Willowdale, Toronto's Hottest New Neighbourhood

Builders are always looking for bargains, so it caused quite a stir when a pleasant backsplit went on the market in North York’s Willowdale area earlier this month for what may have seemed like a crazy amount to anyone else. The house was listed for $1.1 million and it did not matter whether the home had four bedrooms with a virtual rainbow of wall-to-wall carpeting or that it had a dated panelled kitchen. The builders were only interested in the 40 feet by 131 feet lot size. By day 3, some 17 offers had been registered on the property. The best was for $1.551 million — more than $400,000 over the asking price.

“Seventeen isn’t so crazy. That’s happening a lot here now,” says long-time next-door neighbour Johnny Yoon, who is also a realtor in this booming Yonge St. and Sheppard Ave. area.

This quiet suburban neighbourhood is one of the hottest real estate markets in Toronto right now, partly due to the demand from wealthy Persians and Chinese.

All that foreign interest has spurred a staggering remake of this quiet residential pocket that started some years ago but has exploded, this year in particular, in bidding wars for its relatively tiny postwar homes, simply because of lots, which tend to average 50 feet, but can stretch in some cases to 70 or 90 feet.

It’s also helped skew overall real estate values for Toronto as original houses are replaced with new ones coming on the market at two to three times the former price.

Reference: The Toronto Star

http://www.thestar.com/…/the-rise-of-willowdale-torontos-ho…