Shane Dingman's recent Globe and Mail article about "the investment case for mid-rise condos" is a good summary of why this housing type has become so popular in Toronto.

Mid-rise buildings tend to attract more end-users because of their boutique scale. That is, they attract people who plan to move into the building once it is built, as opposed to buyers who plan to rent out their unit. We are certainly seeing this with purchasers at Junction House.

Because of their generally smaller scale and because they are often built in mature neighborhoods with few opportunities for new construction, supply of new mid-rise housing also tends to be limited. That bodes well for future price appreciation.

Here's a quote from Shaun Hildebrand (President of Urbanation), taken from the above Globe article. (Sorry, it's behind a paywall.)

“Price growth between the two building types [mid-rise and high-rise] began to converge in 2018, and in Q1-2019, buildings under 12 storeys saw average resale prices per square foot grow 10 per cent year-over-year, compared to 6.5 per cent for buildings of 12 or more storeys,” Mr. Hildebrand said. “We may be now entering back into a period of outperformance of mid-rise buildings as the market is shifting.”

"Cities have become the basic platforms for global innovation and economic growth, supplanting the corporation as the fundamental organizing unit of the contemporary economy." -Richard Florida

Richard Florida and Patrick Adler of the Martin Prosperity Institute here in Toronto have been doing some research on what they are calling "urban tech." They define it as encompassing the following industry sectors: co-living and co-working; mobility; delivery; smart cities; construction tech; and real estate tech.

Here are the largest urban tech startups based on the amount of VC investment they have received:

Below is how the space breaks down by sector. Mobility / ride hailing is the behemoth, receiving 61% of all VC investment. Food delivery is next. And "proptech" is at the bottom.

Finally, here are the top "urban tech" cities. Beijing is right up there with San Francisco.

For more information on the study, click here.

Tables: CityLab

Shane Dingman's recent Globe and Mail article about "the investment case for mid-rise condos" is a good summary of why this housing type has become so popular in Toronto.

Mid-rise buildings tend to attract more end-users because of their boutique scale. That is, they attract people who plan to move into the building once it is built, as opposed to buyers who plan to rent out their unit. We are certainly seeing this with purchasers at Junction House.

Because of their generally smaller scale and because they are often built in mature neighborhoods with few opportunities for new construction, supply of new mid-rise housing also tends to be limited. That bodes well for future price appreciation.

Here's a quote from Shaun Hildebrand (President of Urbanation), taken from the above Globe article. (Sorry, it's behind a paywall.)

“Price growth between the two building types [mid-rise and high-rise] began to converge in 2018, and in Q1-2019, buildings under 12 storeys saw average resale prices per square foot grow 10 per cent year-over-year, compared to 6.5 per cent for buildings of 12 or more storeys,” Mr. Hildebrand said. “We may be now entering back into a period of outperformance of mid-rise buildings as the market is shifting.”

"Cities have become the basic platforms for global innovation and economic growth, supplanting the corporation as the fundamental organizing unit of the contemporary economy." -Richard Florida

Richard Florida and Patrick Adler of the Martin Prosperity Institute here in Toronto have been doing some research on what they are calling "urban tech." They define it as encompassing the following industry sectors: co-living and co-working; mobility; delivery; smart cities; construction tech; and real estate tech.

Here are the largest urban tech startups based on the amount of VC investment they have received:

Below is how the space breaks down by sector. Mobility / ride hailing is the behemoth, receiving 61% of all VC investment. Food delivery is next. And "proptech" is at the bottom.

Finally, here are the top "urban tech" cities. Beijing is right up there with San Francisco.

For more information on the study, click here.

Tables: CityLab