7 Bishop Ave & Pemberton loop at Yonge & Finch v. Yonge & Sheppard
Top Rate, I live at 7 Bishop Ave at Yonge and Finch. There is TTC Finch station noise, giant hydro men and TTC parking lot at the north side of Bishop and Hendon. It's not pretty (yet).
7 Bishop and most of the “Pemberton loop†buildings are attached to the subway, and nothing beats the warmth and convenience of direct underground access to the subway and to Loblaws on a soggy or cold day. The Pemberton loop buildings have only a few facilities. The facilities at 7 Bishop are extensive but run-down except for the gym, and facilities cost alot of money in common expenses – the grounds and rooftop garden alone are almost 3 acres, so make sure if you ever buy there, you really want to pay for all of those facilities and all that land that is only used 6 months a year. There's a lot of indoor space and shared rooms for meetings, parties or for studying at 7 Bishop and the Party Room is okay and holds 60 people.
At 7 Bishop, one bedrooms average 700 square feet, cost about $240,000 for an un-renovated suite, including the parking and the locker. The common expenses are 56 cents a square foot, but of course common expenses on all condos are going up just for the HST alone (e.g., right now a 746 square foot one bedroom without parking or locker has monthly expenses of $421.79). It’s an old building so all utilities are shared.
We rented at Yonge and Sheppard (in the new Beecroft buildings, behind The Ultima on Yonge). Yonge and Sheppard was nothing but dog poop, cigarette butts and fast food, but it was great to walk through the pretty cemetery, go to the library, go skating and to see the demonstrations at NYCC. There were no huge hydro wires and parking lots and buses, cutting an ugly swath through the projects like there are at Yonge and Finch. The traffic, feeder roads and landscaping were very well-planned at Yonge and Sheppard, but Yonge and Finch is slowly getting that way.
Also the TTC is making a light-rail system from Finch along Yonge, into York Region, and that should quiet down the entire Yonge and Finch area nicely, while still raising everyone's values a bit.
But we moved back to 7 Bishop Ave from Yonge and Sheppard. We are old and 735 square feet for two old people at Yonge and Sheppard was not acceptable at any price. And we hate hearing that thump thump thump disco music throbbing out of some brat's SUV.
Instead we bought another 1,097 square foot fully renovated 2 bedroom, 2 full bath at 7 Bishop for $275,000 in 2008, it would now sell for $340,000, probably more, nothing to do with the actual building, that's for sure. Keep in mind that 7 Bishop is one ugly, worn-out building, but you don’t live in the hallways, and they have a healthy reserve fund, they haven’t got around to spending it. They have zero tolerance for noisy or slobby residents, it is a very strict building that way.
Important: everything on the EAST side of Yonge below the hydro men on Bishop, sells well because the schools are so good and families want their kids to go to good schools. The reputation of the schools on the west side of Yonge at Finch is apparently not very good.
So the east side of Yonge is doing better than the west side at Yonge and Finch down, as long as people can send their kids to McKee, Cummer Valley and Earl Haig. I think that will be really important in the long run.
Yonge and Sheppard and Yonge and Finch are different worlds from each other, but both areas might as well be on a different planet when compared to downtown. Bye.
