Size: 900 square feet to 999 sq. ft., two bedrooms, bathroom

The sale: The shift in the market, due to rising interest rates, opened doors for aspiring homeowners, and provided access to properties that were once seemingly out of reach, says realtor Michelle Boodhoo. This was the case for her clients, first-time buyers concerned about affordability.

Similar condos to this one in the area were priced at $560,000 to $650,000 in early 2022, making ownership unattainable to the immigrants who’d come to Canada for a better life, says Boodhoo.

She acted quickly to get her clients into the market when this listing came out priced at $479,000, below the going rate for a similar two-bedroom unit of comparable square footage. The property also had updates that were lacking in other available units.

Multiple offers drove up the price by more than $35,000, but the buyers expected competition, according to Boodhoo.

“Negotiating the purchase at $514,500 with a comfortable, 60-day closing timeline felt like a significant victory,” she says, adding the deal included everything her clients wanted, within budget. In addition, they didn’t have to look outside the GTA, which made it making it a convenient and strategic purchase.

What sealed the deal: Close enough to work and school “without much hassle,” the location was perfect for the buyers, young professionals with two children. And the price was extremely affordable for a renovated condo such as this, especially with all the things included in the condo fees.

It took a year to build the almost 5,600 square feet of living space over two levels. At $175 or $180 per square foot, the price tag wasn’t much higher than for conventional construction, which, at the time, was $150 to $200 per square foot, according to the homeowners.

Three exterior walls are built of straw sandwiched between prefabricated, highly insulating concrete panels built off-site before installation. The closets are located on the north wall to provide an additional barrier, boosting the insulation value even further.

Combined with an insulated concrete form (ICF) foundation that uses interlocking foam bricks, the straw-bale walls create a “haven of energy efficiency” with year-round comfortable temperatures that are less reliant on the HVAC system, says Michelle.

She estimates their savings on heating costs at 20 per cent to 30 per cent, depending on environmental factors. (Straw-bale homes typically use 25 to 40 per cent less heating and cooling energy than their frame-walled equivalents.)

Straw-bale building, which has been growing in Ontario since the mid-1990s, has a lot going for it: the material is sustainable, energy-efficient, eco-friendly, durable, non-toxic and affordable. And, as Jason points out, local fields are full of the stuff come summer.

It was also a hit with a delegation of Chinese engineers who toured their home when it was newly built, he adds. Curious about green building methods, they “seemed pretty impressed,” he says. The thoughtfully constructed house, which is equipped with smart home technology, also won a Pickering civic award for sustainability in 2011.

“The goal was that this would be our next home for five to seven years at least,” explains Agha, a senior manager at a major bank. It also had to be a freehold property, not a condo, with good resale potential.

The search: With the family home listed in April, 2024, Agha began prep work for his next purchase by monitoring the market, looking at listings online and getting his financial ducks in a row.

During the six months it took for the semi to sell, Boodhoo showed him a few properties to hone his knowledge and fine-tune his checklist.

Once the house sold, the search hit high gear with Agha seeing more than two dozen properties, including a few outside his preferred location.

He made low offers or was tempted on a couple of properties around the $1.1-million mark, but “they were priced to get people in the door,” he says. “It was a bit daunting. You had to really look at the property and not be seduced by the (list) price.”

What he bought: Things moved quickly when Agha found the right place in late November. He looked at the two-storey, three-bedroom townhouse at 5 p.m., went back for a second visit at 7:30 p.m. and had an offer on the table by 9.

The house that rose from the ashes was a custom-built, 2,800-square-foot structure designed to snare the sun’s energy and reduce the family’s ecological footprint. With “three-quarters of the house coming from a farmer’s field,” it’s an example of local sustainability, says general contractor Scott Vanular, referring to the modular straw walls.

The city of Pickering was impressed enough to give them a civic award for sustainability in 2011. And the stunning showplace even hosted a delegation from China eager to learn about green building practices.

The house’s eco-friendliness is a far cry from that of its predecessor where Uher, a Toronto police officer, and his wife Michelle Boodhoo lived with their sons Alex, now 7, and Tye, 5.

Originally built in the 1930s as a weekend retreat for lawyers, the poorly insulated cabin-plus-addition in north Pickering devoured $4,000 worth of heating oil a year, says Uher, who had come home to find the roof in flames after picking up his kids from daycare that November day.

“The oil tanks had caught on fire and the house was pretty much done,” he recalls. “But the shock was realizing what could have happened” if anyone had been home.

The family’s eight-month-old puppy managed to escape the blaze, which was blamed on an electrical problem near the furnace below the children’s rooms.