Dreaming of a lakeside cottage but can’t afford it? Co-ownership could open that door
A lakeview cottage with cosy rooms, a sandy beach nearby and a dock to gaze into the sunset was the dream for Corrine Evanoff.
“For years, I’ve been on this journey of trying to find a cottage that would work for us,” she said.
But Evanoff and her husband didn’t want to incur the burden of constant cottage maintenance — spending vacation days fixing decks and pruning trees. They opted instead to rent over the years, still hoping to one day buy.
Then, it happened. They found a cottage not too far from home — for a fraction of the price they thought they’d have to pay, thanks to fractional ownership.
Also called co-ownership, it allows people to buy a share of a property with others, whether it’s family, friends or even strangers.
Affordability sits at the heart of fractionally owned cottages. Many Canadians still find themselves priced out of the market, even as cottage prices have declined from peaks seen during the pandemic.
Re/Max brokers and agents anticipate a national average price increase of about 1.8 per cent across the Canadian recreational market in 2025, a May report by the real estate firm, showed.
On their first visit to check out a prospective cottage last fall, Evanoff recalled walking into a lake-facing cottage with large windows at Frontenac Shores in Cloyne, Ont., about 300 kilometres northeast of Toronto, and was sold.
“We sat in these Muskoka chairs on the beach and our feet are in the water, and I just felt the stress shredding off me,” she said.
“This is the dream that I’ve been dreaming for all these years … and this is within reach.”
Evanoff and her husband now own one-tenth of a million-dollar cottage, costing them less than $100,000 for their share — and affording them five weeks a year at the property.
Fractional ownership of a cottage is not like a timeshare, said Realtor Mike Lange, who has been dealing with co-owned cottages for about seven years in Kawartha Lakes, Ont.
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“With a timeshare, you put your name in requesting a location, you have no guarantee that that’s going to be available,” he said. “There’s been a lot of heartaches over them over the years.”
Timeshare properties can be owned by for-profit corporations, leaving less autonomy for those staying there.
Don Smith, who co-owns a property in Kawartha Lakes, bought into a cottage in the mid-2000s after he saw a newspaper ad about fractional cottage ownership.
“I was in the staff room reading the newspaper as a mathematics and computer studies teacher,” he recalled. “As a math teacher, that caught my eye: What’s this fraction all about, this cottage, this idea?”
For the Smiths, fractional ownership wasn’t a financial investment but a lifestyle investment that has paid off over the past two decades.
“This is where my daughter learned to swim, that’s where my daughter learned to kayak, that is when my daughter had learned to appreciate animals.”
But it may not be for everyone.
Smith said fractionally owned cottages are usually 100 per cent debt-free. That means new co-owners typically can’t secure a mortgage against the property from traditional banks and will have to rely on personal loans or a line of credit to buy their share.
Personal touches to the cottage can also be missing with fractional ownership and people can’t just show up at any time, he said.
“It’s not like you can personally put all your favourite pictures and put all of the junk that you don’t want in your home garage and take it up there and leave it,” Smith said.
Real estate developer John Puffer has years of experience building cottages and selling them in fractional ownership arrangements in Ontario’s cottage country regions.
When he first got into the business, Puffer assumed the buyers would mostly be people in their 30s with young families. Instead, they happened to be people in their 50s and 60s, buying cottage shares for their adult children and grandchildren, or people who don’t want to commit the dollars and worry about maintenance.
“That is part of the Canadian cottage experience in Ontario … that’s where families congregate at the cottage and (it’s) multi-generations,” said Puffer, president of Chandler Point Corp.
Tanya Walker, litigation lawyer and managing partner at Walker Law, suggests potential buyers should get a good contract lawyer and treat the contract “as if it’s a pre-nuptial agreement” before signing on to be a co-owner.
She said buyers going into fractional ownership should ask questions about who the other co-owners are, the voting rights people get for their share and what happens when they want to sell their stake.
Walker added it’s also important to look into who manages the property, the financials of the property as well as how much time you’ll get to use the cottage and when.
Puffer said people really have to understand what they’re buying into. He suggested people read the contract and find out who’s in control, what their obligations are, and talk to people who already own.
For Evanoff and her husband, it will be their third time heading up to the Frontenac Shores cottage next month.
“It’s like, wow! That just seems like a gift,” she said.
“This (fractional ownership) seems like the best-kept secret but I think it’s going to catch on … and you’re going to see a lot of people tap into this market.”
A new poll by Leger has found that Quebec residents are the happiest in Canada.
The web survey of nearly 40,000 Canadians found that Quebecers rated their happiness at an average of 72.4 out of 100, which is well above the national average.
New Brunswick followed Quebec with an average of 70.2, while Manitoba and Prince Edward Island finished at the bottom of the list.
Mississauga, Ont. had the highest happiness rating of the 10 largest cities, while Toronto was lowest.
Montreal finished second in the category.
The survey found that 49 per cent of respondents said their happiness level was unchanged over the past year, while 23 per said they were happier and 28 per cent said they were less happy.
“These results reveal a population that is both resilient and tested, affected by everyday uncertainty and challenges,” Leger’s executive summary read. “Happiness, while holding its ground overall, shows signs of fragility.”
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The survey found that people in the 18-to-24 and 24-to-34-year-old categories were more likely to report improved feelings of well-being, even if their overall happiness score remained below the national average.
In contrast, people in the 35-to-44 and 45-to-54 age brackets were more likely to report their happiness had deteriorated.
“There is a sense of well-being emerging among younger age groups,” the summary read. “However, this also highlights the importance of supporting adults in mid-life, who are more vulnerable to the pressures of working life.”
Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador were the three provinces with happiness levels above the national average of 68.7. They were followed, in descending order, by Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba and P.E.I. The territories were not included in the survey.
In the survey of the 10 largest cities, Mississauga and Montreal finished ahead of Hamilton, Calgary, Brampton, Ottawa, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto, in that order.
Women reported slightly higher happiness levels than men, at 69.4 versus 68.0.
Leger says the overall results confirm “a level of happiness that is relatively high but stagnant or even slightly down compared to the pre-pandemic period.”
To get the results, Leger surveyed 39,841 Canadians aged 18 and up between March 31 and April 13.
Online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
Ontario Provincial Police are set to host a town hall in Quadeville, Ont., this evening to answer questions from residents about an attack on an eight-year-old child that was initially linked to an animal.
Police have arrested a 17-year-old boy in the case and he faces charges of attempted murder and sexual assault with a weapon.
Members of the small community 170 kilometres west of Ottawa say they were in shock after hearing about the arrest and hope to get clarity at today’s event in the town’s community centre.
Local resident Christine Hudder says she wants to know how police came up with the animal attack theory and why families were told for days to keep their children indoors.
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The victim was found with life-threatening injuries on June 24 after she was reported missing, and remains in hospital.
Police say they are planning to give as much information as possible to locals given that an investigation is still underway.
A Burlington, Ont., mother was unsettled to discover that an old photo of her children had been used in a fraudulent GoFundMe that attempted to elicit donations in connection the recent Texas floods.
Julie Cole told Global News that a friend had contacted her on social media to say that an old photo of her six children was being used in an attempt to collect ill-gotten gains.
“She reached out to me and she was like, ‘Hey, here’s a link to a GoFundMe. Sorry this has happened to you, but obviously a picture of your kids has been used without your consent and it’s being used for a GoFundMe to raise money, to help a family dealing with the Texas floods,’” she said.
Cole explained that the fake GoFundMe, which has since been removed by the company, was looking for donations to support a widowed mother of six kids in connection.
At least 120 people have died while more than 100 others remain unaccounted for as a result of the flooding, including 27 children and councilors from Camp Mystic.
“They were trying to raise $40,000 because of the three daughters had been victims of the Texas floods,” Cole said. “And the way it was presented felt very much like they were part of maybe that girl’s camp.”
Julie Cole told Global News that a friend had contacted her on social media to make that an old photo of her six children was being used in an attempt to collect ill-gotten gains.
Provided
Cole said once the listing was sent to her, she immediately contacted GoFundMe to get the fundraiser taken down.
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By Wednesday morning, the company had done so and in a statement to Global News, GoFundMe said that the fundraiser did not receive any donations and the account has been banned from creating any further fundraisers on the platform.
“GoFundMe has the most robust donor protection processes of any platform of our kind. We have round the clock trust and safety support, humans and technology making sure funds will get to where they are intended,” the statement offered.
After contacting the company, Cole said she shared the incident on her social media pages to raise awareness.
“So I did put it on my Facebook and I put it in my LinkedIn as like a heads-up learning experience kind of thing and there was a lot of outrage,” she said.
Cole also noted that while she is disappointed by the incident, she is well aware that her troubles are miniscule in comparison to those affected by the flooding.
“I do feel a little bit in myself that what I’m feeling is in no way comparable to what the actual families are feeling who have gone through the tragedies of the flooding,” she said.
The photo came from an old blog post she had written 16 years ago. Cole can date the picture as the baby in the photo is now getting ready to go for his driver’s test.
“I’m one of those, like, OG mommy bloggers from 20 years ago. So my kids have been on the internet. They have been sort of in the public eye,” she explained.
“And I know the risk is out there. And I think parents need to remember that, that their kids’ photos can be just screenshotted and used without consent. So there’s one lesson.
“I felt a little, well, very unsettled about it, particularly because of what it was being used for.”
In addition to being a parenting blogger, she also helped found Mabel’s Labels, which offers washable labels for kids clothing and other school items, in an effort to keep them out of the lost and found.
Julie Cole and her six kids in 2025.
Provided
Being a spokesperson for the company while raising six kids keeps her in the parenting sphere and she offered some other advice to parents about the images and social media.
“I think parents just have to be mindful and aware that once it’s out there, you know you’d like to think you’ll get consent or you’ll give consent if somebody asks or they want to use it, but people will just take it and they can just take,” she said.
“You have to be especially careful now with AI, because these photos can be altered.”
She also warned parents to check with their kids as they get older to see if they are OK with pics being posted and that people should be mindful of where they are sharing their donations.
“Another lesson out of this is people need to really be cautious and know where they’re putting their fundraising dollars,” Cole said.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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