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.

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Tag: toronto

  • History of Skiing in the Don Valley

    In Toronto, we ski with pocket squares and ties on.

    History of Skiing in the Don Valley

  • Can living in laneways fix Toronto’s density issues?

    Toronto is usually looking skyward for housing solutions, but the city might find some answers right it its own backyards.

    Can living in laneways fix Toronto’s density issues?

  • What is Dirt?

    Dirt was founded to correct the problem of information in the real estate industry: too much of it is either fragmented, restricted or entirely unavailable. We believe that real estate consumers should be able to easily and freely access all the information they need through one consolidated source.

    What is Dirt?

  • Gambling away our cities

    Why New Yorkers must fight the drive to legalize full-scale gaming

    Gambling away our cities

  • Ten York Street is going to be quite the beast #toronto

  • My 1min @StartupWkndTO Pitch

    Introduction

    Hey everyone, my name is Brandon Donnelly.

    I work in real estate development, building buildings.


    The Problem

    My startup is called Dirt.

    It’s based on the idea that there’s tons of real estate activity happening all around us and we’re missing out on it.

    • Why can’t I follow properties?
    • Why don’t get I get push updates when stuff sells/rents?
    • Why don’t I get construction updates sent to my phone for the building I bought into?
    • Why can’t I see if any of my friends are moving into the same building?

    The two pain points I most commonly hear from real estate consumers are:

    1. There’s a lack of accessible information; and,
    2. They’re frustrated always going through agents because they don’t feel they really add value.

    The Solution

    What I want to do is shift the industry focus from the suppliers of real estate to the consumers of real estate (you and me).

    Dirt is a network for crowdsourcing real estate activity.

    To share, users simply:

    1. Find the address
    2. Upload activity
    3. Categorize it

    Think of it as Path (the social network) for real estate.


    The goals are to empower consumers and promote transparency.

    The business model is to own the real estate analytics space.

    I hope you’ll join me in trying to disrupt real estate.


  • Spectacular time-lapse video of Toronto’s urban landscape

    Spectacular time-lapse video of Toronto’s urban landscape

  • Market Wharf – Toronto

  • Trump talks up Toronto tower

    Donald Trump sought to stir up buyers for the unsold units in Canada’s first Trump International Hotel & Tower on Monday, undaunted by talk of an overheated real estate market in Toronto.

    Trump talks up Toronto tower

  • Toronto laneway house on Orphanage Mews

    Globe and Mail article on a recently completed laneway house in Toronto by architect couple Christine Lolley and Tom Knezic of Solares Architecture.

    Toronto laneway house on Orphanage Mews