It’s no secret that we’ve moved towards a much more balanced real estate market, and surely some “deals” exist out there amongst all the speculation.

One such deals is a house on Thursfield Crescent that I’m amazed is still on the market.

The term “child friendly street” is one of the most over-used terms in real estate, but this street just might be the most child-friendly I’ve ever seen…

WHAT A DEAL!

If you saw that caption on an MLS listing, would your first instinct be to:
a) believe it
b) assume you are being conned?

I’m usually skeptical of anything in a real estate listing other than the actual facts about the property, but sometimes you have to stop and take a second look.

I posted in the past about all the over-used real estate buzz-words that I dislike and how ultimately these terms cease to have any effect whatsoever.

But what happens when that term is justifiably used?  Well, I guess it’s like the boy who cried wolf and nobody believes it.

A house for sale at 41 Thursfield Crescent has the following caption in the MLS description:
“Child friendly street – over 60 kids on the street.”

This isn’t just case of throwing a buzz-word about; these people have done their research!

Thursfield Crescent truly is one of the most child-friendly streets I know of in the city.  I mean, I can barely drive my car around that windy road while running late for my open house without almost hitting a kid!  Ha….okay, not funny…

But my point is, of all the streets I’ve seen in the city where the kids roam freely, I’ve never seen anything like this.  It’s like a daycare exploded on the road and nobody was there to put the kids back in their place.

41 Thursfield Crescent is a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom semi-detached house on a wide 25 x 137 foot lot, listed at $499,000.  The house, in my mind, is an absolute steal.  The house has been fully updated and renovated, and it shows beautifully.

A neighboring house that was an estate sale (picture the same woman living in the same house for 40 years) sold recently for $465,000, yet the fully “done” house next door sits for only $34K more.  For the record, it would cost about $80,000 to make the one house look like the other.

Somebody is going to get a fantastic deal….eventually.

But what makes these houses so valuable is the street itself.  Thursfield Crescent is a long street that winds almost in the shape of an “S” through North Leaside.  Simply put: the street doesn’t lead anywhere.  And for this reason, there is ZERO through traffic; never, ever!

Perhaps it’s a case of the chicken-and-egg, since I’m not sure if young families populated the street since it’s quiet with no traffic, or if they continue to populate the street because it’s already popular.  But whatever the case, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

I’ve always felt that one of the main differences between North and South Leaside (separated geographically by Eglinton) is the fact that South Leaside is walking distance to the trendy retail strip of Bayview Avenue, and North Leaside is near the parks and the ravine.  North Leaside is smaller, quieter, quainter, and a little less frenetic.

So when contemplating a move to the area, a question arises: “Am I doing this for me or for my kids?”

Moving to a “child friendly street” often means you’ll be a lot further from the amenities that you might enjoy, unless your young children also like walking to Starbucks and going out for dinner on the main drag.  Most “child friendly” streets might be dull and isolated for the parents, but they’re a haven for your growing children.

Streets like Kildeer, Rykert, and Thursfield Crescents are very far removed from the main streets, and are dead ends for traffic.  It’s almost like a gated community without the gate.

When I was a kid, I lived on a residential street that had a more than average amount of traffic.  This resulted in a lot less “playing on the street” than other areas, as you couldn’t put up a hockey net without moving it every three minutes.

There were a few kids on my street, but not many.  I was always jealous of Hanna Road and how they had a “street party” every summer and how all the neighbors knew eachother and the kids played together.  This was more than evident in school and in sports leagues where certain kids knew eachother and were already friends because they grew up on the same street.

I now look at Thursfield Crescent and think that is exactly where I would want my kids to grow up (for the record I have none…that I know of…).  Imagine sixty kids living on the same street together.  SIXTY!  Whether your child is a three-year-old that enjoys playing with play-dough and then eating it, or a misunderstood fourteen-year-old boy who wears black lipstick and eats alone in the school cafeteria, chances are excellent that your child would make friends living on Thursfield Crescent.

Through my experiences coaching kids baseball in the last few years, I have learned that kids today (wow, I sound like an old man!) are generally lazy, unmotivated, disrespectful, thankless, entitled, and pretty much clueless as to what goes on in the real world.  I’m no Dr. Phil, but I think that perhaps if young kids learned to play outside instead of playing video games inside, and play with friends or neighbors on the street instead of talking to strangers in online chat rooms, that it might give them a better social foundation on which to build for later in life.

The street your kids grow up on might have a lot to do with how they turn out.

I think it’s fair to say that a child growing up in a mansion on The Bridle Path who has zero interaction with neighboring children will probably turn out differently than a young child who plays in backyard-forts with the kids next door, wouldn’t you?

Okay, I know this is a real estate blog and not an amateur psychology website, but when I saw that caption “Child friendly street – over 60 kids on the street,” it really made me think about the effect that one street has versus another on a growing family.

For the record, here is a picture of 41 Thursfield, which I still contend is an incredible steal: