One of the worst things about a hot housing market is having to listen to other people tell you how much money they’ve made and pretending to be happy for them! We could find hundreds of successful stories, but instead we asked our team for their biggest condo regrets – equity lost, opportunities missed and a whole lot of coulda, woulda and shoulda – far more entertaining! Mostly, the common denominator is not being able to scrape together the money, either for a deposit on a first condo or holding on to that condo while moving up to a house. As agents, we love to sell condos, but if you’re thinking of moving up we will always present you with all the options including talking to our trusted mortgage partners to see if you can keep your condo as an investment while still moving up to your dream home. But enough of the boring stuff and on to the regrets!
“Around 1996, I had my first job in London, England. I was on the verge of buying a 2 bed flat (condo) in Bow (an up and coming area at the time) for the equivalent of about $200,000, but I couldn’t get the last $3000 I needed for the deposit. I didn’t want to ask my parents for a loan and my friends had even less money than I did! 2 years later, it had almost doubled in value. Just to make myself sick, I checked again recently and a 2 bed now goes for about $1.2m. Probably should have got that loan from somewhere!” – Alex
“10 years ago my husband and I owned a 2 bedroom condo by Yonge and Sheppard. We sold it for $260,000.00. At the time his parents debated buying it so as to be closer to their children in Toronto. They didn’t and now very much regret it. Today it would likely be worth in the mid $600s. Quite frankly we should have kept it ourselves. Coulda, woulda, shoulda!” – Heather“In 2004, my husband and I bought an 1800 sq ft 3 bed stacked (upper) townhouse at King and Strachan for $425k. We sold it in 2007 for $558k . We thought we hit the jackpot! We bought a detached in Baby Point that same year for $620k only a $62k difference from the row house. The latest sale of an upper unit in that complex was for 1.2 million. We love our house, but if only…” – Emir
“In 2008, we took a $40k inheritance and some savings and put it towards our first condo, a pre-construction. The condo took years to be built, it was delayed. By 2014 we owned it but had rented it out, having bought something bigger in the meantime to suit our small family. We were offered $385k for it exactly one year after taking occupancy. Based on having spent $285,000 on it, we felt we had just received a lottery ticket. We cashed it in. The condo was located at King and Spadina, right downtown. We easily could have kept it and rented it out, but because we couldn’t possibly imagine the value going higher as quickly as it had again, we sold it and used the money for something else. Now, just 5 short years later, that same condo would probably be worth nearly twice as much, and the rental market in that area is unbelievable, we could have had renters lined up. We kept our cash from the sale and waited to invest it, thinking the market may slow down or stabilize. Recently, we bought another pre-construction for over $600k. I sure wish we bought in at 5 years ago prices, but I am also confident that 5 years from now I will be glad that we bought at today’s prices.”– Erica
