Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Well the condo fee usually includes building insurance, lawn maintenance etc and at $500 and up I would think it would include some utilities (ie heat/hydro). To be really fair you can't bring up condo fees without mentioning that the house in oshawa will come with its own significant utilities costs of its own.
Well the condo fee usually includes building insurance, lawn maintenance etc and at $500 and up I would think it would include some utilities (ie heat/hydro). To be really fair you can't bring up condo fees without mentioning that the house in oshawa will come with its own significant utilities costs of its own.
Yes, house owners often mention condo fee as a big disadvantage as if their big houses require no maintenance and repair whatsoever.
My downtown condo (about 300K) has a maintenance fee a bit over $300. All utilties will be within $80 a month as the building itself is extremely efficient. I never need the furnance on while asleep as the building remains at 18C, a comfortable temperature for sleeping.
Property tax actually is about $1600 - much lower than the $2400 estimated mentioned earlier.
And how much is the condo fee on the 300k condo in Toronto?
You seem to have left out that part.
I am guessing upwards of 500 a month in most buildings.
That could pay for a car, and for the convenience of not having to push strollers or drag kids into the subway in the freezing cold.
* Also the convenience of not being stuck in a crowded city.
Nobody forbids you from owning a car when living in Toronto condos. Many people do. It is only that their life doesn't DEPENDENT on a car.
Toronto is by no means a "crowded city". Other than main drags such as Yonge, or the entertainment district, many streets are pretty quiet.
You don't get "stuck" in the city. There is plenty of different places to go to. If you like nature, plenty of it too. One gets stuck in the homogenous suburbs where there is nothing but single family houses and big box chain stores.
And how much is the condo fee on the 300k condo in Toronto?
You seem to have left out that part.
I am guessing upwards of 500 a month in most buildings.
I mentioned 3000 for maintenance. That is the condo (maintenance) fee. I didn't leave it out. Sorry for the confusion. This is a good estimate for a 500 to 600 sq ft condo which is what you will find for 300K in Toronto as I'm using 50c a sq ft as a rough average guideline for Toronto. The condo fee also usually includes utilities (maybe even cable), property maintenance and landscaping, garbage disposal, security, and reserve fund so that future repairs are fully funded.
It's tough to work out the numbers for a detached because the standard of care is up to the owner and is usually reflective of the neighbourhood you are in. But this is true for condos too, that's why maintenance costs vary.
Also not saying that big city condo owners don't have cars (and are forced to stroll their babies in the freezing cold lol). They just don't need as many to have a functional life and that cost should be considered.
I'm trying to figure out a scenario where what you say is actually true. A 300K detached "a little further out" of Toronto we're talking like Oshawa which I don't consider a suburb.
Whether you consider it a subburb or not, the fact remains that it is one. I live in Oshawa, and my commute to downtown Toronto and home again is approximately 90 minutes each way (60 minutes on the train). Of course, if I manage to catch an express, that reduces the train commute to about 40-45 minutes.
Quote:
A 300K property in Oshawa will be a decent sized detached, with a property tax bill of $5113.5 (according to Toronto Area Property Tax Calculator). Maintenance + insurance + utilities is extra, maybe another 3000 a year.
Homes in Oshawa are considerably cheaper than anywhere else in Durham region, and nearly half what they are in Toronto. We bought a three bedroom bungalow in one of the nicer areas of the city's north end on a 60' by 105' lot for $253,000. You couldn't get a one room shack for that in Whitby, never mind Toronto. While my tax bill comes in at just under $4000 a year, the money I saved on the home itself made the decision to move to Oshawa more than worth it. The home was eco-audited and upgraded with new doors, windows, high-efficiency furnace and central air, and the basement was spray-foam insulated prior to the sale. As such, our utilities come in at around $80 each for gas and electricity and $60 a month for water (we don't actually try to conserve to bring them down further). That is 10x the home you would ever find in Toronto at that price.
Quote:
"Just deal with the commute"? The commute is not free, not even taking into account the time and health drain it will cost you. To live that far out, you need at least 2 cars, plan for at least $700 a month each (capital, maintenance, gas, and insurance) or pay the $300/mo GO train fee. We're talking thousands here for the commute.
I drive a Ford F150 V8 and my wife doesn't drive at all. We have no issues with that arrangement. My truck is 10 years old, paid for, has low mileage and costs me about $200 a month for gas and insurance. Unless you are hell-bent on owning a brand new vehicle and driving to Toronto every day, a car certainly does not need to cost you $700 a month!
Quote:
The 300K condo in Toronto will be $2491.71 in taxes, about $3000 a year in maintenance and utilities, and cars will not be a requirement. I'd also suspect that in the future the Toronto property will have outpaced the Oshawa property in price appreciation.
You need to include monthly condo fees and the $40,000 cost of buying a parking space for your car, if your condo even offers the possibility. Couple that with the fact that Toronto's housing is sitting on a giant bubble, and I can't imagine why anyone would want to live in a crowded, expensive city like it. Combine that with the lack of services in many condo-heavy areas (especially by Toronto's waterfront) and I have to wonder why you would want to pay crazy costs to live in a shoebox that is 1/3 to a 1/2 of the main floor of my house without any outside property.
It should also be stated that Oshawa is one of the only areas outside Vancouver that is exceeding the national average for home sales, mostly due to the lower purchasing costs you enjoy here.
Quote:
It doesn't seem so clear cut to me that a detached is preferable given the overhead costs (they are not LESS as you say in a detached), so it really comes down to your own circumstances and lifestyle preferences.
In my case, it is less and I don't have to worry about noisy neighbours above me, roaches, bedbugs and the other inherent unpleasantries that come hand-in-hand with living in apartments and condominiums.
You know this is starting to blend into an argument of which is better? city or suburban or country living - and really all it ever does is tie into personal preferences. People who live in the city can't imagine living in the one-sushi-restaurant in town isolated burbs, people in the burbs can't imagine living in the crowded crime-fest tiny grimey city, and people who live in the country laugh at both those idiots.
But to the poster above, I find it amusing you state toronto's city on a massive housing bubble while then saying that oshawa exceepds Vancouver for national average for home sales. When you consider Vancouver is at least constrained by water, it sounds like oshawa is in bubbalicious country as well.
Ultimately this posting was just about trying to find something 'cheaper' and I think the discourse here has been about the definition of cheaper. Personally I live in Toronto and prefer it, but my brother lives in Oshawa and I know it well too so a comparison is useful. Both are houses were bought at the same time (2007) and for the same amount of money - his is 3000sq ft mine is 1200. He and his wife have 2 cars, I have one (yes, you're an exeption but when I drive around oshawa I often see more than one car in those long double-car garage driveways be honest). His taxes are much higher than mine, and so are his utilities (house is bigger mind you). I will say that my house has clearly appreciated much more in value than his has based on comparables. More importantly, I like being able to walk to my neighbourhood bar, grocery store, take the subway home from work, etc and ironicially my backyard is much bigger than his, and I like my trees. He likes living there because ther'es lots of chain stores/restaurants out there, its a little more sanitized and the greenspaces are much bigger. Ultimatley , to each their own.
Ultimately, it comes down to your definition of 'cheaper'. If you mean bigger house for less money, go outer fringes. If you mean less time in commuting/travelling to interesting places, go city. I will say that regardless of where you want to go, the notion of the 70s that you could go suburban for a lot cheaper than city and still not have too bad a commute is over. Over. Everywhere is expensive.
Last edited by AlsoNotMe; 06-18-2012 at 09:36 AM..
Reason: incomplete
My fiance and I have been looking at relocating in Sept or so to Toronto/Mississauga area. We are from Thunder Bay where you can get a 4 bedroom detached house in a new development area for 200k. When we were looking for 2 bedroom houses in Mississauga/Milton we were seeing 350-400k houses. Even if we got decent jobs and made 100k combined, we could still not afford it. Well, we could afford it but we would have no money. So then we started looking at condos for roughly 200k.... OK it all seems great...then we see a 700$ maintenance fee per month. We might as well just buy a 400k house then.
I really don't know how people live in the GTA. We have made the decision to either move to London or Kitchener so we could afford to live and own a house.
I said it is fine to want to live in big suburban houses, didn't I? Nothing wrong with that. People working in Tokyo can do that too. I only emphasized in choosing to do that, you inevitably have to deal with the consequences of 2 hour commute on the highway one way each day, and your life quality will be negatively affected.
I've never understood why the urban crowd presumes that everyone in the suburbs has a 2 hour commute. Some do - certainly, but most cities now (especially the GTA) offer sufficient employment opportunities within the suburbs. Most people commute suburb to suburb now. Most people, especially families, will change jobs from time to time - in new locations, but most will not choose to uproot their family, sell their home, change school districts etc just to shorten their commute time.
It also needs to be recognized that many people simply do not enjoy urban living - and house size and cost are irrelevant. I'm personally one of these people. I enjoy the economic and social benefits to living within a major metro - but you couldn't pay me enough to live near the downtown core. Suburbs offer peace and tranquility with major urban amenities - the fact that it's cheaper than the city is just a bonus.
We live in a 1600 sq/ft townhouse in Oakville. Dollar for dollar, we could get something similiar sized in the 416 - but we simply do not, because *gasp* we like the suburbs. I work predominantly out of home, with travel around the GTA 1-2 days per week and my wife chose to work in Burlington. Our quality of life simply could not be better, and most of my immediate neighbours seem to work somewhere between Hamilton and Mississauga. I couldn't name one who has a commute of more than 30 minutes.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
