Townhouses For Sale in Barrie

The Barrie line question: Allandale Waterfront or Barrie South?

If you are moving up from the GTA and still have to get into Toronto some days, sort out the commute before you look at a single townhouse. Barrie has two GO stations, and they serve different parts of the city.

Barrie South GO opened in December 2007 at 833 Yonge Street. It sits next to the Painswick and Innis-Shore townhouse areas, and it has a large surface lot. Allandale Waterfront GO opened in January 2012 on Essa Road at the foot of Kempenfelt Bay. It is the end of the line and is closer to Allandale, downtown and the older west-side streets.

The catch is that Barrie does not have all-day, two-way trains yet. On weekdays, trains run south to Union in the morning and back north in the afternoon. Outside those windows you take a GO bus to Aurora and change to a train there. Weekend service is a handful of trains each way. If you work a hybrid schedule with two or three office days, the peak trains work well. If you need flexibility at midday, plan on driving.

For drivers, Highway 400 runs through the middle of the city. The south-end townhouse pockets use the Essa Road and Mapleview Drive interchanges. The north-end complexes around Georgian College use Duckworth Street. Winter driving on the 400 north of the GTA is a real factor, and buyers coming from Mississauga or Vaughan sometimes underestimate it.

Why nearly every Barrie townhouse is in the south half

Barrie grew south in waves, and the townhouses followed. The old core around Kempenfelt Bay, including Allandale, Codrington and the east end, was built mostly before 1980 and is dominated by detached houses and low-rise apartments. Row housing there is scarce.

The big townhouse years came in the 1990s and early 2000s. Holly, in the far southwest, was added from Innisfil in the 1980s and was largely built out in the 1990s, with a meaningful share of row houses mixed into its subdivisions. Painswick North followed a similar timeline. Painswick South filled in mostly between 2001 and 2010, and Innis-Shore, along the south shore of the bay, mostly between 2001 and 2016.

What this means in practice: a typical Barrie townhouse is a two-storey freehold or condo row from roughly the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s, with an attached single garage, a short driveway and a fenced rear yard. That age bracket matters when you inspect. Many original furnaces, roofs and windows from the late 1990s are at or near the end of their life.

Downsizing into Barrie from a GTA house

A lot of Barrie townhouse buyers are not first-timers. They are owners selling a detached house in York Region or Peel and buying a smaller place with less upkeep, sometimes to be closer to family or cottage country.

A few things are worth knowing if that is you:

• Layouts are mostly two-storey. Main-floor primary bedrooms are uncommon in Barrie's townhouse stock. If stairs are a concern, ask specifically about bungalow towns or units with a main-floor bedroom; you may need patience or a wider search.
• Condo complexes take the outdoor work off your hands. Snow clearing and lawn care are often covered in condo townhouse fees, which matters in a city that gets more snow than most of the GTA. Freehold rows leave that to you.
• Health care is close. Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre is in the north end, near Georgian College, and a primary care campus has opened on Bayview Drive in the south end.
• The lake is part of daily life. Innis-Shore, Painswick North and Allandale are all a short drive from the south-shore waterfront trail and beaches.

Also budget for winter. From December 1 each year, Barrie restricts overnight on-street parking, so a two-car household in a townhouse with a single-car driveway needs a plan before the first snowfall.

New rows on the annexed lands south of Mapleview

On January 1, 2010, Barrie took in more than 5,000 acres from Innisfil under the Barrie-Innisfil Boundary Adjustment Act. Two secondary plans, Salem in the southwest and Hewitt's in the southeast, were approved in 2016 to guide how that land is built.

Servicing ran behind schedule, so construction only picked up around 2020 and 2021. Today the area shows up on listings as Rural Barrie Southeast and Rural Barrie Southwest, and much of what comes to market there is new or nearly new freehold townhouses from builders' subdivisions.

The plans call for mostly detached homes on smaller lots, with denser blocks of townhouses and some mixed-use areas. If you buy here, expect ongoing construction for years, roads and schools that are still catching up, and a Tarion new-home warranty if you are buying from the builder or early in the warranty period.

Freehold rows, common-element streets and older condo complexes

Barrie's townhouse stock splits three ways, and each comes with different paperwork.

• Freehold townhouses are the most common type in Holly, Painswick and the new south-end subdivisions. You own the lot, there is no monthly fee, and you handle your own roof, snow and repairs.
• Freehold with a common-element fee (POTL) shows up in some newer subdivisions where a private road or shared landscaping is run by a small condo corporation. The fee is usually modest, but you still need to review the condo documents.
• Standard condo townhouses are more common in older complexes in the north end, around Georgian Drive and Ardagh, and in a few south-end developments. The fee typically covers exterior maintenance and snow removal, and sometimes water.

Stacked and back-to-back townhouses are less common here than in the GTA, though some appear in newer projects. If you are coming from a GTA stacked town, a Barrie freehold row will feel like a big step up in space.

Barrie townhouse pockets compared

Renting out a south-end Barrie townhouse

Some buyers coming from the GTA keep their Barrie townhouse as a rental for a few years before moving in, or buy one outright as an investment. Demand comes from three main groups: Georgian College students and staff in the north end, hospital workers near RVH, and GTA commuters who rent near Barrie South GO before they buy.

A few local points to keep in mind. Many south-end freeholds have basements that could hold a second unit, but a secondary suite needs to meet the building and fire codes and be registered with the city before you rely on that income. Condo townhouse complexes can set their own leasing rules, so read the declaration first. And in a city with real winters, tenants will ask who clears the driveway and walkway. Settle that in the lease.

Before you firm up an offer in Barrie

• Order the status certificate for any condo or POTL townhouse, and read the reserve fund study. Complexes from the 1990s may be approaching roof and window replacement cycles.
• Check creek and ravine lots. Lovers Creek, Bear Creek and Hewitt's Creek run through townhouse areas. Lots that back onto them may fall under Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority rules, which can limit decks, sheds and additions.
• Ask about winter parking. Barrie has overnight on-street parking restrictions in winter. If a townhouse has a single-car driveway and you have two cars, know where the second one will go.
• Confirm the basement situation. Some south-end freeholds have finished or second-unit basements. Ask whether any secondary unit is registered with the city.
• For new builds, confirm the Tarion enrolment and the closing date, and ask the builder about occupancy before final grading and paving are done.