When we recently posted the above headline, we received an awful lot of inquiries.
While we thought it was pretty simple to see how this could be done… well, we were wrong. So let’s explain in detail, this money-saving move that almost anyone can use.
STEP #1 – buy a (normal) house
There is somewhere in the range of 20,000 to 48,000 houses in Toronto that qualify for laneway house builds. Every week, we see somewhere between 4 and 25 of these go up for sale, listed at Realtor.ca. While of course many of them are priced well above $1 million, we’ve seen several dozen listed just in 2020 that are or were for sale from $600,000 to $900,000. This is your target price for your house purchase.
STEP #2 – build your brand new laneway house
This is where you get your brand new half of your two houses. Even the largest permitted laneway house build in Toronto (about 1,750 square feet over two floors) can be built for under $500,000. That includes planning, design, all the construction costs, and finishing.
But most lots won’t allow the maximum build size, so there’s a very good chance your construction project cost will be in the $300,000 to $400,000 range.
STEP #3 – enjoy your two new houses
So now you have bought one house for $600,000 to $900,000 and you’ve built another brand new one on the same lot for $300,000 to $500,000.
Original house and land, $600-900k, plus your brand new house at $300-500k, and your total cost for two downtown Toronto houses is somewhere between $900,000 and $1,400,000.
More to come…