Complete Toronto Real Estate Guide
From Bungalows to Condos and everything in between, welcome to our Complete Toronto Real Estate Guide. Your one-stop shop for everything you need to know about Selling, Buying and Investing in Toronto Real Estate.
If you’re an international buyer searching from overseas or new to the city and you don’t really know anything about how Real Estate in Toronto works this article will get you off to a good start.
Read our post with International Buyer Tips.
Toronto Is A City Of Neighbourhoods
To begin to understand Toronto Real Estate you have to begin with a little bit of history and description. Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods. Many of the neighbourhoods are geographically defined by natural features such as the ravine and river system, railway lines that intersect the city and major roads. Torontonions are notoriously defensive of their neighbourhoods. Woe betide the poor unfortunate who inaccurately describes themselves as living in a particular area in order to impress their friends. With immigration over the last 100 years or so many of Toronto’s neighbourhoods have assumed distinctive cultural identities, Little Italy, Greek Town, China Town, Little Portugal, Corso Italia and Little Korea all spring to mind. It’s all about the best neighbourhoods to live in Toronto.
Organising Real Estate In Toronto
As a result of neighbourhoods defining the city the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) has organised itself to allow searches to quantify the neighbourhoods. The search areas are based on a compass system radiating outward from the geographic centre of the city. Typically they are described as “E1, E2, W1, W2 C1, C2 and so on. Each search area may contain up to three neighbourhoods. Collectively the system is known as the Toronto MLS and is a huge database of Toronto Real Estate Listings.
What Do Real Estate Agents Do?
Unlike other countries where solicitors or auctioneers do the business end of property transactions, Real Estate Agents and Brokerages do the majority of the work in Canada and of course Toronto. All people who trade in Real Estate must be registered with the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) and be licensed to do so. Typically Realtors will conduct property searches, coordinate lenders and lawyers, organise tradespeople, draw up documents and offers and take the weight of the process. Please read our article about how to find the right Realtor for you.
How Do I Find A House For Sale?
After consulting with your Realtor and agreeing that you want them to represent your best interests (Buyer Representation Agreement) it’s time for us to go to work on your behalf. From this point of view it is the same all over the world. How many bedrooms and washrooms do you need, where would you like to live and how much are you able to afford. We send you daily email updates with the best new properties on the market. When you find something that ticks all the right boxes we prepare and submit an offer.
How Long Does It Take?
Depending on what’s available a great house in Toronto can be found in anything from a couple of weeks to a month. The closing period can be up to three months.
Are Houses Furnished?
No. The large appliances stay, fridge, stove, washer and dryer. If you see something that you like there is no harm writing it into the offer.
Do I Need To Be In Toronto?
Modern technology has made it so much easier to conduct business remotely. Between Skype and FaceTime, electronic document signing and YouTube you can easily get a sense of the property before making an offer. Would you be willing to spend a million on a property that you haven’t seen? Some people do and are very happy doing it. It’s a personal choice.
Read our post about buying Toronto Real Estate as a Non Resident.
To be honest, the subject of Toronto Real Estate is too big for a simple post like this. Explore our other posts about buying property in Canada for non national foreigners and resident nationals alike. However, we do have over 20 combined years in the industry here to fall back on for all the questions you might have. Please feel free to email us with any of those questions. We’d be happy to help.