By Stephen Daniels

Like many other Western cities, Toronto industry has shifted its focus from manufacturing to more technologically and service-oriented businesses, resulting in distinctly different housing needs. Neighborhoods such as the popular King West area once housed factories and blue-collar workers, but are now filled with the luxurious Toronto condos and lofts of up-and-coming professionals and forward-looking retirees.

Since so many of these residences started as production facilities, they have retained their commercial permits and are therefore ideally suited for dual-purpose home-business combinations. Many young professionals in various service industries live and work in luxurious Toronto developments like the Toy Factory Lofts, including artists and artisans, lawyers, and other one- or two-person firms who design their spaces to suit their individual needs. Two lofts of identical size can look utterly different from each other, depending on their occupants’ taste and lifestyle. One could be an office with sleeping quarters, while another might resemble a cozy cottage home with a comfortable workspace. Lofts truly do become part of their owner’s identities, and many residents cheerfully label them with the names of their home streets, and sometimes even their actual addresses.

Downtowners don’t have to leave their immediate neighborhood to find everything they need to sustain their daily lives. In King West, for example, bars and restaurants abound, as do boutiques, bookstores, specialty shops of all kinds, and providers of services like dry cleaning and home repair. A small-town atmosphere pervades the area, lending an air of friendliness and warmth to the entire neighborhood. Pedestrian walks and bike paths also keep automobile traffic to a minimum, which maximizes safety and reduces carbon emissions in the Toronto air.

Toronto real estate offers an eclectic mix of old and new architecture, giving prospective owners and lessees a wide range of choices, from high-ceilinged, undivided loft space in converted factories, to new glass-faced high rises with terraces, pools, gyms and every other conceivable amenity. As Toronto real estate prices rise for single family homes, more young professionals and newly married couples are opting for condos and lofts, and developers have made the available choices limitless in both style and price.

A modest loft can be had for less than half the price of a small single residence, while the more affluent might choose a five-bedroom high-rise penthouse for several million dollars. And, although current reports show a softening of the housing market, predictions are optimistic for a rise in employment, leading to more buoyant sales during the latter half of the coming year.

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information – 416-388-1960

Laurin & Natalie Jeffrey are Toronto Realtors with Century 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these articles, they just reproduce them here for people
who are interested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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