Well, one big reason the current owner cannot sell it is precisely because it is a heritage property. Nobody will touch it with a ten foot pole.
Though re that "nobody", that's also saying something about an untold dilemma (which, in fact, "the heritage community" is working to resolve in whatever way it can): the myth within the real estate and insurance biz that heritage = kryptonite. But you also have to keep in mind (and the evidence can be seen all around the Scarborough example, or not far from the Austin Terrace example for that matter cf. the "Wengleization" of Forest Hill) that the fundamental culture of such industries is mercenary. Philistine, from a heritage-and-otherwise standpoint. It's about easy, efficient, by-the-book and in many ways (and not even necessarily
heritage ways) needlessly wasteful solutions. The old aluminum-siding-salesman ways of thinking, or some newfangled facsimile thereof. And to them, the "heritage" dagger means: uh-oh, bad news. We figurative aluminum-siding-salesmen not welcome here, steer clear.
And I only mean that in an ingrained nature-of-the-beast way.
So? What needs to be done is to break down the unilateral aluminum-siding-salesman modus operandi, and in such a way that serves more than just the loaded and oftentimes insipid "heritage" argument.
And if you want proof of how such a tactic works, consider the stigma that the
actual mythic aluminum-siding-salesman carries today. That "miracle" building product known as aluminum siding came to denote easily-suckered Archie Bunker trash--something that, in long-term net terms, wound up
lowering rather than raising values, even re the physical integrity of what it "improved". (Though I admit there may be an ironic embrace in some circles of vintage "Archie Bunker" type sided-to-the-hilt neighbourhoods on grounds of "authenticity"; but, still.)
For an elsewhere comparison point: remember all the moaning and groaning about anti-smoking laws? Well, Toronto hasn't gone down the tubes because of those "anti-smoking fascists"--indeed, the wretched ghosts of many a Coffee Time smoking room vindicate their wisdom.
And just as it's useful to break down the "rip it up and start over" mentalities which guide the real estate etc industries, maybe there's a counter-point to address the NIMBYs who take "heritage" to be a
positive cue for an absolutist freezing-a-place-in-amber or an indiscriminate embrace of an "Olde Unionville" ideal...uh, no. That can actually lead one to empathize/sympathize with Eug-style cynicism...