Welcome to urbaneer.com’s Home Of The Month. This feature provides a snap shot of what our Buyers have recently purchased in the City of Toronto.

For those of you familiar with the catch-phrases of real estate, the most popular is surely the “Location, Location, Location!” mantra. And with good reason. Where your property sits has a massive bearing on the value of your property. In fact, in Toronto’s downtown core, the land your dwelling sits on will account for 50 to 90 percent of your market value. Land in downtown Toronto is always increasing in value, based on its proximity to the central business district, village shopping amenities, public transportation, recreation space and its lifestyle cachet. Meanwhile, your dwelling is most always decreasing in value as it ages and its building components become obsolete or dated in the style files. The decrease is relative to the capital investment required to bring the structure and its finishing into the standards demanded by the building code and your specific target market. Sometimes that might mean replacing the entire existing building with a new structure more appropriate to the highest and best use of its location. Regardless, in urbaneer’s books, the land component of any downtown Toronto property will always be increasing in value, and is a superb long term investment.

In this month’s post, location played a key role in our Buyers’ aggressive purchase of this property. Located in Little Italy just off College Street and around the corner from Trinity Bell woods Park, this renovated four bedroom two and a half storey semi-detached Edwardian with two car concrete block garage was situated across the street from École élémentaire Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau, one of the city’s premier French elementary schools. Our buyers, who are expecting their first child shortly (Congrats!), attached a premium on the proximity to day care, and schooling, just steps from the front door of this house. For these professionals, who lead busy lives where every minute counts, having the convenience of a centrally located walking life prompted these Buyers to submit a pre-emptive bully offer and snap this property off the market before the Sellers’s posted offer date.

This all brick house has been reconfigured into a main floor open concept space plan with a powder room tucked to the side. It features exposed brick walls, high ceilings with recessed lighting, and new wood floors. The kitchen was recently renovated with stainless steel appliances and granite counters.

One of the former bedrooms (of five) was reconfigured into a massive family bathroom with oversized shower. The second floor has two additional bedrooms and stacked laundry. The third floor has two generous bedrooms and a glorious sub-drenched west-facing roof deck.

All the major building components in this house have been upgraded. The property also has a lower level unit renting for $1300 per month inclusive. It’s a great income supplement or nanny suite, which will help offset the carrying costs. In our current market, that rents covers approximately $250,000 in financing.

Listed at $899,000 with a holdback on offers for one week, our Buyers decided to submit a ‘bully offer’ in advance of the offer date to see if the Sellers could be enticed to sell it earlier without a bidding war. The first offer, which was for around ten percent over the list price, was rejected. However, the listing broker did pass on to us a higher sum which the Sellers expected to achieve come the Offer Date. After some rumination, which included balancing the convenience of its perfect location and the strong income offset offered by the lower level suite, our Buyers decided to purchase the property for the Seller’s preferred sum.

Although there is much resistance by Buyers to Bidding Wars and Bully Offers, sometimes a Buyer can strategically use a Bully Offer to secure a property for a sum they’re willing to pay without blindly bidding in competition against other Buyers, where one either risks losing the house or paying even more than one was initially willing to. This sale is an example of how our Buyers secured a property in their preferred location at a price they were willing to pay (the financing institution’s appraisal came in at the purchase price), without the risk of losing it or overpaying.

Want to learn more about Bully Offers? Click HERE for urbaneer’s past HomeWatch newsletter about this subject.

If you, or someone you know, has particular real estate needs, wishes and desires and requires assistance, please know we’re here to help at urbaneer.com. We LOVE what we do!

~ Steven and the urbaneer team

Home Of The Month