When I was in grad school studying real estate, I remember one of my professors once making a joke about the lifecycle of developers. He said that developers usually start by first doing a small project. Then they take the profits from that project and roll them into a bigger project. Once that is done, they take those profits and roll them into an even bigger project. And then they go bankrupt.

The point he was trying to make was that development is a risky business. One of the reasons for this — and there are countless reasons — is that projects take a long time. This means that during the regular course of a project, it is not unusual to be faced with a handful of very different markets. And during these varied market conditions, you are likely going to make different decisions (and wish you had made different decisions).

Take, for example, land.

One of the customary ways to buy development land in Toronto during the last cycle was to pay for it with the help of a land loan. Land loans are not based on any sort of debt service coverage ratio because, typically, there isn't enough (or any) income to actually service the loan. It's all based on the land's future potential.

Instead what happens is that you forecast how long you'll need to hold the land, you budget for the interest costs during this period, and then you convince yourself that you'll be able to "take out" this loan in the future — typically by way of a construction loan or by selling the land to someone else. Unless you have the resources to land bank, you are implicitly making the assumption that there will be a market in the future.

This assumption works great in a rising market because the land often continues to appreciate (sometimes regardless of your actions) and usually you or someone else can create a productive use for it. But if the music stops during this period, it can be problematic, because now you may only have one way out:

The new Finch West LRT line opened this past weekend in Toronto. This is a 10.3-kilometer transit line that runs from Humber College to Finch West subway station, and replaces a bus route that was previously one of the busiest in the city.

It's also a line that dates back to 2007. I vividly remember reading about this proposal while I was in grad school in the US. Some of you might remember that it was part of Mayor David Miller's Transit City proposal. Since then, the project got cancelled and revived at least once, which is partially why it took some 18 years to complete.

Transit openings are typically exciting. A bunch of people lined up on Sunday morning in the cold to be first to ride it. I slept in instead of doing that, but I do fancy myself a transit nerd. Whenever I'm in a new city, I always try to take (or at least test out) their transit system.

And when the Eglinton LRT finally opens, I do have aspirations to ride from end to end while spinning house and techno music from the rear car. (I have yet to reach out to the TTC to see if they might be interested in accommodating such an activity.)

But it's not all excitement. Now that the Finch line is open, the customer reviews are in and the general consensus seems to be that it sucks:

A CBC Toronto reporter rode the entire 10.3-kilometre line from east to west Monday morning, finding it took roughly 55 minutes to complete. As a reference point, over 400 runners ran this year's Toronto Marathon 10-kilometre event in under 55 minutes.

CBC Toronto's eastbound return trip to Finch West Station was about eight minutes shorter, clocking in at roughly 47 minutes. Still, several riders Monday told CBC Radio's Metro Morning that the previous bus route on Finch Avenue W. was faster and had more stops along the way, making it easier to access.

So now Torontonians are rightly questioning why our various levels of government spent ~$3.75 billion and took 18 years to build a line that performs worse than what was already there. Hmm. Good question.

When I was in grad school studying real estate, I remember one of my professors once making a joke about the lifecycle of developers. He said that developers usually start by first doing a small project. Then they take the profits from that project and roll them into a bigger project. Once that is done, they take those profits and roll them into an even bigger project. And then they go bankrupt.

The point he was trying to make was that development is a risky business. One of the reasons for this — and there are countless reasons — is that projects take a long time. This means that during the regular course of a project, it is not unusual to be faced with a handful of very different markets. And during these varied market conditions, you are likely going to make different decisions (and wish you had made different decisions).

Take, for example, land.

One of the customary ways to buy development land in Toronto during the last cycle was to pay for it with the help of a land loan. Land loans are not based on any sort of debt service coverage ratio because, typically, there isn't enough (or any) income to actually service the loan. It's all based on the land's future potential.

Instead what happens is that you forecast how long you'll need to hold the land, you budget for the interest costs during this period, and then you convince yourself that you'll be able to "take out" this loan in the future — typically by way of a construction loan or by selling the land to someone else. Unless you have the resources to land bank, you are implicitly making the assumption that there will be a market in the future.

This assumption works great in a rising market because the land often continues to appreciate (sometimes regardless of your actions) and usually you or someone else can create a productive use for it. But if the music stops during this period, it can be problematic, because now you may only have one way out:

The new Finch West LRT line opened this past weekend in Toronto. This is a 10.3-kilometer transit line that runs from Humber College to Finch West subway station, and replaces a bus route that was previously one of the busiest in the city.

It's also a line that dates back to 2007. I vividly remember reading about this proposal while I was in grad school in the US. Some of you might remember that it was part of Mayor David Miller's Transit City proposal. Since then, the project got cancelled and revived at least once, which is partially why it took some 18 years to complete.

Transit openings are typically exciting. A bunch of people lined up on Sunday morning in the cold to be first to ride it. I slept in instead of doing that, but I do fancy myself a transit nerd. Whenever I'm in a new city, I always try to take (or at least test out) their transit system.

And when the Eglinton LRT finally opens, I do have aspirations to ride from end to end while spinning house and techno music from the rear car. (I have yet to reach out to the TTC to see if they might be interested in accommodating such an activity.)

But it's not all excitement. Now that the Finch line is open, the customer reviews are in and the general consensus seems to be that it sucks:

A CBC Toronto reporter rode the entire 10.3-kilometre line from east to west Monday morning, finding it took roughly 55 minutes to complete. As a reference point, over 400 runners ran this year's Toronto Marathon 10-kilometre event in under 55 minutes.

CBC Toronto's eastbound return trip to Finch West Station was about eight minutes shorter, clocking in at roughly 47 minutes. Still, several riders Monday told CBC Radio's Metro Morning that the previous bus route on Finch Avenue W. was faster and had more stops along the way, making it easier to access.

So now Torontonians are rightly questioning why our various levels of government spent ~$3.75 billion and took 18 years to build a line that performs worse than what was already there. Hmm. Good question.