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With new Toronto condo units averaging just 749 square feet, baby boomers are finding the word downsizing is taking on new meaning

Baby boomers Jack and Leona Anderson made their first big step towards retirement last summer when they flew to Toronto from their home in Regina looking for a condo.

It wasn’t the sticker price that sent the teachers into a mild panic. It was the size of the units.

“I just kept thinking, if I’m going to move into a space this small, it’s going to be at an old folks’ home,” says Jack Anderson, 61.

The Andersons toured soaring glass and steel towers equipped with basketball courts, sprawling exercise rooms, granite countertops galore.

But they couldn’t see a place where they could actually live their new life, until their agent took them on a trip back in time to The Bentley, an almost 30-year-old condo building just steps from the St. Lawrence Market.

In the end, the couple opted to overlook the dated lobby, oak-trimmed kitchen cupboards and two bathrooms in need of updating.

It was the 1,200 square feet of living space that wowed them, along with the building’s wood-burning fireplaces and rooftop garden. They paid $339,000 for the one-bedroom plus den corner unit.

“Our house is 3,000 square feet with two fireplaces. We spend a lot of time outdoors. That (rooftop garden) is a viable substitute. We will be able to go up there in the morning and have our coffee and read the paper,” says Anderson.

With condos getting smaller by the day, especially in the downtown core where new units average just 749 square feet, baby boomers are finding the word downsizing is taking on new meaning.

“There is definitely a disconnect between what the demographics are telling us versus what’s actually getting built,” says Farrell Macdonald, a Coldwell Banker realtor.

“If there is a vulnerability in Toronto’s housing market these days it’s on the condo side — not just because of the sheer numbers we’re building, but because of the size and quality.”

Canadian condo developer Tridel Group says 25 per cent of its buyers are empty nesters and while it does build some larger units, its biggest market by far is first-time buyers for whom affordability is more important than size payday loans online.

“This (demographic) bulge is roaring towards us now and we’ve got people who are demanding alternatives but the market isn’t really responding,” says Macdonald. “We’re building lots of small, cheap and cheerful units but we’re not thinking long term.”

Macdonald hears complaints regularly from boomers who want to trade in family homes for simpler lives close to theatres and restaurants but refuse to be “plunked in a shoebox” better suited to single, young professionals.

That frustration is fuelling a renaissance among older condos, long considered less desirable because they lack flash and modern amenities and tend to have higher maintenance fees, says realtor Colleen Gray.

In the past year, Gray has seen even younger buyers starting to peek at the past.

Much of the renewed interest has been in decades-old buildings along Toronto’s waterfront, near the St. Lawrence Market and in midtown where units are selling for as little as $320 to $350 a square foot. That’s almost half the $600 to $700 per square foot of new units.

The tradeoff is higher maintenance fees. In The Bentley they average 67 cents per square foot (the Andersons pay $700 a month, which includes utilities), compared to about 50 cents in newer buildings, many of which don’t include utilities.

The biggest risk in older buildings is getting hit with costs for a new roof or heating unit that can overwhelm the maintenance fund.

But that day will come for newer units, too, given that fees don’t tend to reflect real costs, says Macdonald.

The Andersons are renting out their unit right now and plan to virtually gut their condo when they get ready to move to Toronto.

They know it will never have the look or feel of a brand-new building, but at the least it will have sparkling new bathrooms and a kitchen with the de rigueur stainless steel and granite, says Anderson.

“There are always going to be people who will want a property like this in downtown Toronto, just because of its square footage. I think in that way it was a very clever investment.

“Someday it’s going to sell itself.” Also read: Why downtown living is more attractive

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Finance ministers from the 17 euro countries agreed Friday to pay Greece its next batch of bailout loans, avoiding a potentially disastrous default, and moved closer to reducing the country’s massive debt burden.

But Greece’s debts are only one piece of Europe’s economic puzzle. The ministers meeting in Brussels were also struggling with two more complicated _ and arguably more important _ issues: boosting the firepower of the eurozone’s euro440 billion ($607 billion) bailout fund to keep the crisis from spreading and forcing weak banks to increase their capital buffers as a defense against market turmoil.

A European Union official said ministers had made progress on strengthening the banks, and that a plan should be ready for a summit of EU leaders Sunday. He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential negotiations.

However, more work remained to be done on Greece and the bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility. Decisions on those two fronts were not expected until a second summit on Wednesday.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos welcomed the news that Athens would get the next euro8 billion ($11 billion) installment, calling it a “positive step.” A day earlier, Greek lawmakers had approved new, deeply contentious austerity measures to get the money.

The loans, which still need the approval of the International Monetary Fund, should be delivered during the first half of November. The money will keep Greece afloat for a little longer, but most economists agree that the country also needs a substantial cut to its debt load.

The findings of a report from Greece’s international debt inspectors piled more pressure on European finance chiefs to find a solution for the country, whose troubles kicked off the crisis almost two years ago.

According to the report, Athens won’t be able to raise money on financial markets until 2021 unless it is allowed to write off more of its debt load. If that doesn’t happen, the country would need hundreds of billions of euros in new bailout loans.

A person familiar with the report said a tentative deal reached with banks in July to give Greece easier terms on its bonds would still leave it with a huge debt load of 152 percent of economic output in 2020. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the report is confidential.

Germany is pushing for a revision of the July deal to have Greece’s private creditors take bigger losses of 50 percent to 60 percent and reduce its debt to some 120 percent of GDP by 2020.

The EU official said ministers had moved closer to Germany’s position on steeper cuts to Greece’s debt, but some financially weaker countries were still worried that could destabilize their markets and push their borrowing rates higher. “I wouldn’t say there’s a consensus but something close to that,” he said.

The eurozone needs to find a way to ensure that larger countries like Spain and Italy don’t get engulfed in the debt crisis, as they would be too expensive to bail out.

Increasing the firepower of the bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, is meant to offer that protection, but Germany and France still disagree over how to do that.

Ministers failed to make much progress on that front Friday night and broke up the meeting shortly after starting discussions on the EFSF.

A German official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that a combination of two options had crystallized as the most likely solution to giving the fund more leverage.

The first would involve the bailout fund acting as an insurer for bond issues from wobbly countries like Italy. That would essentially compensate investors against a first round of potential losses and keep governments’ borrowing costs in check.

In addition, the International Monetary Fund _ which has already provided about a third of the bailout cash for Greece, Ireland and Portugal _ would supply other stragglers with precautionary credit lines to make sure they have ready access to cheap money.

Last weekend, at a meeting in Paris, the finance chiefs from the Group of 20 leading economies opened the door for a larger role by the IMF, but only if the eurozone first does its part.

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CUPERTINO, CALIF./NEW YORK—Computer buffs and admirers of technology rushed to Apple shops from New York to Australia on Thursday to mourn Steve Jobs, praising him as a visionary who transformed the daily activities of countless millions.

Flags outside Apple’s headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California, flew at half mast as mourners gathered on a nearby lawn. Distraught Apple fans left flowers and a man played the bagpipes.

“In my mind there is no difference between him and a Pasteur,” said Chitra Abdolzadeh, a healthcare worker in Cupertino, in reference to French chemist Louis Pasteur. Photos: Fans say farewell outside Apple stores Olive: Apple’s best days are in the past

Ben Chess, 29, an engineer at an Internet company and a former Apple intern, drove to the Apple HQ from San Francisco after work to lay a bunch of flowers. “It’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Jobs, who died on Wednesday aged 56, overturned the way users browse the Internet by giving them the iPod, iPhone and iPad. He had stepped down as chief executive of the world’s largest technology company in August.

Computer fans in China seemed particularly moved.

“I came here to see how they’ll operate on the first day after they had lost Steve Jobs,” Jin Yi, 27, said in China’s biggest Apple store in Shanghai, which opened last month.

“I also came here to mourn in my own way. It is such a pity today. He created these gadgets that changed people’s perceptions of machines. But he did not manage to witness the last step in which, through his gadgets, people’s lives can be effectively fused with these machines.”

In Hong Kong, Charanchee Chiu laid a single sunflower and white rose in front of the city centre Apple store.

“I am sad. I think he should have lived longer,” he said, acknowledging that he had sent messages to Jobs to advise him on health and Tai Chi, the Chinese form of martial arts reputed to improve practitioners’ well-being.

At the downtown San Francisco Apple store, people held pictures of Jobs aloft on iPads and taped greeting cards and post-it notes to the store window saying “thank you Steve” and “I hate cancer.” Candles and red apples were placed outside.

Store employee Cory Moll described Jobs as a personal inspiration. “We’re lucky to have had him for as long as we did,” said Moll, holding an iPad displaying a quote in memorial to Jobs.

“What he’s done for us as a culture, it resonates uniquely in every person. Even if they never use an Apple product, the impact they have had is so far-reaching.”

Across the country in New York City, an impromptu memorial made from fliers featuring pictures of Jobs was erected outside a 24-hour Apple store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, with mourners snapping photos of it on their iPhones.

“We will miss you Steve, RIP. Thank you for your vision,” read one flier.

Business professor Gary Hamel said he left for the store as soon as he found out about Jobs’ death.

“As soon as I heard the news, I came out to this Apple store to pay my respects,” he said, clutching the power cord he had just bought inside. “I saw tears in some people’s eyes.”

Outside an Apple store in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, two men laid candles, bouquets of flowers, an apple and, for a while, placed an iPod Touch on the ground.

At a Boston store, student Angelos Nicolaou said Jobs had “inspired us to be rebels and challenge the status quo. I hope there will be more leaders like him. It seems like the world is running out of them.”

In Sydney, Australia, lawyer George Raptis, who was five years old when he first used a Macintosh computer, made his way to the glass-panelled Apple store when he heard the news.

“He’s changed the face of computing,” he said. “There will only ever be one Steve Jobs.”

Some of those who flocked to Apple stores when they heard of Jobs’ passing were thinking of Apple’s future without its co-founder. The company named Tim Cook as its new CEO at the end of August when Jobs stepped down.

“They had a lot of time to prepare for the transition,” said Guilherme Ferraz, 44, a Brazilian businessman outside a Manhattan Apple store. “Tim Cook will continue his legacy.”

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Target is a victim of its own success.

The discounter drummed up so much hype around its exclusive, limited-time line by upscale Italian designer Missoni that its website crashed and was down most of the day on Sept. 13 when the collection was launched, angering customers. More than a week later, some shoppers who bought the Missoni for Target line are posting on social media websites Facebook and Twitter that they won’t shop at Target again because their online orders are being delayed

ST. THOMAS, ONT.

The Dow Jones industrial average is closing with its biggest gain in nearly two weeks.

Investors were picking up beaten-down stocks Tuesday after fears that the U.S. would slip into a recession pounded the market over the last month.

The Dow rose 322 points, or 3 percent, to close at 11,177. That’s its best day since it jumped 423 points Aug. 11. It dipped about 60 points shortly after the quake hit the East Coast in the early afternoon, but recovered within minutes.

The S&P 500 index rose 39 points, or 3.4 percent, to 1,162. The Nasdaq rose 101 points, or 4.3 percent, to 2,446.

Five stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Trading volume was higher than average at 5.2 billion shares.

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Hurricane Greg has gained a little strength as it heads farther out over the Pacific away from Mexico’s coast.

Meanwhile, a tropical depression formed Thursday night off the coasts of Honduras and Guatemala.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami says winds are at 35 mph (56 kph) and that the government of Guatemala has issued a tropical storm watch for its coast. Tropical storm force winds are also possible along the north coast of Honduras and the Bay Islands.

It is moving west and is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm.

Greg’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to 80 mph (130 kph) by late Thursday.

The Category 1 hurricane is expected to weaken more over the next couple of days as it heads over cooler waters.

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Police in London said Friday they have charged almost 600 people with violence, disorder and looting over deadly riots in Britain’s capital.

Across the country, more than 1,700 people have been arrested. Courts in London, Birmingham and Manchester stayed open through a second night to deal with alleged offenders.

Hundreds of stores were looted, buildings were set ablaze and several people died amid the mayhem that broke out Saturday in London and spread over four nights across England.

Victims include three men in Birmingham run down by a car as they defended their neighborhood. Police are questioning three suspects on suspicion of murder.

And detectives opened a murder inquiry after a 68-year-old a man found in a London street after confronting rioters died of his injuries late Thursday. A 22-year-old man was arrested Friday on suspicion of murder.

Police, meanwhile, hit back against claims they were too soft in their initial response to the disorder.

Prime Minister David Cameron said officers had been overwhelmed at first, outmaneuvered by mobile gangs of rioters. He said “far too few police were deployed onto the streets. And the tactics they were using weren’t working.”

That changed Tuesday, when 16,000 officers were deployed on London’s streets _ almost three times the number of the night before. Cameron said the extra officers will remain on patrol through the weekend.

Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, acknowledged that police had faced “an unprecedented situation, unique circumstances” _ but said it was police themselves, rather than “political interference,” that got the situation under control payday advance online.

“The more robust policing tactics you saw were not a function of political interference,” he told the BBC. “They were a function of the numbers being available to allow the chief constables to change their tactics.”

Britain’s Parliament held an emergency debate on the riots Thursday, with Prime Minister David Cameron promising authorities would get strong powers to stop street mayhem from erupting again.

He said authorities were considering new powers, including allowing police to order thugs to remove masks or hoods, evicting troublemakers from subsidized housing and temporarily disabling cell phone instant messaging services.

He told lawmakers that he would look to cities like Boston for inspiration, and mentioned former Los Angeles, New York and Boston Police Chief William Bratton as a person who could help offer advice.

Bratton said in a statement he’d be “pleased and honored” to provide services and counsel in any capacity, adding that he loves London and has worked with British police for nearly 20 years.

Cameron also said the government, police and intelligence services were looking at whether there should be limits on the use of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook or services like BlackBerry Messenger to spread disorder.

BlackBerry’s simple and largely cost free messaging service was used by rioters to coordinate their activities, Cameron’s office said.

Any move to disable the services temporarily is likely to be strongly opposed by civil libertarians.

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Stocks are closing lower after a warning about Portugal’s debt revived worries about Europe’s financial crisis.

Major indexes were mixed for much of the day but dipped in afternoon trading after Moody’s downgraded Portugal’s debt. The credit ratings agency cited concerns that Portugal will not be able to meet targets to reduce its deficit due to the “formidable challenges” the country is facing in cutting spending.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 13, or 0 payday loans.1 percent, to close at 12,569.87. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 2, or 0.1 percent, to 1,337.88. The Nasdaq rose 10, or 0.4 percent, to 2,825.77.

The number of stocks that rose was about the same as those that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Trading volume was very light at 3.4 billion shares.

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Centrue Financial Corp., the holding company for Centrue Bank, plans to move its stock listing from Nasdaq to the OTCQB on June 24.

The OTCQB is an electronic marketplace for stocks operated by OTC Markets Group Inc.

Clayton-based Centrue (Nasdaq: TRUE) announced the voluntary delisting from Nasdaq after markets closed on June 14. Centrue received a delisting warning from Nasdaq in February for failure to maintain a minimum one dollar per share price.

“After considering its available options to regain compliance and the costs associated with its Nasdaq listing, the company concluded that efforts to secure a continuation of the current listing of its common stock and the costs associated therewith were not in its best interests,” Centrue said in a statement. Centrue will cease trading on Nasdaq at the close of trading on June 23.

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