Around $600,000 the market opens up: this is roughly where a detached home in an established community stops being a compromise.
This band is where the third variable comes back. At $500,000 you pick two of space, location and condition. Around $600,000 you can usually have all three — provided you are flexible about which quadrant.
It is also the band where a legal secondary suite starts appearing regularly, which changes the affordability maths if you are open to a tenant.
$600,000 buys measurably different homes depending on where you look. The same budget stretches furthest in the northeast and parts of the southeast, and least far in the inner-city southwest. That is not a quality judgement — it is a statement about what you are paying for, which at this price is mostly proximity and established infrastructure.
Worth walking the quadrants before narrowing: NW, NE, SW, SE.