Imagine property taxes of $12,000 a year. Now imagine the house.

I really should get to work, but...

An article from the National Post about house porn ran on the weekend while I was out of town.

In it, Anne Kingston writes that people love reading about and looking at pictures of luxurious properties. (Surprise) She leads in with news about a recent home purchase by our Governor-General of $2.74 million. She also flicks at a few TV shows, including an upcoming program on BBC Canada titled Superhomes, and a book about the bigotry in the Manhattan real estate market.

I'm going to quote parts of it here 'cause I'm not sure how long that URL will be freely available. (Hopefully the company's lawyers won't get on my ass.)


Oh, who are we kidding? Let's cut to the titillating listing details: Nine bedrooms! Seven bathrooms! A coach house! Beamed ceiling with painted panels! A "warm and romantic wood-burning fireplace" in the master bedroom! A Heartland six-burner range! Miele dishwasher! Annual taxes of only $12K!

You may think I'm joking about that last point but I'm not. Anyone familiar with the city's out-of-whack real estate market knows the couple got a steal. To put it in context, celebrity builder Joe Brennan is currently asking $10.7-mill for his three-bedroom, five-bathroom apartment. True, this is not just any apartment, as revealed in a spread in this month's Toronto Life where it's gushingly described as "le chateau," an "urban palace" and a "grand palazzo."

Grand it is -- 6,600 square feet with a marble-floored rotunda, 15-foot ceilings, panelled library, rooftop garden, guest suite, servants quarters, wine cellar and four-car underground garage.

It's biggest selling point, though, is that Brennan, the builder of choice for many of Toronto's richer denizens, built and inhabited the space (what a premium that must add to the asking price!). Unsurprisingly, the apartment is the hot ticket among a number of fundraising dinners for the ballet being held at fabulous Toronto houses tomorrow night.

Attendees will get what they pay for: the rush of seeing those coffered wooden ceilings first hand, the arousing views from the 10-foot-high French doors, maybe even an exciting glimpse of the Sub-Zero.

So it goes in a city, nay a culture, in the thrall of real estate porn, that unhealthy narcotic created when insane property values meet an obsession with interior decor and social insecurity.

It begins innocently enough with a seemingly benign skim though newspaper real estate sections. Sure, there's a hint of S&M, particularly with features like the National Post's "Recent Transactions," which chronicles recent home sales. This week, for instance, readers were flagellated with the information that a tiny bungalow in Toronto's east end that went on the market for $309,000 and sold for $326,000 changed hands last year for $289,500.



Okay, so I'll admit it, I too am hoooked on house porn. I love watching HGTV. I can sit in front of the TV tuned to that channel for hours, late into the night. They broadcast a couple of shows about selling homes, one based in Canada, but the better one is from the U.K. (I forget the name. I just yell to my wife: "That show is on again, the one where they sell the house.") It's such a sexy program. Every episode, they feature a piece of property that's in shambles and that the realtor has to dress up to make presentable for sale. There's the before and after, and they compare it with other homes with similar features in the same or comparable neighbourhoods that are also on the market. It's like a Queer Eye for the Straight Guy if you were going to sell the straight guy at the end of the episode, only it's for a house. It's also a bit of a lesson in human nature, which is what makes reality TV programs--the good ones--interesting to watch: couples fighting, families with communication issues, a house in chaos. I love it.

Reaction to Roseneath

I told my friend, L., about the selling price on Roseneath.

Her email reply, verbatim: !!!!!!!!!

So far, most everyone's reaction has been "Holy shit." Glad I'm not alone.

L. said the price depressed her. She and her husband bought a two-bedroom house in the same general neighbourhood as Roseneath about a year or so ago. They're in the process of renovating the kitchen, but they were hoping to upgrade to a three bedroom in the area. But with prices shooting up the way they are, she's afraid they won't be able to afford it. She's thinking now that they should just get comfortable where they are and expect to live there for 20 years.

I don't blame her. It's madness the way prices are shooting up. They're already jumped about 12 per cent higher from this time last year. Suddenly, houses that were selling for $320,000 last summer are going for $360,000. My wife's starting to feel like we missed the boat by six months.

Another flip

A flip near Roseneath just came up. Looks good on paper (three bedrooms; parking is included; finished basement that could be rented as an apartment), though from the pictures, the backyard appears non-existent. And I can't tell about the workmanship on the flooring and kitchen renos from the photos. It needs to be seen in person.

Offers are restricted until the end of next week. Damn. Fuck it. We might as well drive out to see it before the weekend.

And the winner is...

My brother-in-law just called with the winning bid on Roseneath. Are you stitting down? The final price: $458,000. A full $115,000 above asking. Did I miss something? Are there gold deposits under the house?

I've never seen that sort of action on a piece of property below the $1 million price tag. The most was on a house my wife and I put a bid on before Christmas and that sold for $74,000 over asking. I thought that was nuts. We've entered a whole new level of crazy. The other agents in the real estate office think that's a ridiculous amount. The property isn't worth nearly that much. And we never would have spent that much even after renovations. So long as the people who bought it intend to stay there for 50 years, they should be fine. But if the record-low interest rates start to creep back up and they have to unload the property, they should be prepared to take a bath.

Precious wants a house. Patience, precious. Patience.

Roseneath

Day 170, if you're counting.

Today was another disappointment.

Offers were taken on a house my wife and I had spied two weeks back in the city's other Little Italy neighourhood, on a short street just north of St. Clair West on the well-known strip between Bathurst and Dufferin. It's a desirable area of town, but not insanely priced—yet.

We like that neighbourhood. I spent a couple of years there after finishing university. A few of our friends live in the area. It's on a streetcar line that runs past two subway stations. Our commute to work would clock in at around 35 minutes. I could walk 15 minutes to one of the city's best espresso bars. It's very old school—soccer and Campari on Sunday afternoons.

The listing agent restricted offers until 5 p.m. this afternoon, meaning the property was held for 14 or so days. That's two weekends worth of open houses—almost unheard of in this city where pieces of shit houses are snapped up in 48 hours. That agent was one smart lady. The house was a detached bungalow, two bedrooms, which she passed off for three due to the finished basement, but a huge back yard and a driveway. The asking price was $343K—the most expensive on a street of two-storey semi-detached houses. It had a sauna in the basement. Small galley kitchen. But a workable situation all around.

We liked it. Heck, we loved it. I dreamt of building a half-second floor with three bedrooms and a bathroom, adding double french doors off the back to a deck or patio, and expanding the kitchen to include a small eat-in area.

But we can only afford a certain purchase price without digging ourselves into a quicksand pool of debt. We knew the property was going to draw attention, but we didn't know by how much. We considered sabotaging the situation, sending over some teens during the open houses to loiter at the driveway. We haven't crossed that line in the sand just yet. But I can now see how far up the beach it's been drawn.

Shortly after lunch, our agent, my brother-in-law whose had his licence for two years, found out there were 13 offers registered on the property before the deadline. He wanted confirmation on how much we were willing to spend. We told him. It was less than what another agent in his office had put in for their client.

We threw our hands up and skipped this one. My wife's mood turned sour.

At least the weather was nice today. Some sun and a bit of warmth. Maybe we'll have a decent summer this year.