Mike in TO
Senior Member
When people stop voting with their pocket books and stop buying into these half-assed creations.
The same goes for the size of the units in most condos these days. Since when is it acceptable to have a fridge and stove in your living room? Remember the days when an apartment had a real kitchen? Even one that is open concept, but at least they had a defined space? Now you have a bunch of counters flat against one wall in a 15 foot room and your sofa 2 feet from your kitchen counters.
I know I'll hear from the "dollars-per-square-foot-believers" saying those days are gone... I say, do a search on floor plans of any American condo and you'll see most have real kitchens despite their high dollar per sq/ ft. prices. In Toronto specifically and Canada in general, we have become complacent, accepting what money-grubbing builders can get away with.
OK... Bring the hate.... I can take it.
I don't like the linear kitchens either - you can still have a small space with different kitchen lay-out formats. But you're anti-$psf argument doesn't make much sense. Affordability drives the GTA condo market compared to some other jurisdictions where prices are beyond the means of an average citizen (i.e. Vancouver, New York etc). In the GTA the bulk of the market is your average middle class buyers with first-time buyers making up a substantial amount of those sales. Where exactly are these people supposed to come up with the extra money to buy a large unit? A 700sqf condo at $425psf is nearly $300k whereas a nice big 1,000sqf condo is an extra $125,000. Remember these buyers are real people and need to have pretty high incomes to afford $400,000+ condos, especially if they are first time buyers without any equity previously built-up from a re-sale home (first time buyers have been driving sales over the last few months and are taking advantage of historically low interest rates).
Regarding "money-grubbing builders" - obviously there is a profit to be had in real estate development. There is also the high-risk of losses, which many builders have been experiencing over the last year. However the profit is a fairly small component of the overall budget in any of these new condos and not the main driver of prices. We are in a fairly competitive market, which is a good way to keep profits in cheque (although financial lending institutions have specific net-proceed requirements built into financing agreements typically in a 10% - 15% range and the banks are very skittish about these requirements right now which is why some projects are having difficulty getting off the ground as they are being deemed too risky). Other components such at land, materials, labour, softs and impositions (taxes, fees & charges) are what really drive prices/costs. Margins have actually tightened rather significantly over the last 14 months - which is essentially the opposite of what you suggested.
