I renting currently, but my landlord recently told me he was starting to run into cashflow issues with the current interest rates and wants to sell the unit. His preference is that I buy the unit so we can both avoid using a realtor and minimize related expenses.

I wasn't previously looking to buy anything, but as a result of these circumstances was just checking if it was even feasible, but the numbers I'm seeing surprised me and this post is more asking for a sanity check than if it makes sense financially or not.

His asking price is $675k (and he wrote a page long essay justifying it, but in the local area I see listings for $575k-$700k for similar units at 600 sqft no parking). When I checked with the Big 5 banks' mortgage affordability calculators on their websites, I get a max mortgage range between $350k-$400k meaning I'd need a down payment of $275k-$325k to make up the difference excess for whatever closing costs.

But this is where my surprise comes in. In relative measures, my income is pretty good - from StatsCan, I'm above the 95th percentile of aggregate incomes for Toronto, higher when just looking at my age bracket. So I have a hard time understanding how anyone with lower income or younger than 30 to maybe even 35 is affording a place (I get some people might be buying it as a couple or are getting help from family, but it seems very dysfunctional if it requires two or more people to buy a 1-bdr unit), especially with the requisite down payment.

And it's not like the building or area I'm in was super desirable - it was the cheapest rent I could find 5 years ago because there wasn't a whole lot going on in this neighbourhood (still pretty much the same). And when I look at prices for comparable units north of the 401, it's still similarly priced.