Today is the five year anniversary of this daily blog. That’s over 1800 posts. 

It’s almost hard to believe that it has been that long. It seems like just yesterday I was on year 2 or 3. But at the same time, it’s almost hard for me to remember a time when I didn’t blog every day. I guess we’re calling it a habit at this point.

One of the most common questions I get regarding this blog is: “Do you pre-write posts?” The answer is never. Okay, almost never. Sometimes I’ll pre-write a post if I know I’m going to be on a plane for 12 hours and I won’t make the timezone cutoff. But generally as a rule I don’t.

Part of the reason I don’t is because it breaks the habit. This is something I do every day. And I like that routine. I also want the posts to be timely and I want to be able to write about things that may be on my mind that day.

Momentum is a powerful thing. And when you’ve been doing something for a number of years, and especially something as public as this daily blog, there’s a powerful incentive to keep doing it. That’s how streaks work.

However, in the world of development, five years is perhaps not that long. It’s maybe one project. Streaks take a lot longer to establish.

This summer One Delisle by Studio Gang went public and you’re now starting to see (bright neon) teasers for Junction House. Both of these projects are many years in the making. The Junction House story started in early 2016.

So I reckon that this blog needs at least another five years so that there’s enough time for the really juicy stories to surface. I’ll endeavor to do exactly that. 

Thanks for reading and making this community what it is. See you tomorrow.

We just finished putting up some additional signage at the future sales office for Junction House. Clean and minimal, but fun. I am pretty pumped with the way everything turned out. Creative and photos by Vanderbrand. Instagram story mashup and failed neon photo by me.

This week I learned that properly photographing neon takes a bit of work. The neon “Junction House” sign is actually all white when you see it in person. Apparently it has something to do with the frequency. 

I’m going to go back one evening with my tripod and Fuji and see if I can do better.

Yesterday Urbanation released its Q2-2018 rental report for the Greater Toronto Area. It tracks both purpose-built rentals and condominium rentals, the latter being condominium units that are listed for rent on MLS. The average condo rent, for all unit types across the GTA, is up 11.2% year-over-year to a face rent of $2,302 per month.

Here is a chart from the Globe and Mail:

The former City of Toronto, which includes downtown, is actually up 13.5%:

But here are the stats that I really wanted to draw your attention to today (figures from the Globe).

According to Urbanation, there were some 384,000 condo apartments in the Greater Toronto Area in 2017 and nearly 1/3 of them were rented out. Given that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation pegs the total number of rental apartments in the GTA at approximately 311,596, condo apartments represent about 40% of all our rental housing stock.

So condo buildings are actually doing quite a bit of heavy lifting when it comes to providing rental housing in this region.