A new report was just published by Urbanation and the Federation of Rental-Housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) arguing that the Greater Toronto Area is undersupplying rental housing to the tune of about 20,000 units per year. This number considers both purpose-built rental housing and condominiums… Read More
That is the argument that Joshua Gordon, who is an assistant professor in the Simon Fraser University School of Public Policy, recently made in this opinion piece in the Globe and Mail. In his view, there’s no evidence to suggest that housing supply can actually… Read More
This week, Alex Bozikovic (of the Globe and Mail) dropped the news that a new supertall by Herzog & de Meuron is being planned for the northwest corner of Bay and Bloor here in Toronto. The developers are Kroonenberg Group and ProWinko, both of which… Read More
Just over a month ago, as North America was beginning its lockdown, the Europeans were the ones showing us how to stay sane in quarantine through balcony orchestras and viral internet videos. Now we’re looking to them for how best to reopen the economy and… Read More
Alex Bozikovic’s review of the book Canadian Modern Architecture: 1967 to the Present raises something potentially troubling. Here’s what I’m talking about: It is by turns an exhilarating and depressing narrative: Canada, in this book, appears as a country that announced itself on the world… Read More
Earlier today, the Conservative Party of Canada made the following housing policy announcement. If elected this fall, they would (copied verbatim from here): Fix the mortgage stress test to ensure that first-time homebuyers aren’t unnecessarily prevented from accessing mortgages and work with OFSI to remove… Read More
Rachelle Younglai and Chen Wang’s recent piece in the Globe and Mail on suburban household debt (in Canada) has a number of interesting stats. Here are some of them: Looking at debt service ratios across the country, the most financially stressed neighborhoods in Canada are… Read More
Shane Dingman’s recent Globe and Mail article about “the investment case for mid-rise condos” is a good summary of why this housing type has become so popular in Toronto. Mid-rise buildings tend to attract more end-users because of their boutique scale. That is, they attract… Read More
Alex Bozikovic (architecture critic for the Globe and Mail) is one of the most vocal proponents of more housing and more density within Toronto’s low-rise neighborhoods. Last year, he organized an international design competition where he asked firms to come up with innovative, yet sensible,… Read More
Jamaican-Canadian billionaire, Michael Lee-Chin, was in ROB Magazine last week talking about how he grew up, how he got into the investment industry, and how he thinks about wealth creation. I met Michael once back in 2009 thanks to an introduction by my father. And… Read More
