These 3 Toronto Homes Are Currently On The Market For $1 A Piece

In case you haven't noticed, Toronto's housing market has been an expensive disaster, especially in the past few years. People in the city are struggling to find reasonably priced homes, and even the most unremarkable-looking houses are going for upwards of $1 million dollars. Imagine our surprise when we saw these Toronto home prices going for just $1. It looks like a typo. However, it seems that there are quite a few houses that are listed as some of the cheapest in Toronto for only $1. After noticing a few more of these 'typos' on the Royal LePage website, Narcity reached out to the real estate agents to figure out why these decent-sized houses were on the market for so little. Two real estate agents have given Narcity some interesting info about the reason for the low priced listings, and no, it's not because you can only buy it for a loonie. Georgiana Woods, a sales rep at Royal LePage, told Narcity about a Scarborough home on Ellesmere Road going for a supposed $1. "This is a marketing strategy that isn’t used very often. I sometimes see that this method is used with listings that have been on the market for a while and have not sold.  The property is relisted at $1, or $99 etc." Woods wrote.

"I also have seen this strategy used on properties that are difficult to price as there are no comparable to use for a price point.  I don’t recall seeing one that worked successfully, as mentioned, it is not a commonly used strategy."Check out the listings below:

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This 6 bedroom, 2 bathroom house at 4088 Ellesmere Road is targeted at developers based on its large lot, which has room for more building opportunity, says the ad. 

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The ad reads, "possibilities to build many homes or townhomes". 

The next listing listed for $1 is a house in Toronto's Bathurst Manor neighbourhood. 

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The listing says it is a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom property with "a huge lot", and it "ideal for future development". It also says there is "lots of activity for redevelopment in the area." We are starting to notice a pattern, here. So while it might say $1, it looks like Canadians won't be lucking out. In fact, these houses are being put on the market at such a low price to see what kind of interest they can spark for redevelopment. This confirms Woods' theory that this pricing strategy is used for properties that are difficult to quantify. Real estate Agent Terry Min confirmed this in a call with Narcity. 

"We want to find out the consumer reaction," he said. "There is no intention to misrepresent or trick consumers. The price is all over the map in a particular area, so we have to put a number because we don’t know the exact price of the property.""Basically, it is a strategy to see how much consumers are willing to negotiate for. At the end of the day, however, the price is up to the owner of the property."So far, Min has received about "100 calls" interested in the following property at 51 Soudan Avenue near Yonge and Eglinton:

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He says the 3 bedroom property is actually worth well over $1 million. 

However, if you see a house for $1 it might be worth looking into, you never know how affordable the home may actually be. 

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