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If you’ve ever considered selling your old home, you’ve likely wondered whether it’s worth keeping and what your options are.
But according to a new study by a Toronto-based architectural firm, you might be getting ahead of yourself if you consider buying a condo or an apartment instead.
The study, conducted by the architecture firm, was done for the Jerusalem Post and analyzed data from more than 6,000 homes in Toronto’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.
The report shows that, for a condo, the average price of the unit sold was $873, while for an apartment it was $1,099.
The biggest surprise is that in Toronto, where condos have become the most affordable form of home ownership, apartment ownership was actually less common, at just 9 percent.
This may not seem like much, but it’s a major shift for people looking to retire early.
According to the report, condo sales dropped from 32 percent in the 1990s to just 7 percent in 2017.
And when condos were offered as options in retirement homes, they were less than half of what buyers could expect for a standard, two-bedroom unit.
While condos are more affordable than apartments, they are more expensive than traditional single-family homes.
For a condo to sell for $1.4 million, you would need to pay $3.5 million in annual property taxes to the city.
The average price for a unit sold in the Downtown East side was $766, but in 2018, it was only $1 million.
The study found that the average age of the condo buyers was 50.
When it comes to retirement homes and rentals, the median age of buyers was 47, while they were just under 40 for rentals.
In a year when the average Canadian household saw its retirement savings decrease by almost $4,000 from the previous year, it may be surprising to see so many people living out of their homes.
The Jerusalem Post reports that the study found “that condo ownership is becoming more of a luxury product for older Canadians, with a median age at purchase of 52 years old.”
The report found that seniors in Canada were still the most likely to be renters.
While seniors make up a small share of Canadians who live in their homes, that figure is up from 17 percent in 2015.
While condo owners are still a minority of the Canadian population, their influence is increasing.
According in the report “the condo market is the most diverse in the country,” as millennials and people with disabilities are also increasingly buying condos.
The results of the study suggest that if you want to retire later, it might be worth staying put.
“It’s not a good idea to be stuck in your condo,” said Yair Rosenbaum, the managing partner of Burt’s Bees Architects.
“You may not want to take a mortgage for the apartment, but you may not have the income to buy the condo either.
The fact is, you need to invest in your retirement.”
The Jerusalem Report has more on the study: https://www.thejpost.com/international-retirement-housing-purchase-is-undermined-by-over-65s/