What $1 million will get you in Toronto today

Want one of these ho-hum houses? You’ll need seven figures and a stiff drink Photographs by Daniel Neuhaus

In mid-April, for the first time ever, the average selling price for a detached home in Toronto nudged, just briefly, over the million-dollar mark—a surge of 19 per cent over last year. You might argue that the number is an arbitrary data point on a line graph sloping skyward. It’s not. To hopeful house hunters, seven figures is a ­chasmic mental leap and a devastating reminder of the near impossibility of owning four unshared walls in this city. Just a few years ago, the mid- to low-$800s were territory for the excessively affluent or certifiable; today that’s considered a steal. The $900s, given a long amortization and a diet of rice and lemon water, have become tolerable, too. Welcome to the millies, the new new stratum of absurdity.