One natural response to yesterday’s post about (housing) affordability vs. beauty is to think that I put forward a false dichotomy. Why can’t we have both? Why does it need to be a zero-sum game? Surely there’s a middle ground. Our cities should be both… Read More
If you had to pick one, would you say that it’s more important for new housing to be affordable or to be beautiful? Many of you are probably thinking that it should be both. And while it is true that good and thoughtful design doesn’t… Read More
There’s lots of data out there to suggest that there is a correlation between urban density and housing unaffordability. Take Hong Kong. It is very dense, and also one of the most expensive housing markets in the world. But I think the real question is:… Read More
If you can’t see the Twitter poll below, click here: At the time of writing this post, affordability was number one, followed by design and beauty, and then sustainability. Some of you were right to point out that these options are not always mutually exclusive.… Read More
Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but I continue to feel like there is a groundswell of interest in trying to improve housing supply and overall affordability. The YIMBY movement continues to gain steam. Here are are few excerpts from a recent M. Nolan Gray article where… Read More
Deeply affordable housing is mostly infeasible to build. This is why you don’t see the market naturally building this kind of housing on its own. It, for the most part, doesn’t make any economic sense to do so. So this is also why the US… Read More
Yesterday I wrote about our housing doom loop. Today, the province of Ontario responded (maybe not to my post) by publishing this Housing Affordability Task Force report. In it, are 55 recommendations to improve overall housing supply across the province, with the end goal of… Read More
This discussion between Patrick O’Shaughnessy and Marc Andreessen is a great follow-up to my recent post about the productization of housing. Broadly speaking it’s about tech, software eating everything, and the future of the world. But if you skip to around the 15 minute mark,… Read More
The “drive until you qualify” approach to finding housing that you can afford is a well established practice. Anecdotally, I can tell you that I have friends who are right now looking for a grade-related home under the C$1 million mark. This constraint, as most… Read More
Each quarter, HSH.com publishes a report that looks at the annual income required to quality for a residential mortgage in the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. To do this, they look at the median home price for each city and then apply… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 