What exactly is this part of North Toronto? David Fleming heads into the pocket between Bayview, Mount Pleasant, and Eglinton to look at five very different detached homes in an area that’s surprisingly hard to define, but full of interesting real estate for specific buyers.
From a roughly $1.85M 1990s “top-up” with huge bedrooms and a functional layout, to a $5.88M custom home that backs onto a cemetery, these five properties cover a massive range of styles, sizes and price points. David looks at what makes a house desirable beyond the finishes, including lot size, street location, layout, architecture and, perhaps most importantly, whether buyers actually want to pay the asking price.
This week’s picks:
- 02:35 – 153 Banff Ave: A detached 1997 home that appears to have started life as a bungalow, this roughly $1.85M property is dated in places but offers something newer homes often sacrifice: genuinely large bedrooms and a functional layout. David sees it as a solid value for the area, with a private drive, basement walkout and plenty of usable space
- 06:36 – 313 Broadway: A much larger four-bedroom home listed around $2.5M after a major price reduction. The house has generous rooms, a built-in garage, a strong family-oriented layout and a primary suite separated from the kids’ bedrooms, but the 1990s finishes and Broadway location may explain why it has spent so much time on the market
- 11:30 – 192 Erskine Ave: This 2014 three-storey detached home packs four bedrooms and six bathrooms onto a narrow 25-foot lot, creating an unusual multi-level floor plan. David’s biggest question is the living space: the family room is pushed to the third floor, while the main floor has to do a lot with a relatively narrow footprint
- 17:41 – 317 Keewatin Ave: An architecturally distinctive three-storey home with a 25-foot-wide lot, 187-foot depth, built-in garage and dramatic interior spaces. David likes the architecture and the amount of house for the price, but this is definitely a property for a specific buyer. The unconventional design and repeated listing history make it a case study in how hard it can be to sell a unique home
- 21:16 – 77 Walder Ave: The wild card of the episode: a breathtaking custom-built home listed at $5.88M on a 30-by-130-foot lot. The house itself has the kind of high-end features you’d expect at this price, including a pool and movie theatre, but its location, particularly backing onto a cemetery and sitting near busy Broadway, raises the question of how much buyers are willing to pay for the house versus the neighbourhood