Images courtesy Stas Development

Noble Square is a pocket in the West Town area, neighboring the Ukrainian Village and East Village. It's a growing community filled with artist and young professionals. More than half of the housing areas were built before 1910 and most residential developments before 1939. 

St. Boniface Catholic Church has been part of that vibrant community for 116 years. It has endured 3 decades of vacancy and was slated for demolition more than once. Thanks to a local developer it is now ready to start a new life as condominiums. 

As per the latest plan, Stas Development will convert the existing church into 17 condo residences and add a new structure adjacent to the church. The new building will include 24 condo

 And what does that mean for first time buyers?

 With housing prices having bottomed out more than five years ago, the economy has strengthened, and mortgage rates remain low. These seem to be perfect conditions for a strong spring market, but that's not what is happening.

What's holding the market back is the low number of houses for sale. Among the reasons for that condition is the fact that in the past few years more rental units than condominiums were developed and built. Another reason is that baby boomers, who thought about down sizing, decided to stay put and renovate instead. The reason that, in turn was that there was little inventor for them to buy. These trends pushed down the number of homes for sale to the lowest  level on record at