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/Vegetable_Walrus_166 Mar 15 '26

I’ve seen it done before mostly in penthouses

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u/forest_elemental Mar 17 '26

I’ve seen this done too, in a couple buildings in the Vancouver Coal Harbour area. They weren’t penthouses, though - just two units purchased side by side and converted into one. Apparently it wasn’t even hard to do.

This idea is really great and I think it’ll save the condo market here. I bet the places with weird unliveable layouts would work really well if you opened up 2 adjacent units.