I was reading through PwC and ULI’s 2016 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report this evening and a handful of charts stood out to me. They’re not all related to each other, which is why this blog post is called what it is. But I think you’ll find them relevant to many of the things we talk about on this blog.
1. Average home size by country
With all the interest today in “small urban spaces” it’s interesting to see that the average home size for half the countries on this list is somewhere between 500 and ~1100 sf. It’s also amazing to see Hong Kong hovering just below 500 sf.
2) The decline in homeownership in the US
I like to follow home ownership rates because there’s a lot of debate around whether or not this obsession with homeownership – which has been so central to the ethos of countries like the US and Canada – is at all falling out of a favor. This chart shows some pretty significant drops from previous highs.
3) Average home prices and the price to income ratio in major Canadian cities
Not surprisingly, Vancouver and Toronto are the top of this list with the highest average home prices and the highest price to income ratios (i.e. the worst affordability).
4) Drivers as a percentage of all commuters in the US
This chart is similar to what you would see if you looked at vehicle miles traveled. I’ve heard some people say that driving is now once again on the rise, but for the past decade and a half it’s been on a slow and steady decline.
5) Countries buying US real estate
Canada is a big buyer of US real estate. But with the dollar where it is today, I am sure that number is headed downwards.
I have started to meet with developers for my new book – becoming a real estate developer – and I can’t begin to tell you how impressive and inspiring it is to learn about their stories.
It’s easy to look at someone who is successful and feel overwhelmed by everything they’ve accomplished. But nobody starts at the top of their game (unless maybe they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth). Usually there’s a backstory of sweat and struggle that rarely gets told. As the saying goes: success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.
But those are exactly the kinds of things I hope to uncover with this little project. I am less interested in the successes and more interested in the early decisions, struggles, and thoughts that went into making those successes even possible.
And one thing I’ve noticed is a tendency to just go for it. In fact, when I asked one developer if he had any advice for young aspiring developers, he said: just fucking do it.
As soon as he said this I couldn’t help but think of my elementary school English teacher who used always tell us the same thing – minus the expletive – whenever we’d ask him something such as, how long should this paper be, should we focus on this or that, and so on. He would always say: What does Nike say? Just do it. No buts. Just do it.
At the time, I obviously didn’t give this much thought. But the fact of the matter is there’s so much value in doing. And it’s easy to overthink at the expense of doing. What he was teaching us was to have confidence in ourselves that we would figure it out along the way.
The reason there appears to be a lot of interest in “how to be a real estate developer” is because there isn’t really a set path. You don’t go to school, apprentice for a year under the wing of a developer and then, boom, you’re a developer.
Most developers have carved their own paths. They just did it.
Today’s blog post is coming to you live from Quantum Coffee at the corner of King and Spadina in Toronto.
I’m sitting by the window (where I keep running into friends) in a beautiful space that used to be an ugly youth hostel. Nice work Reflect Architecture and MAAST.
It’s my first time at Quantum, but I am so intrigued by all that is happening here that I feel compelled to share.
So Quantum is a coffee shop. The americano I had this morning was quite good. I hope to have another one sometime in the future. But there’s more to this story.
Quantum is actually just one leg of something bigger. Attached to it – literally upstairs – is something called BrainStation. And across the street from it is something called The Konrad Group.
The Konrad Group is a digital agency that does everything from brand strategy to mobile development. BrainStation teaches those same skills to other people via in-person courses in this recently renewed heritage space. And Quantum is the stimulant that helps fuel it all.
The connective tissue between these 3 businesses, which are all basically owned by the same poeple, is something that I find super fascinating.
It also feels like the intersection of design, technology, and space (real estate). And as many of you know, that’s what I’m all about.
I was reading through PwC and ULI’s 2016 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report this evening and a handful of charts stood out to me. They’re not all related to each other, which is why this blog post is called what it is. But I think you’ll find them relevant to many of the things we talk about on this blog.
1. Average home size by country
With all the interest today in “small urban spaces” it’s interesting to see that the average home size for half the countries on this list is somewhere between 500 and ~1100 sf. It’s also amazing to see Hong Kong hovering just below 500 sf.
2) The decline in homeownership in the US
I like to follow home ownership rates because there’s a lot of debate around whether or not this obsession with homeownership – which has been so central to the ethos of countries like the US and Canada – is at all falling out of a favor. This chart shows some pretty significant drops from previous highs.
3) Average home prices and the price to income ratio in major Canadian cities
Not surprisingly, Vancouver and Toronto are the top of this list with the highest average home prices and the highest price to income ratios (i.e. the worst affordability).
4) Drivers as a percentage of all commuters in the US
This chart is similar to what you would see if you looked at vehicle miles traveled. I’ve heard some people say that driving is now once again on the rise, but for the past decade and a half it’s been on a slow and steady decline.
5) Countries buying US real estate
Canada is a big buyer of US real estate. But with the dollar where it is today, I am sure that number is headed downwards.
I have started to meet with developers for my new book – becoming a real estate developer – and I can’t begin to tell you how impressive and inspiring it is to learn about their stories.
It’s easy to look at someone who is successful and feel overwhelmed by everything they’ve accomplished. But nobody starts at the top of their game (unless maybe they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth). Usually there’s a backstory of sweat and struggle that rarely gets told. As the saying goes: success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.
But those are exactly the kinds of things I hope to uncover with this little project. I am less interested in the successes and more interested in the early decisions, struggles, and thoughts that went into making those successes even possible.
And one thing I’ve noticed is a tendency to just go for it. In fact, when I asked one developer if he had any advice for young aspiring developers, he said: just fucking do it.
As soon as he said this I couldn’t help but think of my elementary school English teacher who used always tell us the same thing – minus the expletive – whenever we’d ask him something such as, how long should this paper be, should we focus on this or that, and so on. He would always say: What does Nike say? Just do it. No buts. Just do it.
At the time, I obviously didn’t give this much thought. But the fact of the matter is there’s so much value in doing. And it’s easy to overthink at the expense of doing. What he was teaching us was to have confidence in ourselves that we would figure it out along the way.
The reason there appears to be a lot of interest in “how to be a real estate developer” is because there isn’t really a set path. You don’t go to school, apprentice for a year under the wing of a developer and then, boom, you’re a developer.
Most developers have carved their own paths. They just did it.
Today’s blog post is coming to you live from Quantum Coffee at the corner of King and Spadina in Toronto.
I’m sitting by the window (where I keep running into friends) in a beautiful space that used to be an ugly youth hostel. Nice work Reflect Architecture and MAAST.
It’s my first time at Quantum, but I am so intrigued by all that is happening here that I feel compelled to share.
So Quantum is a coffee shop. The americano I had this morning was quite good. I hope to have another one sometime in the future. But there’s more to this story.
Quantum is actually just one leg of something bigger. Attached to it – literally upstairs – is something called BrainStation. And across the street from it is something called The Konrad Group.
The Konrad Group is a digital agency that does everything from brand strategy to mobile development. BrainStation teaches those same skills to other people via in-person courses in this recently renewed heritage space. And Quantum is the stimulant that helps fuel it all.
The connective tissue between these 3 businesses, which are all basically owned by the same poeple, is something that I find super fascinating.
It also feels like the intersection of design, technology, and space (real estate). And as many of you know, that’s what I’m all about.
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