Yesterday I went to an open house for the first time. I am not looking into buying a home in Toronto (do not think I will for a while) but now with the beginning of the spring a lot of houses around my in laws’ place are going on sale. I decided to go out of curiosity and  it only took a few minutes of my time.

In Canada, the spring and summer time is used wisely. During the warm months people declutter, have garage sales, repair their roofs, build and expand their houses. There is a lot of activity in the streets when it is hot out. The city becomes ALIVE, specially in the suburbs.

The property I visited is located in the neighbourhood of North York, which is about 45 minutes by subway from Toronto’s downtown. It was a two – storey house with a double garage, a living room, dining room, kitchen and small bathroom on the street level and with 4 bedrooms and one bathroom on the second floor.

If I was to buy that house I would probably renew the kitchen completely, invest on new kitchen appliances, would improve change all the windows and remove the carpeted floor in the basement. I wondered how much money I would need for that but let’s believe it would cost  $100,000 Canadian dollars… (?)

The house was listed for $725,000 CAN. For that price, you can probably get a one – bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto.

To me, the idea of getting locked in a mortgage for a house that is not by the beach or in a warm place surrounded by mountains made me shiver. I saw my chance of ever getting a house in Toronto far, far away.

Some people advise that right now it is not the time to buy properties in Toronto, some expect the prices to fall in a couple of years but I remember hearing the same statement a few years ago and until now the prices are not dropping.

The one thing I know is that with those prices and choices if we ever own a place it is going to be in the centre, possibly a very tiny one. The option of not having a car and owning very few things seems to be the way to go.

Also published on Medium.