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Oliver and 124st - Infill Thread

We live just up the street and we bought our four square six years ago for $420k. And the house next door to this listing sold just a couple of months ago and was listed at $499k, and it was pretty much identical to this one.

They are old houses and there is more maintenance but you don’t need two cars as you do in the burbs (we don’t have any). And aging infrastructure isn’t an issue because in many burbs you don’t have much of anything and you have to drive to everything.

I’m not trying to rev up the central vs suburban debate again…I just find it curious that people generally seem to shy away from old houses. I think it often comes down to people wanting new and shiny things rather than something that has been ‘used’ by someone else. Their loss, in my opinion.
 
Didama said:
We live just up the street and we bought our four square six years ago for $420k. And the house next door to this listing sold just a couple of months ago and was listed at $499k, and it was pretty much identical to this one.

They are old houses and there is more maintenance but you don’t need two cars as you do in the burbs (we don’t have any). And aging infrastructure isn’t an issue because in many burbs you don’t have much of anything and you have to drive to everything.

I’m not trying to rev up the central vs suburban debate again…I just find it curious that people generally seem to shy away from old houses. I think it often comes down to people wanting new and shiny things rather than something that has been ‘used’ by someone else. Their loss, in my opinion.
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I'll stick to keeping the comparisons new vs conversions.

We considered older houses, especially in Westmount, and probably would've gone with one if Blatchford wasn't a thing. I've been living in various old houses since 2016. I've liked it.

But when we looked at old houses, there were a lot of weird floor plans, weird kitchens death stairs and implausible bathrooms. There were a lot of quirky modernizations (especially in the 1970s and 1980s). There was a lot of stuff that got ruined by house flippers. There were a lot of "projects". There were a lot of limitations of being built in the 1940s like insulation and inconvenient wiring. And oh yes, don't forget to check for lead service lines. But there were indeed a few that made our short list though the shopping experience was certainly a lot of work.

Meanwhile, in the new place our insulation is good enough that when we were checking it out on a cold day in January, even though the heating system wasn't yet active, it was warm inside. They were heating the whole thing with a single space heater, and it came wired for Cat5 cable. And by buying when we did, we were able to customize all of the fit and finish to our tastes and we could move into a house and not a project. And it was DESIGNED to have a legal secondary suite rather than an improvised basement conversion. Also, it was easy to get HEPA-rated air filtering built into our heating/cooling system which is handy because we have a non-stop pandemic and the sky frequently has a flavour.
 
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Didama said:
We live just up the street and we bought our four square six years ago for $420k. And the house next door to this listing sold just a couple of months ago and was listed at $499k, and it was pretty much identical to this one.

They are old houses and there is more maintenance but you don’t need two cars as you do in the burbs (we don’t have any). And aging infrastructure isn’t an issue because in many burbs you don’t have much of anything and you have to drive to everything.

I’m not trying to rev up the central vs suburban debate again…I just find it curious that people generally seem to shy away from old houses. I think it often comes down to people wanting new and shiny things rather than something that has been ‘used’ by someone else. Their loss, in my opinion.
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"And aging infrastructure isn’t an issue because in many burbs you don’t have much of anything and you have to drive to everything." - not sure what this statement means. Infrastructure, such as sewage, electric lines etc are most often older or not as efficient as in newer neighbourhoods. In the newer areas electric lines are buried underground but in Westmount they are not - also, sewage systems have more issues in older areas - they need to be replaced due to lifespan issues and this can impact property taxes when replacement occurs or issues like the floods that happened in Westmount in the past when the drainage system couldn't handle the heavy rainfall.
 
Whatup said:
"And aging infrastructure isn’t an issue because in many burbs you don’t have much of anything and you have to drive to everything." - not sure what this statement means. Infrastructure, such as sewage, electric lines etc are most often older or not as efficient as in newer neighbourhoods. In the newer areas electric lines are buried underground but in Westmount they are not - also, sewage systems have more issues in older areas - they need to be replaced due to lifespan issues and this can impact property taxes when replacement occurs or issues like the floods that happened in Westmount in the past when the drainage system couldn't handle the heavy rainfall.
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I guess it depends on what you mean by infrastructure. Within a five minute walk we have a pool, skating rink, about 10 playgrounds, soccer fields, multiple mature city parks, 3 bus lines going downtown and LRT under construction, etc., which is not something you will find in the 'burbs. Most of the water and sewage lines in my neighbourhood were re-done before we moved in back in 2018.

But I take the earlier point about quirky layouts, etc. For me that's part of the charm and I'm not particularly picky about these things (plus we like do a lot of own renos), so it's not an issue for me. But at the end of the day the prices of houses reflect the demand....obviously more people prefer new buildings and neighbourhoods, and of course everyone has the right to make that decision. In fact I'm glad these 'old beauties' are not too popular because it means when we are ready to look for a bigger one the prices won't be out of reach :p
 
NW corner of 100 Ave/113 St - does that funeral home really need all that parking??

20240822_164629.jpg


20240822_164648.jpg
 
Gronk! said:
NW corner of 100 Ave/113 St - does that funeral home really need all that parking??

View attachment 590186

View attachment 590187
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I believe they also share it with the Lutheran church. But yeah, these sorts of facilities are brutal for parking. So poorly utilized. But when they need it, they need a lot.

Places of worship sharing parking lots with places like schools, hockey areas, movie theatres, or general retail is often best due to complimentary high/low times. I know terwillegar town has a church that does this, and Crestwood Presbyterian I think shares with Crestwood arena?
 
thommyjo said:
I believe they also share it with the Lutheran church. But yeah, these sorts of facilities are brutal for parking. So poorly utilized. But when they need it, they need a lot.

Places of worship sharing parking lots with places like schools, hockey areas, movie theatres, or general retail is often best due to complimentary high/low times. I know terwillegar town has a church that does this, and Crestwood Presbyterian I think shares with Crestwood arena?
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An 8-storey seniors condo project - a render was posted somewhere on this site a few years back - was proposed for this 113 street site owned by St. Joseph Basilica I believe. Part of this land wasn't even zoned for parking but was being used as such so parking stopped for a while. But now it's being used for parking again.
 
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