Through the Covid years, the cottage real estate market
moved at a breakneck pace. Properties were changing hands fast, prices were inflated, bidding wars ensued, the rental market exploded. Beyond the conditions of the purchases themselves, people were doing deals in ways we had never seen before, just to get into the market. Whether it meant buying a property sight unseen, selling to take advantage of peak prices, or buying vacant land with plans to build later, the pandemic saw a host of new real estate trends. But now that a bit of time has passed, we’ve emerged from the lockdowns, and back-to-office mandates have taken effect, how have pandemic-era buyers and sellers fared? Is cottage ownership all they dreamed of, or has the reality of all the work and the money involved set in?
In 2018, brothers Jacob and Ben Morris started hunting for a shared family cottage to buy. They had their hearts set on Sand Lake, in Kearney, Ont., where their childhood family cottage sat before it was sold in the early 2000s, after their parents divorced. Properties on the quiet, picturesque lake don’t exchange hands often, so they were open to buying a vacant lot. They waited until November of 2021, when one finally came up for sale, priced at $750,000. It was just under three acres, with more than 300 feet of frontage. With no other bidders, the Morrises negotiated the price down to $639,500.
“We paid a premium for it,” says Jacob. “Other pieces of land might have been less expensive, but they didn’t have the sentimentality attached to them.”
Initially, they planned to spend $850,000 to build a three-bedroom, 1,500-sq.-ft. cottage, ideally to be completed in a year. However, once they started reaching out to architects, they learned that supply chain issues, labour shortages, and high costs for materials were hampering builds. When the design process ended up taking longer than they expected, the Morrises realized it would be better to delay their build by a year for a smoother process.
During that time, Ben and his wife, Amanda, had a daughter. Meanwhile, Jacob decided he wanted to spend more time at the future cottage while continuing to rent in Toronto, so the Morrises expanded on their original design, adding a fourth bedroom and increasing the total size to 2,300 sq. ft., which also added to their build budget and their timeline. “We spent more time refining the design,” says Jacob. The additional space would accommodate Ben and Amanda’s growing family, while also making it easier to host larger groups of family and friends, as well as bigger rental groups.
Photo Courtesy of Jacob and Ben Morris
Any regrets?
Construction finally broke ground in May of 2023, with a projected completion date of this spring. Jacob says the process has been exciting, but stressful. “We really underestimated the amount of decisions that we would need to make,” he says. “Everything from the total square footage to the minute details of tiny electrical fixtures.”
Once complete, the Morrises anticipate spending $2 million overall on the land purchase, materials, and construction. It’s quite a bit more than they were anticipating to spend. Prices in the area have since gone down, but Jacob and Ben still feel confident in their decision. “Our plot of land is so rare in terms of frontage and being on the lake where we have a sentimental attachment,” says Jacob. “We could have found something else that was half the price or less, but it was worth it for us.”
Sandy Hunter, a New Brunswick native who was based in Toronto in 2021, had long dreamed of owning a cottage in his home province. But Covid restrictions prevented him from travelling back home to view cottages in-person.
Seeing the housing market climb in early 2021, Sandy was eager to buy. “I saw places getting snapped up in New Brunswick, and prices starting to rise between the summer of 2020 and the spring of 2021.” So he relied on his sister and brother-in-law, who live in Fredericton, to Facetime him from viewings and to give him peace of mind that trustworthy folks were seeing the places in person.
In March, Sandy purchased his French Lake, N.B., cottage for $220,000. “It was relief and joy,” says Sandy, of seeing the property for the first time. “I felt immediately at home.” Aside from the main cottage, the property also has a bunkie that sleeps three guests. “The bunkhouse is tucked up in the woods,” says Sandy. “You feel like you’re in evergreen Costa Rica. There’s a stream running by and birds chirping.” It’s a good spot to host friends and family when they’re visiting, but Sandy hopes to get the property up on Airbnb too. “It’s only used about three months a year,” he says.
Sandy’s original plan was to keep his Toronto rental and spend summers on the East Coast. But by the end of his first summer east in 2021, his plans changed. “It didn’t take me long to say, ‘I’m just gonna stay down here,’” says Sandy. “The whole reason I wanted this place was to keep my connection to New Brunswick.” He was able to move his work as a filmmaker and a producer, give up his place in Toronto, and rent a home in Fredericton, a 35-minute drive from his cabin.
Photo Courtesy of Sandy Hunter
“When we’re not filming, I can do a lot of my work on the deck,” says Sandy. “It’s been a creative hub for me and many of my colleagues. We’re able to write and plan out here. It’s a great place to get away from day-to-day life, in beautiful surroundings, with all of the things we need to work in comfort: Starlink internet, the ability to work on the screened-in porch, good plumbing.”
Since buying the property, Sandy has put some work into it, including drilling a new well to replace the old artesian water source (“There were frogs swimming in it, and algae,” says Sandy) and insulating the pipes for four-season use. He also swapped the bunkie’s compostable toilet with a standard toilet and added a sink to the kitchenette.
Housing prices on the East Coast have sky-rocketed since Sandy bought and relocated, and not just in cottage regions. “All of Atlantic Canada was flooded with people returning home and others coming in,” says Sandy. “I always knew this was a special place because I’m from here, but I think other people have discovered it too.”
Any regrets?
“I have zero,” he says. “It’s been a fantastic experience.” Despite his cabin now being worth more than $300,000, Sandy is holding on to it for the long run. “You’ll have to pry the keys out of my cold, dead hands,” he jokes.
Richard Jones and his wife, Heather, relocated from their home in Newmarket, Ont., six hours northwest to Sault Ste. Marie in June of 2021 with their two young children. At the time, they were able to buy a similar-sized house for a third of the price. This allowed them to free up funds to purchase a family cottage.
“We used to go to friends’ cottages, but then you’re reliant on the invite,” says Richard. “We wanted to have freedom to go whenever.”
The Joneses went cottage-hunting right after they moved, but they were surprised that the recreational real estate market around Sault Ste. Marie was still heated. “There’s a lot of demand for cottages in the area,” says Richard. “We know people that live in the Greater Toronto Area, Windsor, and London that have cottages here.”
By September of 2022, the Joneses finally found a cottage of their own on Lake Superior, just 45 minutes from their home in Sault Ste. Marie. “We got into a slight bidding war with one other couple for it,” says Richard. “We were surprised. We thought we’d have an easier time.” The couple managed to secure their cottage for $580,000.
Their efforts were worthwhile. In the summer of 2023, the Jones family spent most weekends at their cottage. “We’re very active,” says Richard. “We were on the water, paddling, swimming, and fishing. The kids love making s’mores around the campfire at night.”
Photo Courtesy of Richard and Heather Jones
Any regrets?
Owning a Toronto-area home and a cottage wouldn’t have been possible for the Joneses. And since the cottage is so close, Richard, who currently works for the city of Sault Ste. Marie as a marketing specialist, is able to make mid-week solo visits too. “I’ve gone a couple of times during the week to check out the aurora borealis,” says Richard. “I set my alarm and wake up at 6 a.m., then afterwards, I drive into work since it’s only 45 minutes away.” In the fall of 2023, the Joneses winterized their cottage, which gives them the option to use it during the off-season. “It’s been an incredible change,” says Richard. “It’s a massive improvement for our quality of life.”
In March of 2020, Cookstown, Ont.-based realtor Kristin Cripps had residential and cottage properties across Ontario in her investment portfolio, but she felt worried about the future. “Nobody knew what was going on with the world,” says Kristin. Two of her residential properties in Oro-Medonte had long-term tenants, and she was concerned about carrying multiple mortgages if her tenants couldn’t pay their rent. So, over the next few months, Kristin decided to sell the two properties in Oro-Medonte, and then, in 2021, another two-bed-plus-bunkie waterfront cottage in Bracebridge, and a one-bedroom cottage on the Trent-Severn. The latter property, listed at $399,999, garnered 71 bids (the most she’s ever received on a property she’s sold as a real estate agent—the next closest was 37 bids). It eventually sold for $777,777, a property she had originally paid $250,000 for in 2017. Kristin saw the opportunity to cash out and fund her next real estate venture. “The market was wild,” says Kristin. “I was excited. I thought it would sell for $550,000 or $625,000 at the most.”
Photo Courtesy of Kristin Cripps
Any regrets?
Since she sold that property in February of 2021, the market continued to grow. The Trent-Severn cottage was worth about $875,000 to $900,000 in the spring of 2022. “At that point, I was like, Crap, I should have held onto it,” says Kristin. Despite the market fluctuating, she has no regrets. “I thought, Hey, if I could make almost $500,000 in this short amount of time, why not?”
Kristin has turned her attention to a new kind of investment property—in 2022, she purchased a 32-unit motel in Orillia, Ont., and a 17-unit motel in Clinton, one hour north of London, Ont., plus, a third motel in Quebec in 2023. “I’ll renovate them when I have money and update the outdated spaces,” she says. It’s a big undertaking, but one she wants to see through. “I love decorating and turning drab to fab. I don’t have any plans to sell the motels in the foreseeable future,” she says.
When Justin Bellon and his wife, Ali, went shopping for a cottage at the beginning of 2021, they knew that their $950,000 budget would require some compromises. “We couldn’t afford the property without renting it out,” says Justin. “As much as this would be a family property, it would also be an income property.”
Having rented cottages with family and friends before, the Bellons knew what to look for when it came to a rentable property. “We were trying to keep our standards high,” says Justin. They wanted a spot that was less than three hours’ drive from Toronto, with three or four bedrooms, one or two bathrooms, and a gradual slope from the cottage to the water.
They ended up buying a three-bedroom, one-bathroom cottage on Poverty Bay in Magnetawan, Ont., in May of 2022. “We bought towards the end of the feeding frenzy, so we were able to negotiate,” says Justin. The Bellons loved that it was only two-and-a-half hours from Toronto. “It’s a very quiet lake—we didn’t realize how much we’d enjoy it,” says Justin. The interior was in good shape, but they renovated the kitchen, updated the appliances, and added a washer and a dryer, which would make it easier to clean linens for renters.
The renovations were complete by July 1, 2022, and the cottage was quickly booked up for the summer, mostly through Airbnb and the couple advertising through Facebook groups. “It was very competitive for renters. We had no problems renting it out.”
Photo Courtesy of Justin and Ali Bellon
Any regrets?
In 2023, as the cottage-buying market slowed down and international travel was returning to normal, the Bellons wanted to make sure they still had demand for their property. On a recommendation from another renter, the Bellons invited a few influencers to stay at their cottage for free in exchange for promoting the property. Justin also advertised the cottage more often, sometimes up to twice a day in active Facebook groups of people looking for rentals in Ontario. “We had to work a little bit more to get those rentals, but we had a very successful year,” says Justin.
When the Bellons bought their cottage, they knew they’d be missing out on peak cottaging season to maximize their rentals. But using the place primarily in the shoulder seasons has been a worthwhile compromise for them to have a cottage of their own. “We knew we wouldn’t be going up there as much for the first five or six years,” says Justin. “Once we have a nice buffer in our in our bank account, then we can start using it more in the summer.”
Andrea Yu is a journalist based in Toronto. She regularly writes Buy the Way, Cottage Life’s real estate column, in each issue.