Toronto housing prices comparable to some L.A. celebrity homes
Jared Leto's Hollywood Hills pad is a four-bedroom stunner featuring a recording studio and lagoon-style pool surrounded by lush greenery. It recently went on the market for $1.9-million U.S. ($2.7-million Cdn). For that same price, you wouldn't even be able to buy a certain semi-detached, three bedroom renovated Rosedale home that is currently up for sale as well.
Which one would you rather have?
That's the question that many investors and entertainment professionals have been asking right now. The starry allure of L.A. paints a certain picture of exorbitantly high-priced homes, but the reality is that it's not necessarily that far out of range of the market in Toronto. Houses all across the Toronto core have been driven up in value by a low supply and rapacious demand.
On average, a celebrity home's value will still far outweigh even the swankiest Toronto properties by a ton; but for every bargain to be had in L.A., there's a driven-up central Toronto home that's approaching or exceeding it in price.
It's not even just in a small handful of Toronto neighbourhoods that home prices are approaching the absurd. For example, the five-bedroom, pool-adorned L.A. home where Dakota and Elle Fanning grew up has a current asking price of $3.5-million Cdn. In Toronto you could find homes seeking more than that in Forest Hill, York Mills, Lawrence Park, The Beaches, Yorkville, Newtonbrook, Deer Park, Rosedale, Cabbagetown, the Entertainment District, Moore Park, Swansea, Don Mills, and the Humber Valley.
Although homes of this calibre have always existed on somewhat of a higher plane than the rest of the market, they aren't necessarily immune from the supply challenges that less wealthy folk are facing. Unless the provincial government's new cooling measures have an immediate impact, that effect won't be going away anytime soon. If you have the means to escape a hot market, then perhaps buying in a hot, celebrity-filled destination is a better use of your funds.