This apartment in Toronto is listed for only $330,000 but there's a catch

When you see a home for sale in Toronto for substantially less than a million dollars, there's definitely reason to be suspicious, especially with unlivable houses being listed for nearly $1 million, shacks selling for close to $2 million just for the land, and prices, in general, continuing to rise despite the pandemic and resulting recession.

With all of this in mind, prospective buyers have a right to be wary of a new listing for a beautiful one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit in the city's swanky Forest Hill neighbourhood, currently somehow for sale for only $330,000.

The living room in an apartment 1648 Bathurst St. looks bright and colourful.

The apartment at 1648 Bathurst Street is bright, relatively spacious, well-appointed, on a main thoroughfare in a desirable area, and even includes a parking spot and storage locker — yet one would not expect to be able to find even a vacant lot in any part of the city for such an unbelievably low price.

So what's the catch?

This one-bedroom apartment is beautifully decorated. 

There are a few relatively minor things that may be dealbreakers for some people: no in-house laundry, no air conditioning and no pets allowed.

But the main reason for the listing price is that the unit is in a co-op building, which is not at all like a typical condo.

The co-op is located in the swanky Forest Hill neighbourhood.

Co-ops are a decades-old form of low-income housing that often impose income restrictions on residents who have to be approved by a board of directors and often have to come from a waiting list. Some may have a mixed variety of units to include a certain number around fair market value as well, and are at least in part federally funded.

Owners of units in co-operative buildings are not owners in the traditional sense, as the entire membership splits stakes in the building. Owners have no equity in their individual unit in the end, and instead occupy it based on a contract or lease.

The apartment at 1648 Bathurst St. is bright and relatively spacious.

Co-ops are also maintained by both their board and their residents — similar to a food co-op, where members have to invest a certain number of hours of work to reap the benefits of their membership — and pride themselves on having a strong sense of somewhat self-sustaining community.

Housing charges and property taxes are usually substantially lower than comparable properties in the area given their government subsidies, as are unit prices, evidently, though the units can be difficult to sell.

The apartment has a small kitchen.

But, if all of the above sounds more appealing than traditional home ownership to you — which it very well may, especially in a city as notoriously expensive as Toronto and in a time as precarious as 2020 — perhaps the listing isn't too good to be true.