People are losing it over videos showing how unliveable Toronto's condos have become
A two-year-old condo building in Toronto is being slammed for its tiny, overpriced units with awkward floorplans that many are seeing as an indication of how dire the city’s housing market has become.
Though residents don’t seem to expect much from newer towers that are largely geared to investors and built as quickly and cheaply as possible, some of the suite layouts in 159 SW Condos at 159 Wellesley St. E are next-level horrific.
“Starting in the mid 800s”
— Natasha Biase (@natbiase) October 1, 2023
The layouts of certain two-bedroom units are being called out on social media, where video walk-throughs of the unfathomably cramped spaces are going viral.
Some of the floorplans somehow cram two bedrooms and a bathroom into less than 500 square feet — a size usually reserved for smaller bachelor apartments — leaving an extremely sad excuse for a living space in an unfortunate marvel of engineering.
As shown in one TikTok video that has racked up hundreds of thousands of views, some of the rooms in these floorplans appear unable to fit a bed, let alone any other furniture one might need.
🤣🤣🤣
Another Toronto special where the couch faces the stove & bedroom designed for a sleeping bag.
Toronto isn’t building homes so much as it’s building high rise worker camps for Boomers to loot immigrant pay.
FoR eQuAlItY! 🙄
h/t @TdLeaker
— Stephen Punwasi 🏚️📉🐈☃️ (@StephenPunwasi) March 9, 2024
“These new two-bedrooms are jokes,” the poster, a local real estate representative, wrote over the clip.
As he enters the first of two bedrooms, he notes that “you can’t really fit anything, including a bed” in it and that it doesn’t have any closet space, either.
“I guess this is your kitchen,” he continues as he moves through to the shared living area, which, if it had a couch, would leave tenants sitting only a couple feet away from their kitchen cupboards and appliances while facing them straight on.
So, “no couch, sofa, anything,” he concludes, panning around the micro-space. “You wash your dishes, you turn around to the wall [and it’s] your living room.”
🤣So an architect, planner & builder all look at the floor plans for this & say “We’re solving the housing crisis with big beautiful walls! We’ve discovered that if you take a bachelor unit- put a bunch of walls up -voila!! It’s a 2 bedroom condo!” Housing crisis diverted!
— Donna Bacher (@loveurhome) March 9, 2024
While the second bedroom is slightly larger than the first and has not only sufficient room for an actual bed, but also a closet, it still looks quite compact for comfort and has a few very awkward angles from architects literally cutting corners to fit as many bedrooms in the small space as possible.
Though the poster didn’t note the unit number or the price of the condo he was showcasing, it appears that other places in the building with the same (or at least very similar) configuration and size are currently going for $574,900 to $599,900.
Neither of the two units on the market comes with parking. They will also cost their new owners a monthly maintenance bill of $427.93, more than $2k in property taxes per year, and all of the interest they’ll be paying on their mortgage for a unit that many are finding ridiculous, if not completely unlivable.
lol. The worst part is someone is probably thinking that at $400/bed.
— Stephen Punwasi 🏚️📉🐈☃️ (@StephenPunwasi) March 9, 2024
For tenants, it looks like the same or similar condos are going for $2,350 to $2,500 per month, though some online joke that in Toronto’s rental scene, a landlord may outfit the narrow rooms with bunk beds to get more bang for their buck while interest rates and overall costs of living remain unaffordable for almost all of us.