195 units ranging from 380-square-foot studios ($238,000) to 1,230-square-foot three-bedroom suites ($724,000).
So affordable..
A man signed a waver, and finds his image used in a 23 ft mural promoting yet another condo project..
The closest I’ll ever get to one of these condos is when I tiptoe into the presentation centre. I am a lifelong renter. I have no credit history. My mortgage application would make even the kindliest banker bust a gut. This isn’t a complaint. I’ve made a conscious choice to live my life a certain way, to eschew money for time — time to write, to stroll, to enjoy an afternoon espresso — and now my lifestyle is being used to sell a condo that I could never afford — because of my lifestyle.
Read more here.
Showing posts with label Tocondo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tocondo. Show all posts
Monday, January 30, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Former Pages bookstore now a f*cking condo sales centre
Priorities people priorities! Tocondo doesn't care about reading, but does about shiny new pens for the sheep.
Two and a half years ago, after three decades at 256 Queen Street West, Pages Books & Magazines announced it would close its storefront because its rent was being pushed too high. Turns out the rent was pushed too high for anyone: the space was still vacant this summer, when the realtor told The Grid’s Jacob Rutka that ”Pages closed during the height of recession….Youth brands in the Queen West area have all suffered. Commercial prices on Queen between Spadina and University are just too expensive.” (Pages is still alive now, but the store’s moved “beyond bricks and mortar.”)
It’d take two whole years before something finally moved into Pages’ former home. That new tenant? A condo sales centre (or “presentation gallery”) for Picasso on Richmond—a 39-storey condo coming at 318 Richmond Street West.
Read more here.
Two and a half years ago, after three decades at 256 Queen Street West, Pages Books & Magazines announced it would close its storefront because its rent was being pushed too high. Turns out the rent was pushed too high for anyone: the space was still vacant this summer, when the realtor told The Grid’s Jacob Rutka that ”Pages closed during the height of recession….Youth brands in the Queen West area have all suffered. Commercial prices on Queen between Spadina and University are just too expensive.” (Pages is still alive now, but the store’s moved “beyond bricks and mortar.”)
It’d take two whole years before something finally moved into Pages’ former home. That new tenant? A condo sales centre (or “presentation gallery”) for Picasso on Richmond—a 39-storey condo coming at 318 Richmond Street West.
Read more here.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Tocondo condo investors flee as there are too many pens for the sheep
Investors rushed to buy Toronto condos in the good times, now there is a worry that they will rush for the exits as the economy weakens and they realize that profits are hard to come by in an overbuilt market.
A record number of condos were built in the past year in the Greater Toronto Area, with some 43,000 units under construction. Anecdotal evidence suggests many of the units were sold to investors who plan to rent them out, but a flood of supply hitting the market at once could drive rents below what’s needed to generate a profit.
Read more here.
A record number of condos were built in the past year in the Greater Toronto Area, with some 43,000 units under construction. Anecdotal evidence suggests many of the units were sold to investors who plan to rent them out, but a flood of supply hitting the market at once could drive rents below what’s needed to generate a profit.
Read more here.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tocondo's rich to have yet another erection
It's so...big.
City-owned development agency Build Toronto announced Tuesday its first partnership will be with widely known developer Tridel, which will collaborate on a 75-storey, $295-million residential building in the downtown area.
The partnership, the first since the city established Build Toronto as an independent and self-funding real estate and development corporation, will develop the project at 10 York St. in the emerging Harbourfront neighbourhood.
"This is, pardon me for saying so, one hell of a deal," said Lorne Braithwaite the CEO of Build Toronto, at a news conference announcing the project.
Condo builders, modest as always...
"I [Mayor Ford]* can assure you we have some of the brightest real estate minds in the entire country ... sitting on Build Toronto's board," he said.
Tridel president Leo DelZotto said the site "offers the opportunity to create a condominium development that will be spectacular."
Read more here.
* No one in Tocondo is better suited to judge what constitutes a bright mind than Rob Ford...
We're fucked.
City-owned development agency Build Toronto announced Tuesday its first partnership will be with widely known developer Tridel, which will collaborate on a 75-storey, $295-million residential building in the downtown area.
The partnership, the first since the city established Build Toronto as an independent and self-funding real estate and development corporation, will develop the project at 10 York St. in the emerging Harbourfront neighbourhood.
"This is, pardon me for saying so, one hell of a deal," said Lorne Braithwaite the CEO of Build Toronto, at a news conference announcing the project.
Condo builders, modest as always...
"I [Mayor Ford]* can assure you we have some of the brightest real estate minds in the entire country ... sitting on Build Toronto's board," he said.
Tridel president Leo DelZotto said the site "offers the opportunity to create a condominium development that will be spectacular."
Read more here.
* No one in Tocondo is better suited to judge what constitutes a bright mind than Rob Ford...
We're fucked.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Marcus Gee: When Snobs become 'Journalists'
Mr. Gee can *always* be counted upon to express in words the seedy underbelly of Toronto that is "gentrification".
One can picture him rolling the word around on his tongue, like fine wine...
The pace of gentrification in downtown Toronto is truly astonishing. Queen West, Queen East, Leslieville, Little Italy, the Junction, Parkdale – one by one, downtown neighbourhoods have been infiltrated by galleries, coffee shops and yoga studios, while house prices on the surrounding streets soar.
From my own door step near Dundas and Dovercourt, I’ve had a front-row seat on this phenomenon. When I bought my house two decades ago, I told my father how much I’d paid. “A quarter of a million to live in a slum, eh?” he helpfully remarked.
Slum? Hell no. A couple of well placed condos and we'll have those nasty poor fleeing to..to where ever the hell they flee to.
Who cares? Yoga studios!!!
Read more here.
One can picture him rolling the word around on his tongue, like fine wine...
The pace of gentrification in downtown Toronto is truly astonishing. Queen West, Queen East, Leslieville, Little Italy, the Junction, Parkdale – one by one, downtown neighbourhoods have been infiltrated by galleries, coffee shops and yoga studios, while house prices on the surrounding streets soar.
From my own door step near Dundas and Dovercourt, I’ve had a front-row seat on this phenomenon. When I bought my house two decades ago, I told my father how much I’d paid. “A quarter of a million to live in a slum, eh?” he helpfully remarked.
Slum? Hell no. A couple of well placed condos and we'll have those nasty poor fleeing to..to where ever the hell they flee to.
Who cares? Yoga studios!!!
Read more here.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
How condo developers in Tocondo fleece the sheep
The article contains this tidbit:
Some 18,000 new condominium units were completed in the Greater Toronto Area last year, according to the market research firm Urbanation. Another 17,000 will pop up this year, and 20,000 will rise next year—meaning Toronto will have more condo units for sale than any other city on the continent. Despite sluggish employment in the province and the threat of rising interest rates, condo sales are hitting a near-record pace, up 20 per cent in 2010 from 2009.
Helps explain why Tocondo feels so trashed.
Developers have found in Tocondo the most gulable market in North America.
On Jan. 10, just before noon, more than 100 real estate brokers descended on the corner of The Esplanade and Scott Street. They queued on a snow-and-ice crusted red carpet, shrugging their shoulders against the stiff breeze, chatting in Cantonese, Mandarin, Farsi, Arabic, Korean and even, occasionally, English.
These brokers were so-called VIPs, and each held a specially numbered card sent out by the developer Cityzen (and its partners Fernbrook Homes and Castlepoint Realty Partners) to enter the Living Room Condo Store, a new, high-tech sales centre for Backstage condominiums. Backstage is a modern, D-shaped tower that will one day rise 36 storeys into the skyline atop an awkward 20,000 square-foot parcel of land, right where Yonge Street meets the GO train bridge.
Bahhhhh.
Nice amusing graphic on condo naming conventions: Class Envy, Climate Envy, City Envy and Alphanumeric Hijinx.
Read more here.
Some 18,000 new condominium units were completed in the Greater Toronto Area last year, according to the market research firm Urbanation. Another 17,000 will pop up this year, and 20,000 will rise next year—meaning Toronto will have more condo units for sale than any other city on the continent. Despite sluggish employment in the province and the threat of rising interest rates, condo sales are hitting a near-record pace, up 20 per cent in 2010 from 2009.
Helps explain why Tocondo feels so trashed.
Developers have found in Tocondo the most gulable market in North America.
On Jan. 10, just before noon, more than 100 real estate brokers descended on the corner of The Esplanade and Scott Street. They queued on a snow-and-ice crusted red carpet, shrugging their shoulders against the stiff breeze, chatting in Cantonese, Mandarin, Farsi, Arabic, Korean and even, occasionally, English.
These brokers were so-called VIPs, and each held a specially numbered card sent out by the developer Cityzen (and its partners Fernbrook Homes and Castlepoint Realty Partners) to enter the Living Room Condo Store, a new, high-tech sales centre for Backstage condominiums. Backstage is a modern, D-shaped tower that will one day rise 36 storeys into the skyline atop an awkward 20,000 square-foot parcel of land, right where Yonge Street meets the GO train bridge.
Bahhhhh.
Nice amusing graphic on condo naming conventions: Class Envy, Climate Envy, City Envy and Alphanumeric Hijinx.
Read more here.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Toronto condo developers alarmed there are still poor people
Toronto is headed toward a scenario where nearly two thirds of residents will be in the low income bracket by 2025, according to a study set to be released Wednesday.
The latest update of the Three Cities within Toronto study from 2007 continues to paint a “devastating picture” of income “segregation” by neighbourhoods, according to one source who has seen the report.
Prior to this latest update, one released last year that was based on the latest census data showed that 15 of the city’s middle income neighbourhoods have disappeared since 2001. The majority of these areas reverted to low income, where individual earnings were 20 to 40 per cent below the city average.
It shows that if current trends continue, a total of 10 per cent of the city will be middle income earners by 2025; 30 per cent will be upper middle income; and a whopping 60 per cent of Toronto’s residents will be in the low to very low income bracket, sources say.
Read more here.
The latest update of the Three Cities within Toronto study from 2007 continues to paint a “devastating picture” of income “segregation” by neighbourhoods, according to one source who has seen the report.
Prior to this latest update, one released last year that was based on the latest census data showed that 15 of the city’s middle income neighbourhoods have disappeared since 2001. The majority of these areas reverted to low income, where individual earnings were 20 to 40 per cent below the city average.
It shows that if current trends continue, a total of 10 per cent of the city will be middle income earners by 2025; 30 per cent will be upper middle income; and a whopping 60 per cent of Toronto’s residents will be in the low to very low income bracket, sources say.
Read more here.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Toronto allows condo builder to f*ck over former tentants...for a price
What a shock! Tocondo siding with developers? How rare...
After 13 years, Allan Austin and his wife Valeria Murial will lose their Beverley St. rental home to development, despite a city provision that it be replaced.
The couple’s row house is one of six rental units on the east side of the street, north of Queen St. W., which are to be demolished to make way for an 11-storey condominium.
Faced with a dwindling supply of rental properties, under the official plan the city usually requires developers to build apartments in a condo building to replace those that were lost, and to allow the former tenants to pay rents there comparable to what they had paid before.
But in a deal brokered by Ward 20 Councillor Adam Vaughan, the developer, BSäR Group of Companies, is paying the city nearly $800,000 instead of replacing the rentals, which means Austin and his wife won’t be allowed to move back in.
The agreement has outraged some tenants, who feel their interests have been ignored.
Read more here.
After 13 years, Allan Austin and his wife Valeria Murial will lose their Beverley St. rental home to development, despite a city provision that it be replaced.
The couple’s row house is one of six rental units on the east side of the street, north of Queen St. W., which are to be demolished to make way for an 11-storey condominium.
Faced with a dwindling supply of rental properties, under the official plan the city usually requires developers to build apartments in a condo building to replace those that were lost, and to allow the former tenants to pay rents there comparable to what they had paid before.
But in a deal brokered by Ward 20 Councillor Adam Vaughan, the developer, BSäR Group of Companies, is paying the city nearly $800,000 instead of replacing the rentals, which means Austin and his wife won’t be allowed to move back in.
The agreement has outraged some tenants, who feel their interests have been ignored.
Read more here.
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