City
House of the Week: 266 Brunswick Avenue
Who knew a row house could be worth $1.5 million? Or rather, who knew a row house could be listed at $1.5 million? This 1886 Victorian row has been updated top-to-bottom with plenty of post-Victorian interior renovations, including an integrated kitchen wine bar, floating staircases, and heated bathroom and basement floors. Just don't mind the whole 16-foot-wide thing.
SPECS:
Address: 266 Brunswick Avenue
Price: $1,495,000
Lot size: 16.08ft x 120.0ft
Storeys: 2.5
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 4
Ceiling height: 10ft
Parking spaces: 1
Structure dates back to: 1886
Property taxes: $4,658.04 (2012)
NOTABLE FEATURES:
- Heated bathroom and lower-level floors
- Wolf gas stove, sub-zero fridge
- Granite countertops
- Built-in wine bar
- Gas fireplace
- 100-year-old reclaimed elm floor
- Sundeck
- Vaulted ceiling
- Floating staircase
- Wet bar
- Concrete block garage
GOOD FOR:
University of Toronto deans or wealthy student trust-fund babies. Good for wood-lovers, wine-lovers, and those who can function in narrow spaces. Good, also, for those with an appreciation for history (but who still need a modern six-burner gas range).
MOVE ON IF:
You have wide furniture, arthritis in your knees, or multiple vehicles. Move on if you want four walls of windows for your $1.5 million, or, at the very least, some distance from your neighbours.
Additional photos:
If you had the dough, would you buy this home? Let us know where you stand in the comments below.
Discussion
52 Comments
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Just pathetic.
Otherwise it's a great looking house, wish I could afford it.
Yeah, that stretch of Bloor totally doesn't have, like, an independent bookstore or a repertory movie house, or an independent video store ... oh.
Interior - I need more than IKEA style for $1.5 mil.
Honestly I would never do Townhouse or Semi again.
Even with wide angle lens this house looks too narrow.
Another builder over extended?
Also its Brunswick so busy street and I'm sure this is one of best houses.
A terraced house near University, recipe for many a sleepless nights--noise, noise, noise.
However property taxes are calculated on the "existing property".
When those $4658 taxes were set this was an old row house.
Now that it's been gutted and reno'd, the taxes will change; but probably not until the next appraisal, which may take years.
-Prime prime prime Annex location
-3 floors
-bigger than my house
-4 full bathrooms
-full garage
-2 decks
-selling for 1.4 mill
Property tax: $4658
My house:
-South of Harbord on Borden in pretty average Little Italy/Portugal
-no 3rd floor
-less square footage
-2 full bathrooms
-carport, not a garage
-1 deck
-property tax assessed value at 900+
My property tax: Over $6000
THAT IS ENORMOUS F*CKING BULLSHIT OF THE HIGHEST ORDER
Their reassessment had better crank their property tax well well above mine or I'll be p*ssed.
There is also some much larger houses on the southern part of brunswick - you should go one day...
Great pad, annex is nice, however i'd rather get a better house in high park, where the air is a little fresher
Looks like a half assed Home Depot reno.
That alone makes this place not worth a million.
ALSO: my house: 13 feet wide
This joint: 16 feet wide.
MORE BULLSHIT
Therefore I believe this is a new new new reno
Therefore I believe the $4658 property tax rate is pre-reno
Whoever buys this will be pleasantly kicked in the nuts upon reassessment.
looks like the GC had a hay day with billing an ill-informed and undecided client. HIRE AN ARCHITECT next time and reign in the disgusting mismatch.
Not a ridiculous price for that neighbourhood. Saw a pre-reno gut job of a row house on Euclid sell for 800+.
Taxes obviously have yet to be reassessed.
Can you still call it an home from 1886??
A house like this should sell for around 990k
Looks like the sellers are looking to hit a home run with this home in a hobo-wanderer area of the city.
A great place for kids!
Just what I would want to look at from my 1.5 mil dollar home.
F'n ninja's !!!!
On the other hand, if you think of this as an option to a $1.5 million penthouse down the street, I think I'd prefer this place.
I happen to know another person who lives on this street in a home that was renoed to become upscale, so it's obviously the beginning of a overhaul to the neighbourhood in general. Don't be sour over the gentrification that is naturally going to occur in a very central part of the city.
Can't wait until these smug urban pioneers and international parasites lose their shirts.
I nominate this, with all its grammatical errors intact, for Toronto's new tourism slogan!
You know what they say... an Idiot is born every minute...
Houses in this area of the city in 'original' condition sell for $800k-$900k. Add another $400k-$500k for a total gut job reno and this house is worth $1.3mil-$1.4mil
Basically, a break-even scenario.
Run-down houses at $900k... Renovated houses at $1.5mil... it's all crazy, but that's real estate. Look at what apartments sell for in New York City if you want to feel better about the housing prices in Toronto.