They Paid $637,000 For The WRONG Condo

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Can you imagine spending $637,000 on a condo and then two years later going through every decision you made and realizing that each one on its own made total sense, but together they quietly killed your resale value before you even thought of selling. That's exactly what happened to a buyer I'm going to walk you through today. And look, I want to be clear about something before we get into it. This person is not stupid, okay? They're not reckless even. They did their research. They asked a lot of questions and they thought they were being smart. So, this is a Toronto condo purchased a few years ago for $637,000.

[00:00:40]It's in a decent building and a good neighborhood, really walkable area. On paper, there's nothing wrong with it.

[00:00:48]But when this buyer sat down with me recently and we started going through the unit, I started seeing one decision after another that seemed completely reasonable at the time. that is now making their condo harder to sell and worth less than it should be. In total, I counted five decisions. Now, in hindsight, you can call them five mistakes. I'm making this video right now because all of them were very much avoidable. So, maybe it can help anyone watching to not make the same mistakes if they find themselves in a similar boat. But let's go through them one by one together. The first one is the floor level. And this one is sneaky because the reasoning behind it sounds pretty smart on paper. So this buyer chose a unit on the second floor. And the reason for that, they wanted to avoid paying the floor premium. So for the uninitiated, in most condo buildings, the higher you go, the more you pay per square foot. So they thought to themselves, it's the same layout and it's a lower price and I'm saving money.

[00:01:51]And the bonus is there's no waiting for elevators. No elevator breakdowns.

[00:01:56]Easier move in, easier move out. They get a little bit of exercise on the way up and the way down. All good, right?

[00:02:02]But here's the problem. Okay, that exact same layout, but on a higher floor in the same building is now selling faster and for more money than their unit. Like clockwork. By the way, every single time when buyers are touring their unit and then going up and seeing a comparable unit on a higher floor, they're choosing the higher floor one even when it costs more. This is because buyers aren't just buying square footage, right? They're buying a view. They're buying natural light. They're buying the feeling of being above the noise and the street level. And the reality is that a secondf flooror unit in a Toronto condo is also dealing with that street noise, people walking past your window. You get privacy concerns, things that feel minor when you move in, but very different when you're actually living there. And very different again when a buyer is standing in your living room deciding if they want to spend $600,000.

[00:03:02]So long story short, the floor premium exists for a reason. You pay it on the way in, but you also get it back and then some on the way out. The second mistake is no parking spot. And again, the logic here is pretty sound. So, this buyer doesn't own a car. And this neighborhood, like I said, is extremely walkable. It's close to transit. So, they figured, why am I going to pay $40 to $60,000 for a parking spot that I'm never going to use? That's money that I could put towards the unit itself. Now, in 2021, that might have been fine. The market was so hot that buyers were waving conditions and fighting over anything available, but that market is gone. Today's buyer is far more cautious. So, they're thinking about a place that they can live in long-term with their family. They're thinking about what happens if their life changes, if they get a car, if their partner who has a car moves in one day, if they have a kid and now a car is necessary all of a sudden. And even if they genuinely don't plan to own a car, they know that they can rent that parking spot out. So in a walkable downtown neighborhood, a parking spot rents from anywhere from $150 to $300 a month. That small rental income can offset some of their carrying costs for the unit. I can tell you based on what I see in my day-to-day business, buyers today are specifically filtering for parking. And when they see a unit without one, they're either skipping it entirely or they're coming in way lower on price because they're factoring in what it'll cost them to deal with parking on their own. This buyer saved $50,000 on the way in, but they're actually losing more than that on the way out. The third mistake is no storage locker. And I understand this one, too, for sure. So, a locker in a Toronto condo building is usually an extra $5,000 to $15,000 at purchase. And when you're buying a condo and you're already stretching to make the numbers work, that feels like a luxury and like something that you can afford to skip. 2 years into living there, though, that's a completely different story. And as you can imagine, in a condo that's already not the biggest place to live, this buyer is completely out of storage space. And they're paying to rent a locker in the building separately, which costs money every single month and is just annoying because you have to find someone to rent it from. You have to arrange all of the details with them, and you're at their mercy if they ever need it back or decide to move out. And when buyers come to tour your unit when it's for sale, the lack of locker is just yet another item that they notice and negotiate on. Now, this next mistake is one that surprises people when I explain it, and it's also probably the most expensive one on this list. So, this buyer chose a building with a beautiful amenity package. I'm talking pool, hot tub, pet spa, yoga studio, party room, guest suites, the absolute works. and it looked incredible during the showing. The building felt like a resort. But here's the thing that nobody tells you about amenities. Every single one of those things has to be maintained, repaired, and eventually replaced. And the people paying for all of that are obviously the unit owners through their monthly maintenance fees.

[00:06:28]Now, this particular building's maintenance fees have spiked significantly over the last few years. The pool needed major repairs, as did the hot tub. The yoga studio equipment all needed to be replaced. And because this building has so many amenity spaces that require ongoing upkeep, the condo corporation is constantly spending money to maintain them. This buyer has used the pool twice. They've never used the yoga studio, never used the pet spa because they don't even have a pet. And the same goes for the guest suites. none of their family or friends have ever so much as stayed in them. They're paying large maintenance fees every single month for amenities that they never use to maintain facilities that are actually actively making their unit harder to sell. Because again, buyers look at maintenance fees now like forensic accountants and they ask a lot of questions. A buyer comparing two comparable units, one with $500 a month in maintenance fees and one with $850 a month in maintenance fees, is going to factor that $350 monthly difference into their offer.

[00:07:41]Over 5 years of ownership, that difference is $21,000 in fees alone before you factor the trajectory of those fees going up as well. So, the important point here is that when you're buying a condo, the amenity package isn't just a perk, okay? It's also potentially a very big liability. And now, the last one, and this one is painfully avoidable, and yet it happens all the time. This buyer visited that unit once. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and it was quiet, the light was good, the building felt pretty calm, and they loved it. And they put in an offer. They didn't visit in the morning when people are getting ready and heading to work.

[00:08:24]They didn't visit on a weekend evening.

[00:08:27]And they didn't notice because how would you that there's a train line that runs nearby, not a major station or a go line, just a cargo train that passes regularly. So at 7:00 a.m. and at certain points throughout the day and occasionally even at night, it's quite audible from inside the unit. And they also didn't know until they moved in that the unit above theirs has a couple that argues loudly enough to be heard in the unit. That's something that a single afternoon visit on a quiet Tuesday would never reveal. Never mind that morning rush and evening rush with the elevators and how long they take to come. All of that factors in and they couldn't see any of that during their visit. Now, the train noise is a building and location issue, and the neighbors are obviously just bad luck. That can happen to anyone. But the point is that one visit at one time of day on one type of day of the week is not enough due diligence on a $637,000 purchase. So, visit during the morning rush, right? Visit on a weekend. Sit quietly in the unit for 10 minutes and just listen. Walk the hallways. Look at how the building is maintained, how often it gets cleaned. Check the bulletin for notices from the property management. How many of the bulletins are about ongoing issues? I promise you, these observations will give you a lot of info about the quality of the building that you're buying into. So, let me give you the actual checklist, right? The questions I want you to ask before you buy any condo in this market.

[00:10:00]One, what floor is it on? And why are you going for a unit on that floor? So, higher floors hold value better and sell faster. That floor premium is a real thing, but also the return on it is too.

[00:10:14]Number two, does it come with parking?

[00:10:17]Even if you don't own a car today, parking is a resale asset and a rental income opportunity. So, factor in what it costs to add versus what it costs you to not have it. Number three, is there a locker? And if not, then where will your stuff go? Number four, what are the monthly maintenance fees and what's the trend? So, look at the status certificate, look at the reserve fund, find out what's been repaired recently and what's still coming up for big repairs in the future. Five, what amenities does this building actually have and which ones will you use because you're paying for all of them whether you use them or not. And six, visit more than once. So, morning, evening, weekend, sit quietly and listen. Walk the perimeter. This is $600,000 you're paying. It deserves more than one Tuesday afternoon. This buyer paid $637,000 and made five decisions that each had a logical decision behind them. None of them were crazy, but all of them were avoidable with the right information going in. That's my goal with this video, to give you this information upfront so that you can avoid making these same mistakes. I'd love to hear in the comments which one of these surprised you the most. And is there anything that I missed in terms of expensive mistakes when it comes to buying a condo here and if you want to understand the full process of buying a condo in this market the right way. So, what to look for in a building, what questions to ask and what red flags to walk away from. I put together a complete guide for you on everything you need to know. Click on the screen right now to watch that. And always remember, the right neighborhood changes everything. I'll see you in the next one, though.