Oftentimes, it feels like there is a perception that developers price new housing with the fattest of margins. Meaning, if only developers were less greedy, housing could be more affordable. But as we have spoken about many times before, real estate development is a competitive… Read More
All posts filed under “development”
Toronto’s Major Streets Study approved at Planning and Housing Committee
Back in March, we spoke about how Toronto wants to allow small-scale apartments on all of its major streets. Well today, this study — known as the Major Streets Study — passed at Planning and Housing Committee. It still has to pass at Council. And… Read More
Architecture as a product
Construction is generally considered to be the world’s largest industry, and yet, it is well known that its productivity levels suck. Over the last half century, the industry has experienced something in between meager and negative productivity growth. It is for this reason that, for… Read More
Unclear and unknowable
Development land, as we often talk about on this blog, should be the residual claimant in a pro forma. Meaning, start with your revenue, subtract your costs and required margin, and then see how much money is leftover to pay for the land. This is,… Read More
Toward more rental housing
The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area is expected to see 6,821 new rental homes completed this year. This is a “multi-decade high”, according to Urbanation’s latest rental report. Indeed, you need to go back to the 1970s to get rental supply figures of this magnitude.… Read More
Open-air corridors and exterior exit stairs
Montreal is, in many ways, a city of winding exterior stairs. If you’ve been there, then you know. The city is overwhelmingly a city of low-rise apartments (less than five storeys). And with these, comes lots of exterior circulation. But this tradition doesn’t just apply… Read More
How big (or small) are your parking spaces?
There is an ongoing architecture/development joke that the way you design a building is by first starting with the parking. Once you’ve figured out how the parking will work, you can then move on to, you know, the secondary stuff, like figuring out how actual… Read More
New York’s first all-electric tower
Here’s the thing: Nationwide, the biggest single source of emissions is transportation, dominated by low-occupancy cars and trucks. But in New York, most people use mass transit instead of driving. That means buildings “are by far the largest source” of climate pollution in the city, said… Read More
Investors vs. end users
Over the years, we have spoken a lot about the role that investors play in Toronto’s pre-construction condominium market. In the media, they are often spoken about pejoratively. They are seen as being a well-capitalized group that outbids end-users for a limited supply of new… Read More
More sellers than buyers
This week, Urbanation released its condominium market update for Q1-2024. And I’d like to point out two data points. Firstly, across the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area (GTHA), there were 1,461 new condominium sales for the quarter. This is the lowest quarterly total since Q1-2009… Read More