Toronto's Best Condos

In recent years, Ontario has become one of the biggest markets in North America for luxury homes. Toronto may not seem like it has enough room for a luxury home, because most people think of luxury homes as sprawling mansions with four pools, tennis courts, stables, and armies of servants. However, there's more to luxury than space, as evidenced by the real estate prices in downtown Toronto. So watch out mansion, there's a new player in the luxury home market that's taking the world by storm. It's the luxury condo, and nowhere in Canada can you find more of them than in downtown Toronto.

With more and more developers trying to make their fortunes off of Toronto's condos, it's not just enough to have a condo anymore if you want to bring in top dollar. You have to build bigger buildings with better views, better service, and fancier amenities. Gone are the days of an electric-ring stove and flowered wallpaper. Today's condos have things like an en-suite wall mounted boiler for personal control over the hot water, and an entire specially-treated glass wall from which you can admire your view of Lake Ontario.

The best condo developers don't stop at improvements to the individual units, either. Like Toronto beach homes are known for their access to the beach, location matters when it comes to condo buildings as well. No one wants to live in a building surrounded by petroleum refineries or in a neighborhood plagued by gang issues. Condo developers choose their locations carefully to maximize the beauty of the views, the access to transportation, and how upscale the surrounding clubs and restaurants are, in order to provide the best possible experience to their tenants.

Still, owning an apartment in a larger building isn't for everyone. Some would rather buy Toronto Annex real estate because they would have a yard, garden, garage or driveway. To combat this mentality, condo developers have developed rooftop gardens for their residents to tend, and balconies where they can sit outside and take the air like they would on a backyard deck. Driveways have been replaced by underground parking structures with reserved spaces for each tenant and extra ones for their visitors. Garages are largely unnecessary when you don't have to do your own shoveling or yard work, but almost all condos provide storage space.

To further distinguish their condo lifestyle from what you can expect living in an ordinary Yorkville Toronto house, condo developers have also outfitted their buildings with the most luxurious possible amenities. Buildings often sport their own swimming pools and weight rooms so that their residents don't have to bother joining a gym. It's also not uncommon to see full-out in-building theaters in place of TV rooms. Some offer laundry service, while others are outfitted with entire spas complete with on-staff massage therapists and cosmetologists. Some buildings even go so far as to have retail shopping on the premises, plus underground paths or pedways that connect home with work.