If I had a dollar for every time my mother said something about a particular feature of her home and then added the words, “for when I sell my house one day,” I could probably afford to buy her a new recliner.

I swear, she’s been saying this since the day she moved in back in 2002.

Over and over, for many years, but I always discounted the comment because, well, the day she sells her house was just so far down the line.

Here’s a saying that I’ve been known to use: “All good things come to an end.”

I love that saying, not only because it’s true, but also because it can be read as either positive or negative.

Ending something positive kind of sucks, right?  But the fact that you had something “good” for so long is wonderful.

I’d also like to introduce another saying at this juncture:

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

That’s brilliant.

You might be wondering who said this, right?

Was this in the Bible?

Was this in “The Republic” by Plato?

Or was it Socrates himself who first uttered this phrase?

Nope.

It was a lyric from “Closing Time” by Semisonic, who were a one-hit wonder in 1998 with, you guessed it, this song.

After twenty-four years in her home, my mother was ready to move on.

Lost on me, however, was the fact that this was the longest she had ever lived in a property!

My mother lived in her childhood home at Bathurst & Wilson for eighteen years.

She lived in an apartment on Saint Mary’s Street for four years, in a house on Parkhurst Boulevard for eleven years, and in a house on Bessborough Drive for ten years.

But twenty-four years in her “new home” in Scarborough?  That was a lifetime record.

When my mother emailed me the listing for this Leaside bungalow that I had been watching for several months, I didn’t know if it was the universe telling me that it was the right move or if it was a complete coincidence.

Either way, I told her, “Great find, Mom,” and that I would set up a viewing for the next day.

The house was located about 1.1 KM from my own home, and rather amazingly, only 700 metres from my brokerage on Vanderhoof Avenue, and I could literally hop, skip, and jump over there on a moment’s notice.

We met at the house, and I’ll be honest, it didn’t give us the best first impression.  The lawn was a mess, the driveway was torn up, the front steps were crumbling, the railing was rusted, and the windows were old and beaten.

Inside the house, it was exactly like the photos that we saw on the MLS listing: the perfect layout, which was a rare find, but in need of some major work.

My mom wasn’t fazed at all, however.  It’s interesting because I’m usually the one to tell my buyer clients, “Look past what you see here,” and yet I was the one so focused on the original elements of the home that I was having trouble seeing the forest through the trees.  This home was built in 1942, and many of the elements dated back to the very day of installation!

While the kitchen and bathrooms weren’t original, they were most certainly older than I was.  So call me privileged, but I’m just not down with a 1970’s bathroom in 2026.

Say what you want about the condition of the house, but layout was absolutely perfect.

My mother loved how there was really only one bedroom, as the second bedroom had been opened up to create a neat office or den that led right out to the back deck.  We had seen all these bungalows with no access to the backyard from inside the house, and not only did this have access, but you didn’t have to step over a bed to get there!

The basement featured a large rec-room, which my mother would need as a “play room” for her grandchildren, as well as a bedroom and ensuite bathroom, which she wanted in case guests stayed over.

“Which guests, Mom?”  I asked with a smile.  Was there a fan club that I didn’t know about?

She said, “I just need this extra bedroom in case your brother and his family want to stay here over Christmas, or maybe in the summer.”

God love my mother; she put the needs of others ahead of her own when it comes to items on the must-have list.

The basement also had an old kitchen, however, which we clearly didn’t need.  But if we were going to be renovating, this would create an additional open space.

“I’d really love to reposition this as a craft area,” my mother said.

Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I?  My mother’s hobby is knitting, as I mentioned, but she’s been setting up tables at various church fairs and seasonal markets too!

Here’s an example:

Love the passion!

And I loved how my mother was thinking about this house!

Honestly, folks, this house was in really, really rough shape.  And I say that with all due respect to the owners who had been living there for thirty years, but the basement kitchen wasn’t really a kitchen; it was remnants of an apartment from the 1960’s!

My mother’s vision was one thing, but the reality of buying this house and renovating it was a whole other situation.

We left the house, and I told my mom to “think about it,” and it didn’t take long before she started to send me text messages with multiple emojis.

One emoji is fine.  But multiple emojis tell you that your parents are on a heater!

The next day, my mother started to send me some of her “ideas” for the house.

“Dave, I was thinking, maybe I would ditch the love-seat and just keep the large couch and my recliner!”

Or how about, “I know the bathroom doesn’t have room for a vanity that fits a chair underneath, but I could just put a desk in the bedroom and use that as a makeup station!”

A makeup station?  Mom, are you going out for a night on the town??

But there was one moment when I realized that my mother could potentially be all-in on buying this house.

That Sunday, I went to her home for dinner, as I had nearly every Sunday night for the previous quarter-century, and she had repositioned the dining room table.  It was no longer length-wise, but width-wise!

Egad!

She said, “Dave, look, I turned the table!  So it could be like this at the new house.”

I started to realize that this might actually be happening.

I told my Mom that we’d head back the following week for another visit, and she was excited.

Our second tour through the house only strengthened my mother’s resolve, however.  She told me, “This is it.  I can see myself here!”

When we stood outside the house, she started to tell me all the things she’d been planning.

“I would ride my bike up to Bayview every day,” she said.  “And I could walk to the Leaside library in minutes!”

My heart melted when she said, “I’ve been checking up on the retirement homes to see if I could come by once a week and volunteer to teach them music or art.”

She was basically planting roots.

The house needed work, however.  A lot of work.

The kitchen was a gut, and I would want to take down the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room to open up the space.  New counters, new cabinets, new floors, new everything.  A literal “gut” of the kitchen.

Both bathrooms were gut jobs too; both up and down.

The basement kitchen would need to be removed, and we’d need to build my mother’s “craft area” down there.

The basement bedroom had ductwork running through the middle of the ceiling, which was made of painted chipwood, so that whole room was a gut/reconfiguration as well.

New carpet throughout the basement, of course, and come to think of it, would we want to remove the 1940’s hardwood flooring on the main level, or try to refinish hardwood that was probably past its life expectancy?

The house needed new windows, at least at the front.  They were awful looking, old, and a couple were cracked.  Plus, while they looked like leaded windows, it was actually a stick-on film.

I would want to reconfigure the layout of the main floor hall, bedroom, and study.  There was a short hall, maybe four feet, that opened to the master bedroom on the right, and a linen closet on the left.  But that was dead space, and since the master bedroom was accessed through the open concept “study,” then the original door was a waste.  Remove that, along with the short hall, and the linen closet, and you could make that whole area part of the walk-in master bedroom closet.

Some of these configurations are tough to explain, but you’ll have to trust me on this.

Now, as far as the 1942-era building materials go, that’s a whole other story.

There was an original cast-iron plumbing stack that I would want to replace.  We didn’t need to replace it, but any time you’re doing a big renovation, the economies of scale make additional jobs a lot cheaper.

There was some knob-and-tube wiring in, of all places, the electrical outlet on the fireplace mantle.  That’s a new one!

And last, but certainly not least, how about the asbestos?

Experienced Toronto homeowners know that asbestos in a house isn’t dangerous on its own.  It’s only when the asbestos is “disturbed” that it’s an issue.  So if you have an asbestos-wrapped pipe but it’s located inside a wall, it’s not dangerous, since you’re not touching it.

This house had asbestos products in many places, however, and since we were going to be renovating, we’d be disturbing the asbestos.

As an example, if you have vermiculite insulation in your attic, which contains asbestos, cutting holes for pot lights and installing new light fixtures would move all that insulation around.  That’s what you don’t want!

I realized pretty quickly that while this wasn’t a large renovation, it would come with a big price tag because of the asbestos.

I needed to bring in the rest of my team for their opinion.

No, I don’t mean Chris, Matt, Tara, and Lindsay from my real estate team, but rather I mean my renovation team: my contractor, Michael, and my stager/designer, Lucie.

They would tell me if they didn’t like this project or if they thought it was too much, too risky, or just a downright bad idea.

But just to make my life more complicated, I also invited my wife, daughter, and son!

Yeah, my 9-year-old daughter and my crazy 6-year-old boy would be there in the house, running amok, while my mother, Michael, Lucie, and I would try to put a renovation plan together.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, I swear!

Michael came into the house and asked, “Who’s my master?  You or your mother?”  He wanted to know to whom he should be directing questions, and I honestly didn’t know.

Lucie, on the other hand, came in and simply started talking to my mother.  She cut me out of the process very quickly!

We spent about thirty minutes in the house, and when all was said and done (and the children had been magically whisked away…), both Michael and Lucie gave the project the thumbs up.

Michael said, “I want you to know, this isn’t a cheap reno.”

I told him that I knew that.

I said, “So it’s more than $70,000?”

He smiled and said, “Don’t worry, it’s less than $600,000.”

That was his way of countering a stupid comment with an even dumber one, but I guess I walked right into that.

Anybody who’s built a house or done a renovation over the last few years will tell you: the numbers are astronomical!  Whatever your dream price is, double it – to start.

I headed back to the office shortly after our viewing, and my colleague, who had the listing, had a great burn:

“Hey, asshole, do you need to see the house a fourth time?”

Point made.

I called my mother that night to talk over the financial implications, which I won’t share on this very public forum, but suffice it to say, she was on board with what my wife and I wanted to do both for her and with her.

The next day, we drafted an offer.

The property was now listed for $1,379,000.

I told my mother, “I’d love to get this for $1,275,000.”

Here’s another moment that I’ll never forget during this process.  My mother looked at me and said:

“Dave, I was thinking more like one million.”

You gotta love your folks, right?

After twenty-two years of telling my mother stories about “crazy stuff my clients said,” she was now telling me she wanted to get this $1,379,000 house for $1,000,000.

I told her I wanted to offer $1,225,000, and she said, “Well…….I guess you know what you’re doing!”

Thanks……..I think?

I signed an unconditional offer for $1,225,000 with a $100,000 deposit and a sixty-day closing, and sent it to the listing agent.

The next day, we received a counteroffer.

Any guesses?

$1,370,000.

The seller came down $9,000.

I know what you’re thinking: “David, you lowballed him, what did you expect?”

Maybe you’re right.

Or maybe, just maybe, the property had been on the market for five months, was still over-priced, and we were the only buyer out there.

I explained this to my colleague.

“Builders aren’t building,” I told him.  “And even if they were, this is not a builder’s lot.  Not in today’s market.”

He knew that.  He told me as much.

“This is a glorified one-bedroom house with asbestos.  What is your seller thinking?”

The agent said, “I honestly don’t know,” and told me that if I kept the deal alive, he would do his best to talk some sense into the seller.

I countered at $1,250,000, which was still way, way below the list price, and I had absolutely zero expectations.

I told my mother, and she was crushed.

But my mother wasn’t emotional, and she certainly wasn’t stupid.  She said, “You only buy this house if you think the price makes sense.”

The next day, my colleague came into my office and looked kind of suspicious.  He said, “I haven’t done that in a long time.”

I asked what, and he said, “Gone over in person, sat down at a dining room table, and had a real heart-to-heart, come-to-Jesus moment.”

He handed me paper.  Like, physical paper, which was a printed version of the offer, with the seller’s sign-back.

“What the hell is this?” I asked.  “Did 2008 just throw up on you, or what?”

But the sign-back was good!

$1,310,000.

I was $60,000 below their previous counter.

“Can you email me a copy?” I asked him, “Or do you want to fax this to the front desk, and they can scan a copy to me?”

He threw some expletives at me and walked away.

I went and talked to my mother and my wife, and we figured that $1,275,000 would be the absolute best and final on our end, and if it didn’t work, then so be it.

I mean, we also knew that maybe if the seller rejected our offer, we could wait another week or two, and perhaps they’d come back to us.

I sent a counter-offer of $1,275,000 to the listing agent and told him, respectfully, that this was it.

He told me he’d go over in person to meet the sellers and that he would do his best.

That night, he called me.

I considered a lot of different ways this could go, and things he could say, but I never considered this:

“If the sellers can keep the washer and dryer, we have a deal at $1,275,000.”

What?  Really?

Sure, go for it.

I probably would have replaced those anyway!

In a maddening turn of events, they signed back our offer at $1,275,000, deleting the washer/dryer from the “inclusions,” and I accepted the offer shortly thereafter.

My mother had bought a house!

Er, well, I think you can read between the lines here, but regardless, my mother was moving to Leaside after twenty-four years in Scarborough.

The very first thing my mother told me after I gave her the good news was, “You have to call your sister right now!  She can’t hear it through broken telephone.”

That was fair.

Then my mother added, “And after that, you have to call your brother.  I don’t care what time it is in England, you need to keep him up-to-date with what’s going on over here.”

My siblings were both very happy.  Not only because our mother was downsizing, not only because she was moving closer to my sister and I, but because my mother herself was over the moon.

And that’s why we were doing this, right?

I’m forty-five years old.  I’ve worked tirelessly in my chosen occupation for twenty-two years, but I can honestly say that I’ve been “working” toward something since my first summer job at fourteen years old.  So, for all the other people my age, let me ask you this:

Why do we work so hard?  For what and for whom?

I do it for my family.  My wife, my children, and of course, my mother.

Being able to do this for my mother gave me a sense of pride that I don’t know I’ve ever had before.

Mom was scheduled to close on the new house on May 4th, 2026.

I figured that the renovation would take us into early July, and she would be “feathering the nest” through the rest of the summer.

But there was just one fly in the ointment here.

What was that, you ask?

Any guesses?

What was the one thing that we still had on our “to-do” list?  What was the one thing that, along with buying the new house, had to take place before we could actually move forward?

Well…

…we’re going to have to sell mom’s existing house, aren’t we?

(TO BE CONTINUED….)