Half-million won’t buy much in Toronto condo market

TORONTO A half-million dollars bought half as much space in Toronto’s condominium market as it did in other Canadian cities in 2017.

And in Vancouver, it bought nothing at all, with analysts unable to find any new condominiums at or below the $500,000 mark, according to a study by the Altus Group, a real estate consultant.

Buyers with a half a million dollars to spend in red-hot downtown Toronto had to settle for a onebedroom unit with just 430 square feet of space — that’s roughly half the size of a standard badminton court. Compare that to Calgary and Edmonton’s condo markets, where $500,000 was enough for a two-bedroom unit of between 850 and 1,000 square feet in a desirable area near the core.

Vancouver remains the tightest condominium market in the country. Altus said a drop in new sales in 2017 was due to a steep decline in new units coming to market rather than underlying demand “which remains very strong.” The 10,939 units sold in Vancouver in 2017 represented a 90 per cent sales rate of all new inventory introduced into the market.