Leaside

Leaside sits east of Bayview Avenue around Laird Drive and Millwood Road, with McRae Drive and Sutherland running through the middle and the Don valley closing it off to the east. The Laird retail strip anchors it commercially, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre sits on Bayview at the northern edge, and Trace Manes Park and Leaside Memorial Gardens serve the interior streets. It is a low-rise neighbourhood with a thin condominium market on its arterials.

Resale first, because that is what Leaside is: detached and semi-detached houses, with a small amount of midrise condominium along Bayview and Laird. We handle assignments where they exist, which here means the Eglinton corridor rather than the interior streets.

Line 5 arrived here first

Leaside and Laird stations gave this area rapid transit it did not previously have. For a low-rise neighbourhood the effect concentrates on the Eglinton frontage rather than the interior streets, and the midrise pipeline along the corridor reflects that. A buyer looking at a house three streets north should not assume the same uplift.

Read the right comparable

The community figure the board publishes for Leaside covers all property types, and in a neighbourhood of houses that makes it a house number, well above what a comparable apartment in the same district is worth. The two answer different questions: one tells you what a house on Bessborough traded for, the other what an apartment is worth. Ask us for either.

What we check

On low-rise: inspection, permits matching what is standing, grading and drainage, and any Committee of Adjustment history — Leaside has a long record of additions and rebuilds. On the arterial condominium stock: reserve fund, planned capital work, and how many units the corporation has to spread an assessment across.

What's active here

Laird and Eglinton station areas — Approvals and construction. With Line 5 stations open at Leaside and Laird, the Eglinton frontage is the density focus, mostly midrise. Expect construction along Eglinton for years as approved sites proceed.

Bayview Avenue midrise — Registered. Small condominium buildings along Bayview, bought largely by downsizers moving within the neighbourhood. Low turnover, so comparables are thin and each sale carries weight.

Leaside low-rise — Freehold. The interior streets between Bayview and Laird are the market here, and they are almost entirely houses. Assignment activity is negligible.