Back in April, the US Census Bureau started running weekly surveys in order to try and assess how COVID-19 was impacting people’s lives. They call this the “Household Pulse Survey.” They’re now up to week 12, with the latest data running up until July 21,… Read More
Urbanation released its Q2-2020 condo market survey results earlier this week. This data represents the first full quarter of sales to be entirely impacted by COVID-19. Not surprisingly, sales activity was way down. But pricing and construction starts actually increased. Here are some of the… Read More
The Journal published a piece this past week talking about China’s $52 trillion residential property bubble. According to a recent study by Goldman Sachs, this is the current value of all Chinese homes (built homes and developer inventory). And to put this number into perspective,… Read More
Condo developers are merchant builders. They build a project and then move on. Because of this, there’s a belief that there’s little incentive to build for durability, in comparison to say purpose-built rental buildings where the developer might continue to own over an extended period… Read More
Here is an interesting study about personalities and places (Journal article here and study here). It is interesting because so many of us are working from home and away from our regular environments. But it is also interesting because a lot of us, here on… Read More
Westmount Gaurantee hosted a Champagne tasting event for its clients this evening. Obviously it took place over Zoom. It was a great event and I learned a few things about Champagne. As most of you will know, sparkling wine cannot be called Champagne unless it’s… Read More
I recently discovered and subscribed to Packy McCormick’s “Not Boring” newsletter. So far it’s quite good, and so here I am mentioning it to you all on the blog. In his latest newsletter, he makes the case for why Airbnb and Zillow — the two… Read More
Our first shoring rig was delivered and setup today at Junction House. A second one is on the way shortly. It will take a couple of months to complete all of our caisson piles. If you’d like to learn about how shoring is constructed, check… Read More
The latest condo market data from Urbanation is encouraging. As I reported last month, April was a very slow month, which isn’t surprising given that it was the first full month of lockdown. Residential resales across the Greater Toronto Area were down 67% year-over-year. In… Read More
According to the WSJ, New York City is budgeting to collect $30.8 billion in property taxes for fiscal year 2021. These tax bills will go out on June 1 and payments will start becoming due on July 1, which is the start of the city’s… Read More
