How to Buy a House on the Toronto Islands

Assuming you’re Canadian and have a half-million dollars to spend without warning, how could you not want to get on the waiting list for a house on the Toronto Islands?

Your first task is to join the list. As the list is capped at five hundred, you have to wait for existing people to drop off. About three people get properties each year, and about fifteen to twenty leave for other reasons. After a critical mass of vacancies accumulates, a call for applications is announced, and vacancies are filled by a lottery run by the Trust’s auditors.

The last call occurred in November 2007, with 375 applicants for forty-seven spots. The next call, for thirty spots, occurs in November 2009. Keep an eye on the website, apply at the appropriate time, and cross your fingers.

If you get on the list, you’ll have to wait. And wait. For how long? As the Trust declines to make predictions, Torontoist will engage in a bout of speculation.

You’ll start at the back of the queue (#471 to #500). Under a best-case scenario in which twenty people ahead of you drop out each and every year, you’re looking at around twenty years before cracking the top 100 and up to five more years before getting to the front of the list.

However, not every single vacancy will arise ahead of you. The Trust hasn’t yet compiled data about the ranks of the people who drop out, but it seems reasonable to assume that, as the years go by, a growing percentage of vacancies will arise behind you. And these vacancies don’t help: if you’re #300, you don’t move up if #400 drops out. Plus, the further you advance, the more hardcore the people on the list become, such that—other than actually getting a house—death or infirmity might be the only reasons for them to drop off.

Downsizing the Dream Home

Maybe houses in the South don’t really need a fireplace. Interesting article from the WSJ on new demands buyers are making on Giant Corporate Homebuilders – smaller, simpler, cheaper, etc.

Fearful that their market is evaporating, company executives have spent the past few months trying to figure out what buyers are willing to give up, and what they aren’t. On the latter list are four bedrooms, a downstairs powder room, a garage that fits at least two cars, and granite countertops in the kitchen. “We feel that’s one of the things homeowners are still holding onto,” said Shane Roach, vice president of home-building operations.

The master bedroom must have its own bathroom, with separate tub and shower. The tub is still big, but the jets, standard equipment for at least a decade, are now optional in new models. It turns out few buyers used the jets more than a couple of times. The children get one-piece, fiberglass tub-shower combinations, instead of tiled walls.

The “home-management” center — a built-in desk in the family room — has disappeared from the newest plans. Such luxuries are now available at an extra charge. Window casings are 2¾ inches wide instead of 3½ inches wide in one scaled-down model that Wieland is just now putting on the market. In another, company officials want to move a master-bedroom window from the side wall of the house to the rear. Smaller houses come on smaller lots, and having a window on the side makes it hard to avoid noticing that the neighbor’s house is just a few yards away.

The other day, Mr. Kingsfield, the company’s sales chief, pulled into a golf-club development near Canton, Ga., and stopped at a lot where workers were listening to mariachi music as they stacked bricks to form the facade of a 3,335-square-foot home called the Madison.

A couple of years ago, a new house in this neighborhood would likely have had a two-story foyer that framed the curved staircase inside. But the Madison’s staircase is neither grand nor visible from the front door. In fact, it climbs out of the mud room next to the garage.

“In an ego-driven market, it’s where you walk in the door and impress friends with the staircase,” Mr. Kingsfield said. “That’s gone. It’s not about impressing anymore. It’ll still be nice. There will still be wood, still be trim. But it’s more conservative.”

Fallen

Look, Autumn – I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but I concede that you’re aesthetically pleasing.  It doesn’t mean I like winter, though – got it?

Winterey

I had to wear gloves and a balaclava on my ride to work this morning, and now there’s snow falling outside.  It seems appropriate, then, that we’re mailing in our application for federal weatherization funding tomorrow.  Thanks for the blown-in wall insulation, President Obama!

To Shane (in the comments): You’re right, although technically I owe more thanks to (1) China, for extending us more credit, and  (2) my daughter, for taking on the investment.

Streetscape

We live very near a business district.  “Very near,” as in, I can see the stoplight from the porch without leaning over the railing.  There’s  potential for hipness – independent cafes!  used bookstores!  ethnic restaurants!  cool people walking around! – but at the moment, it’s all potential.

At our neighborhood meeting last week, a representative from the city told us about the results of a community survey, and I think I like what I hear.  The plan over the next few years is to re-zone the 10-12 blocks of business district into two ends of concentrated business with a new residential area in between.  Preferably row houses or small condos over rental apartments, although the city wouldn’t have a lot of say in what a developer would plan to build.  We’d still be able to see the stoplight from our porch, but instead of an insurance agency, a possibly-out-of-business dentist’s office, and lots of storefronts for rent, we’d see homes.

And check this out.  The street will be undergoing some major resurfacing in the next two years (i.e., those empty storefronts aren’t going to be filled anytime soon), and the city is re-doing the sidewalks and lightpoles at the same time.  We’ll be getting new signage as well, including notes that drivers and pedestrians are entering an historic district.

There are things I don’t like about our neighborhood now, but I’m reminded often that there’s a lot I wouldn’t trade.  That, plus a lot of potential hipness, makes me happy we bought where we did.

Zoo

There’s a squirrel chirping inside our wall.  Chirping happily away, inside our first-floor wall.  Ugh.

Update: No wait.  There are two, and they’re talking.

Paul David Plumbing

Christopher over at Shaker Heights Restoration had a terrible experience with Paul David of Paul David’s Plumbing.  I’m linking to it because (1) I’m an empathetic guy and I commiserate, and (2) more links will put his review higher in the Google results.  I think that’s the way Google works anyway – but I don’t really understand the internet.

Up, up and away

The first two weeks of the fall semester always kills me dead, and this term is no exception.  I’ve cut a handful of strips for the basement stairwell wall, but that’s the sum total of the progress I’ve made.  I’ve let the larger houseblogging community down, and I’ll clear the breakfast table at our  next committee meeting as penance.

Missy and I found time to do this last night though.  Ripping up carpet tacking strips always assauges my guilt.

I found a few fibers of Seafoam Green carpet tucked under the baseboard.  Shudder.

We still need some artwork for that back wall, and Missy wants to sew a more substantial (and less beige) curtain, but it’s an improvement, eh?  (I think Josie’s having a little time-out for screaming “NO!” at her mama.  Or for climbing onto the desk.  Definitely a little time-out for something though.)

Dots and dots

I’m not sure why my daughter isn’t wearing pants in this picture (a power struggle I missed out on?  Lost a bet?), but the rug looks good, eh?  Those curtains, on the other hand -

Band-aid

Gah – I just want to rip the office carpet off, fast, so it doesn’t sting so badly.

But first I promised to finish the new basement stairwell – and it’s creeping along.  I don’t have very much time per day to spend on it, and it shows.  Ugh.

The garbage/recycling closet is almost totally enclosed now, so that feels like something.

Also, I framed up the new landing and short wall.  I’m going to use sheetrock down here, rather than 3″ strips of plywood, so finishing it will be cheaper and faster.  Knock on wood.

But just for Jane, here’s what we started with -