Trinity Bellwoods is a very trendy area of downtown Toronto. I guess our clients had faith and the foresight that this area would become so valuable when they bought this property in the mid 1990’s. We have been managing this property for nearly two decades.

The basement of this house had been vacant for almost 13 years while the main floor one bedroom unit and second floor two-bedroom units were rented on an on going basis.

Our clients provided us with a task to see how we could monetise the basement space without breaking the bank.

When our main floor tenants advised that they would be vacating, we made a proposal to the clients to merge the main and badly as one unit, create an open space with living kitchen dining with an open concept, one bedroom with en-suite on main floor and one bedroom with full bathroom and rec room in basement. Initially the concept of the bedroom in basement wasn’t too appealing to the clients, but after some dialogue we all agreed to proceed. The result was that we ended up converting our vision into reality, the ten-foot ceilings on the main floor with a modern looking kitchen, flooring, pot lights and well-appointed bathrooms did the trick and we managed to rent this suite even before it was listed at full asking. Also noteworthy is that we sub metered the hydro and gas so that each of the two units pays their own utility bills and the owner pays for only the water utility.

We have had great success with this property in terms of rentals which have been mostly back-to-back.