80 Bell Estate Condos: A 13-Home, Self-Managed Stafford Townhouse Block

80 Bell Estate Condos is about as small as a Toronto condominium gets: 13 homes, built by Stafford Homes in 2015, and run by the owners themselves rather than a management company. Buyers come here for a newer townhouse-style home in south-west Scarborough without the scale of a big complex. Before you fall for the finishes, you need to understand how a 13-owner corporation works. I’m Jatin Dua, RE/MAX Quantum Realty.

A Stafford Homes block within the Bell Estate community

Condos.ca names Stafford Homes as the developer, and the street name matches the Bell Estate townhomes listed at 667-671 Warden Avenue, which appear online as a separate building. Treat them as neighbours under the same brand, not as one corporation, unless the status certificate says otherwise. When you search for comparables, make sure you know which corporation a listing actually belongs to.

TSCC-2437 was registered in March 2015, so the homes are about ten years old. That is young by Scarborough standards. The major building components should still be well inside their service lives, and the corporation has had a decade to build a reserve.

Stafford Homes is a long-established Toronto-area builder of low-rise and townhouse communities. Ten years on, though, what matters more than the builder’s name is how the homes have held up and how the owners have run the corporation since the developer handed it over.

Thirteen owners and no management company

Condos.ca lists the building as self-managed. In a 13-home corporation, that is not unusual. A professional manager costs money, and a handful of owners may decide they can run insurance, snow clearing, repairs and the books themselves.

Self-management can work very well when the board is organised and keeps clean records. It can also leave gaps, especially around the reserve fund study, which has to be updated on a regular schedule, insurance renewals and how money is held. Ask who prepares the budget and the financial statements, who handles repairs, and whether an auditor reviews the accounts.

Insurance is a detail worth singling out. Ask for the corporation’s current insurance certificate and the deductible amounts, because in many condos the owner of the unit where a loss starts can be charged the deductible. Your own condo insurance policy should cover that amount.

Thirteen owners also means thirteen shares of every bill. A roof, a paving job or an insurance deductible is split far fewer ways than in a big complex. A healthy reserve matters even more here than usual.

What the homes are like

Condos.ca classifies 80 Bell Estate as a low-rise condo, and lease listings online describe the homes here as townhouses, including at least one four-bedroom. That puts it closer to a family home than an apartment, with private entrances and multiple levels.

I could not find published floor plans or a size range for this corporation, and there were no active listings when I checked. Ask for measurements and the original builder’s plan for any home you consider. With a 2015 build, the home should still have its original builder documents, and those are worth asking for.

Parking is the other question to settle early. In newer townhouse blocks, parking can be an attached garage, a surface space or a spot in a shared garage, and it may be part of the unit or an exclusive-use common element. Condos.ca does not list the arrangement here, so confirm it on the status certificate and in the declaration.

Ask, too, about the Tarion warranty history. The main warranty periods for a 2015 home have run out, but the record of any claims made in the early years, and how they were resolved, is useful information about the construction.

Daily life in Clairlea-Birchmount

The building sits in the south-west of Scarborough, in Clairlea-Birchmount, near Warden Avenue and St. Clair Avenue East. This is an established residential area with a mix of postwar houses and newer townhouse infill, and it is one of the closer parts of Scarborough to downtown. The automatic panel on this page shows the nearest subway station, the schools and the Walk Score.

This stretch of Warden Avenue has several newer townhouse projects, including the Bell Estate townhomes next door. That brings more neighbours, but it also brings more comparable sales, which helps when you price a home in a corporation this small. Ask your agent to pull recent sales from both this corporation and its neighbours.

Pricing a home in a 13-unit corporation

There were no homes for sale or for lease at 80 Bell Estate when I checked, and condos.ca does not publish a building average per square foot. In a building with only 13 homes, a year can pass without a sale, so any average is fragile.

The practical approach is to price a home here against recent sales in this corporation, if any, and against the other Bell Estate corporations and similar newer townhouses along Warden Avenue, adjusting for size, bedrooms and parking. I could not confirm the current fee, so ask for the budget and the fee schedule early.

When you build your monthly budget, add the condo fee, property tax, your own utilities and your own insurance. In small townhouse corporations, owners often pay more of the running costs directly than they would in an apartment building, so a low fee does not automatically mean a cheaper home. Compare the full monthly total, not the fee alone.

The panel on this page shows the aggregate sales and lease data we have. For a list of sold comparables in and around the building, ask me for my building sold report.

Building specifications

Jatin’s honest take on 80 Bell Estate Condos

80 Bell Estate Condos — frequently asked questions

Looking at Agincourt, L’Amoreaux, Milliken, Dorset Park and Wexford in Scarborough more broadly? Start with my Toronto community guide — the neighbourhoods, what each pocket is like, and how they compare.