Spanish Villas Townhomes, 6–10 Esterbrooke Ave: 1971 Townhouses by Fairview

Spanish Villas is what I show buyers who are priced out of a freehold house in Don Valley Village but refuse to raise kids in a two-bedroom tower suite. It is a 1971 townhouse condo with arched doorways, mature trees, an outdoor pool and parking underground, a short walk from Fairview Mall and the Sheppard line. The catch is age, and I will walk you through exactly what to check. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A townhouse condo with a Spanish accent

Most 1970s North York townhouse complexes look alike: brown brick rows, flat facades, a strip of lawn. Spanish Villas is different enough that agents put the name in capital letters in their listings. The theme shows up inside as well as out, most obviously in the arched doorways between rooms, and the grounds are planted heavily enough that the complex feels set back from Don Mills Road rather than fronting onto it.

That matters more than it sounds. At this price point in Don Valley Village, your alternative is usually a two- or three-bedroom suite in one of the 1980s and 1990s towers around Fairview Mall. Here you get your own front door, two floors plus a basement, and a shared outdoor setting instead of a corridor.

Ownership is condominium, not freehold and not co-op. Resale units trade on the TRREB MLS® System as condo townhouses with a monthly maintenance fee, so you are buying a unit in a condominium corporation and sharing responsibility for roofs, garages, grounds and the pool with your neighbours.

Layouts: two floors, a full basement and a garage below

The units I have reviewed are two-storey homes over a full basement, listed in the 1,200 to 1,399 sq ft range for the above-grade space. That band is a broad one, so treat it as a guide and measure for yourself; the basement is not counted in it and is where much of the real flexibility lives.

Typical configurations are three bedrooms upstairs, sometimes with a fourth room in the basement marketed as the plus-one. Main floors run living and dining together with a walk-out to the outside and a separate galley-style kitchen. Heating is forced-air gas with central air conditioning, so each home has its own furnace and air conditioner rather than a shared building system.

Parking is the unusual part. Instead of a driveway and integral garage, residents park in underground garages beneath the complex, with an exclusive-use spot per unit in the listings I have seen. It keeps cars off the grounds, which is a big part of why the site feels green, but it also means the complex owns three underground structures that need regular, expensive maintenance.

What the corporation has been spending on

A recent listing description reported that the corporation re-did the roofs across the complex fairly recently and was in the middle of renovating all three underground garages. If that is accurate, it is the most important fact about this building for a buyer, and it cuts both ways.

The good news: roofs and garage structures are two of the biggest-ticket items any townhouse condo faces, and a corporation that tackles them is doing its job. A buyer who arrives after the work is done benefits from it without having paid for it.

The open question is how the work was funded. Large projects are paid for out of the reserve fund, by a fee increase, by a special assessment, or by a loan, and I have not found a public source that says which applied here. That is exactly what the status certificate, the most recent reserve fund study and the last two years of board minutes will tell you. Do not firm up an offer before your lawyer has read them.

Daily life between Don Mills Road and Fairview Mall

Esterbrooke Avenue runs west off Don Mills Road just north of Sheppard Avenue East, so the nearest major intersection buyers will recognise is Don Mills and Sheppard. Fairview Mall, with its grocery, department-store and food-court options, sits on the other side of that intersection, and Don Mills station, the eastern end of Line 4 Sheppard, is built into the mall.

That combination is the reason people buy here. You can run most errands on foot, get to Yonge and Sheppard by subway, and still reach Highway 401 and the Don Valley Parkway quickly by car. One listing put it bluntly by asking whether an owner even needs a car; I would say many households here manage with one.

The trade-off is that this is a busy, commercial corner of North York. Don Mills Road and Sheppard carry heavy traffic, and the towers around Fairview Mall keep adding density. The complex’s planting and inward-facing layout soften that, which is a good reason to walk the grounds at rush hour before you decide.

What Spanish Villas costs, and what the fee covers

Two units were listed for sale as I wrote this, asking roughly $589,000 to $650,000. On the 1,200 to 1,399 sq ft band the listings use, that works out to somewhere around $420 to $540 per square foot of above-grade space, before you count the basement. That is well below what a renovated freehold house in Don Valley Village asks, and in many cases comparable to a large two-bedroom tower suite nearby.

Monthly fees on the current listings sit around $830, or roughly $0.59 to $0.69 per square foot on that same size band. For a townhouse with its own furnace that is not cheap, so look closely at what it buys. MLS records for the complex show parking, water and cable in the fee, and one listing described the cable package as including high-speed internet. Some MLS records also tick heat and hydro as included; with separate gas furnaces in each home that would be unusual, so confirm it in the status certificate rather than assuming.

For actual traded prices, use the sales panel on this page, which shows aggregates from the TRREB MLS® System. Townhouse sales here are infrequent, so expect wide ranges, and adjust for condition: a gutted and renovated unit and an original 1970s interior can sit side by side and trade very differently.

Building specifications

Amenities at Spanish Villas Townhomes

This is a townhouse amenity package, not a tower one: no concierge or gym, but a summer pool, a tennis court and a playground within the complex. For a family, the playground and pool are used far more than a party room ever is.

Jatin’s honest take on Spanish Villas Townhomes

Spanish Villas Townhomes — frequently asked questions

Looking at Toronto more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.