If anyones interested. A commercial condo 1300 sq/ft with 10x12 door, finished office space 600V power in West Oakville just went for sale asking $259K. It's not on MLS yet. I looked at it yesterday and I'm tempted but because of too many ***** in the air already I have to keep my options open for a while.

 

Can I live in it!?!?

 

I'd love a commercial condo/loft setup. Put cars on the bottom with a big screen setup for entertaining. Put a couple of bedrooms and 2 baths up in the loft for sleeping/a guest. Ultimate bachelor life.

 

^^ Exactly. It's really hard to find 1 bedroom apartments with 2-car garages

Are there any stupid bylaws preventing living in a commercial space like this?

 

None that I think you have to follow/would be enforceable. It's usually an issue if you are renting, but if you own the building you're probably free to do whatever you want short of making a snuff film/grow house. If there's no neighbors around to complain then who is going to?

My buddy used to rent a pair of commercial lofts in the Carlaw area of Toronto (so-called "up and coming" artsy area with lots of long-hairs). Kept 1 for work and turned the other one into his apartment. Total cost of sq ftage was less than getting a "residential place" and he had much more room. Even better: since his places were both on the same floor and close enough to each other, they let him run a cable across the outside so he only had to pay for cable/net at one location.

 

We need to get some people together and develop garage-condos for motorhead bachelors! The waterfront in the east end would have been a great location....

The most famous version of "garage condos" is in Minneapolis, but what they got wrong is that it's not meant to be a live-in place. I think there would be a good market for a Toronto version. There have to be a ton of young professionals who need more garage space than living space - where do we go!?

 

I don't think the condo by-laws permit a residence in the unit. Great idea though and I was looking at another slightly larger one in Port Credit that would have room for four cars, and pool table. It already had a 3 pc bathroom and a couple of nicely finished offices and a really great feature was central air everywhere. Adding a nice little kitchen and it would have been perfect. It is pricier though at 400$. Here's a pic of that one from the back.