After last Friday’s blog post about options for detached homes outside the city – notably Port Union, Ajax, Pickering, & Whitby, a few people asked for the same blog post, this time in the west end.
Ask, and ye shall receive!
Plus, I think it’s going to be a completely different result, and it might guide us toward a conversation about why house prices are so much more expensive west of Toronto than they are to the east.
Today, let’s look at Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville, and Burlington…
Were you surprised to see detached, 3-bed, 4-bath houses on 50-foot lots in Pickering & Ajax selling for 1/3 of what they would in Toronto?
It served as a tease to those of us who live in Toronto, but a few readers piped up and commented on how wonderful (and affordable…) their lives are out in what we consider “the boonies.”
As for houses to the west of Toronto, it’s not the same story.
I had to struggle to find pockets of Mississauga, Oakville, and Burlington where we could “make numbers say what we want,” and show detached homes under $1M.
You might be surprised (or not…) to see how many $2.5 Million homes exist in the Port Credit area of Mississauga!
But the goal with the houses on the east side was to keep things close to Lake Ontario, so that public transit was an option, via the Go Train. So for comparison purposes, I’m not going to pull houses from 401 & Mavis, but rather try to keep it to the south parts of Mississauga, Oakville, & Burlington. Brampton is north to begin with, so that’s that.
Here we go…
1) Mississauga
1069 Baldwin Road is available for sale for $759,900.
-Detached
-4-Bed, 3-Bath
-Finished Basement with 5th Bedroom & Rec Room
-68 x 101 Foot Lot
Zoom in a little bit here and we see how close it is to the park, and the school, not to mention a shopping area that’s accessible on foot:
The house is 1.1 KM or a 13-minute walk to Westacres Public School, which ranks a 6.4/10 by the Fraser Institute.
It’s also two blocks from Westacres Park, and two blocks from the Longo’s and a small strip mall with infrastructure.
The house is an 18-minute bus ride to the Port Credit GO Station, which is a 27-minute ride to Union Station.
2) Brampton
111 Mill Street is available for sale for $469,900.
-Detached
-4-Bed, 2-Bath
-2 1/2 Storey
-40 x 192 Foot Lot
-Unfinished Basement
-Needs Updating
There are a lot of bungalow’s, sidesplit’s, and 1 1/2 storey homes, some of which have been poorly-renovated and are being flipped, but I picked this house because it’s an original brick home, has a ton of character, and while it’s far from A+ shape, it has solid bones, and is a better house than the crappy flips.
It’s also an exceptional location – let’s zoom in:
You’re 450 metres, or 5-minutes, from McHugh Public School!
You’re 5-minutes from the Arena, which means you could actually carry your hockey bag and not make your poor mother drive you…
And Memorial Park is, oh, about 5 1/2 minutes away.
Brampton Go Station is 1.4 KM away, on Main Street (which is home to all the commercial/retail, and is two blocks from the house), although Brampton Go Station to Union Station is a 62-minute Go-Bus ride, and that’s without traffic.
3) Oakville
1389 Matthew Street is available for sale for $549,900.
-Detached
-3-Bed, 4-Bath
-35 x 100 Foot Lot
-Finished Basement With 2-Bedrooms
Oakville is prohibitively expensive in some pockets. Actually, most pockets, but this is a 20-year old complex that at one time was probably a “sub division” and is now a decent pocket of homes.
The house itself is surrounded by greenspace:
The house is 3.1 KM to Falgarwood Public School, so it’s a bit of a hike, but the houses closer to the school (east of Eighth Line) are more expensive.
The house is 2.6 KM to the Oakville Go Station, and I have a buddy who used to live in this area and biked there every morning – it took him 11-minutes. But he did have two bikes stolen, albeit in six years…
The Oakville Go Station is a 24-minute train ride to Union Station in downtown Toronto.
4) Burlington
682 Hager Avenue is available for sale for $579,900.
I looked at areas further east, and into Appelby, but I wanted to go with a house in the very heart of Burlington. This is the one!
-Detached
-3-Bed, 2-Bath
-50 x 129 Foot Lot
-Unfinished Basement
Zoom in a bit, and you see the high school to the immediate east (it’s not marked, for some reason), and the public school behind it:
The house is 850 metres from Central Public School, or a 9-minute walk.
It’s also a 10-minute walk to Brant Street, which is the main drag.
The house is 3.0 KM to the Burlington Go Station, which is a 53-minute train ride to Union Station.
–
So there you have it, folks!
I know I said that “prices were higher on the west side,” and yet we saw similar prices in this blog as last week.
But the houses we looked at last week were considerably nicer than some of these!
I had a choice: either keep the price point consistent week-to-week, or keep the house type consistent between the two blogs. I figured the reason somebody would move from Toronto is for price, and hence, I chose the former.
Mississauga, Burlington and Oakville both have incredibly expensive pockets, and I would hesitate to say the same thing about Ajax, Pickering, and Whitby.
In any event, you can find a detached house on a 50-foot lot in all of these areas if you’re willing to look hard enough!
Mike
at 7:57 am
Now take all of the homes looked up here and place them south of the QEW (other than the Burlington one), they go much more when you are between the lake and the QEW (GO Train side), west is always better and expensive as with streets in the city ie. king w , queen w
Best bang coming from Toronto is still going to be downtown Hamilton with its old city streets/houses/businesses. More and more Torontonians moving there for this reason and an hour GO Train or Bus ride to union (depending on time) helps, buy 2 houses for the price of one and still can walk to everything unlike the suburb homes where car is needed to get a coffee except the Burlington one located downtown mentioned here.
Brett
at 5:20 pm
The one is Mississauga looks like it is just north of the QEW. I’d rather save some big bucks and be a couple of blocks north. I’m just checking out this area…Applewood Acres…seems like it has a great reputation for being a family community while just 20 mins to Toronto. Interesting…
jeff316
at 3:17 pm
Hamilton is awesome – city living with ten minute access to suburban benefits, twenty minutes drive from the country – but it is not as cheap as people think. The value that was there five years ago has eroded. Awesome town though…miss it tonnes. Burlington south of the QEW in around downtown ain’t bad.
Gloria
at 9:53 am
Hi David, I love these posts! Can you please do the same for condominiums preferably newer build? Also, is it extremely hard to find nice condos in good areas in the $200’s/ sq ft nowadays or is that still out there? Thanks!
lui
at 9:41 am
Gloria I never seen a decent condo in a decent area for less than $350 sqft with affordable maintenance charges.
Joe Q.
at 9:54 am
What Mike said is very pertinent. I work in the west end and most of my colleagues live in Mississauga or Oakville. There is a real “wrong side of the tracks” phenomenon where homes get much cheaper, the farther north you go.
Public transit becomes a bit sketchier though. Mississauga Transit is OK (and many routes connect to Long Branch GO, Kipling or Islington stations) but Oakville Transit is skeletal, and many of the routes run weekday rush-hours only.
AndrewB
at 10:56 pm
Yes and no with Mississauga. The expensive parts of Mississauga have the least accessible transit (Port Credit, Clarkson, Lorne Park) when it comes to inner-city transit and not GO. There are plenty of neighbourhoods that are expensive North of the QEW. Lorne Park, PC and the Mississauga Road mansions are the outliers.
CB
at 10:16 am
This makes the ~$550K bungalows in Mimico/New Toronto look like pretty good value. Smaller but on equal sized lots and you have basement height and the ability to build back or up. The transit options sure beat any of these houses…
Appraiser
at 8:32 pm
Can anyone explain why the media still quotes this clown?
The following statement was made THREE YEARS AFTER Madani said house prices in Canada would decline by at least 25%!
“While the current ratio of sales-to-listings in Toronto points to price growth, at least for a few more months, of about five per cent, the picture doesn’t look so rosy in Canada’s priciest market. The sales-to-listings ratio in Vancouver “suggests that house price inflation will decline materially over the next few months.”
David Madani, Capital Economics – May, 2014.
http://www.thestar.com/business/real_estate/2014/05/16/canadian_housing_market_on_brink_of_downturn_report.html
Brett
at 5:05 pm
Wow. A detached 4 bed, 2 storey in Mississauga…..is this still available?
Cool Koshur
at 9:24 pm
Oakville (1389 Mathew st) is not detached house. It has attached garage. This is a student rental property right across Sheridan College. I have seen “detached” home sold in the Falgarwood neighborhood for < $600,000 for 4 BD/2BR with finished basement
I would place my bet on the area (SW Oakville) between 3rd line and Bronte Rd, south of Speers. and north of Rebecca St. Anything on Bridge Rd is selling like hot cake in last 1 year or so. You can still find good deals here. Take a look at (2023 SAXON RD, Oakville, Ontario L6L2V1) $629,900 for 4 BD back split with couple of minutes drive to GO and block away from park. It is 52 x 113 ft lot. You are within 5 minutes drive from the lake.
AndrewB
at 10:53 pm
More of this series David! I’d be interested in seeing part 3 focussing on North GTA (Vaughan, Richmond Hill, Markham). Also quite expensive up there as well.
David (Not the David who runs this website)
at 1:54 pm
I recall not long ago, I was cycling on Lakeshore Rd. in the Oakville area on hot summer day as part of a bike clue ride. It was the section of Lakeshore Rd. near the lake and although it was really nice and peaceful, the smell coming off the lake was incredible. It was making everyone sick and we were glad to get out of there.
Some of the estates there must be worth $10M or more but I wouldn’t give you $5 for any of those places because of the sewage smell coming from the lake. I just can’t imagine spending that kind of money and having to put up with that.