Oakville homes asking $1 million and more, up to $1.5 million

The core decision in this band is between an older detached house with land and an updated townhouse with none. The detached house in Falgarwood or Bronte gives you a fifty or sixty-foot lot, a garage or carport, and a building that may need a kitchen, windows, a roof and the electrical panel over the next decade, plus the option of adding a storey or rebuilding later. The townhouse, whether an end unit in Westmount or a new three-storey in Joshua Meadows, gives you a finished, warrantied or recently updated home with less to maintain and a monthly fee where a condominium or POTL structure applies. Families with a renovation budget and patience lean to the house; buyers hoping to unpack and be done lean to the row.

Houses from the fifties through the seventies dominate the detached side of this band, so a careful inspection pays. Ask about wiring that is aluminum or knob-and-tube, galvanized supply pipes, an underground oil tank on some of the older lakeside streets, asbestos in duct wrap and floor tile, urea-formaldehyde insulation in seventies houses, and when the sewer lateral to the street was last replaced. Check the basement for water staining and the grading around the foundation. On ravine and creek lots, confirm whether Conservation Halton regulates the property. If your long-term plan is a second storey or a new build, have a designer review the zoning for that street, since height and coverage limits differ across Oakville's older neighbourhoods.