While buying a home in Toronto might seem daunting, particularly to first-time homebuyers, the city does have areas that remain financially accessible and choosing the right one can net substantial long-term gains.

Spotting the next Cabbagetown, Leslieville or Distillery District before it develops a cachet can be a fairly straightforward process. The key is to look for common characteristics that have contributed to the gentrification of neighbourhoods throughout the city.

Neighbourhoods situated along Yonge Street throughout Toronto for example, have netted strong returns on investment due to their proximity to the subway line. Accessibility to transit is one key characteristic to consider.

Another important factor to note is proximity to urban amenities like parks and beaches. Note the explosion of house values in the Beaches throughout the past two decades as an example.

The waterfront is certainly one favourable characteristic of the Multiple Listing Service district known to real estate agents as W06, which is located from the Etobicoke Creek to East of Royal York Road and South of the Queen Elizabeth Way to the waterfront.

It’s also important to look for neighbourhoods surrounded by areas that have already experienced improvements, as gentrification is likely to spill over into them. Given that W06 contains single detached homes selling for at least 10% less than the GTA average, and is adjacent to districts with above-average selling prices, there’s no doubt that it’s ripe for gentrification.

Similar opportunities exist east of central Toronto as well, in districts like E04 and E06 in the East and North-East Danforth areas.

If the opportunity to snap up a great deal and in an up-and-coming neighbourhood appeals to you, you’re not alone. In fact, a study released in 2008 by the University of Toronto’s Cente for Urban and Community Studies found that 16.4% of neighbourhoods in the City of Toronto have experienced some form of gentrification. Furthermore, when neighbourhoods built before World War II were isolated in this study, it found a remarkable 39.2% have experienced gentrification.

Buying in an emerging area requires careful consideration though. As a first step, walk the streets of the neighbourhood to get a true sense of the local culture. Try to identify areas that are being snapped up by homebuyers committed to the neighbourhood’s future rather than simply by investors.

Remember as well that neighbourhoods in transition are just that; their evolution may take many years so it’s important to really enjoy the area in its current form. Emerging areas might not immediately, feature your favourite shops for example, however; change in the commercial landscape is another sure sign that gentrification is underway.

To learn more about the many opportunities that exist in neighbourhoods throughout the GTA talk to a Greater Toronto real estate agent and visit www.TorontoRealEstateBoard.com for neighbourhood profiles, market updates and much more.

Condominiums – like so much else in our economy today – are going through a transition. Here we take a look at recent past, present, and near/distant future scenarios in condo developments. 

Good-Times Glitter of the Past

During the boom of recent years, the condo market reflected the lives of the rich and urbane: sleek fitness studios, pools, steam rooms, spa services, concierge, imported counter tops, mouldings and other drippings of fine living were standard in many condo developments.

Condo living was for the wealthy, rarely attainable for first-time home buyers or young families. Loaded with non-optional amenities that constituted the equivalent of the cost of country-club membership on top of the condo’s selling price.

Today’s Condo Chic – Basic, Affordable

But an interesting trend has been born of the recession, when sales came screeching to a virtual halt starting last summer: the Practical, Affordable Condo. Starting at about $380 per square foot, recession-friendly condos are broken up into smaller, plainer units with pared-down amenities in both the apartments themselves and those shared in the building.

Not the traditional condo owners’ cup of tea… but these new ‘light’ condos are selling – and they’re pretty much the only ones in the country doing so right now.

Builders are starting to see the need to redesing condos to:

• Suit younger, first time buyers

• Drop prices significantly

• Offer incentives to save condo buyers even more money

For example, Empire Communities’ new downtown Toronto development, Fly Condos, redesigned their condo apartments to be smaller, more basic and dropped the price significantly – and units that weren’t moving at all started selling like hotcakes.

The condo resale market remains more brisk than the new condo market. Looking-to-start-a-family types who had chosen a condo as their entry into home ownership are now taking their profit from selling their unit and putting it towards a house (having lined up a low interest mortgage.)

Builders are also offering incentive packages to entice buyers into new condos, such as Toronto’s Cresford Condos, which recently offered buyers 1 year free maintenance.

The Future of Condo Living

Now, imagine a condo with no maintenance fees … ever! Yes, it’s in the works – at a eco-friendly condo development in Milton, Ontario – the first of its kind in Canada.

The 150-unit GreenLife building can afford to offer fee-free living to buyers because the building, owned by developer Del Ridge Homes Inc., will produce enough renewable energy to cover all operating costs – including wind turbines, ground-source heating and cooling, hollow-core concrete floors, rooftop solar panels, R50 roof insulation,, insulated-concrete-form walls, motion-activated common area lighting and solar-powered parking lot lights. Marketing of GreenLife begins next month; units average 1,000 square feet, with prices starting at $190,000.

Other eco-leading condo developments in Canada include a Vancouver development that next year will offer 220 volt plug-in capability in some of the parking spaces for residents’ electric cars.

For those of you who don’t snag a spot in a fee-free development, think about buying a condo now vs. later – when repair and maintenance companies start charging harmonized sales tax (HST), thereby driving up condo fees.

Way-Out Future.. or Not so Far? 

Running out of land space (and not yet ready to populate Mars), condo builders are starting to visualize building developments underwater – specifically, at the bottom of Lake Ontario!

A Toronto native who is VP of engineering at U.S. Submarines thinks it will be less than 30 years before people live there, with “breakthroughs in both building and air cleansing technologies allowing submerged condos. ” Maybe even condos located near “lake-bottom attractions” such as shipwreck, The Sligo, near Toronto’s shoreline.

Michael Schutte, now based in Oregon, is managing the construction of an underwater five-star hotel to open by the end of this year on the edge of a coral cliff on the lagoon floor 12 metres down, near Fiji.

Twenty-four undersea hotel suites and apartments will cover 51 square metres of ocean floor. The cost will be US $15,000 per person for a week. OK, not necessarily in your snack-bracket!

Are you considering buying a condo?