I drive, and yeah, I'm downtown quite often. On weekends it takes 20 minutes to get to Yonge from where I am. If we are meeting friends from say Mississauga or Etobicoke, we will meet downtown. If we are meeting friends from central Toronto or downtown, we can meet downtown, uptown, The Beach...

Not as popular with young first time buyers maybe, but buyers getting older and moving up from condos, for example 30-somethings with young kids. Both my wife and I had downtown condos. She a 1-bedroom, and I a 2-bedroom. Before that we were in apartments downtown. We still liked a lot of what...

Markham is too far from downtown for me. Same goes for Vaughan, Richmond Hill, and Woodbridge. Even Thornhill is a bit too far for my tastes. And by "far" I don't just mean distance. I mean commute time. Going from up north to downtown is total disaster in morning rush hour, if by car, and the...

Not so much now but back in the day, one of the many reasons some people didn't look east and west earlier is a technical one, because of the way MLS worked back then. You could only search Central Toronto, Western Toronto, or Eastern Toronto, but not all at the same time. I bought last decade...

I guess somewhat. The Romana home is definitely very livable, as it isn't a run down home with 60s decor. Perhaps a different home with the same structural design might be listed $50000 less. However, the renovation seems pretty low end in many regards. For example, that $79.99 Home Depot...

Actually, for the Romana house, I'd guess that's a reasonable asking price. I wouldn't expect someone to pay $800000 for that.

I live in the general vicinity of that second house. The reason I moved there was because you get a lot more bang for the buck, and it's 30 minutes to the core (or 20 minutes on the weekend). However, the retail strip nearby is not very nice. Fortunately, it was rezoned a few years back, and...

I think you underestimate the maintenance costs of a house. Sure if you get a small house or a semi with no yard or parking, it can be very reasonable, and I said as much above. However, if you're coming from a larger place with a larger yard and driveway, then the costs really can add up if...

Less work. My sister, who is now an empty nester, revels in the fact she doesn't have to shovel anymore. I was out shoveling my driveway and walkway 3 times this weekend, and some guy in the GTA died of a heart attack shoveling this week too. My sister's only in her 50s, but she lived in a...

Looks decent. Not mind blowing or even gorgeous, just decent. Which is perfectly fine. In any case I like it better than the all-glass buildings downtown.

Ontario is actually usually rated pretty well in terms of manufacturing productivity, and the universal health care in Canada in general is usually considered an advantage, because it lowers health insurance costs for companies located here. In this context, a low dollar makes a huge difference...

^^ either the legend is wrong or else I am missing something. It has red dots as 0 - 0.65 and yellow dots as 0.65 - 113. Shouldn't that be 0.65 - 1.13?

The conclusion sounds like a load of crap. I think most people here would agree correlation does not imply causation. Starbucks is very good at locating new shops in areas where they would expect a lot of foot traffic from people who not only like their product but who also can afford it on a...

I just checked out the schools' ranking around Victoria Memorial Park. Niagara Street Public School is rated 2580/3030 (or FI 4.2/10), and Ryerson Community Public School is rated 2329/3030 (or FI 4.8/10). Both are well below average. Ryerson Community Public School has an average parental...

Most of those red dots aren't schools for kids. I used to live across the street from Victoria Memorial Park. When I lived there, kids were a rarity in that park. It's more now, but it's still not exactly a lot of them. There is a school north from there, but schools are very sparse in that...

P.S. One thing that really, really irritates me about the parks around Liberty Village is that there is dog crap EVERYWHERE. WTF is wrong with these people?!? It almost seems like nobody cleans up after their dogs. It's horrible. It's way, way worse than I've ever seen in neighbourhoods with...

Of course lots of people have successfully raised children downtown. But I can tell you it definitely isn't very popular for middle class and upper class. In my townhouse complex, basically everyone who had a kid moved out within a few years, even those with 2-bedroom units and a private patio...