Some personal thoughts on how to think about downtown as an investor based on personal experiences.
The downtown core as per The Toronto Real Estate Board is split into 2 Municipalities: CO1 (South of Bloor, West of Yonge, East of Landsdowne) and C08 (East of Yonge). For this discussion I will only focus on C01, west of Yonge.
The C01 Municipality has 9 communities, of the 9, there are 3 where the bulk of the condo activity is:
* Niagara known for Liberty Village, part of King West
* Waterfront known for City Place, part of King West, Queens Quay
* Bay Street Corridor
Niagara – Liberty Village, this area skews to younger tenants. Slightly cheaper cost per square foot to purchase along with more reasonable rents, making this a desirable destination for young professionals. It cashflows well relative to the core, however there is a lot of variability building to building in terms of what’s a good long term buy especially when trying to pick for appreciation.
Waterfront, in particular King West/Queen West is a favourite of mine, the tenant base is fairly mixed, it does skew heavily to people who work/worked in the entertainment/restaurant industry. As a result, this area saw the largest decrease in rent during covid. King West condo prices have remained among some of the most expensive in the Toronto core with relatively low rents post covid. The bull case here is for when “things return to normal”, there will be above average rent appreciation.
My favourite investor area and where I personally invested is the Bay Corridor, highly sought after by U of T/OCAD/Ryerson students, Financial District employees, as well as Hospital employees who work along University Ave. The strength of this area was made evident during the first 12 months of the pandemic when rents in this area dropped the least relative to all other parts of downtown. #realestate #toronto #downtown#condos
