1496 Victoria Park Ave: Stacked Townhomes With Rooftop Terraces

1496 Victoria Park Avenue is what I show buyers who want a townhouse but cannot stretch to a freehold one. It is a 2005 complex of 92 stacked condo townhomes in Victoria Village, where the upper suites are two-storey homes with their own rooftop terraces and the lower suites are single-level with a front patio. You get your own front door and a real outdoor space, and in exchange you take on your own furnace. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

Two homes stacked on one footprint

The format is the whole story here. Each block stacks two kinds of suite: a lower, one-level unit that you enter off a small front patio, and an upper unit that runs over two floors and finishes with a private rooftop terrace. Condos.ca records the complex as two storeys, which is the building height, not the number of floors inside an upper suite.

That gives you two quite different products at one address. The lower suites suit someone who does not want stairs inside the home, and the larger upper suites, which reach roughly 1,200 to 1,300 square feet, are laid out for families. Recent listing descriptions for the upper plans mention three bedrooms and three bathrooms with an ensuite off the primary bedroom.

Parking is underground in a shared garage below the complex, so you are not parking on a driveway or in a surface lot. Some upper suites have been marketed with two spaces, but that varies by unit, so confirm exactly what is deeded to the suite you are buying.

The rooftop terrace is the reason to buy

Private outdoor space is hard to find in a condo at this price. An upper suite here gives you a terrace on the roof of your own home, large enough for a barbecue and a table, and condos.ca lists barbecues as permitted. From the higher terraces, sellers have described views back toward the downtown skyline.

Before you fall for the terrace, ask who is responsible for the roof membrane and the decking under it. In stacked townhouse corporations the roof is usually a common element even when only one owner uses it, and the declaration decides who pays for what. In my experience, a terrace built over someone’s living space is where most of the repair questions in this building type start.

Ask also when the roofs were last replaced. A 2005 complex is close to the age when original roofing comes due, and the reserve fund study should show whether that work has been done or is coming.

Your own furnace, and what that means for your fee

These suites are heated by forced air, with the furnace, air conditioner and hot water tank inside each home. That is why heat does not appear in the list of fee inclusions: you pay your own gas and hydro, and you replace your own equipment when it fails.

The upside is control and a lower monthly fee than a building that runs a central plant. The downside is that the equipment is now around twenty years old in suites where it has never been changed. Some owners have already replaced theirs, and a listing that mentions a new furnace, air conditioner and water tank takes a real cost off the buyer’s list for the next decade or more.

Ask for the age of each piece of equipment and whether the tank is owned or rented. A rental agreement on a water heater or furnace transfers to you on closing, and it is easy to miss until the first bill arrives.

When you compare this fee with a condo apartment’s, add back what you will spend on gas, hydro and equipment over a year. The comparison is closer to owning a small freehold home than to renting a suite in a tower, and that is the right way to think about it.

Living near Eglinton and Victoria Park

The complex sits on Victoria Park just north of Eglinton Avenue East, in a pocket where the housing is mostly postwar bungalows and older rental and condo towers. Urban townhouses like these are rare in the immediate area, which has always helped resale: when one comes up, there is very little directly comparable to choose from instead.

For daily errands, Eglinton Square is across the road and the big-box retail of the Golden Mile is a short drive east. The Don Valley Parkway is minutes away for anyone driving downtown. The Eglinton Crosstown LRT runs along Eglinton, and the panel beside this review shows the nearest stations and schools.

What a stacked townhome costs here

Condos.ca puts the average for this complex at about $610 per square foot. Across the size range of 697 to 1,289 square feet, that points to something like $425,000 for the smallest lower suites up to the high $700,000s for the largest upper plans, as a rough guide rather than a valuation.

That is well below what you pay per foot for a new condo apartment in this part of the city, and you are getting a front door, outdoor space and parking in the fee. The discount reflects age and the cost of maintaining your own mechanical equipment, so price the furnace, air conditioner and roof history into any offer.

Only one suite was listed for sale when I checked, and none for lease, so I am not going to quote a single listing. Thin supply is normal here. With 92 suites, a handful trade each year, and the best way to judge a price is against recent sales of the same plan type, upper against upper and lower against lower.

Building specifications

Amenities at Victoria Village Townhomes

There is no gym, pool or party room here, and that is part of why the fee stays modest. The amenity you are really buying is your own outdoor space, a rooftop terrace upstairs or a front patio downstairs.

Jatin’s honest take on Victoria Village Townhomes

Victoria Village Townhomes — frequently asked questions

Looking at York Mills, Don Mills, Lawrence Park, Bathurst Manor and midtown-north Toronto more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.