If you’ve ever complained about how difficult it is to navigate through www.mls.ca or www.realtor.ca, don’t feel as if nobody is listening!
On July 5th, the Toronto Real Estate Board is implementing new districts to replace classics such as “C10” and “W02.”
Who doesn’t like living in a place called “W02?”
Let’s say you’re on a chairlift at a ski resort in Colorado, and you’ve gone through the dreaded, albeit efficient “singles” lineup.
You’ll like sit next to a stranger, and if you’re the social type, you might strike up a conversation.
So let’s say that the girl from Bedford, Massachusetts asks you “So, where ya from?” And you tell her “Toronto.”
If she says, “No kidding! I went to school with a guy who’s sister’s friend is from Toronto – what part of the city are ya from?” Will you answer:
a) W02
b) West TREB Districts
c) Bloor West Village
If you answered a) or b) then you have an even dryer more inward sense of humour than I do!
But you get the point.
For years, searching MLS listings has been efficient, albeit somewhat nameless and faceless.
And over the past few years, Realtors have begun using the TREB districts in common speech, such as, “You won’t find better value inside C01.” This has actually led buyers and sellers using it too! I often get emails from people who say, “I really want to live in W01, but I’d probably look at W02 if the price was right.”
Imagine!
Ask somebody where their “dream home” is located and they say “C03” instead of Forest Hill.
Well all that is about to change when TREB releases their new districts in July.
This has been in the works for a long, long time, and it’s finally ready.
Below is a sneak-peak:
So what do you think?
Will this work?
Or more specifically, will it replace the old districts?
I’m sure there are many people out there (perhaps everybody), who feels that they can do a better job of naming districts, but don’t you think this took a committee of many people a long, long time?
Throughout the years, Realtors have been naming neighbourhoods to try and pump up property values by way of marketing.
When was the first time you ever heard of Davisville Village? Was this really a name that could be traced back hundreds of years? Or was it just something that caught on in the early 2000’s when buyers looked for a more affordable alternative to Leaside, and “Davisville Village” was just on the other side of Bayview?
Who came up with the name Riverside for the area near Queen & Broadview? Was there a “John Edward Riverside” that grew corn in the area from 1720 to 1774? Or did this area just happen to fall between Riverdale, Leslieville, and the Don River? I think the people who own condos at 625 Queen Street East are happy that “Riverside” has caught on and with Sync Condos on the way across the street, “Riverside” is getting HOTTT!
But I think what’s lost in all this renaming is the fact that the Toronto Real Estate Board has developed a great new mapping tool that allows the user to zoom right in via the map seen above, and get right down to a particular house or condo on a given street. You can zoom in and out and see where the property is, geographically as well as in terms of TREB districts.
And maybe these new districts will help to shape communities!
Just look at the area called “Regent Park!” This is now officially its own neighborhood as per TREB re-districting, so maybe the condos on Cole Street will finally get their due!
Or, maybe we’ll just use the new numbers.
Maybe instead of saying, “Why the hell would anybody ever buy a condo in Regent Park,” we’ll ask, “Just because they put a new Sobey’s in 0940, does that really make the area any more appealing?”
Sorry….I can’t help but be cynical on some level.
TREB likely isn’t soliciting feedback, but I’d love to hear yours!
Where he heck is Clanton Park, anyways?
jeff316
at 7:59 am
While not ground-breaking, it is definitely an improvement. When we began our search, our realtor advised us to target “sub-neighbourhoods” or “pockets”. That wasn’t realy possible with the old MLS districts – we had to sift through listings well-away from our preferred areas.
This development will definitely improve search results for buyers that are targetting specific areas of the city.
From the maps, it is too bad they couldn’t split Dovercourt-“Wallace Emerson”-Junction into two – one east, one west.
Joe Q.
at 8:08 am
Clanton Park is a neighbourhood near Bathurst and Wilson, IIRC.
Kyle
at 8:55 am
Probably should have just left it at the 4 digit code. As i think there will likely be a lot contention and intentional misrepresentation of a listing’s location. It was bad enough when agents made up their own neighbourhood names, but now i can totally see agents promoting their Rogers Rd and Weston Rd listing as being “Prime Junction”, or a house on Winona as being “Best of Wychwood” or a house in Brockton Village as “Desirable Roncesvalles”. Agents will simply justify such deception by pointing to the TREB map.
Ralph Cramdown
at 9:39 am
This seems like a great idea, but I’m confident TREB will screw it up. These are the guys who rolled out their new mobile app first on the third (fourth?) most popular platform… Windows Mobile!
TREB will be:
a) recoding old solds to create a history of activity in the new districts
b) not doing that
And of course, this will all work seamlessly with realtor.ca, the site that went with the also-ran mapping application, and the database that can’t distinguish between a bedroom and a foyer, or a condo and a parking spot. What could possibly go wrong?
Expect a rush to the custom license plate line at MTO. Which realtor will get the coveted “KING 0960”?
Geoff
at 10:11 am
@ Kyle – I used to live near Rogers Road and laughed at your description of it as ‘prime junction’. Too funny. And totally true.
Jeff
at 4:01 pm
I don’t think this changes much for anybody.
Before I started house hunting and bought a house in the city, I didn’t even know these naming conventions existed. My real estate agent barely mentioned them either as we talked more about major intersections and neighbourhoods. The most I ever heard these TREB names was when she said “So we’re heading over to W02…” after looking at a few houses in the east end.
I live in Dovercourt-Wallace-Emerson-Junction according to TREB, my political riding is Davenport and my neighbourhood is called Junction Triangle, Wallace-Emerson or Bloordale Village depending on the source. I usually just say I live in the Junction as it’s what the average person knows.
I’ve always liked the TriBeCa neighhourhood name in New York. It’s a clever and likable name even though it was invented to sell expensive lofts.
Dale
at 10:58 pm
Ah, good ol’ TREB. Sure am glad my fees go to pay these bozos to come up with stuff like this.
Why not have all the 4 digit subdivided areas inside C08 start with – oh, I don’t know, “08”? Like 0810, 0820.
Kind of what they’ve done with PART of C03.
Instead, we have things in C08 start with “09” and those in C09 start with “08”, and areas in W07 start with “01”.
Makes perfect sense. Has no one there taken an accounting or computer science course at some point?
So apparently I live in Cabbagetown South St James Town? Considering its not in either of them, I give this a big “meh”.
Maggie
at 2:31 pm
Might have been an idea if they actually used the neighbourhoods in the districts- I live @ St Lawrence Market apparently someone @ TREB thinks that’s Moss Park – not Moss Park runs east west on Queen St East- not north south
George
at 1:33 pm
This was a terrible idea for the following reasons:
1] It doesn’t solve a problem
When people ask me where I live, I say “Markham”. Other friends would say “Leaside”, “Bayview Hill” etc..
I never used the TREB district number, nor did anyone else I know. There was no problem, so TREB not only fixed something that wasn’t broken, they made it worse.
2] It will make communications with clients much much much more difficult
Clients were very comfortable with saying I’d like to find a house in N03 or N04. They were easy to remember and represented clearly definable borders.
Now, you are forcing the public to remember these ridiculous names … and they won’t because they are not full time agents that stare at maps everyday. They buy/sell once every 10 years if you are lucky, so when the time comes, they will find these terms to be very difficult to communicate with.
3] We live in a digital world
Living in a digital world means you make searchable / database items as coded and numerical as possible. They are more search engine and mobile friendly.
How do you think ridiculous terms such as “Dovercourt-Wallace-Emerson-Junction” are going to display on a mobile app, or mobile search engine browser?
FAILURE
I predict this is going to be an epic failure. TREB continues to demonstrate utter ignorance when it comes to the digital world we live in. It wasn’t their place to rename districts. The numerical system was fine and, with slight improvements, could have been perfect.
If the city of Toronto wanted to go about naming neighborhoods, that would be fine. It is their prerogative to make the city sound more appealing.
The job of TREB, on the other hand, is to facilitate the sale of homes and property. You do this by making searches and databases as easy to navigate as possible. With this change to the system, they’ve taken a disastrous step in the wrong direction.
Regards,
George
Ovi
at 3:54 pm
Why not simply use the neighbourhoods as defined by the city of Toronto? Yes George, they actually did that. Check the entire list here: http://goo.gl/TuU0q
rosanna
at 7:00 pm
I’m a new agent. I don’t know how to read them. For instance, I just found out that Malvern is part of E11 cause I worked on a deal with an experienced agent. The office aren’t helpful at all and my experienced associate doesn’t seem to have the time.
is there some kind of app. that I can access to? a webpage? anything!!!??