Detached house for sale on Beaches/Toronto ($985K)

Detached 3-storey house in Toronto, Beaches area.

Location
Address: 97 Sarah Ashbridge Ave, Toronto, Ontario
Main intersection - Queen St East/ Woodbine.
MLS area - E02.

Price
$985,000.
Hmmm... Million dollars houses are coming and coming.
Even few years ago "a million dollars" house for sale looked as something so expensive.
But not now...
And someone buys that...


[UPDATE-Oct26]
The price has been just reduced to 919K!
So if you considered the property to buy then it is more affordable now.
Contact me today to view the property!
[/UPDATE-Oct26]

Size
Near 2600 sq/feet (260 sq.m.), or 3600 sq/feet (360 sq.m.) with finished basement.


House age
8-10 years.
As usually the age is a secret.
Like women who like to coquet.

Property type
Detached 3 storey house.
There are central vacuum and central air conditioner.
Hardwood floors are on kitchen, and broadloom at all other rooms.

Lot size
24 x 117 feet (7 х 35 metres).
The width is not so huge however it is the usual problem for Beaches area. Especially for those new blocks of buildings.
I would say that's a bit claustrophobic.

Kitchen and appliances
Everything is new and pleasant to take a look at.
No negative emotions at all.


Main rooms
Unlikely to the previous million dollar house for sale there are less rooms in this house. And even those ones are placed not so spacy.

Family room and Living room with a kitchen - here is the first floor.

Also natural gas fireplace if that's important for you.
The walls are painted a bit bright however it doesn't spoil them. Usually I am very careful about multiple colors on walls but here nothing is behind the limit of common sense.


Wires for speakers and different kinds of electronics are placed in the walls. So you can find speakers in so unpredictable corners. Gorgeous!


Bedrooms
Bedrooms are on the second and third floors.
There are three of them.

I guess the bedrooms are larger comparing to some average Canadian bedroom but it would be strange to see something very average in the million dollar house.


Basement
As you can expect basement is finished.

To live there is a bit uncomfortable I guess however as a recreational or game room, or maybe home theater room it is good enough.


Driveway
No driveway here.
The road, and just walkway to the house.

2 cars garage is on a backyard.

Backyard
The backyard is surprisingly nice.

Left and right sides are bordered by a fence, the far side of the backyard is backed by a 2-car garage.

It may look a bit inconvenient because of all your shopping must be taken and carried from the garage to house walking through the backyard. And even without shopping - you are coming/driving home and feel free to walk to the house through rain/snow/dirt/watching of your neighbors. No privacy at all. House for million dollar shouldn't have such features...

Area
The area is Beaches.
3-5 minutes walking to the beach on Ontario Lake.
Everything is near-by.
The area is nice but maybe a bit noisy.
You may experience some discomfort living there with children.

Schools
No problems with schools.
Kew Beach Day Care Co-Operative Pre School‎ and The Beach School are within 5-10 minutes of walking.

Parks
There are many parks within walking distance.
Also lake shore beaches are right here - the paradise for dog owners.

Shopping
A required minimum you'll find here,
for serious shopping feel free to drive to less crowded areas.

Transportation
TTC (Toronto public transit, buses and streetcars) are everywhere, you don't need to walk for more than 5 minutes and wait for more than 10 minutes. So the area allows you to live without your own car. However I may suppose the people who buy million dollar houses don't use streetcars. But who knows?

Property tax
$6250.00 for year of 2008.

Pros
The area is nice.
Everything is right here - restaurants, shopping, public transit, schools, exhibitions.


Cons
The price.
The area is new so looks a bit empty (no trees).
Frankly speaking the house is not so spacious.

Resume
I guess it's not the best one million investment.
However the Beaches fans I bet will like the house.
My personal opinion - 5 out of 10.
But honestly I never had a million dollars :) so maybe your opinion will be different? Anyway it is worth to take a look at...


Technical details
Living & dining room: 6.15 m x 4.78 m
Kitchen: 4.67 m x 4.27 m
Family room: 5.97 m x 3.84 m
Master bedroom on the 3-rd floor: 5.84 m х 4.32 m
Bedroom 2 (the second floor): 4.17 m x 3.73 m
Bedroom 3 (the second floor): 3.76 m x 3.71 m
Game room in basement: 6.81 m x 5.54 m
Bedroom 4 in basement: 5.54 m x 4.11 m

Detached house in Toronto, Beaches area ($1M)

Detached house in Toronto, on the Beaches.

Location
Address: 114 Edgewood Ave, Toronto, Ontario.
The main intersection: Queen St East/ Woodbine.
MLS area - E02.

Price
$999,500.
To be honest the price has confused me.
Taking a look at the picture and lot size (25 feet width) I supposed something was wrong in this game. So I decided to visit the house being just curious what houses could be for this price...

After seeing myself I would say the price is pretty reasonable.
Because this house is really different from other ones at this location.

Footage
Near 3000 sq.feet (300 sq.m.), plus finished basement.

House Age
8 years.
Finally I found an agent who knew the year of construction.

Property Type
Detached 3-storey house.
There are central air conditioner and central vacuum.
Hardwood floors are except bedrooms (where you can see carpet).
For an average house owner this beauty may look as a really luxury property.

Lot size
25 x 264 feet (7.5 х 80 metres).
The width is not so impressive however that's kind of old house legacy. And it's hard to expect anything else on the Beaches.
However the depth was a surprise.

Kitchen and appliances
Everything is new, clean and shiny.


Main room
There are many rooms you know...

According to the papers near 12 ones that looks like a true or close to true .. :)

4 washrooms.
5 bedrooms.

Two families I think can live together with pets, and sometimes invite guests and make parties.

Bedrooms
The bedrooms are located on the second floor.
Bright and spacious.



Basement
Basement is finished and makes the same nice impression as the house.


Driveway
The house has no garage, but by the papers it's declared 4 car driveway. I have certain doubts regarding that statement... or maybe those are Smarts/Minis supposed to be parked here, or maybe more serious cars but well-pressed up :)


Backyard
Backyard is not so wide but is definitely very deep.

I am really impressed.
Not so often can see so huge backyard relatively close to downtown.


Area
I thinks the Beaches always was a special and unique place in Toronto where you can feel the Art in the air. It's a place with high concentratiion of art people. But not even those who doing art for living. More even place with feeling of freedom. Freedom and a bit Europe. And this feeling is here, everyone can see it. That's why I' glad to go to Beaches when I'm tired of this American style of life.

Do you know why the area is called the Beaches?
It is on lakeshore of Ontario lake, there are large line of sand where you can find nice sand beach. Feel free to swim and acquire some tan there.
But Ontario is not a warm lake frankly speaking. :)

So because of that this area (few kilometres in radius) was called the Beaches.

Schools
In the centre of the city all the schools are usually very close to each other.
There are many of them on the Beaches.

Parks
The Beaches is one big park.
At least I consider it this way.

Shopping
There are many small (European-style) stores on the streets here.
I found even couple of tiny supermarkets, and of course they are not comparable to huge plazas somewhere in Richmond Hill. But nobody compares, c'mon... Your "enough" minimum is here, and we don't care about the rest...

Transportation
TTC (street cars and buses) are on every serious street (5 minutes of walking from any place on the Beaches). It may take 20 minutes of TTCing (or 10 minutes of "no traffic" driving) to downtown Toronto.

Property tax
$6500.00 for 2008.

Pros
The location si one of the best in Toronto.
This house is new (the old one has been demolished, brand new one been built from scratch), and the new house cannot be compared to regular 100+ years house which are usual on the Beaches.
The house is really large. I would say - as large as the lot width may allow.
Quiet street however at the same time everything is close - shops, public transit, restaurants, schools, Ontario Lake.


Cons
The price.

Resume
If you are not shoked by the price I think this could be a nice variant.
The house makes an impression of holiday.
My opinion - 8 out of 10.


Technical details
Foyer: 5.50 m x 4.45 m
Living Room: 7.01 m x 5.80 m
Dining Room: 4.54 m x 4 m
Kitchen: 5.43 m x 4 m
Master bedroom: 8.03 m x 5.80 m
Bedroom 2: 4.82 m x 4 m
Bedroom 3: 3.66 m x 3.05 m
Family room/bedroom in the 3-rd floor: 10 m x 5.80 m
Game room in the basement: 8.35 m x 5.80 m
Bedroom in the basement: 5.82 m x 4.82 m