Category: Development

• New Wellness Toilet by Toto will analyze your poop

  

  Toto announced a new product this month at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) called the Wellness Toilet. It won’t be available to consumers for at least several years, but the plan is for it to do two key things to improve overall health and wellness. It will scan your body when you sit on it and it will analyze your poop. (Not urine?) It will then make recommendations via your smartphone about how you might start to make better life decisions. Presumably this will include being more active and eating better. This, to me, feels like an obvious way to innovate around the toilet. If it were available today and it actually worked, I would likely be an early adopter. Either way, I look forward to hopefully including this in future development projects.

  Here’s more about the product from Toto’s press release:

  The WELLNESS TOILET uses multiple cutting-edge sensing technologies to support consumers’ wellness by tracking and analyzing their mental and physical status. Each time the individual sits on the WELLNESS TOILET, it scans their body and its key outputs, then provides recommendations to improve their wellness. There is no additional action needed, so people can easily check their wellness throughout their daily routine, every time they take a bathroom break. They will see their current wellness status and receive wellness-improvement recommendations on a dashboard in an app on their smartphones.

  The residential bathroom is the perfect place to support people’s wellness for a variety of reasons. First, although there are a number of other products that track individuals’ wellness (e.g., wearable devices), it is more convenient to monitor and analyze the body as a part of the everyday routine act of using the WELLNESS TOILET, to which individuals are accustomed. Second, toilets and people have two unique touchpoints that cannot be found elsewhere – the skin and human waste. The WELLNESS TOILET is in direct contact with individuals’ skin when they are sitting on it, and it analyzes the waste they deposit — a wealth of wellness data can be collected from fecal matter.

  Image: Toto

  2021.01.15

• Design makes everything better — architecture as product

  https://dmeb.castos.com/episodes/interview-with-david-wex

  My friend David Wex of Urban Capital Property Group — who I featured in my “BARED” blog series back in 2016 — was recently interviewed by architect Vincent Van den Brink (of Breakhouse) for the firm’s podcast called, Design Makes Everything Better. It’s a great listen and I particularly like the bit around branded vs. opportunistic real estate development. In the case of Urban Capital, David would describe his firm as being a branded developer. They build a specific product and it doesn’t really change when they build across Toronto and in other markets. Expect exposed concrete ceilings and exposed ducts, among other things. If you can’t see the embedded podcast above, you can have a listen over here.

  2021.01.14

• Toronto’s condo market in 2021

  “If everyone is going left, look right.” –Sam Zell

  The right time to buy things is usually when other’s aren’t, which is why I’ve felt that this year was a great time to buy a centrally located condo. Cities aren’t going anywhere. This isn’t their first pandemic. Downtown demand will return as soon as urban life returns and the majority of people are back in their offices next year.

  I’ve also been predicting that the run-up in single-family home prices that we have seen this past year here in Toronto will eventually lead to a surge in demand for condos (and perhaps even for larger suites). It’s a question of relative affordability. And so it was interesting to see Shaun Hildebrand of Urbanation predicting the same thing for 2021 in this recent Toronto Star article.

  Hildebrand thinks the soaring prices of single-family homes will also push more buyers back to the condo market.

  As of November, the average price gap between condos and detached houses was $596,000. The gap between a condo and a semi-detached or townhome was about $217,000. Both of those were at their second-highest levels since the market peaked in late 2016-early 2017, he said.

  “This could really start to swing demand towards condos in the second half of the year,” said Hildebrand.

  Realosophy data shows condo sales were already up year over year prior to the holidays — 23 per cent the first week of December, 31 per cent the second week and 72 per cent the week of Dec. 14. That means 727 condos sold that week, compared to 418 in the same week last year.

  2020.12.28

• Thinking differently and what courses to take in school

  When I was in grad school studying architecture and real estate, the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center used to run a regular lunch series with real estate executives. The way it worked is that executives would come in to the school and 15 or so students — all of whom were studying real estate — could sign up to have lunch with them in a boardroom. I can’t remember if the school provided us lunch or we had to bring our own, but either way, you had an hour to hear them talk about the industry and ask them whatever you wanted to know.

  One time somebody asked a question about what courses they should take outside of their business and real estate classes. And I’ll never forget what the executive said. His recommendation was to take courses that were as far away from business, finance, and real estate as possible. He said take fine art history classes, learn about ancient civilizations, or whatever. Just take classes that force you to think a little differently than everybody else.

  The reason, I think, this resonated with me so much was because I had a certain amount of academic insecurity at that moment in time. I was coming from an architecture and design background and my classmates were former investment bankers and management consultants, all of whom had a far better grasp of “the numbers” than I did. It meant that real estate recruiters didn’t want to talk to me because I was the square peg for their round hole.

  But being a square peg really motivated me.

  I remember walking into the program director’s office at that time and requesting that I be put into what was considered to be the more difficult real estate finance class offered at Wharton. He said that he didn’t recommend it. Non-MBAs (which I was at the time) can’t typically handle it. And if he put me into it, I would likely come back to him crying about how hard it was. I asked him to put me in it and said that I would come back to show him my “A.” He put me in it and, yes, I got an “A.”

  But at the end of the day, the point that this executive was making at the lunch was that the math and mechanics behind things like cap rates, IRRs, and DCFs is not rocket science. Real estate is not rocket science. You of course need to know how this stuff all works, but it is not the be-all and end-all. The other critical parts of this are more art than science. What are the assumptions that I am making as part of my analysis? What do I believe about the future of the world? To answer these questions, you need think critically and laterally. And having a different perspective can help you do exactly that.

  This was true back in 2008 and it’s still true today.

  2020.12.21

• How not to build missing middle housing

  Here is a good example of why “missing middle” housing is so challenging to build in Toronto, despite everyone talking about how great it would be if only we could build more of it.

  It’s the story of a minor variance application that was asking to sever a 50-foot lot at 2165 Gerrard Street East so that two semi-detached buildings and two laneway suites could be built. It would have added 10 family-sized rental units to a site that is on a streetcar line and that is within walking distance of both the subway and regional rail. And yet the consent to sever was denied.

  How come you ask?

  “I don’t believe dividing the property is in the best interest of the community,” said committee member Carl Knipfel, himself an architect and planner who complimented the beauty of the existing house and critiqued the design of the new buildings. “What is proposed is too dense … I really have serious concerns as to where this consent may lead us.”

  The last sentence is the best part.

  The article then goes on to argue that this is really all about the supremacy of single family homes and the desire to keep renters out of these neighborhoods. (Hey Airbnb, it’s not just short-term rentals that people have a problem with; it’s also long-term rentals.)

  The kicker, for Mr. Galbraith [the project’s planner], is he knows if he wanted to sever the lot for two single-family homes he could get that permission without delay and likely also get permission to build more than local zoning allows.

  “I can get variances for a one-unit McMansion every day of the week,” he said. “Lot coverage variances are very common; you want to take a bungalow down and make some big ugly house with a weird roof and a high first floor? You see those all over East York and Etobicoke.”

  If missing middle-type housing is “too dense” for sites that are endowed with every form of fixed rail transit that we have available in this city, then your guess is as good as mind as to where the hell it’s supposed to go. It’s time to grow up Toronto.

  2020.12.09

• I want an expensive condo

  The Globe and Mail published this headline today: “Developers building more small condos, despite people clamoring for more space.” It’s behind a paywall and so some of you may not have read it. But the data looks something like this. Of all the new condo project launches that happened this year in Toronto, studios and one-bedroom suites accounted for 61% of all new inventory, according to Urbanation. This is a higher percentage than what the market saw in 2019 and 2018, and this is despite the fact that many/most people are still working from home and would probably appreciate a bit more space.

  The short answer as to why this is happening is affordability. For years I have been clamoring for a dual aspect oceanfront penthouse on Miami Beach, but that time hasn’t come for me yet. Things cost money. And the downward pressure on unit sizes is a direct result of developers trying to ensure that their inventory is within the reach reach of buyers (there’s a sweet spot somewhere in the range of $500-700k right now). Developers are heavily incentivized to build what sells and rents, both quickly and at the highest price. That tends to be smaller units, especially early on.

  Where this goes in the future is anybody’s guess. But with the dramatic price increases that we have seen on the low-rise side of the market, I suspect that we’ll see a subsequent surge in demand for condos — maybe even larger condos.

  2020.12.07

• Site Magazine: Why have Toronto condos become so %@$#$! expensive?

  Every year my friends at Urban Capital publish an annual magazine called Site. And every year it contains some great articles about the real estate development industry across Canada. (Some of you may also remember that I’ve written a few articles for it in previous years.)

  Well this year’s issue is out and there are a few featured articles that I’d like to draw your attention to:

  • What happens when 175 (mostly) women get together to design a condominium? Link
  • How (not) to build a public park Link
  • Why have Toronto condos become so %@$#$! expensive? Link

  This last one is a topic that we have talked about many times before on the blog. But here, UC has provided a quantitative comparison between a project they did in 2005 and a project that they’re doing today in 2020. Here’s what they found:

  

  Average condo prices in the City of Toronto are up about 150%. But…

  Land costs are up 160%.

  Soft costs are up 118%.

  Construction and related costs are up 91%.

  Financing costs are up 93%.

  Government fees, charges, and taxes are up 413%.

  And development charges (a subset of the above) are up 3,244%!

  At the same time, the profit margin over costs is down about 45%.

  (As a point of comparison, CPI only increased by about 26.5% during this same time period.)

  The point here is that condos are so %@$#$! expensive largely because of cost-plus pricing. Government fee increases are also outpacing every other cost bucket.

  If you’re developing new housing in Toronto, you have no choice but to accept these rising costs. You have to pay development charges and you have to pay them when you’re told, even if that means swallowing some new massive increase.

  So by necessity, end prices get continually pushed as a way to try and absorb these costs. You figure out what your costs are going to be and then you price accordingly. But of course, you also have to ask yourself: Can people actually afford this kind of pricing and can this neighborhood support it?

  Sometimes the answer is yes, which is why development continues. But sometimes the answer is no. In this case, the next step is simple: you don’t build.

  2020.12.06

• Register your interest for One Delisle

  

  Toronto will soon be home to One Delisle — the first residential building in Canada designed by visionary architect, Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang.

  Jeanne Gang is known for challenging the stylistic and technical parameters of architecture. Named one of the most influential people in the world by TIME 100 in 2019, Gang is a MacArthur Fellow and a leading advocate for gender equality in the field of architecture and design.

  Gang and her eponymous studio are responsible for some of the world’s most diverse and compelling buildings and spaces. One Delisle, as seen in the rendering above, will break from convention and refresh Toronto’s skyline. The rhythmic exterior maximizes natural light, views, and outdoor living for residents.

  One Delisle was revealed this evening for the first time to a select group of Toronto’s top real estate brokers. Follow #onedelisle on IG for some of the reactions. It was done online via a livestream, which was exceptional for what it was, but is obviously not as great as being in one room together. That time will return.

  At this point, we are thrilled to announce that we are opening up “limited registration” for the project. If you’d like to register your interest, you can do that now at onedelisle.com. However, to register at this phase of the project, you’ll need to pay a one-time fee of C$150.

  Why are we doing that?

  We’re doing it to ensure that those who are genuinely interested in a One Delisle residence get first access to the project when it launches next year. Anyone who registers during this “limited registration” phase will be guaranteed a private appointment at our sales gallery before the general public.

  So what else do you get?

  In addition to first access — including first access to the project’s terrace suites — limited registrants will receive a copy of Studio Gang: Architecture (retail price, US$100), an invitation to our One Delisle Film Series, an invitation to our launch event (including a talk with Jeanne Gang), as well as other exclusive news and updates.

  The other thing I’d like to point out about the project’s website is that the animation you see on the homepage (pictured above) will, in fact, change depending on the time of day wherever you are and when you visit the website.

  This allows you to get a feel for how the architecture might respond to light and shadow throughout the day and how it might be illuminated at night. What you’re seeing above is an artist’s impression of that night view.

  For more information and to register your interest, visit onedelisle.com.

  2020.11.05

• A completely car-free neighborhood in Arizona

  The New York Times recently published this interesting piece about Culdesac and the completely car-free community that they are building just east of Phoenix in Tempe, Arizona (a place that is not generally known for its walkability). Culdesac calls itself the first “post-car real estate developer in the United States.” And so their Culdesac Tempe project has been designed to house 1,000 residents and exactly 0 cars.

  When the first phase is completed next year, residents will be restricted from having a car within the community and they’ll also be restricted from parking on any nearby streets. (This second stipulation was done to assuage concerns that a zero parking community would create a spillover effect in the surrounding area.) Instead, residents of Culdesac Tempe will rely on their local amenities, as well as on transit (it’s on a light rail line), biking, ride-sharing, and other forms of urban mobility.

  While this may seem kind of crazy for sprawling Arizona, the company’s thesis is both clear and clever. The future of American cities needs to be the kind of walkable urbanism that you find in places like the northeast. But at the same time, the fastest growing cities in the United States are generally in the Sun Belt. What they are doing is building walkable urbanism in the places where people clearly want to live.

  2020.11.02

• Urbanation releases Q3-2020 market update — new condo sales reach record high

  

  Urbanation just released its Q3-2020 market update for the Greater Toronto Area and the data is very encouraging for the new condo market. Here are some of the highlights:

  • There were 6,730 new condominium unit sales in Q3. This represents a 30% year-over-year increase.
  • More of this growth happened in the suburbs (905) with 3,834 units sales vs. 2,536 unit sales in the City of Toronto (416).
  • Of the 6,694 units that launched for sale in Q3, about 3/4 of them sold. This is the highest absorption rate since Q4-2017.
  • The average selling price for a new condo launched in Q3 was $1,044 psf (GTA average). This is up 3.5% compared to last year.
  • New launches in the suburbs sold for an average of $915 psf. New launches in the City of Toronto sold for an average of $1,275 psf.

  I reckon that many of the people purchasing right now are looking through and to the other side of this current macro environment. They recognize that things will get better and that the Toronto region will continue to thrive. That’s certainly how I’m thinking about it.

  For the full Urbanation news release, click here.

  Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

  2020.10.30