Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

Subscribe

  • The return to end-users in Toronto’s condo market

    June 24, 2026 · View original

    As we all try to figure out what the future of the condominium market looks like in Toronto, it might be helpful to consider the forms it has taken over the years. When our nascent condominium market started to emerge in the 1990s, it solved a clear problem: it was an affordable solution for first-time buyers. It was a way to buy a place, build equity, and then trade up to a single-family house.

    Because of this use case, it was also true that pre-construction condominiums typically sold at a discount relative to resales. This was because buyers wanted to be compensated for the time they had to wait to move in and the risk of buying something off a plan.

    As the market grew and evolved (and the cost of constructing new housing rose), this pricing dynamic flipped, and pre-construction condominiums started to be priced at a premium relative to resales. The narrative, then, was that new condos were newer and nicer relative to older stock.

    But more importantly, it was also because the buyer profile shifted more toward investors, and therefore, the problem to be solved also changed. Investors, as we spoke about here, started to view the timeline to occupancy as a feature rather than a bug. It meant more time for the unit to appreciate and more time for rents to grow.

    This market largely disappeared in 2022, and so now the industry has returned to focusing on end-users. But Toronto is a different, more urban city than it was in the 1990s. Somewhere around 95% of the new housing built in the city is now multi-unit housing. The Baby Boomer generation is also starting to age out of staircases and low-rise houses.

    Today, at this very moment, the pre-construction market is trying to address a new problem: large, luxury suites for wealthy buyers. It’s the most fertile segment of the market. But how deep is this buyer pool? And what does it tell us about the next condominium cycle? The only thing we know with any certainty right now is that we’re seeing a return to end-users.

    Cover photo by Nano Do on Unsplash

  • How a Napoleonic wine tax created Paris’s favorite swim spot

    June 23, 2026 · View original

    Paris is experiencing a heatwave at the moment and so my social feeds are naturally filled with people dressed as Spider-Man jumping into the Canal Saint-Martin. First and foremost, it’s great to see so many people swimming in an urban body of water. I think this is quickly becoming table stakes for cities, which is why, last year, Globizen became a signatory to the Swimmable Cities Alliance.

    Though, to be fair, many or most urban bodies of water, including the Canal Saint-Martin, are clean sometimes, and less clean at other times. It depends on the precipitation levels and whether any combined sewers have backed up. But today, it’s clean and Parisians are enjoying themselves.

    Now, here’s a quick history lesson. The Canal Saint-Martin was initially constructed as a freshwater solution to poor drinking water and overall sanitation concerns in the centre of Paris. Napoleon I ordered the construction of the 4.6 km canal connecting the Canal de l’Ourcq to the River Seine in 1802 and funded it with a new wine tax (of course). Construction lasted until 1825.

    By the 1860s, Napoleon III and his urban planner, Baron Haussmann, had started their large-scale overhaul of Paris, and Haussmann viewed the canal as an inconvenient feature getting in the way of his preferred urban design. So he buried nearly half of the canal underneath a massive, vaulted brick tunnel. This continues to exist today, and one of these days I’d love to do a boat tour through it.

    By the 1960s, boat traffic had dwindled on the canal and urban planners at the time proposed what urban planners at the time proposed, which was to fill it all in and create a four-lane highway. As I understand it, the French equivalent of Jane Jacobs wasn’t there to stop such a project from going ahead; it was instead simply an issue of finances.

    Whatever the case, it gave the canal and surrounding area the opportunity to transform from a gritty industrial relic into the trendy Parisian bobo district that it is today. Like many aspects of the modern city, utility and industry are giving way to leisure and lifestyle. This would have been impossible to predict at the start of the 19th century, and it could have very easily turned out differently.

    Cover photo via Wikipedia

  • Why Toronto needs more unfussy fabric buildings

    June 22, 2026 · View original

    This is a stretch of College Street (here in Toronto) that I find particularly nice. It’s the stretch running west of Bathurst Street to Manning Avenue. What makes it relatively unique is that it’s a bit wider than our typical downtown Toronto main street (it’s 30m versus the typical 20m) and the buildings are of a scale and height that go beyond the typical 2-3 storey mixed-use structures you’ll find all across the city. The extra street width also allows for a nice dedicated cycle track. The result is an urban grandeur that I notice every single time I pass through it.

    Now, some of the buildings (and retained facades) are older stock, and some of the buildings are more recent builds. So one could argue, “Hey, this is a built form that Toronto has been building successfully for centuries.” But the fact that it stands out to me suggests that it still isn’t pervasive enough. Wouldn’t it be nice if Toronto had more streets like this? Perhaps there are some lessons if we look to the past.

    At the southwest corner of College and Markham sits an old brick-and-beam office building that was (according to this source) designed by Frank R. Cowan and built between 1913 and 1914 to house clothing workshops and space for the Pedlar People Company, a decorative sheet metal manufacturer. For some further history, in 1929 the building was sold for $140,000 (about C$2.5 million in today’s dollars) and, at some point in its history, a 6th floor was added on top of the building.

    But more important for this discussion is that it is another example of a building built before Toronto had modern zoning. This was a utility building. It was built lot line to lot line, with no setbacks or stepbacks. What Toronto cared about most at that time was whether the building would catch fire and set the block ablaze, not whether it met urban design guidelines. And yet, here we are over a century later and we have urban nerds like me talking about the nice street wall it creates.

    The important question for today is how we might best unleash a similar market response along Toronto’s major avenues. They may not be for clothing workshops and sheet metal manufacturers, but we have other needs, such as housing, that could be satisfied with similarly unfussy fabric buildings. Ironically, we have policies that now support 6-storey buildings that are roughly of this ilk, but we are not yet seeing a market response at scale.

    History tells us that the solution is less complexity and greater simplicity.

    Aerial and street view image from Google Maps

  • The hidden financial reality of ending condo pre-sales

    June 21, 2026 · View original

    Over the years on this blog, we have spoken many times about what Pouyan Safapour, president of Devron Developments, wrote about in this recent Maclean’s article: the method of pre-selling condominiums (which is what we customarily do in Toronto) biases the market toward investor buyers and smaller, more cost-effective suites.

    Unlike end-user buyers, investors have generally viewed waiting three to five years for their condominium to be complete as a feature in recent years, rather than a bug. It has meant asset appreciation without having to carry or actually manage the property.

    The pre-sale model works very well for a number of other reasons, too. Firstly, by pre-selling, developers minimize market risk for both themselves and the construction lender. Now you have contracted revenue to take out the construction loan at the end, as opposed to building on “spec” and hoping the market will be there, which may or may not be the case.

    It’s also an equity-efficient model for developers. Banks are able to offer higher LTVs because of the contracted revenue, and insured purchaser deposits can be used as a source of funds for the project, reducing the amount of required equity.

    But it is certainly true that many, perhaps even most, end-users would prefer to buy when the building is complete. So how might we reorient the model to better cater to these homebuyers? This is especially relevant in today’s market, where end-user buyers have overtaken investors.

    In the current framework, there are a couple of things that can be done. Developers can just build smaller projects. This minimizes the window between pre-sale and completion. Another option is to segment the project between homes that will sell quickly upfront (and fulfill lender pre-sale requirements) and homes that are geared more toward end-users but won’t sell until later. In this case, you’re trying to sell enough to start construction, and you’re building the balance on “spec.”

    Changing the entire financing model requires a lot more work. Removing pre-sales means more market risk and more required equity (unless these risks somehow get shifted by the government). If this happens, then there’s a reasonable argument that we would see far fewer condominiums getting built, even if the ones that do get built are better suited to end-users.

    There are developers in Toronto today that do not believe the investor pre-sale market is coming back, or at least not coming back anytime soon. If that ends up being the case, and I’m not sure it will be, then market participants, whoever they might be, will be forced to meet this demand in one of two ways: building more rental housing (which is by definition on “spec”) or getting better at delivering end-user condominiums.

    Cover photo by Fernando Strabuli on Unsplash

  • Why the amenity arms race is failing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

    June 19, 2026 · View original

    I came across these survey results in a guest column by Wendy Waters in Connect CRE Canada called, “What Will Attract Young Professionals to a New Rental-Apartment Building?” If I ignore the typo in “strong cel [sic] signal” and just look at the results, many of them are intuitively obvious. The vast majority of renters believe that in-suite laundry is essential, and it’s the number-one want in this survey.

    Pet-friendly is also not surprising given that pets are going to outnumber kids in most new purpose-built rental apartment buildings. And, of course, people want connectivity. I interpret high-speed wireless and strong cell signal throughout the building to specifically mean the common areas. Presumably, 100% of people want internet and cell signal within their apartments.

    At the same time, there are some other interesting results. For example, 55% of respondents (in this segment) said that a private balcony is essential and 97% said it was either essential or a nice-to-have.

    There’s a common debate in developer boardrooms about whether private outdoor spaces are essential to sell or lease an apartment and there are certainly rental developers who abstain from them altogether. But tenants seem to like them a lot, at least according to this survey. And a “nice-to-have” is still something that helps with leasing.

    People also seem to want a king-size bed. Whether they’d be willing to pay for the additional space is a separate matter. There is always an affordability and willingness to pay dimension to surveys. I mean, who wouldn’t like more? But a larger primary bedroom appears on this list and, right now, there’s a growing sense in the market that buyers and tenants want livable spaces over things like podcasting rooms and ski simulators.

    From a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs perspective, this seems to make sense. People want their physiological needs — such as a comfy bed — solved first, and then they’ll worry about finding self-actualization in their new podcast.

    Cover photo by Lotus Design N Print on Unsplash

    Chart via Connect Canada CRE

  • It’s not immoral to be a billionaire

    June 18, 2026 · View original

    Elon Musk is now a trillionaire, SpaceX has a valuation that can only be explained — wait, it can’t be explained — and some people think it’s immoral for people to be able to become billionaires and now trillionaires. I don’t care for Elon, but I certainly don’t have a problem with people creating lots of wealth for themselves. In fact, I think it’s the outcome we want, provided we do the things necessary to maintain a healthy middle class.

    Nevertheless, there are people who believe you cannot earn a billion dollars without bad behavior. I’d like to think that nobody really believes this and they have simply recognized it makes for good politics or some other self-serving purpose, but maybe I’m wrong.

    Paul Graham recently responded to this argument with an essay called “How to Earn a Billion Dollars.” With the experience of funding and investing in about 6,500 companies under his belt, he puts it very simply: The most common way to earn a billion dollars is to start a startup that many people like, and then have it grow very quickly for a period of time.

    He provides some math:

    > If your revenues grow at 15% a month, how much more will you be making 5 years from now? To calculate that, we need to find 1.15 to the 60th power (since 5 years is 60 months). So go to Google again and this time type 1.15^60. The answer should be about 4384. Meaning in 5 years your startup will be making 4384 times as much. If you’re currently making ten thousand a month, in five years you’ll be making about 44 million a month, or 526 million a year. And at that point, if you own as much of the company as founders typically do, you will be a billionaire.

    He then goes on to argue that a key founder trait is, in fact, the opposite of exploitation:

    > There are other ways to get rich than by starting startups. Some of those do require you to exploit people. But startups are the most common way to become really rich, and if you want to start a successful startup, the key is not exploitation but empathy. What do users really want? What could you do for them that would make their lives dramatically better? That kind of empathy is what we look for in founders, and what we cultivate in the ones we accept [at Y Combinator].

    If you’re interested, here’s the full essay.

    Cover photo by Josh Hild on Unsplash

  • Will Waymo finally convince us to sell our cars?

    June 17, 2026 · View original

    Waymo just launched a new $29.99-per-month “Premier” service in a select few of its cities. The member benefits include priority pickups, 10% cash back (sometimes more during busy times), early access to new Waymo cities, and flexible cancellations (up to five per month). Generally speaking, it feels pretty similar to Uber One, except it’s 3x the cost. But if you spend more than $300 per month on Waymo trips, then the 10% cash back does pay for the service. We’re now also talking about autonomous vehicles. Will that make a difference?

    One of the early promises of Uber was that it was going to disrupt car ownership. People would just ride-hail. But as far as I can tell, that has not happened at scale. In the case of autonomous vehicles, one of the early promises was that if you took out the labour-cost component of ride hailing (i.e., the driver), you could then make rides really cheap and that would induce demand. But that too has not been the case thus far. In fact, riders seem to be willing to pay a premium to be in the car alone. This premium appears to be reflected in the price of Waymo Premier.

    Where we got it wrong with Uber is that it ended up replacing taxis, not car ownership. But will autonomy and a nicer car experience change this? I like my car because I picked it, I use it to get where I have to go, and I store some of my stuff in it (including a fancy new car seat). But broadly speaking, I hate driving. If Waymo could fulfill my needs for, say, C$300/month, it would be in my economic interest to switch. I would have a very high willingness to pay if this is what I were replacing.

    Changing consumer behaviour is hard, especially when we’ve built entire cities around a particular mode of transport. But sometimes products and services have seemingly subtle differences that surprise us in the way that the market responds to them. Will that be the case with Waymo? We shall see.

  • Housing delivery is a “many-things” problem

    June 16, 2026 · View original

    We talk a lot around here about the obstacles to missing middle housing and one of the key themes is that it’s not a singular problem, it’s a “many-things” problem. It’s zoning, single-stair code requirements, elevators, environmental policy, servicing, and so much more. So we need to treat it like a multidisciplinary problem and collectively chip away at the barriers.

    Today, let’s focus on one important item on the list: servicing. My friend Brendan Charters from Eurodale forwarded me a letter that he submitted to City Council this week concerning Toronto Hydro policies. It does a great job outlining the issues, the impact on housing delivery, and the potential costs that new housing projects must bear. So I thought I would share it verbatim here on the blog.

    The costs outlined in the letter below are just one example of the direct and indirect costs (time value of money) that get added onto every new home in the city, provided the new home even gets built. There are also too many instances of housing projects that never get off the ground because the costs are deemed too great right from the outset.

    For those of you who are in the industry, or who just care about this issue, here’s the agenda item. The City is hoping that the industry will use this opportunity to clearly articulate the challenges they have had with Toronto Hydro when it comes to multiplexes and housing development in general. Here’s your opportunity. Write to the City and share Brendan’s letter. This is how we work to solve our “many-things” problem.

    Photo by Pavel Polansky on Unsplash

  • São Paulo rethinks its legendary war on advertising

    June 15, 2026 · View original

    > São Paulo is a city that’s proud of its scale. A leading entrepreneur tells us that he had returned to São Paulo from living in Paris after he struggled to make it through a grey French February. “Look, Paris is fine if you want to live somewhere provincial and eat cheese but São Paulo is a real city,” he says. Plus, in winter, you can savour 23C temperatures and big blue skies.

    The above is an excerpt from a recent Monocle article covering 10 observations about São Paulo. I have only been to Brazil once, and it was to visit Rio de Janeiro. But since then, I have had São Paulo high on my list. This is partially because I’m fascinated by Brazil and partially because I love big cities — and São Paulo is one of the biggest and most frenetic.

    But one of the areas where, in recent history, it has not been frenetic is signage. In 2007 a new municipal law was put into effect called the Clean City Law (or Lei Cidade Limpa). The law was simple: It introduced a near-total ban on billboards and public advertising, while imposing strict storefront limits on signage.

    In the first year of the law, the city collected nearly C$30 million in fines and then, seemingly overnight, the city transformed itself from a wild west of signage into an ad-free megacity. The results were fascinating. Historic buildings that had been entombed by ads were suddenly rediscovered. Architecture became front and center.

    But interestingly enough, the city is now looking to relax these laws to a certain extent and allow four buildings at the intersection of Avenidas São João and Ipiranga to be covered with LED panels and displays, akin to those in New York’s Times Square or Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing. Here’s the promo video.

    YouTube video

    If you watch the video, you’ll see that it says something along the lines of “the world’s largest cities have all transformed their streets into living experiences.” It then shows clips of New York, London, Doha, and others that all have similar LED screens and brightly illuminated buildings. In other words: All the best cities are doing it, so we need to do it too.

    There are naturally some people who like São Paulo the way it is today. But regardless, it raises an interesting question: Are these kinds of highly-visual urban displays just a new form of advertising, or are they something else, something more elevated? And is it really table stakes for the largest global cities to have something like it?

    Cover photo by Thandy Yung on Unsplash