Table of Contents
The rent being charged cannot exceed the City of Toronto Average Market Rent. The interior of the home still needs to be finished with insulation and drywalling. Karen Longwell photo As a pilot project, the laneway home cost less than $200,000 to build, Kadri says. He plans to charge about $1,300 a month for the bachelor unit.
Recently the City of Toronto has taken steps to increase rental housing supply in traditionally low density, desirable neighbourhoods by adopting a zoning amendment to allow for the creation of laneway housing (coach house langley rent). Per the city of Toronto, “A laneway suite is a self-contained residential unit located on the same lot as a detached house, semi-detached house or townhouse, and generally located in the rear yard next to a laneway.
A win-win for everyone! This is great for families with aging parents who want to keep them close, but not sacrifice a second bedroom or their own privacy. Also, it allows seniors to maintain some independence, which has been shown to extend quality of life. With the high cost of education and rent and the low wages most recent grads are faced with, timelines to independence and home ownership are lengthened.
You’ve built a ton of equity in your current home, but, if you sell, where are you going to go? Tacking a laneway house on top of your garage can allow you to use that equity for a rental suite, (or let’s be serious, an Airbnb), or a cool home office.
A private covered parking spot is far too valuable in downtown Toronto. We predict most laneway houses will be created above a garage. So, no, we aren’t replacing parking with people, we’re creating walk up laneway housing, which doesn’t help anyone who needs accessibility. Sure there are many lots that don’t have a garage and a nice laneway home will fit perfectly at grade to allow for an accessible home.
Put yourself in the shoes of the homeowner who’s considering a laneway home. Would you choose to not maximize your return? To not build as much equity with your equity as possible? No. You’re going to do what it takes to maximize your investment. You’ll want your cake and eat it too….
Based on research of available options, and some anecdotal evidence of folks who built laneway housing in Vancouver, the cost to build a laneway house is between $250,000-$500,000 with the majority in the upper ⅓ of that price range. At half a million bucks, there’s nothing affordable about laneway housing.
and the Danforth should have 2 storey buildings when we’re this desperate for housing. Roads that are serviced by a Subway should allow high rise developments, and roads serviced by a 24 hour bus or streetcar line should be zoned for mid rise at least. One area where we’re doing this right is on Kingston Road.
Despite what many people believe, Toronto laneway houses are nothing new. They have been around a long time. It was no easy task to get these built back in the day. You really needed to be an aficionado of problem solving. You needed to find creative ways to make creative space.
Since then, a few amendments have taken place to clarify some more details and to get the fire department on board in terms of their regulation. Why did the City get on board with making the process of building a laneway house so much easier? Well, the City of Toronto does want to encourage densification and to relieve the housing shortage.
It helps to address the housing shortage in the city. Despite the easier and streamlined rules brought in by the City of Toronto, not all houses with a laneway qualify. You’ll do much better in the old city of Toronto where the vast majority of laneways are approved for laneway houses.
There are also certain rules about fire access and proximity to a fire hydrant. More specifically you need your laneway house to be 45 meters to the street and then 45 meters to the hydrant. There are discussions now on increasing the length of this, but it has not been made official.
5 meters wide in the back. Then there’s the trees. You need to be a certain distance from any large trees. These rules are in still in flux somewhat. If anything, these rules are increasingly allowing more properties to utilize their backyard to build secondary suites, making it more streamlined and easier to build an additional backyard structure in the future.
These would essential be similar living structures to laneway houses, but with only a connection to the access street at the front of the house. It would just be in your backyard, regardless if you had a laneway or not. Again, these have have not been approved yet, but may be in the next few years.
Why? Because unlike a new condo or a new house, you are not paying for the land, just the structure on the land. So, if you pay $430,000 to $630,000 to build a laneway house, depending on the size, you should be able have an entirely new 2-3 bedroom property with no basement in your backyard.
It will be a stressful experience. Also, you will own two connected properties that you cannot sell separately at the moment – they are currently considered one property. The laneway sewer lines and electricity will all be connected to the main house. So, it’s one big complex. To date, I have not seen a house and laneway house sold together, but I’m sure it’s coming.
The clear upside so far: You can create an income property in your laneway, maximizing your land usage. You also can build something to live in yourself to the exact specifications. There are now architect firms that specialize in laneway housing. Some like Lanescape offer free assessments as to whether your laneway can have a laneway house.
It’s the beginning of a golden age for Toronto laneway houses. I think we are going to see a surge of interest in having these built in the next ten years. Laneway houses seem perfect for many Toronto neighbourhoods. It seems like an obvious way to repurpose under-utilized land. I believe the option to build a laneway house or even a garden suite in the future will add to the value of your property.
Just because the real estate market in Vancouver is not as hot as it once was, does not mean that the housing supply for the rental market in this city has changed at all. It is still very tight. vancouver laneway house with 2 car garage. The cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment is roughly $2,100 a month and vacancy rates are near the one percent mark.
More from Investment, Property taxes, Extra income
Table of Contents
Latest Posts
North Vancouver Homes With Suites For Sale now in Richmond BC
Kelowna BC
Vancouver, British Columbia Coach And Laneway Homes now available in Kelowna BC
All Categories
Navigation
Latest Posts
North Vancouver Homes With Suites For Sale now in Richmond BC
Kelowna BC
Vancouver, British Columbia Coach And Laneway Homes now available in Kelowna BC