By Michael McCann
“Hammer time” has taken on a whole new meaning that has nothing to do with the early ’90s hip hop song “U Can’t Touch This”.
There are few streets in Birchcliff that have not seen a house torn down and a new, larger home replace it.
Whether it`s winter, spring, summer or fall it always seems to be construction time
Our neighbourhood is in the midst of a building boom and I will tell you now, don`t expect it to end anytime soon.
Let’s take a look at the math on residential home construction.
The average detached home in Toronto`s 416 area code is consistently, month-over-month, fetching on average over $1 million.
This statistic is driven by a large number of buyers wanting to own a detached home in Toronto.
Most Birchcliff homes are detached and considering our proximity to the city core the neighbourhood is a developer’s dream.
Location is the key factor in any real estate decision. Building costs, construction plans and budgets can all be adjusted but there is one unchangeable constant and that is the land the home sits on.
However, now that I think about it, there is one other constant. Builders and developers know their numbers. Taking in a home’s purchase price, city permits, construction costs and realtor fees they’re looking at a 20% return on their investment. Before they swing a hammer they know exactly what their ROI will be.
No profit. No construction.
Rookies beware
Rookie house flippers do lose money. Most have garnered their knowledge from watching realty programs, which in the incorporeal light of TV with its nice tight 30 minute format, makes it seem so easy. Reality TV does not reflect the real world and they go into it with no grasp of the true cost scale of what they’re entering into.
For years, our neighbours south of Kingston Road were always the marquee properties, fetching a million plus. However, it’s not uncommon today for a high-end renovated/new construction builds north of Kingston Road to also pull in a sale price of well over a million.
With individual house renovations, as well as the Clonmore development and new condominium construction along Kingston Road expect a very noisy neighbourhood for a long time to come.
Birch Cliff’s January statistics:
Birch Cliff – Cliffside Home Sales in Jan. 2016 – 13 homes sold
Source:Toronto Real Estate Board. Excludes commercial properties, condos and vacant land.
Birchcliff/Cliffside
- January 2016 there were 14 houses sold and in January 2015 18 sold – a drop of 22%
- January 2015 our average sold price was $613,113 while January of this year it was $692,839 – a jump of 13% year over year
- January 2015 it took an average of 24 to sell a home and in January 2016 only 14 days – that’s a whopping 10 days less than last year.
Toronto Real Estate Board
- 4,418 sales during January 2015 and January 2016 sales were 4,618 – up by 8.2%
- $552,925 was the average selling price in January 2015 and January 2016 came in at $631,092 – up 14.1 %
- January 2015 it took an average of 31 days to sell a home and January 2016 only 29 days.
Having taken inspiration from MC Hammer it’s only fitting to leave you with this link:
For a look at real estate statistics over the last few months, click on the tabs.
[tabs slidertype=”top tabs”] [tabcontainer] [tabtext]Dec. 2015[/tabtext] [tabtext]November[/tabtext] [tabtext]October[/tabtext] [tabtext]September[/tabtext] [tabtext]August[/tabtext] [tabtext]July[/tabtext] [/tabcontainer] [tabcontent] [tab][/tab] [tab][/tab] [tab][/tab] [tab][/tab] [tab][/tab] [tab][/tab] [/tabcontent] [/tabs]
According to the Toronto Real Estate Board, our local housing market is defined as Birch Cliff/Cliffside and the boundaries can be seen below.
View Birch Cliff / Cliffside in a larger map
