What does $700K buy across Canada? Properties priced at (or around) the national average, from coast to coast

Source: globeandmail.com

What does $700K buy across Canada? Properties priced at (or around) the national average, from coast to coast

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association , the average Canadian home goes for $716,828, but your mileage may vary depending on where you’re buying.

Royal LePage Dynamic Real Estate With its black-framed windows and mix of grey stucco and siding, the four-bedroom, four-bath, two-storey home at 35 Chaikoski Court is the model 21st-century suburban house. It sold for just under the national average in April: $707,200.

Built in 2017 in a new subdivision of the established Charleswood neighbourhood, south of the airport and the Assiniboine River, the home features high-end material upgrades (stone hearth, quartz counters and soft-grey hardwood floors), almost 2,600 square feet of living space, a large yard and a finished basement. “It would fall in the top 10 per cent of prices for Winnipeg,” said selling agent Chris Pennycook with Royal LePage Dynamic Real Estate.

The average price home in the city is $350,000, but detached homes priced between $500,000 to $749,999 made up almost 18 per cent of sales in March. Toronto 2099 Dufferin St., Toronto. Royal LePage Terrequity Realty a detached home selling for the under the national average price in Toronto is as rare as hen’s teeth, but 2099 Dufferin St. sold for $711,500 in February, a million dollars less than March’s $1,750,518 average detached home price in the city. Technically a one-bedroom (the main floor has a wall-unit murphy bed, to make space for a painting studio), the 700-square-foot home had been rented out to a family of five. headtopics.com

“It was a bargain. Those bungalows are mainly desirable for the lot they are sitting on,” said Monika Merinat, broker with Royal LePage Terrequity Realty. The buyer, a builder, plans to gut it and build up and out. “It was an honest price for what it was: It’s really tiny and not in very good shape. [The owner] was sitting on a ticking bomb” of potential roof, furnace and other repairs, Ms. Merinat said.

Oshawa, Ont.520 Simcoe St. North, Oshawa, Ont.Exit RealtyFive years ago Oshawa’s average detached home price was $437,000. But between 2016 and 2019, the city was the number one destination for suburban flight from Toronto, economist Mike Moffat says, gaining 27,000 residents from its bigger neighbour. And the trend has continued.

Story continues below advertisementIn March, 2021, 413 detached homes sold with an average price of $849,852. Which means that 520 Simcoe St North’s February sale for $725,000 was a bargain. The charmingly well-maintained 1920s two-storey, four-bedroom brick home is in central Oshawa’s O’Neill neighbourhood, surrounded by parks and near the city’s main hospital and the historic Parkwoods Estate.

The 1,700-square-foot property features the original hardwood floors and trim, along with upgrades such as granite counters in the kitchen and heated floors in the main bath. The basement includes a three-piece bathroom and a separate entrance, and the detached garage/workshop is insulated and equipped with electrical and a woodstove. 

Conception Bay, Nfld.98 Greens Rd., Bay Roberts, N.L.Royal LePage Atlantic Homestead If you’re really looking to stretch that national average dollar, you can’t do better than Newfoundland and Labrador. Take 98 Greens Road, which sits right on the ocean with a view of Conception Bay, priced for $729,900. This four-bedroom, 3,200-square-foot house feels spacious inside and out, with a pool, outbuildings and almost an acre of oceanfront land. The property hasn’t sold yet – and in Newfoundland you can still negotiate prices. “Generally they will sell for 6 per cent under asking,” said Brett Roach, with Royal LePage Atlantic Homestead.

The communities on Conception Bay are essentially one big suburb of St. John’s, about an hour away, and the average sale price is around the $150,000 mark. A third to a half of buyers now are people moving back after living out of province, Mr. Roach said. “They aren’t buying the houses in the woods, they want houses that have that ocean view.”