Categories: Uncategorized

What kind of house can $500,000 buy you?

Toronto

Listing Price: $ $489,000 Size: n/a Bedrooms: 3 Bathrooms: 3 Extras: Huge sundeck

Ottawa

10 of 20 Photos

Hamilton

Tags housing / housing market / real estate / recession /

http://www.pencillogic.biz Beth McCracken

London Ontario is sadly missing from your $500,000 houses. Smarten up!

Paul Wells

Yes! I also demand listings for Moose Jaw, Fredericton, Iqaluit, Windsor, Regina, Victoria and Rouyn! Fools!

Lord Bob

I can take part of that right now. $500,000 in Victoria buys you a sleeping bag and a reserved spot in a public park.

Paul Wells

(now that I’ve had a chance to look around our gallery)

But go look at what you can buy in Saguenay…damn….

seaandthemountains

i have already started scoping out the saguenay and sherbrooke job markets based on this story. well done macleans!

http://macleans.ca kc

LB
C’mon up to Comox, i’m sure we can find you a bit of cardboard too for that price!

Marcel

Yeah housing in Toronto blows. Forutnately you’re surrounded by this massive city so that you don’t have to spend too much time at home. I rent in a semi and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I will never, never buy a semi. If you value your sanity take the same advice. It’s not the occasional extreme loudness/parties that’s bothersome, it’s the persistent little annoyances. People running the water at 3 AM, butchering songs on rock band, yelling at each other, etc. Take my advice, buy/rent a condo. The concrete walls and floors insulate the sound, and if your’e willing to move sloghtly away from the downtown areas buy a stand a lone house. This piece of s*** is NOT worth $500,000.

http://macleans.ca kc

Er…do you get the whole place for that price? Just asking, seeing as i appear to be twenty bucks shy.

not from London, I swear!

half of those cities are included, Paul. London is the only CMA in the top 10 of the country not to be listed, so it’s not so crazy a suggestion.

Rosana R

Etobicoke and Mississauga are missing as well. The houses you are showing are NOT representative of the average home you can get for that kind of money.
Tricia

I just can’t believe anyone would pay that amount of money for that run down looking semi! I live in the GTA and $489,000 could buy you a big beautiful home and we’re are on 20 mins from the city!

Sam

“Run down”, I’m not sure what photo you were looking at, but I thought this house looked quite well kept. Not everyone wants a big house to have to clean and looks just like all the other houses on the street. Many toronto homes were built years and years ago when craftmanship was valued. Now developers just throw up a subdivision where the houses resemble something made from paper mache. People would pay 500,000 dollars to live right in the city so they can step outside and have the city at their fingertips. It is very fun and exciting. I live in a great neighbourhood in Toronto and, even though we have a car, we rarely drive. We walk everywhere. To be honest, I can’t imagine paying any amount of money to live in a suburb of Toronto. It’s not stimulating whatsoever and it promotes a sedentary lifestyle where people drive everywhere and spend all weekend cleaning their oversized houses. It’s a personal preference obviously, but city living makes much more sense regarding the environment. You have unlimited access to public transit rather than always having to drive everywhere, developers are building up rather than out as they do in the suburbs. The urban sprawl is terrible for the environment. These are just a few of the reasons why someone would want to pay 500,000 for a semi in Toronto… there are many more!
Drew

Tricia,

Please. You may live in the “GTA” this home is in “Toronto”. And you’d be lucky to find one so nice for this price and luckier if it came with parking.

If “GTA” living, aka “new subdivision in Brampton/Vaughan/Durham living” with a garage,a chrysler mini van and big box plazas at every corner is your thing, then yes you can get a big beautiful home.
Ryan

I love when 905′ers claim to live 20 minutes from the city!

It likely takes the writer 20 minutes to get from his house to the QEW/401, 20 minutes on the highway, then 20 minutes from the highway to their destination in T.O.

Heck, I live 6km from downtown and it takes ME 20 minutes to get home.

In a perfect world, people would quote door to desk times.

Louis

This house is is only priced that high based on location. As others have said depending where you are interested in living and how close to the GTA you want to be you can find Beautiful homes in the less than $500,000 range. Look at builders crrently in the Brampton, Mississauga, Caledon, Orangeville areas and you will find Brand New developments currently with anywhere from 2000 sqft to 2600 sqft, on 38-43 ft lots with homes selling from $349,00-$489,000. The house your looking at up above is just not a good representation of what you can still purchase today for $500,000 or less. It all comes down to where you want to live. Market value of a home is all by location.
Skelator

You’ll love living in a semi.. you can hear the neighbours kids screaming, the fights and Yo Yo Ma playing at 3am

Bobo the Clown

My God…move to Wawa people! You could get five houses like that, rent them out to seniors and become a slumdog millionaire!

Mario

Leave it to Macleans to report the extreme. People are still buying and selling homes. It just takes a little longer and if you price the house correctly you will have no probelm selling. There is still a demand for good houses in good neighbourhoods. Stop buying inot what the media chooses to tell you. Report the whole story, not just the bad news.
Arnie

I think this is a beautiful semi. Also very reasonable as I bet it’s in a great area. It’s all a matter of perspective eh? Some like country, some suburbia, some downtown living.
http://snowbird.tv Smith

From the homes I can tell that the economy is still much better in Canada right now, home prices have not fallen like they have in the US. Maybe the strong banking system has kept the prices of homes more stable.
$500,000 can get you a lot more home in Florida, something that was 3-4 times that much a few years ago, accounting for the exchange rate and all.
John Chow

I am living near Fairview Mall. Although my house is approx 1700 sq ft, it is a detached house with 60′ wide lot in a Crescent. People with little kids appreciate the word “Crescent”. I can walk to Fairview Mall. Walk to Super Markets. Beer store is near to (if anyone cares). Hwy 401/401 entrance very close. 24 hrs bus service. It takes 35-40 minutes to go to Union station via bus, but I can have my sanity at home. Diring summer, sit in front (or back) to see kids playing in the yard.

It takes my wife 10-15 minutes to go to work!

Real double brick house with all over long strip Oak hardwood built in 1960′s. you can still buy in the neighbourhood with $500,000. Amazingly my annual heating with the original 1964 Lennox furnace cost me ONLY average $1500 for the last 4 years!

Lived in appartments for tens of years, I would NEVER ever buy any attched properties to reside.
MacClean is blowing up news to make subscription sales.

Mc
J

Huh…

The funny thing is that when off to settle on the final offer to this place we were leafing through this copy of McLeans, one of the few times I’ve ever done so…

Tricia, not sure what you count as 20 minutes from Toronto, and I’m glad that Caledon or Pickering is your ideal home location. For us, this 100 year old home in one of the best parts of this or any other city (Greektown), walking distance to subway, cafes, excellent shopping and food, more than makes this a deal. It was listed well over $530k, and we got it below what you see posted here. It’s our first home, and we look forward to many, many more years in it. It’s lovely in side, and feels already (before even moving in) more home than just house.

Yo Yo Ma from the neighbours? Well, maybe not, but the fact that I’ve got a 15′x21′ basement for my home theatre is a benefit, and I hope -they- enjoy my taste.

Regardless, thanks McLeans for showing our place to the nation (or, at least, those that still read you) and for those in their suburban manses, you should come visit the city sometime… Enjoy the commute.
j

ps. ooops… “MacLeans”… Sorry… :)
k

Tricia, I served with j: I knew j; j was a friend of mine. Tricia, you’re no j.
Tim

Not representative at all. Also does not mention anything about the neighberhood its in. Sure cheap houses can be found in TO if your not too particular of where you live and if your house is 80 years old +. consider that condoes in average neighbourhood start at 200K and townhouses around 350K, good houses are more in the 650K to 700K and from there well 1 million to 1.2 million is easy to find.