This four-level house on Richmond Street West is the Home of the Week.Evereal Studio Inc
This week: Homeowners who bought condos as starter homes in the pandemic are struggling with their next moves, and developers are hoping AI can help with everyone’s least favourite part of the building process: paperwork.
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By the numbers
They bought their condos in the pandemic. Now, they’re stuck ‘bleeding cash’
For decades, the prevailing wisdom across major Canadian cities such as Toronto and Vancouver held that owning a property for at least five years virtually guaranteed a profit. Today, that assumption is being put to the test.
A growing number of Canadians who purchased starter homes at peak market prices are now in a bind. They can sell at a loss, attempt to rent it out in a punishing market, or postpone reaching other major life milestones and gamble on the market rebounding soon.
“At the height of COVID, a lot of people were buying condos in their mid-to-late 20s and the plan was always: ‘let’s wait five years and then sell our condo and buy a house,’” said Toronto realtor Anya Ettinger. “The life plan hasn’t changed … the market has.”
But homes were never meant to be merely an investment, Ms. Ettinger said. “It should never have been the norm.”
Read the full story about the markets in the GTA and Vancouver, and what homeowners are planning now.
Paperwork
Developers hope new AI tools can speed-up permit approvals
California recently created laws that mandate municipalities to deliver rapid permit approvals for rooftop solar projects.Damian Dovarganes/The Associated Press
Vancouver modernist architect Arno Matis was grappling with a problem that is table stakes for his profession, but has, in recent years, been ratcheted up to the level of national crisis by politicians pressing for solutions to the housing affordability crisis: the amount of time it takes to secure a building permit, which seems to grow longer by the year.
A mid-size project in Vancouver could be bogged down in the approvals process for two or three years. “We saw that there was an issue there,” he told John Lorinc. “Obviously, our clients were getting dragged along for the ride.”
To that end, Mr. Matis’s firm last fall launched a technology-development partnership with an Australian firm, Archistar, that has built AI tools capable of checking whether project proposals comply with zoning rules, building codes and other planning policies.
The goal, say those who’ve worked with these technologies, is to allow planners to spend more of their time on the parts of the approvals process that require their professional judgment instead of slogging through highly repetitive tasks associated with routine permits. Local governments are hopeful it will help ease the bureaucratic burden.
National data
Three real estate markets that are bucking trends
Housing values across Canada declined by 2 per cent in January compared to the year before, according to new data.COLE BURSTON/The Canadian Press
Even with lower interest rates, price growth in major Canadian real estate markets is diverging as cheaper regions post bigger gains than more expensive cities.
The biggest example of this division is in Quebec City, Canada’s strongest market, which had a 14-per-cent increase year-over-year in housing values in January.
On the other hand, Victoria and Toronto were some of the weakest markets in the country in January, as valuations fell and appeared to get little relief from interest rate decreases throughout 2025.
Reporter Salmaan Farooqui spoke to realtors in the Quebec City, Victoria and Toronto markets to try to decipher why they performed so far outside the national average.
This week’s lowest fixed and variable mortgage rates in Canada
Rates shown are the lowest available for each term/type and category (insured vs. uninsured) as of market close on Thursday, Feb. 19.
Design corner
Why some are returning to analog in the age of smart homes
Certain systems, such as security, lighting and temperature control, can easily be integrated into a single app.Shai Gil/Supplied
In recent years, the number of apps people use to control what happens in their homes has skyrocketed (think heating, lighting, cameras and sound), but a growing backlash has more people opting for “dumb homes” that eschew the technology that can create digital clutter.
Perhaps ironically, given the streamlined aesthetic of modern amenities, homes with less tech can look sleeker. “Smart systems frequently introduce layers of controls – keypads, touch panels, multigang light switches – that accumulate quickly,” says Toronto-based architect Robert Kastelic. “When we reduce or carefully distill those controls, walls become calmer and what we sometimes call ‘wall blemishes’ are minimized.” Home-tech experts, however, say there are ways to avoid a mess when it comes to gadgets.
Home of the Week
A foreign student’s home base, and a long-term investment
840 Richmond St. W. is this week's Home of the Week.Evereal Studio Inc
840 Richmond Ave. W., Toronto - Full gallery here
Purchased by a couple for their son who was attending university in Toronto, partially in order to have more room to stay when they visited, this four-level house is tall and narrow, with grey brick on the upper levels and lots of windows in front. Just inside the door, the main window is a slider, allowing a little indoor-outdoor living.
This front room is dominated by a wall of built-in, floor-to-ceiling walnut storage cabinets. There is broad-plank white oak flooring that extends through this level and down the stairs to the main living area.
There, a double-height wall of windows dominates the back half of the house. The bottom floor is dug down below the street level, so the back patio is in a sort of well. This semi-subterranean configuration is offset by all the light those rear windows draw in, which reflects off the polished concrete floor.
The long central island of the kitchen provides prep space, and built-in cabinetry hides most of the typical kitchen clutter. Bar seating and a dining space between the kitchen and living room round out the amenities, with one more addition; a powder room at the back of the kitchen.
The upper two levels are bedrooms: the second floor has two, a shared bathroom and the laundry room. The third floor is dedicated to the primary suite, with a large open closet storage system and an ensuite bathroom with a standalone tub, walk-in-shower and a double vanity. On the other side of a central hallway is the primary bedroom, complete with a window wall that slides to give access to a broad balcony.
b. The asking price is $2,999,800.