Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
On my trips to Toronto, it seemed like the most vibrant areas had a lot of multifamily - including full-on highrises - on the main streets. There absolutely were SFHs, but they were tucked away on back streets and would presumably comprise only a minority of the population. Plus of course they were all riduculously expensive. What good does it do to have SFHs available in an urban core if the absolute cheapest start at $1 million?
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In reality, most of what look like SFHs in central Toronto are multiple apartments. There certainly are proper SFHs, but most are through renovations and even still tend to have basement apartment units to rent out. I actually haven't lived in an apartment here that hasn't been in what's looked like a house, and I've lived in far too many places over the past 13 years! With the exception of one, all of these have had shared backyard access which I've come to value very highly. Right now we are in a 1200 sq ft place that's the 2nd floor of a semi-detached. There are additional apartments on the first and 3rd floor, with shared storage/laundry in the basement and a decent sized backyard. Strangely enough, apartments in houses generally go for less than those in brand new condo towers, though as many here are likely familiar with living in 100+ year old buildings comes with its own set of idiosyncrasies.
There's a whole historical reason for this rooted in Toronto's former puritan heritage where apartment buildings were seen as debaucherous tenements, so everything just had to look like a SFH. Originally there was less separation between apartment areas on different floors but those were walled off over time. Areas like this (my former street) are much more multifamily than they may visually appear:
https://goo.gl/maps/cKyfh5fK9cLetCCQ6