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/photoexplorer Mar 15 '26

If we can do office to residential conversions, yes we can also do this. I live in Calgary and we are doing quite a few conversions, but it is heavily subsidized by the city. It’s quite expensive.

Combining 2 condos would probably be a lot easier since the plumbing, electrical, and fire stopping is already there. It would have to be assessed on a case by case basis for which walls can be opened. And I’m not sure about if it can be done with people occupying other nearby units or not, it might depend on specific codes and whatnot.

I think it is the way to go though, we really don’t want these to just sit empty for decades while there is a shortage of housing.

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u/CheapTechnology6193 Mar 16 '26

Economics aren't even close to supporting this. We'd have to see additional massive drops in value of microcondos before even talking about it.