Expert homebuying advice from Troy Dosman, Vice-President, Construction Operations, Minto Communities

During ‘normal’ times, buying a new home is a major decision, likely one of the most significant of your life. These days, COVID-19 and its associated challenges has everyone carefully weighing location, housing type, amenities and inclusions. For guidance, we went to some of the industry’s top builders and developers for expert advice.

What key advice would you stress to prospective new-home buyers in these unprecedented times?

The GTA is a challenging and highly competitive market to purchase a resale or pre-construction home, with all types of product available. It is important to focus on where you want to live, and then you can determine what you can afford in that specific market. With new construction, it’s important to understand who you are purchasing your home from, their product, features, values, quality and their customer service.

How might the pandemic affect the new home industry that buyers should be aware of?

To ensure that construction sites remain a safe space, additional COVID protocols and social distancing measures are enforced. This has resulted in slower construction productivity and will likely lead to price increases to account for the longer durations and additional health and safety measures. With more people working from home, designs are being redeveloped with an emphasis on creating spaces that are conducive to this new normal, highlighting multi-functional rooms and smart technologies that allow for touchless control, wherever possible.

How is Minto addressing the affordability issue in the GTA?

Minto has always strived to offer a wide range of expertly designed products, recognizing the importance of creating affordable, quality homes. This is why our acquisition focus includes land purchases that can be used for affordable housing, on lots that are further outside Toronto, where we can build homes with more space, for less. We have plans to launch two major projects next year in Oshawa and Etobicoke, and are also building smaller square footage entry level products, such as studios and one-bedrooms, with projects that are focused on combining residential and rental aspects.

What is it about Minto that differentiates it in the marketplace, or that you’d really want potential buyers to know about your company or projects?

Developing more than 85,000 units across North America since 1955, Minto is an integrated builder and developer, with dedicated in-house teams for rental, low-, mid- and highrise developments. We build in major cities across the GTA, including in Unionville and Oakville, where next year, we will be launching new phases of our award-winning communities Union Village and Oakvillage. We have also recently broken ground at our two downtown Toronto condo projects, The Saint and 123 Portland.

Above all, we are customer focused, creating a specialized touchpoint plan which includes more than 60 touchpoints from sales to possession, ensuring that our homeowners are receiving the absolute best service possible. Our continued emphasis on sustainability, including energy efficiency, indoor air quality and technologically advanced smart-home and building designs, is why, in part, we won the Building Innovation, Highrise Award at the 2020 EnerQuality Awards, and only further proves our commitment to building better homes.