building of choice for industry titans and literary luminaries. Even Mayor John Tory and his wife, Barbara Hackett, have a suite here.
For $2.5 million, one could get a lot more square footage elsewhere in the Annex. But this place doesn’t have the upkeep problems of a 100-year-old Annex home.
• $2,499,000
• 1,682 square feet
• $1,162 in monthly maintenance fees
• 9-foot ceilings
• 3 bathrooms
• 2 bedrooms
• 2 balconies (each about 75 square feet)
• 2 parking spaces
• 2 walk-in closets
• 1 den or office
• 1 fireplace
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox
Neighbourhood: Wellington
Price: From $430 per night for a weeklong summer stay (rates increase for shorter stays)
A totally renovated three-bedroom bungalow on the Prince Edward County lakeshore, owned by a senior manager at the Drake Hotel in Toronto.
The host initially bought the place without even seeing the interior. She knew she was going to renovate, and the view was worth it:
The vintage rocking chair originally belonged to the host’s grandparents, and the dining room table is from her childhood home:
There’s a cozy sitting room in front of the stone fireplace, which the host found hiding under a marble facade installed by the previous owners:
The kitchen backsplash is made of Sabine Hill cement tiles, purchased from a co-worker after a Drake General Store renovation:
They’re also found on the floor of the master ensuite:
The master bedroom has sliding doors that open onto the massive deck:
There’s also a light-drenched sunroom:
And bunkbeds for the kids (or playful grownups):
After searching for a cottage in the county for a few years, the host bought this bungalow in 2015. She completely gutted the space, replacing everything from the electrical and plumbing systems to the roof and windows. She also tore down some walls inside to create an airy, open-concept layout. The only original element is the stone fireplace.
The home’s quirky-cool style is somewhat reminiscent of the décor at the Drake Devonshire, which is located a kilometre and a half down the road.
Unlike at the Drake Devonshire (or any other hotel), this place has no built-in restaurant or games room.
• 1,800 square feet
• $430 per night
• 8 guests
• 3 bedrooms
• 2 bathrooms
• 1 soaker tub
• 1 bunkbed
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox
The renter: Kevin Tsai, a 24-year-old data analytics student at Ryerson University.
The story: Kevin had lived in North York for most of his life, first in a condo with family and then on his own, at Yonge and Sheppard. With his 25th birthday around the corner, he decided the time was right to leave uptown and venture closer to his friends, who lived near the Air Canada Centre. He’d inherited the family condo in 2014 after his mother passed away, and he was renting it out on Airbnb. Thanks to the steady flow of renters, he figured he could afford $1,900 per month for a one-bedroom apartment.
A one-bedroom apartment on Charles Street (near Yonge and Bloor), advertised for $1,700 per month
This place ticked plenty of boxes: it was in a new building, it was on the 32nd floor and it had a balcony. But, within 10 seconds of walking in the door, Kevin knew it wasn’t right for him. It was only 520 square feet, which wouldn’t have been a problem if not for the inefficient layout. In particular, Kevin didn’t like the sliding glass door that separated the bedroom from the living room. If the door is transparent, he figured, what’s the point?
A one-bedroom apartment on Temperance Street (near Bay and Richmond), advertised for $1,850 per month
This unit was just shy of 500 square feet, and, again, the odd layout seemed to waste the limited space. A long hallway led to a cramped living room, where a clear glass door (yes, another one) cordoned off the tiny bedroom. Kevin liked the area, and he considered putting in an application, but ultimately he decided to keep looking.
A one-bedroom apartment on Adelaide (near John), for $1,850 per month (plus hydro)
This building in the heart of the Entertainment District didn’t make the greatest first impression. It was so new that the front door was under construction, and the chairs and carpets in the lobby were still in their packaging. But the unit, on the 26th floor, had everything Kevin wanted. At 524 square feet, the apartment didn’t waste any space. The front door opened right into the combined living room and kitchen. The spacious east-facing patio had views of the city and a sliver of Lake Ontario, and it was big enough for patio furniture. The concierge told Kevin that at least 20 people had seen the place. Thinking he had to act fast, Kevin spent the subway ride home mulling the decision over. He put in an application that night and was accepted the next day.
Here’s the living and dining area:
A closer look at the kitchen:
And the bedroom:
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox
Address: 4 Hurndale Avenue
Neighbourhood: North Riverdale
Agents: David Singer, Royal LePage Your Community Realty, Brokerage
Price: $1,875,000
Previously sold for: $315,000, in 1999
A carefully restored century-old home.
This 1917 detached home is located one block north of the Danforth. The interior still retains some of its antique charm, with solid wood doors and two fireplaces (one working, one not).
Cool porch rug:
Here’s the dining room, with starburst ceiling medallion:
The family room is combined with the kitchen’s breakfast bar:
A closer look at the kitchen:
There are three bedrooms on the second floor. This one is being used as a den:
Another bedroom, this one being used as an office:
The master bedroom:
And the window-lined master ensuite:
The back deck is 575 square feet of light wood, which blends well with the back of the house and is perfect for entertaining:
And here’s a view of the house from the rear:
This is a high-traffic area, especially during the warmer months, when events like Taste of the Danforth flood the street with visitors. In exchange for tolerating the ruckus, the buyer will get an easy walk to shops, restaurants and Broadview subway station.
• $1,875,000
• 7,177.22 in taxes (2017)
• 1,677 square feet
• 24.25-by-99.83 foot lot
• 3 bedrooms
• 3 bathrooms
• 2 fireplaces
• 1 parking spot
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox
Address: 98 Concord Avenue
Neighbourhood: Dufferin Grove
Agent: Britney Andrade, Royal LePage Supreme Realty, Brokerage
Price: $3,700 per month, plus utilities
A one-bedroom restored coach house, available furnished or unfurnished.
The main house on the property was built in 1910, and the coach house came five years later. Its ground floor was originally used as a stable, and the upper floor was a home for a family of four. The current owner bought the entire property in 2013 and spent a year restoring and renovating both buildings. He lives in the main house, and his daughter stayed in the coach house until last year. It’s now available for August 1.
Here’s the entrance:
The living area and kitchen:
A closer look at the kitchen:
The bedroom is upstairs:
And it has the ever-popular open-concept bathroom, for those who love the thrill of no-doors defecation (there is also a powder room, for those who like privacy):
During the restoration, the owner used materials from the main house to maintain the coach house’s vintage look, including the bathtub and the doors for the powder and furnace rooms. He recycled a fire escape for the staircase:
The coach house doesn’t come with a parking spot, but street parking is available.
• $3,700 per month
• 1,200 square feet
• 1 bedroom
• 1 bathroom
• 1 powder room
• 0 parking spots (street parking is available)
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox
Address: 16 Euclid Avenue
Neighbourhood: Trinity Bellwoods
Agent: Monte Burris, Keller Williams Referred Urban Realty, Brokerage
Previously sold for: $347,500, in 2004
An updated Victorian home in a highly sought-after location.
The sellers bought the 110-year-old home 13 years ago and went about a series of renovations. The added a new kitchen, lowered and waterproofed the basement and added a patio with built-in bench seating.
Here’s the living room:
The dining room:
And the kitchen:
There are three bedrooms on the second floor. Here’s one of them:
And another:
And the master bedroom:
All three bedrooms share this bathroom:
The basement is finished:
Oddly, the basement bathroom is fancier than the one on the second floor—at least, if your sole criterion for fanciness is the presence of a soaker tub:
And here’s the back patio:
The buyers, who are upsizing from a condo, wanted to be on Queen West. They’ll take possession in September.
The home was first listed at $1.249 million, to no avail. The sellers pulled the listing and tried again at $1.199, which brought in a flurry of lowball offers. The eventual buyers were responsible for one of those offers. The agent gave them the weekend to improve, and they came back with their winning bid.
• $1,160,000
• $4,423.67 in taxes (2016)
• 2,058 square feet
• 12 days on MLS
• 3 bedrooms
• 2 bathrooms
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox
Address: 8 Wellesley Street East, Unit 610
Neighbourhood: Church-Wellesley Village
Agent: Mark Richards, Re/Max Hallmark Richards Group Realty Ltd.
Price: $649,000
Previously sold for: $410,000, in 2014
A two-bedroom in a 20-year-old building at Yonge and Wellesley. There’s no outdoor space, but there are big windows facing northwest over Yonge, making the unit a prime location for watching the Pride parade.
An artist who works in advertising bought this in 2014. He has added quartz countertops, shined up the floors with epoxy and strategically exposed the coffered concrete ceilings.
Here’s the living and dining space. The exposed portion of the concrete ceiling helps visually separate the living area from the rest of the unit:
A closer look at the living area:
There’s a Juliet balcony, but no actual outdoor living space. (What you see out the window is just a rooftop.)
The custom benches under the kitchen counter are included in the price of the condo:
Here’s one bedroom:
And here’s the other:
It looks every bit as modern as any of the new condos nearby, but it’s listed for less money, on a per-square-foot basis. The maintenance fees are a little higher than average, though.
There’s no parking space included—although who really needs parking when you live next to the Wellesley subway station?
• $649,000
• 1,070 square feet
• $910 in monthly maintenance fees
• 2 bedrooms
• 2 bathrooms
• 1 Juliet balcony
• 1 walk-in closet
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox
Most of the time, Magna International CEO Donald Walker and his wife, the reality TV personality Joan Kelley Walker, live in their King City mansion. In 2014, they decided their two-bedroom pied-à-terre at the Thompson Residences wasn’t roomy enough for the few nights each month they find themselves downtown, so they splurged on a luxe West Queen West townhouse to use instead. The place was one of four 100-by-25-foot units in a former button factory. When they bought it, it was an unfinished shell. Joan worked with architect Brad Netkin on the interior structure. “We didn’t want it to seem like a long, skinny bowling alley,” she says. They carved two new mezzanine levels out of the three-storey space and arranged them around a central glass staircase. The main level is solely for shindigs, with a sleek onyx bar, catering kitchen and billiards table. The second floor has a massive dining area with six tables that can seat over 30 guests. Across a glass walkway is the master bedroom, a theatre, a gym and two guest bedrooms. The top floor has the Walkers’ personal kitchen, an intimate dining area, a hot tub–equipped deck and an airy, art-filled living room. This interior arrangement allows the couple to throw epic bashes without guests traipsing into their private spaces in search of a bathroom.
The pendant chandeliers are from Nienkämper:
“I like blank walls with a bit of texture, so that the art can really pop,” Joan says. This piece, which hangs in the entranceway, was created by local visual artist Alexis Jardin:
The couple love the natural light in their master suite, which has his-and-hers walk-in closets and a soaker tub that looks out onto a west-facing balcony:
The private kitchen on the third floor is where the Walkers do their non-party-related food prep:
Here’s a view of the downstairs entertaining space:
Joan handled most of the decor, but the motorcycle, a 2007 Big Dog, was all Don. He rides his other bikes, but this one is just for display:
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox
Address: 128 Outlet Road, Prince Edward County
Neighbourhood: Cherry Valley
Price: $249 per night
A super-quaint cottage with a renovated interior located right on the shores of East Lake.
The hosts have decorated the interior with a mix of vintage pieces (like the table) and newer items (like the dining room chairs). They found the oars hanging in the cottage’s shed when they moved in. Up the ladder is a loft space that doubles as a second bedroom:
Here’s what it looks like (watch your head):
The L-shaped couch makes good use of the cabin’s limited space:
The main-floor bedroom has two single beds. This is one of them:
Here’s the upgraded bathroom:
And the view outside. There’s a bright yellow canoe available, and a BBQ, too:
The fuchsia picnic table matches the cottage’s shutters.
The cabin looks a tad more rustic from the outside:
The cottage was built in the fifties, and the owners, a Toronto couple who live in Parkdale, purchased it in October 2016. They kept the existing structure, but they freshened up the paint and extensively renovated the kitchen and bathroom.
Guests are literally steps from the shoreline and a ten-minute walk from the white sand beaches of Sandbanks Provincial Park (you can use the hosts’ pass). The cozy cottage is perfect for small groups on the hunt for their own secluded space.
The upstairs loft is certainly cute, but doesn’t offer a lot of privacy for couples looking to steal some romantic moments on holiday with pals or kids. And condo-dwellers looking to escape their tiny abodes may want a space that, on the inside, doesn’t so closely resemble their downtown digs.
• 600 square feet
• $249 per night
• 3 beds
• 2 bedrooms
• 1 loft
• 1 bathroom
• 1 canoe
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox
Owning a cottage—any cottage—is a luxury. But owning one of these cottages? That’s something else entirely. Here’s a look at three of the most expensive cottages currently on the market within easy driving distance of Toronto.
Where: Rosseau
Nearest body of water: Lake Joseph
Water frontage: Over 2,000 feet
Square footage: 7,000 square feet
Asking price: $12,900,000
Agent: Paul Crammond, Chestnut Park Real Estate Limited, Brokerage
Lake Joseph is arguably the most sought-after waterfront address in all of cottage country. As a result, the shoreline has been chopped up into hundreds of lots, the best of which have a few hundred feet of shoreline. But the owners of 108 Scully decided a long time ago that a few hundred wasn’t enough. According to the selling agent, they started buying and consolidating land on a small bay on the east side of the lake about three decades ago. Eventually, they’d accumulated enough continuous acreage to assemble a large estate, with almost 2,000 feet of lake frontage. They demolished an existing cottage to make way for this Muskoka mansion, which was completed in 1998.
Here’s the aerial view. Note the two enormous boathouses. One of them has a guest suite with a kitchenette:
The living and dining area is lined with fir:
The great room has an old-Muskoka appearance, complete with giant stone fireplace:
The master bedroom has a more modern look:
As does the master ensuite:
Where: Rosseau
Nearest body of water: Lake Rosseau
Water frontage: 492 feet
Square footage: 6,700 square feet
Asking price: $14,950,000
Agent: Todd Adair, Cayman Marshall International Realty Inc.
Whoever buys this place will have something in common with Drake. (Other than extreme wealth, that is.) The cottage, a new build on the north end of Lake Rosseau, was designed by Ferris Rafauli, the same guy responsible for Drizzy’s Bridle Path pile. Unlike Aubrey’s abode, this place melds with its surroundings, somewhat. It has cottagey flourishes, like a great room with a wall of windows facing the water. On the way down to the lakeshore there’s an elaborate granite patio, complete with an infinity pool.
The cottage has a modern take on the classic Muskoka great room. The fireplace is sleek and gas-powered, and there’s space for an HDTV:
The bedrooms wouldn’t be out of place in a multi-million-dollar downtown condo:
And here’s the backyard infinity pool. The cottage also has a tennis court:
Where: Port Sandfield
Nearest body of water: Lake Joseph
Water frontage: 326 feet
Square footage: 7,000 square feet
Asking price: $9,795,000
Agent: Bob Clarke, Royal LePage Lakes of Muskoka Clarke Muskoka Realty, Brokerage
This cottage was completed in spring 2017 by Hemlock Developments. It has some typical cottage-country elements—a large screened-in “Muskoka room,” a two-slip boathouse with sleeping quarters, a great room with a stone fireplace—but it also has a lot in common with the super-modern mini-mansions being built in places like Forest Hill. There’s a sauna, a steam room, a gym and a wine cellar with room for hundreds of bottles. The house’s lights and audiovisual systems can be controlled with iPads or smartphones. Also, for those who hate waddling over slimy rocks, the selling agent says this place is situated on one of the few parts of Lake Joseph with a sandy shoreline.
Here’s the great room:
The Muskoka room, with sliding doors to the back patio:
The dining area:
And the kitchen:
The house has five bedrooms. Here’s one of them:
And here’s the master bedroom:
The three-slip boathouse has a guest suite on the second floor, complete with a bathroom and kitchenette:
Get fresh real estate stories and intel delivered directly to your inbox