Condo Prices

[Smallcock]

Comparing a condo on Elm St at Yonge & Elm St to a condo on Bay St at Bay & Charles St is comparing apples to oranges.

Yes, there are many factors to consider. Location - proximity to subway/streetcar, amenities, view, ceiling height, layout, whether the condo fees include utilities or not.

Condos are a pretty tricky investment all around as maintenance fees are very expensive (cost more than maintaining a home).

 

[Samranchoi]

If you have a real estate agent and are interested in a few buildings, ask him/her to provide all the current listings and sales over the past 3 to 6 months with the square footage. Much easier to compare buildings based upon a per ft2 value than purchase price/asking price. You must also take into consideration if the unit has a parking space and a locker, as well as unit exposure and floor level

 

[Smallcock]

It is correct, as I stated in my post MAJORITY of condos maintenance fees will increase over time hence the reason why maintenance fees in older condos will be higher than newer buildings (again in most cases). Even the article you linked says that (read post #4) and they use 1 case the Toy Factory Lofts as an example of condo fees going down in a couple of consecutive years. Toy Factory Lofts maintenance fees have been on the rise since 2015 and are the highest they ever were again proving my point.
I don't know of anyone whose maintenance fees have gone down over the years consistently, it might go down one year, two years or even 3 years by very small amounts but usually following years it does increase and usually by significant amounts as buildings and amenities age they need more maintaining and that costs money. I have never owned a condo that has had the maintenance fees reduced year by year.

BTW Condos.ca is not a statistician for the condo industry in Toronto, they get their information from the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) and anything they write on the website is their own opinion, the information about the maintenance fees they would have to get from the Condominium Corporation in the Status of Certificate. The article you had linked was written by Carl Langschmidt who is a real estate agent and owns that website.

The fees rise rapidly in new condos because the original fees are based on projections. Once people begin living in the building, the true cost for maintenance is determined and it's always higher than projections. So while they're cheaper than older buildings when launched, the disparity is usually gone in 5 - 10 years.

 

[Smallcock]

BTW Condos.ca is not a statistician for the condo industry in Toronto, they get their information from the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) and anything they write on the website is their own opinion, the information about the maintenance fees they would have to get from the Condominium Corporation in the Status of Certificate. The article you had linked was written by Carl Langschmidt who is a real estate agent and owns that website.

I didn't say that condos.ca is some type of representative for the condo industry. I simply said they compile a lot of stats on condos across the city and put them on a site which makes it easy to glean the data. This makes researching potential purchases a lot easier as all the information has been assembled in one location and charted. There is no other site I'm aware that does this for condos in Toronto.

Many of the blog posts are editor opinions. The stats posted all over the site for each condo and the condo market are not.

 

[Smallcock]

Comparing a condo on Elm St at Yonge & Elm St to a condo on Bay St at Bay & Charles St is comparing apples to oranges. One is in Yorkville and the other one is Yonge and Gerrard.

A similar comparison could be done between https://condos.ca/toronto/the-liberties-i-2-711-717-bay-st and https://condos.ca/toronto/college-park-north-tower-763-bay-st

The buildings are virtually side by side. however one is much older. The sq ft on the former is $747 and on the latter $984 (and not all utilities included in maintenance fee).

For $868k you get a 1+1 bed, 1 bath, 870 sq ft in https://condos.ca/toronto/college-park-north-tower-763-bay-st/unit-4605-C3782653

In the older Liberties condo you can get a 2+1 bed, 2 bath. over 1000 sq ft for less than $750k.

 

[Chiroden]

As for me, I've dealt only with m2m condos. They are convenient, well-planned and always tend to be not just a concrete box. People who live there seldom come to me in order to find something else. That means that not all condos are bad. It's just the question of being in right place at a right time.

 

[basketcase]

...
Maintenance fees in newer condos are majority of the times lower than older buildings.....

Condo fees of new buildings are often subsidized or kept artificially low by the developer to attract buyers. The problem comes when the subsidization ends or the condo board takes over its own management there are often issues such as an underfunded reserve that require fee increases or special levies.