Fifty years ago, a young pair paid $27,000 for a modest home in Don Mills. That approximately 1,500 -square-foot house sold for $2.3 million, more than $1.15 million over the nearly $1.19 million list price on Wednesday.
The home on Norden Cres. near Lawrence Ave. East and Don Mills Rd., received 31 offers following 175 showing over nine days. Two weekend open houses attracted another 75 onlookers, told Mr. Mansoor of Royal Lepage Signature Realty.”
We anticipated it would be busy. We could not have predicted that outcome,” he said on Friday.”
In terms of that neighborhood, it’s the best price an older three-bedroom home has sold for. You have new construction properties that have sold for much higher but this really is brand new,” told Mansoor.
He had been working with the vendors for the last three months and affords them credit for their “tireless preparation” in selling a home the sellers occupied since 1967.
It was gently staged and the time spent preparing it for market generated some buzz and attained the home appeal to a wider audience, said the agent.
Initially he considered the house might sell for between $1.5 million and $1.6 million. But the January, 2017 had higher market activity and with the smaller number of listings on the market changed everyone’s beliefs, told Mansoor.
His colleague had listed a property a few weeks earlier in the same area for $990,000. It sold for $1.95 million. The Norden Cres. homeowners agreed to similarly listing way below market value and to try and generate a similar response.
They wanted to appeal to the broad range of purchasers that were house hunting in the leafy neighbourhood close to the Shops of Don Mills — the purchaser who might want to live in the house and the builders and buyers who could tear it down and rebuild in that location.”
A lot of the other homes are being sold mostly for land appreciation value at this level. They’re homes that required needed improvements and they’re not being marketed as houses. They’re really only being listed and sold,” told Mansoor.”
Now you have builders rivalling with home buyers,” he said.
The home has been “lovingly retained” and updated over the years. It was refurbished in early 200′ s with an extension on the front and a bathroom on the main level. The owners had carefully maintained the roof and mechanicals and were thrilled with the sale, according to the agent.
“It’s nice to see people who have been in their homes for a very long time, who are now selling and having the opportunity to enjoy their retirement,” told Mansoor.
“If you think about people who bought in that neighbourhood five years ago and paid $900,000 and they’ve attained $1 million in equity in five years old, that is crazy. These guys are really earned it. You don’t hear a lot of stories of people who have been in their homes for 50 years straight-out,” he said.
The key for these owners, told Mansoor, is that they’ll be moving into a larger older condo in the same neighborhood where their son has been living.
Source: Toronto Star
