Forget the Bridle Path, Vaughan is WHERE. IT’S. AT. for luxury mansions.
First off, you’ll get just as much land (if not more). Second, there’s fewer neighbours. And most importantly, the properties are basically half the price of what you’d pay in Toronto.
Listed for $9,980,000, this hilltop French château-inspired mega-mansion boasts five bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, and oh, so much more.
The family room.
“This exclusive woodland acres estate has it all – indoor pool and hot tub, theatre, gym, outdoor basketball court, and putting green,” realtor Tyler Cohen told blogTO.
“All of this on a 1.6-acre lot backing onto a ravine makes this the perfect cottage-like property in the city.”
Breakfast nook.
Starting off strong, you enter the property through an iron gate and are greeted with a large winding driveway that can fit more than 20 cars, with an entire roundabout in the middle.
An aerial shot of the property.
The grounds of the estate are stunning with lots of lush trees and greenery. Plus, the property has a whopping 300-foot frontage.
The dining room.
The interior, which spans more than 13,100 square feet, is ornate and over-the-top, as you’d expect with a mansion like this.
The foyer.
It definitely has that European flair that some might find tacky, but if you ignore the decor, you’ll notice the excellent bones this home has.
An office.
The herringbone walnut hardwood floors, marble tiles, soaring ceilings, and abundance of natural light all make the home quite special and a good foundation for whatever you want to do in the future.
The living room.
The kitchen is kitted out with top-notch appliances like a Thermador gas cooktop, a Miele coffee maker, and two dishwashers, a Sub-Zero fridge and Gaggeneau ovens.
The kitchen with a sunken sitting area overlooking the indoor pool.
The primary bedroom is also something of a marvel with two walk-in closets and an 11-piece ensuite bathroom. That’s six more pieces than most bathrooms have.
The primary bedroom.
There’s also a bevy of intriciate tilework.
The primary ensuite bathroom.
But what truly makes this house special is all the activities you can do on the property. It’s like an all-inclusive resort.
The indoor pool.
Inside, you’ll find an indoor saltwater pool with a waterfall and hot tub, a sauna, gym, home theatre, and a billiards room with a wet bar, perfect for game night.
The pond.
Outside, you can play basketball on the court, take a dip in the pond, or play mini-golf on your very own putting green.
The basketball court.
And while the home is listed for almost $10 million, there might be some negotiation room since this is the fifth time the home has been on the market over the last nine years.
The putting green also has sand bunkers to practice your bunker shots.
In fact, if you look at the estimated value of the home on HouseSigma, it’s around $7 million.
Rooftop patio.
Resort-like mansion and less than the average price of a Bridle Path mansion?
The back of the house.
To paraphrase the immortal words of Drake: Where you movin’? We said onto better things.”
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.