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<\/a><\/p>\nPhoto: Mary Nikles<\/em><\/p>\n During her home renovations last week, Toronto real estate agent Mary Nikles got an unexpected snapshot of her city\u2019s real estate past.<\/p>\n Beneath the old flooring, contractors discovered a 1911 issue of The Evening Telegram, the Toronto Star\u2019s long-defunct conservative competitor, and with it, real estate listings from more than a century ago.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to see a hat advertised for 25 cents, but to see the prices for the properties,\u201d she tells BuzzBuzzNews, trailing off.<\/p>\n Torontonians today may be speechless when they see the home prices, too.<\/p>\n A six-room detached house on Hastings Avenue in what is now known as Leslieville was listed for $1,850 as of July 8th, 1911.<\/p>\n Fast forward to earlier this year, and a detached home on that very same street sold for $1,555,556, well over asking, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board\u2019s listing system.<\/p>\n That\u2019s slightly above the average sale price of a detached home in Toronto proper as of May 2017.<\/p>\n Sure, inflation over a century is a factor to consider. But given the average male wage earner took home roughly a third of the price of that Hastings freehold annually \u2014 $687 a year, to be exact, according to Statistics Canada<\/a> \u2014 there\u2019s little debate Toronto low-rise housing was more affordable in the early-20th century.<\/p>\n But even more than the prices (another weathered page advertises \u201csome choice lots\u201d in Long Branch for $400) the descriptions of neighbourhoods amazed Nikles.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was one ad for St. Andrews Gardens in Rosedale as the cheapest lots in town, and I was like, \u2018What? That was cheap at one time? Like, wow,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Today, the Rosedale neighbourhood is home to some of the most expensive real estate anywhere in the country.<\/p>\n Another Evening Telegram listing refers to Lawrence Park in midtown Toronto as the suburbs, a classification even the most-myopic downtown dweller would be hard-pressed to defend.<\/p>\n The ads also make for good local trivia. From one, Nikles learned that the Pocket, a \u201ctrendy\u201d east-end community at Danforth and Jones was once called East Mount Park. \u201cI thought people in the Pocket would find it amusing,\u201d says Nikles.<\/p>\n Check out some other pages from Nikles’ dusty broadsheet below.<\/p>\n