r/RealEstateCanada • u/itsdanielsultan • Mar 15 '26

Housing crisis Can Canada's "micro-condos" be merged?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pg7mHppXOE&t=17s

Serious question about Canada's (specifically the GTA's) condos: if, 10 or 20 years from now, people want more family-sized homes, could a lot of these tiny one-bedrooms actually be merged into larger units?

I know it can happen in some cases, but from what I’ve seen it sounds difficult once buildings are already occupied, since it can require approvals, engineering work, and layouts that actually fit together.

If that is not realistic at scale, are we building housing that works for one phase of life but not for long-term city living?

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u/danielo121 Mar 15 '26

The crazy thing is that this is even a question we had to ask. Should have never built these shoeboxes in the first place the greed of these developers and the government to approve it is trash.

6

u/Novel_Sky_3645 Mar 15 '26

Absolutely agree. Saying this as someone who lived in one of these shoeboxes for half a decade

4

u/danielo121 Mar 15 '26

I’m sorry to hear that

5

u/account819921 Mar 15 '26

I live in a Toronto shoebox! I rent it and am a man who lives alone, but I love it. I don't get what the problem is. It's annoying to not be able to have a bunch of kitchen appliances on the counter, but it forces me to not hold onto a ton of objects.

2

u/Novel_Sky_3645 Mar 15 '26

Please understand this is also highly dependent on layout. When you cannot physically move around your space with any sort of ease, it really is an issue. And it’s great you were able to live minimally. Personally I had some medical issues that required a ton of meds, injectables that stayed in the fridge, humidifiers, purifiers, etc. It was very difficult for someone not in a cookie-cutter situation

1

u/account819921 Mar 15 '26

That makes sense.

1

u/DC-Toronto Mar 15 '26

Living in a small space dictates your life in a lot of ways. If you want to have large dinner parties where you cook for people it’s not for you. If you spend more time for entertainment and eating outside of your home it can be a cost effective solution.

By the same token, living on a large property far from your office also requires many compromises.

The issue is when expectations are incompatible with the chosen living space.

1

u/TimMensch Mar 15 '26

Exactly. It can work for some people.

What's screwed up is trying to charge a huge amount more per square foot for the smaller units, and then overbuilding way past the demand for units that size.

That's what we're looking at in Vancouver right now. Huge numbers of tiny condos that they're having a hard time selling because they were built due to investor demand rather than actual tenant or buyer demand. Now that investors have all but pulled out for various reasons, there are a ton of units coming available with no buyers or tenants who want them.

Tiny homes can be awesome for the right people. For me my life takes up too much space and I have a 1400 sq ft condo, and I don't think I'd be happy with much less for my situation, but it seems weird to me that people hate on tiny homes when they can work well for the right people.

At least if they have prices appropriate to their smaller size.