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1. Dear Montreal, don’t lose your housing advantage

   In 2016, average rents in Montreal were $835 a month compared to $1,242 in Toronto and just under $1,300 in Vancouver. ...

2. Amazon HQ2—you can grow Vancouver’s economy without making housing less affordable

   The City of Vancouver is keen to land Amazon’s “HQ2”—a second North American headquarters, which the company claims will house tens of thousands of new jobs and add billions of dollars to the local economy. Indeed, HQ2 aligns with the ...

3. Is red tape on new homebuilding in Calgary pushing newcomers to the suburbs?

   According to new Statistics Canada census data, the Prairies, and Alberta in particular, have seen the largest population growth in Canada over the last five years. Despite the economic downturn, the Calgary metropolitan area alone ...

4. To address skyrocketing home prices, Ontario government could reduce barriers to building

   A recent Globe and Mail article highlighted Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s concern regarding Toronto’s skyrocketing house prices. Indeed, the Canadian Real Estate Association reports a 117 per cent increase in home prices across the ...

5. Palo Alto—a cautionary tale for Vancouver

   Appeared in the Vancouver Sun, September 2, 2016 Palo Alto, California, home to high-tech giants including Facebook and Tesla, made the news recently when planning commissioner Kate Downing resigned and announced her family’s plan to move to another city, ...

6. Allow housing supply to react to housing demand in Toronto, Vancouver and beyond

   To date, the discussion on housing affordability, dominated by handwringing over foreign homebuyers and low interest rates, has primarily focused on demand-side issues while ignoring the fact that when a good is in high-demand, it ...

7. Backlog of development approvals aggravating housing woes in Metro Vancouver

   British Columbia’s Ministry of Finance recently divulged that 10 per cent of residential property transactions during a 34-day period in June and July, 2016 were sold to foreign nationals, prompting the province to introduce an ...

8. Residential development approval timelines in four Capital Region municipalities average one year or longer

   Between the last two census periods, the Ottawa-Gatineau metropolitan area’s population grew by 9.1 per cent, in step with Greater Toronto and Vancouver. In order for the area (also known as the Capital Region) to continue offering ...