An unremarkable strip south of the Danforth is the latest battleground among young buyers looking to find a house in the city that’s close to the TTC and the bustling urban culture. Rhodes Ave. could very well be the last affordable frontier for first-time buyers.

Susan Pigg – Toronto Star

The most northerly block of Rhodes Ave. is one of those curious slices of urbanity where far more is usually going on than meets the eye.

Residents describe it as a “tree-lined, family-friendly street.” Realtors tout it as “the best part of Rhodes!”

Comment: It’s true, that is the nicest part of the street. My brother-in-law’s mother lives there.

To an outsider, this one block, running from Monarch Park Collegiate up to the Danforth, one block west of Coxwell Ave., looks pretty much like most streets in Toronto’s rough-and-tumble east end. It’s a collection of century-old semis and modern red-brick rowhouses. Many have seen better days.

If Rhodes is remarkable in any way, it’s because of three things — location, location, location. It’s a short stroll from the subway, just eight stops from Yonge and Bloor. That makes Rhodes ripe for the transformation that has crept along the Danforth and turned such intersections as Broadview, Pape and Carlaw into bustling social centres with novel stores, restaurants and coffee shops.

So far, it’s the lack of all that — despite the promising arrival of a sushi restaurant — that has made Rhodes one of the last affordable frontiers for first-time buyers in Toronto’s hot housing market.

Brendan Clancy, 36, and his wife Laura, 30, moved here just over a year ago from a downtown condo. They discovered Rhodes Ave. has two Facebook groups, Friday night cocktails in summer and skating get-togethers at the nearby rink in winter.

What Clancy didn’t expect has turned out to be one of the biggest surprises of all: He may well be living on the hottest street in the city right now.

Just over two weeks ago, 639 Rhodes Ave., a renovated, 1,200-square-foot semi, sold for an astounding $717,336 — almost $170,000 over the lowball asking price — in a 25-person bidding war. Realtors worry that event may have catapulted one of the few remaining affordable pockets of the city out of reach of desperate young buyers.

The domino effect has been dramatic. A week later, a similar semi at 689 Rhodes Ave. fetched $668,000, some $40,000 more than its owner expected. She might have gotten far more had there been the expected dozen-plus offers, instead of just two, as buyers ran for the hills, citing bidding war burnout.

This week a tiny triplex sold for $632,000 — $52,000 over the $579,900 asking price — as its owner, who is moving out of the city, rode the wave of Rhodes’ new-found fame.

Even veteran realtors are becoming alarmed at the desperation among young buyers seemingly hell-bent on cashing in all their chips — asking the Bank of Mom and Dad for a few more, if needed — just to get a toehold in the city.

Comment: As much as I like that spot, I cannot recommend anyone spend $717,000 on semi there. Not for 1,200sf, that makes no sense.

It’s far more common to see Sotheby’s International For Sale signs staked in the lush lawns of Rosedale mansions than the postage-stamp front garden of the semi at 689 Rhodes Ave.

But realtor Anna Oliver knew Rhodes was “a gold mine” the minute she met Alexis Hefter, 30, who was looking to sell her tastefully renovated, three-bedroom, three-bathroom semi and move to the west coast.

“I just wanted my sign on the front lawn. Rhodes is the new darling right now,” says Oliver. “For four years I’ve been saying that the east is where it’s going to be. A lot of people can’t afford the west and central Toronto anymore, and you don’t have to make car payments if you live along the subway line.”

Comment: A lot of us knew the east was going to explode, we have been preaching it for years.

Just a year ago, Hefter, an MRI technician, was the beneficiary of good real estate timing: The owner of 689 Rhodes couldn’t find a buyer, so Hefter got it for $4,000 under the $529,900 list price.

She’d barely finished landscaping the backyard, erecting a cool play set for her 3-year-old son, Adley, and vetting contractors to renovate the bathrooms, when she found out her ex-husband was being transferred back to Vancouver. Since the couple had committed to both raise Adley, Hefter decided to go ahead with the renovations and take her son on vacation while Oliver sent in a stager and readied the home for viewings.

The realtor faced just one unexpected issue: 639 Rhodes, a similarly renovated semi with the kind of showcase kitchen and open entertaining space highly coveted by today’s young buyers, suddenly went on the market for such a low price — $549,000 — that Oliver’s “jaw dropped.”

She’d planned to list Hefter’s place for $629,000 or so, based on similar sales in the area. Now Oliver found herself boxed in by two things: not wanting to compete directly with a low-priced alternative on the street, and to get 689 Rhodes on MLS before the approaching March Break and market shutdown.

In the end, she listed it for $599,900.

As the March 4 deadline for bids approached on 639 Rhodes, stager Chandra Bradley and a team of workers were still decluttering, painting and readying 689 Rhodes to go on the market the very next day.

Everyone was shocked by what happened on bid night just down the street: 25 offers and a $717,336 winning bid for 639 Rhodes. It sent shock waves through Toronto real estate offices and confirmed Oliver’s wait-and-see decision. By holding off the listing for 689, all the buyer attention remained focused on 639 Rhodes: “It gave that house an opportunity to have its glory and now it’s our turn,” says Oliver.

If 639 went for $717,336, could this house go for, say . . . $725,000? There were suddenly 24 potential bidders looking for another kick at the Rhodes Ave. can. Just 40 minutes after Oliver posted 689 Rhodes on the MLS system the next day, realtors started paging to book viewings.

There would be 14 scheduled viewings by the end of the first day and two open houses planned for the weekend. The bidding war buzz had begun.

Oliver, 36, began her career as a realtor in Halifax just over a decade ago, quickly racking up sales by following the East Coast rule: Price properties high so buyers have room to barter and feel they got a bargain.

Funny enough, it’s not what she learned in Halifax that helped her come to grips with Toronto’s fiercely competitive, fast-paced real estate market. It’s the six months she spent in Bosnia back in 2003, working as a civilian contractor with Canadian soldiers while keeping an eye out for landmines and barbed wire.

“That’s what really toughened me up,” she says with a smirk.

Oliver arrived in Toronto just as the Great Recession of 2008 was really taking hold. For a brief few months it was a buyers’ market, for the first time in years. Sales plummeted and sellers panicked that the high-priced housing market was headed for a U.S.-style collapse.

Her first deal was on Mount Pleasant’s Balliol St. in 2009: “I remember the listing agent saying, ‘Just bring me an offer. I don’t care.’ That’s how desperate it was,” says Oliver.

Comment: 2009 was not a desperate time in Toronto…

The house was listed at $700,000. Oliver low-balled at $500,000 and her clients got it for $540,000.

Comment: And that was an incredible deal, not common at all.

Within a year, the market had come back to life. Sellers were back on top. Oliver would see a double whammy of selling tactics she’d never heard of in Halifax, where houses took an average 90 days to sell. The Toronto scene saw properties being deliberately listed well below their market value to drive up interest; deadlines to look at offers were set six to eight days from the listing date.

“I don’t like it personally, but that’s how people do things here. And sometimes it can backfire.”

Comment: Every market is different, every city is different.

While the Canadian housing market has started to cool the last few months, it’s been especially hot in Toronto since the start of the year, largely because of a phenomenon that has really taken hold in the wake of the recession: Homeowners are hanging onto their houses.

Comment: The Canadian market has not been cooling. Raw numbers had Feb 2014 sales up 1.9% over 2013 and the HPI was up 5.1%. That is not cooling.

New listings were down by more than 16%, year over year, in January and remained below historic norms in February. But the lack of houses for sale has fuelled competition among buyers concerned that Toronto house prices are only continuing to climb.

Comment: In the past 2 years, overall listings are down around 30% and houses are down around 50%. So there are half the houses for sale than 2 years ago, when we also had bidding wars and not enough supply. The pool of buyers has not got down over that period. At best it has stayed the same, but more likely it has increased. Wonder where the pressure is coming from?

Real estate commissions, land transfer taxes and other fees on buying and selling of homes have skyrocketed, right along with house prices, in the last decade, and especially since the City of Toronto introduced its own land transfer tax in Feb. 2008, on top of the provincial land transfer tax. Just to sell an average-priced detached house ($955,314) in the City of Toronto can cost more than $50,000 in real estate commissions and HST alone, compared to about $35,000 in the 905 regions because of lower average house prices there.

Comment: Um, no. It could, but so many commissions are in the 3.5%-4% range these days. Getting the full 5% is pretty rare. Still, even $35,000 is a lot!

But then you have to find some place else to live, and if that’s also in the City of Toronto, you’ll be hit with double land transfer taxes when you buy — unlike the 905 regions which just apply the provincial land transfer tax. That can bring the total cost of a move in Toronto to $85,000 or more, less if you are downsizing to cheaper home.

Comment: The land transfer tax to buy a $955,314 house is $30,412.56 alone. Add in $3,000 for lawyers for buying and sell and just moving sideways can be a minimum of $70,000 with two $955k houses. That is a LOT of money!

“I have a lot of people say to me, ‘I don’t know where I’d go if I sold my house,'” says Toronto realtor Luci Rizzo. Many owners have opted to renovate their existing homes instead.

Comment: Same here. I did the math… to move up a house size, I would take essentially all of the equity in my house, use it to pay commissions, land transfer tax, legal fees and a down payment – only to have monthly payments more than double what I pay now. Just for an extra bedroom and a bit more space on the main floor. Yeah… no.

Since last September, Rizzo has spent two to three hours a day making cold calls, looking for listings. She’s netted just three so far, two condos and a house, which she listed for $538,000 and sold for $609,000.

While no one’s talking about it in a big way, the listings drought is affecting more than just buyers. There are 37,000 licensed realtors who are members of the Toronto Real Estate Board, one of the biggest in the world. You can’t sell what you don’t have.

Comment: Not only listings, but how do we help buyer clients when there is nothing to show them? I have a couple in the dreaded $600k bracket. What there is, mostly need renos. Or they end up selling for $800k. What do I do with them? We just sit and wait and hope for something… anything…

Bidding wars have reached bizarre new levels, just since the start of the year, as panicked buyers grow more fearful of being priced out of Toronto forever. They see too few listings and too much pent-up demand. Low interest rates continue to have the dizzying effect of making the near impossible seem bearable — as long as those monthly mortgage payments remain in check.

“These bidding wars are really changing the price point of neighbourhoods fundamentally — permanently,” says Leslieville realtor John Pasalis. He’s seen the most heated activity in the east end of the city, even into some more suburban-like Scarborough neighbourhoods.

He’s been tracking the number of multiple bids on properties this year and says most activity seems to be in the city’s east end, especially along the Bloor-Danforth subway line. But the frenzy extends right into some more suburban-like neighbourhoods in Scarborough, where decent-sized houses sit on 50-foot lots with easy highway access.

“There are some competitive pockets in the 905, but you don’t see the levels of prices over asking that you see in Toronto,” says Pasalis.

The first sign of buyer aggression this year flared up on Perth Ave. in the Junction Triangle. An end rowhouse, with the sought-after entertaining kitchen, sold for $848,625, some $210,000 over the asking price, in a flurry of 32 bids — despite being appraised at just $700,000.

Comment: But it was the only house for sale in the district. There was NOTHING else. A week after it sold, another one, but still only one. A month later, still just one. As of right now, there are actually 4. But that is for an entire district – Runnymede east to the CN tracks east of Keele, from north of St. Clair down to Humberside. And in the area around Rhodes, there are 12 houses in that whole district. From Danforth down to Eastern, Greenwood to Coxwell. We are talking 16 listings in the 2 areas, in maybe 8-10 square km.

The biggest competition — much of it from downtown dwellers who want to keep walking and biking everywhere, but also find a safe place to raise a family — is for houses in the $550,000 to $800,000 price range.

Those younger buyers have largely set their sights on streets east of Dufferin and west of Coxwell, but don’t want to stray too far from the Bloor-Danforth subway line.

“I don’t think there’s anything that makes Rhodes especially valuable, except that people are so desperate to buy a house in the city,” says Toronto realtor Scott Shallow.

Comment: Wait until they discover Craven…

“I think we’re now into a chronic shortage of single-family dwellings in the city. It will get to the point where maybe affordability will erode enough that there will be fewer buyers and price growth will slow down.

Comment: So what? Even if price growth slows, it still rises. Houses still cost more next year than this year. Even if it falls from 10% to 3%, $650,000 houses still turn into $670,000 houses in a year. Then $690,000 the year after. For those stretched now, in 2 short years a house can still jump $40,000 – and that is only if price growth drops to 30-50% of where it is now. With listings so scarce now, even if half the buyers disappeared (where are they going to go?) we would still have a problem. With only 16 houses in 2 districts, it only takes 32 buyers to create bids on every one. I talk to 32 buyers in a month. And that is just me. Big agents talk to 30 people in a week.

“But as long as there are neighbourhoods left in the city where people can get a house for under $1 million, we’re going to see more of this.”

Comment: And what’s frightening is that there won’t be any of them left one day!

Back on Rhodes Ave., Sabrina and Shawn Massa are making their third foray to the street in a week to look at another house, this one a triplex, that’s just come up for sale.

Just 11 days earlier, they were feeling pretty hopeful that Rhodes Ave. would be their new address after registering a bid of $641,000 — almost $100,000 over the $549,000 asking price — for No. 639 just down the street.

They were shocked when their realtor, Stuart Defreitas, called them at noon on the March 4 deadline day to say there were already 12 offers on the table. By 7 p.m. that night, there were twice as many bids. The Massa’s hopes would be dashed.

A day later, No. 689 would go up for sale. The couple actually liked it better.

“It’s exactly what my generation is looking for,” says Sabrina, 30. “Open concept, clean lines, updated with a brand new kitchen. We don’t want big furniture, bright colours, huge curtains. We want move-in ready, we want modern features in an older house.”

Realtors complain that today’s young buyers are too fixated on the very same homes — the HGTV showcase where they can host a dinner party the Saturday night after moving in.

Comment: And the dated ones can languish. Those are the ones buyers need to go after. You can spend time to reno after you move in. But save the stress and buy something with an old – but functional – kitchen. As long as the roof/plumbing/wiring/windows/foundation/furnace are good, the rest is just cosmetic.

It’s not that at all, reply many young buyers: It’s nearly impossible with today’s astronomical house prices just to save up the down payment, let alone get extra financing if the place needs a lot of work.

Sabrina and Shawn, 33, were convinced they’d found a home they could handle at 689 Rhodes. And most of the upgrading work had already been done.

It wasn’t to be. They put in the same offer they registered on No. 639 — $641,000 for the $599,900 house — and were shocked to find there was only one competing offer.

It was for $668,000. The Massas found themselves on the losing side of their third bidding war in a month.

“It is hell. It is not fun. It’s discouraging, but if you want to stay in the city, this is something we’re going to have to figure out,” says Sabrina.

Comment: I think the stats show that the average buyer loses 5 bidding wars before finally buying.

Just five weeks ago, the Massas were sitting on the other side of the table.

They were jumping for joy in the exquisitely renovated kitchen of the downtown townhouse they’d managed to snag for well under asking almost four years ago. They were sipping Moët with realtor Defreitas. They’d gotten three offers, one of them $30,000 over the $478,000 list price, for their unique home on what’s more a laneway than a street in the gritty Dundas and Parliament Sts. area.

“I knew the housing market was hot, I just never thought I’d be in the position I am now, where we have to go rent because we can’t buy a house,” says Sabrina.

Comment: Which is why you need to buy first. Selling a house today is easy, but buying is a whole different story.

The Massas understand why so few folks are listing their houses for sale: You may be “rich for a day,” as Sabrina likes to joke now, but finding a replacement can be gut-wrenching and unpredictably pricey.

Realtor Scott Shallow roughly estimates there are about 10 buyers for almost every well-priced house close to transit lines in Toronto, even on streets not long ago considered undesirable.

Comment: And that is the problem. Even with 1/2 the buyers, there are still 5 for every house. And as listings continue to drop, that 10 becomes 11. A few months later there are a few less houses and a few more buyers and there are 12 for every house.

“What I’m finding especially interesting to see is that prices in places like Leslieville are quickly catching up to those in traditional older neighbourhoods,” says Shallow.

“It can be an absolute fight to the death just to get something that’s not falling down. That’s just a reflection of the scarcity of supply.”

Comment: Heck, look at the fight for the one on Galley a couple months back, it WAS falling down. And it sold for over $800,000.

Defreitas keeps reassuring the Massas that listings will pick up soon, with March Break over and spring weather on its way. But few properties have come up. Realtors blame the weather. The Massas aren’t so sure.

Comment: Let’s see, the weather finally broke and it looks like we will have a week of good weather now.

“My mother has a very nice house in Burlington,” says Shawn, not holding out much hope as he walks into his third open house on Rhodes in two weeks, this one a triplex at No. 685.

“She’ll say to me, ‘Let me show you what $600,000 will buy you here.’ I get that, but it’s not where we want to live.”

Many of today’s young buyers have no patience for the long commute. They are the first generation to have the chance to live right downtown in large numbers, thanks to Toronto’s condo boom. They prefer to walk or bike everywhere. They don’t want the environmental and financial burden of two cars.

A good number grew up in the suburbs. They want to raise their kids in the city. They are looking for life right outside their front door, far more than a sprawling house and lawn.

The big banks have been locked in bidding wars of their own to feed that desire, offering up mortgages that, before protests from then-federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, had bottomed out at 2.99%.

It still stuns realtors like John Pasalis to sit across the table from young house hunters, wowed by the illusion of rented furniture and Ikea kitchens, to find they make a combined $150,000 but have been approved for $800,000 mortgages.

Some couples haven’t even done the math and are shocked when Pasalis tells them that amounts to $4,000 a month, just to carry the mortgage.

“I’m kind of torn by this. The banks base these approvals on the fact you shouldn’t spend more than a third of your gross income on mortgage payments. There are some buyers who don’t spend money on frivolous things. They don’t buy clothes, they don’t have to pay daycare.

“But the rest of the population would be house poor if they stuck to that 30% rule.”

Comment: No kidding. I bought based on what I was comfortable paying each month, not what the bank would give me. And I advise all of my clients to do the same thing. Just because the bank will give you $800,000 does not mean you should spend $800,000.

It makes Pasalis “anxious” to see out-of-control bidding wars. Some realtors quietly worry whether they could be held partially liable if a deal goes bad.

“Thank God I’ve never had it happen with our clients, but we’ve seen some houses that sold in multiple offers that come back on the market four months later,” says Pasalis.

He suspects financing has fallen through after the bank does its final approvals and realizes the sale price is wildly out of whack with the home’s appraised value.

More often than not, buyers simply scramble to get extra help from Mom and Dad.

Comment: Which is why I always write conditions into bids. If either side wants them removed, then they have to cross them out and initial them. No one can ever say I told them not to put them in. Protect yourself as a realtor, but also do as much as you can to protect your clients. Have them go beyond a pre-approval and discuss the actual property they want to bid on. And bring an inspector, get the house checked before you bid. Be safe!

Up until 1996, home ownership rates among those aged 25 to 39 hovered between 62 and 63%, says Ottawa-based housing policy researcher Steve Pomeroy. By 2006, that had climbed to 69%.

It may seem irrational to pay whatever it takes to live in the city. There are options. But the city home purchase may actually make some sense when you factor in the costs of owning a car and paying condo fees or sky-high rents in newer downtown buildings that can run $1,800 a month and up.

“That $700 a month in condo fees leverages an extra $140,000 worth of borrowing. Being well-located means they can cut about $12,000 a year it costs to operate a car and that leverages another $200,000 in borrowing,” says Pomeroy.

“(Young buyers) may be driven more by fear and desperation, but underlying that fear and desperation is actually a bit of common sense.”

Comment: A $500,000 mortgage only costs $2,400/month – the same as renting a 2-bedroom condo downtown.

The crowds at the Saturday and Sunday open houses for 689 Rhodes Ave. come in waves, although with not nearly the force of those that made their way through its bidding war buddy, 639, the previous weekend.

There are couples carting babies, neighbours scouting to see what all the fuss is about and more than a few folks that lost out on 639.

There’s the Vancouver perspective from Paul Adelson. He’s just sold his condo in Canada’s priciest real estate market, is moving his marketing business to Toronto and has two weeks to find a house.

There’s the suburban perspective from Jenny Lyons, who is looking to downsize – “my mother calls it downgrade” — to Toronto from a big house in Stouffville. She’s tired of the driving and willing to live in much less space for the tradeoff of being close to the amenities of the city.

Her husband, however, isn’t buying it all.

“We’re not in a rush,” he says, trying to corral the couple’s young son as he charges the length of the kitchen. “He’s used to running around 50 rooms.”

Also scouting the place are high school teachers Kate and Alex Hang, more refugees from the bidding war down the street at 639.

They’ve lost out on five houses since the beginning of February. House-hunting has taken over their lives. When Alex gets a break from class, he looks online for new listings to fire over to Kate so she can check them out during her break.

The Hangs fell so in love with 639’s chic kitchen, open entertaining space and English-style garden that they offered $95,000 over the $549,000 asking price.

They also enclosed an unusual personal treasure: A photo from their August wedding and a carefully crafted letter. It stressed their love of the city, their commitment to Toronto’s school system, their determination to raise a family here.

“I read about it on the Internet,” says 29-year-old Kate, sheepishly. “But normally you do it when you are low-balling an offer.” She stretches her hands out, as if offering a precious gift. “Here we were saying, please take our $95,000.”

Comment: But sellers are looking simply at the bottom line. Your story does not compare to an offer that is $50,000 higher than yours. Trust me, realtors are not driving the prices…

They’ve already been to another open house this day with their realtor, Margaret Unruh, who remains remarkably optimistic. She’s adamant there is a house out there for the Hangs despite what looks like insurmountable odds.

Alex, 28, thinks it’s time to get more aggressive. The couple are toying with putting in a bully bid — an aggressive offer, above the $589,000 asking price and before the official offer deadline — on a townhouse they’ve just toured a few blocks away.

Comment: The problem with bully offers is that it only tends to reinforce in the seller’s head that their place is worth a lot. It makes them think “wow, if one buyer is willing to offer this much now, I wonder how much we will get when 10 people compete on offer day”. And the listing agent is legally bound to call all the other agents who have shown the property or have appointments booked to tell them about the offer. Coming in early may still pit you against other buyers.

“The entire experience has been so stressful because we walk into a place, we talk about what we would renovate, where we would put certain things and what schools our (planned) kids would go to,” says Kate. “We picture our lives in that house and then it’s gone after the offer and we have to start all over again.

“We say this a lot in teaching: ‘It’s not a sprint, it’s a long-distance race.’ You can’t get burnt out, you have to try to stay positive.”

Vancouverite Adelson, 32, has a mission and a deadline. He’s seen some 20 houses in the last week, has a list of open houses today and thinks 689 Rhodes could be a fit for his $600,000 budget. He has no clue about the bidding war just down the street or how it’s likely to impact the value of this house.

Comment: And this is where his agent needs to step in and explain what the house will likely sell for. And if is not willing to go to $650,000 he should not make a bid.

“What’s happening here in Toronto is exactly where Vancouver was 10 years ago,” says Adelson. “All the smaller, more affordable houses are getting bought up. I have a big dog and I want to get into a house before I get priced out of the market.”

Two days later, Adelson will officially join the ranks of Toronto’s frustrated house hunters: He’ll be the second-highest of eight bids on something completely unexpected — a one-bedroom, 12.5-foot wide semi in the Greenwood and Danforth area with the exposed-brick feel of a cool loft condo.

It will go for $582,000 — $83,000 over the asking price.

The Hangs, however, will be celebrating and sending pictures to friends — snapshots of them standing in front of the sold sign outside their Greenwood and Danforth area townhouse.

By week’s end they will be shopping for a piano, an antique steamer trunk and other furniture to fill their 34-year-old home. The bully bid strategy worked.

Sabrina and Shawn Massa are getting ready to start packing so the new owners can move into their Poulett Ave. house in April. Sabrina has resigned herself to the fact she and Shawn may be renting for a while.

If they can’t find a place that takes their two small dogs, their realtor has offered to look after them.

“I never want my clients to overpay for a house,” says Defreitas, who likes to suggest “a range of where I think they should go.”

In the case of 689 Rhodes Ave., that turned out to be about $25,000 below the winning bid.

“I was shocked they only had two offers. I thought there would be 18 or 20 because most of the people who missed out on 639 would be back for this one.”

But even on Rhodes, it seems buyers sometimes have limits.

“It’s getting to the point where maybe we need to re-evaluate our strategy and think about houses that might need a little love,” says Sabrina.

Comment: Exactly!

“And maybe we just need to avoid Rhodes.”

Comment: Go a street or two east or west – same location and probably less hassle. Find one that is solid but needs cosmetic work. Paint, light fixtures and curtains do a lot to change a place. Work on kitchens and bathrooms a little at a time. Skip the HGTV house, leave it to the rest to fight over.

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Contact Laurin Jeffrey for more information – 416-388-1960

Laurin Jeffrey is a Toronto real estate agent with Century 21 Regal Realty.
He did not write these articles, he just reproduces them here for people who
are interested in Toronto real estate. He does not work for any builders.
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