Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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Brandon DonnellyCanada must become a global superpower
The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada. According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of...
Brandon DonnellyThe bank robbery capital of the world
Between 1985 and 1995, Los Angeles' retail bank branches were robbed some 17,106 times. In 1992, which was the the city's worst year for robberies, the number was 2,641. This roughly translated into about one bank robbery every 45 minutes of each banking day. All of this, according to this CrimeReads piece by Peter Houlahan, gave Los Angeles the dubious title of "The Bank Robbery Capital of the World" during this time period. So what caused this? Well according to Peter it was facil...
Brandon DonnellyThe story behind those pixelated video game mosaics in Paris
If you've ever been to Paris, you've probably noticed the small pixelated art pieces that are scattered all around the city on buildings and various other hard surfaces. Or maybe you haven't seen or noticed them in Paris, but you've seen similarly pixelated mosaics in one of the other 79 cities around the world where they can be found. Or maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Huh? Here's an example from Bolivia (click here if you can't see...
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The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (US) created something known as Opportunity Zones. These are low-income and high-poverty census tracts that are designed to attract investment by offering a number of different tax benefits. I first wrote about it on the blog, here.
Now that some time has passed since the final Opportunity Zones were announced, Zillow Economic Research decided to look at the possible impact of this designation on real estate values. In other words: To what extent, if at all, are the tax benefits getting capitalized into the value of the properties?
Below is a chart showing the year-over-year change in the 12-month moving average sale price for low-income census tracts that were (1) eligible and selected as an Opportunity Zone; (2) eligible and not selected; and (3) not eligible.
My understanding is that the "not eligible" category represents census tracts with similar characteristics to the other two categories but, for whatever reason, were not eligible to become an Opportunity Zone. There are criteria.
The program is still quite new, but what Zillow found was that the eligible census tracts (green and yellow lines) seemed to exhibit similar sale price increases after the Act was signed, but before the final Opportunity Zones were announced. Once the final Zones were announced, sale prices in the selected category (green line) began to surge and move away from the pack.
This may be evidence that the tax benefits are starting to get capitalized, or it may not be. One question I have is about why pricing in the selected Opportunity Zones seems to be a lot more volatile -- even before the Act was announced.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (US) created something known as Opportunity Zones. These are low-income and high-poverty census tracts that are designed to attract investment by offering a number of different tax benefits. I first wrote about it on the blog, here.
Now that some time has passed since the final Opportunity Zones were announced, Zillow Economic Research decided to look at the possible impact of this designation on real estate values. In other words: To what extent, if at all, are the tax benefits getting capitalized into the value of the properties?
Below is a chart showing the year-over-year change in the 12-month moving average sale price for low-income census tracts that were (1) eligible and selected as an Opportunity Zone; (2) eligible and not selected; and (3) not eligible.
My understanding is that the "not eligible" category represents census tracts with similar characteristics to the other two categories but, for whatever reason, were not eligible to become an Opportunity Zone. There are criteria.
The program is still quite new, but what Zillow found was that the eligible census tracts (green and yellow lines) seemed to exhibit similar sale price increases after the Act was signed, but before the final Opportunity Zones were announced. Once the final Zones were announced, sale prices in the selected category (green line) began to surge and move away from the pack.
This may be evidence that the tax benefits are starting to get capitalized, or it may not be. One question I have is about why pricing in the selected Opportunity Zones seems to be a lot more volatile -- even before the Act was announced.
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