The Canadian Real Estate Investor

PwC and ULI’s 2027 Emerging Trends report says Canadian real estate is now an infrastructure story. Nick and Dan break down the three forces driving the money: power, defence and an aging population. They also cover what each one means and how it will impact investors.

Read the report: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/financial-services/asset-wealth-management/real-estate/emerging-trends-in-real-estate-pwc-uli/canada/canada-real-estate-infrastructure.html

Join us at Unpacking Multiplexes Montreal, Thursday, November 19 at the Grande Bibliothèque

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The Bank of Canada just raised rates for the first time since 2023, taking the overnight rate from 2.25% to 2.5%. The economy isn’t booming, so why now? Nick and Dan explain how oil and the Middle East conflict are pushing the Bank to act, and recap the full ride from the 2022 hikes to the 2024 cuts and a year of holds.

They also cover what economists predicted, why Australia, Europe and the UK are raising rates too, and the number that matters most: the Bank now sees 3.1% inflation in 2027.

Finally, they get into what it means for yo...

Ottawa just put $2 billion on the table for the new National Heat Pump Rebate: up to $10,000 if you’re below median income, $2,000 for everyone else.

Nick and Dan go through the fine print. You get one rebate per person, not per property, and the $1,400 savings claim covers oil and baseboard homes, not gas. Then they run the real Toronto numbers. With the carbon charge gone, a heat pump costs more to run than a gas furnace, so for most Ontario homes it only makes sense when the furnace and AC need replacing at the same time. 

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Montreal was building gentle density a century before anyone called it “missing middle.” Nick and Dan go back to the Lachine Canal factory boom and a 10 foot setback rule that pushed staircases outside and gave the city its look. They get into the original house hack (owner downstairs, tenants upstairs), why all of Quebec moves on July 1, and how Montreal became a majority renter city without a skyline full of towers.

Then the contrast: Toronto and Vancouver zoned this housing out of existence and are now spending billions to bring it back. The investor section covers Ontario’s unit...

On October 8, Alberta ordered Edmonton to undo its zoning bylaw within three months. That means density and height go back to pre 2024 rules and parking minimums come back. Calgary, which already repealed its citywide rezoning, was told to hold where it is. Nick and Dan cover what actually changed in each city and why it matters after record housing starts in both. They also get into who’s for it, who’s against it, and what small scale infill builders should do differently from here.

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“Real estate always goes up.” “Renting is throwing money away.” “You need 20% down.” Nick and Dan take ten myths Canadians repeat at the dinner table and check each one against 2026 data. Most of them used to be true. They held up in the falling rate, rising price world that ended in 2022, and now they’re expired truths that keep costing people money.

They cover why renting beats owning in most major markets, the national benchmark sitting 21% below its 2022 peak, the collapse of GTA preconstruction, and why four out of five Toronto condo investors lose money every month. They also get...

Canadian mortgage arrears have nearly doubled since 2022, and power of sale listings are climbing. Nick and Dan break down the latest data and explain why most bank sales aren’t bargains. Then they cover how to find real distressed deals and what to pay for them.

Find deals with the Realist distress tool: Realist

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Death and divorce move more Canadian real estate than any rate change. Nick and Daniel break down what happens to the house when a couple splits or a parent passes: who really owns the matrimonial home, how buyouts get financed, the tax CRA charges at death, why putting a kid on title can backfire, and how to handle an inherited property with siblings. They finish with practical checklists so your family has a plan instead of a panic.

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The Bank of Canada is holding rates, but fixed mortgage quotes are still going up. Dan and Nick explain how rising bond yields push fixed rates higher, why more borrowers are choosing variable again, and what to check before you pick: payment changes, trigger rates, penalties and whether your budget can handle a rate increase.

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On September 23, StatCan revised its population count and added 301,008 people. Two of the three "decline" quarters became growth. Most of the people it found were temporary residents still in the country on pending permit extensions. Nick and Dan explain how the old count missed them, what changed in the method, and whether this weakens the bear case for housing. Growth is still the slowest since 1915, rents are soft, and more departures are likely coming. The revision changes why the numbers looked the way they did, not the market we've been living in.

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Most Canadian real estate partnerships run on a handshake and good vibes. Nick and Dan break down how to do it properly. They cover five ways to structure a deal: co-ownership, general partnership, limited partnership, corporation, or skipping equity and lending instead. They explain how to pay the operator fairly with fees, a preferred return and a promote, and why your partnership agreement means nothing to your lender. They show how the right partner fills gaps in a CMHC application. And they walk through how partnerships actually fall apart: capital calls nobody can fund, plus death, divorce, disability and...

Mississauga and Oakville just froze new data centres. Saskatchewan rolled out the red carpet for a Bell campus near Regina worth over $50 billion. Nick and Daniel break down what these buildings are, why each province is handling them so differently, and why two out of three Canadians don't want one near their home. They take on the viral water claims and explain how the money works: tenants reserve power and pay whether they use it or not. Then they each say whether they'd invest. Plus the October 27 date that could decide whether the GTA fringe becomes a market or...

After over 400 episodes, people still told us they didn't know what to do next, so we started putting them in a room. Nick and Dan look back on how the podcast turned into sold out events, why real estate is a people business, and what we built because of it. Tune in for insights and come to an event to see for yourself!

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CREA August is out and every province sold fewer homes than a year ago. Oil topped $108, which pushes fixed mortgage rates up. Carney's summit pledges and the new Mega Deduction won't lower anyone's mortgage. Sales are stuck and buyers are gaining leverage, so watch your local numbers, not the national average.

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We switch things up in this episode and Fred Cassano from PwC interviews Dan on the Emerging trends Report produced annually by PWC and ULI 

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Most Canadians think their home is an investment.

And honestly, the data says they are not crazy.

Homeowners are dramatically wealthier than renters. In Canada, StatCan showed homeowner net worth rising from about $324,000 in 1999 to about $685,000 in 2019, while renter net worth went from about $15,000 to $24,000. CMHC research says homeowners are roughly seven times wealthier than renters, and their homes represent about half of their net wealth.

So yes, homeownership has created an enormous amount of household wealth.

B...

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On the Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast, Daniel welcomes Hooman from Alliance REIT (https://www.alliancereit.com/) to discuss his path from Bay Street lawyer to multiplex developer and operator, and how Alliance built an evergreen, non-exchange-listed REIT focused on Toronto’s missing-middle housing.

They cover shifting CMHC underwriting and how first-time developers can struggle to secure MLI Select financing, plus potential partnerships where Alliance’s experience and conservative underwriting could help.

Hooman explains REIT liquidity, RRSP/TFSA eligibility, and the compl...

We are joined by friend of the show Ben Singer, of SR Law, Ben, maintains a general commercial real estate practice, including acquisitions, dispositions, financing as well as an emphasis on condominium and sub-division development.

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Part 2 picks up at 2008. Canada dodges the financial crisis, decides it's bulletproof, and spends a decade building brakes (four Flaherty tightenings, foreign buyer taxes, two stress tests) all pointed at demand, while barely touching supply. Then free money in 2020, the February 2022 peak, and the fastest hiking cycle in Bank of Canada history.

The payoff to the 1981 cliffhanger: CMHC's MLI Select in 2022 finally makes purpose built rental pencil again after 41 years, and rental is now about 58% of new construction. Meanwhile 2024 quietly undoes Flaherty with 30 year amortizations and a $1.5M insured cap, and population growth slams into reverse.

Canada has never had a housing market, it has a housing policy, and the market is what happens downstream. Part 1 traces 100 years of deliberate decisions: 50% down mortgages that detonated in the Depression, CMHC inventing leverage in 1954, the 1972 tax exemption that made your house the best shelter you can own, and the two supply engines we switched off (MURB in '81, social housing in '93) while turning every demand dial to eleven, ending at zero down and 40-year amortizations in 2006.

Also: 21% rates, Toronto's 1989 crash and 13-year recovery, and the map moving from Montreal to Toronto to Vancouver.

Josh Findlay of BLD Financial joins us again to share all things commercial mortgages. How he started, the journey, and the main differences between small investments and big ones; plus some CMHC updates.

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This week we sit down with Toronto architect and developer Noam Hazan, the guy calling the "missing middle" the most alive part of Canadian real estate. After designing for global firms like Foster + Partners and Richard Meier, Noam now helps regular people turn single lots into fourplexes, sixplexes, and garden suites. We get into his own project, the numbers behind MLI Select and the HST rebate, the rise of the "citizen developer," and how to actually make these deals pencil.

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Four years after the 2022 peak, the first real signs of a floor are showing up, national sales are up 7% from the March low, inventory is tightening, and single-family completions in Ontario just hit their lowest level since 1990. But economists have been burned by three false starts already, and nobody wants to say the b-word out loud.

Meanwhile, over 13,000 Canadians filed for insolvency in June, up 11.5% year over year and running near 2009 levels. So which is it? Dan and Nick dig into whether this is a real bottom or a supply collapse dressed up as a recovery... and...

We are joined by Nichola & Matthew from M3 Development Management to discuss all things development mamagement  a Calgary-founded firm with offices in Calgary, Canmore, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria, joins us to talk about the part of a deal nobody covers: what it actually costs to build. They work on the owner's side, no equity in the project, running feasibility, cost planning and project delivery on everything from Senakw in Vancouver to the BMO Centre expansion in Calgary. We get into Edmonton's constantly shifting infill rules, whether an eight-plex still pencils, how the same building prices out across five markets, an...

A complete breakdown of the Altus Group 2026 Canadian Cost Guide: $573 billion in active projects across 6,652 sites, with the real-world context investors and developers need. With presale prices down 13% from peak and a record 7,243 condo units cancelled in 2025, the feasibility math is under serious pressure. The episode also covers the $343 billion public infrastructure pipeline competing for the same labour and materials, a construction workforce that needs 85,000 additional workers by 2032, and tariff volatility that the cost guide explicitly doesn't account for. City-by-city comparisons across Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, and more.

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If you bought a Canadian condo near the peak of the market, you may now be underwater, or losing money every month just to keep it. In this episode, Daniel and Nick tackle one of the hardest decisions facing Canadian homeowners and real estate investors: should you hold on, rent the property out, or sell at a loss? They examine real examples from the GTA, pre-construction deals, power-of-sale transactions and struggling flips before laying out a practical framework for making the decision without letting fear, ego or sunk costs take over.

You’ll learn:
• The differ...

Nick & Dan are joined by Jacob Cohen, President of Daniels Corp. for a field report from inside a GTA development company. Why an activity slowdown worries developers more than falling prices, which input broke first: land, construction costs, rates, or sales velocity, and what still makes sense to build when almost nothing pencils.

With starts near zero since 2023, the completions that should land in 2027–2029 aren't coming. Jake walks through the math, the industry's sudden rush into purpose-built rental after 30 years of ignoring it, whether the investor-driven condo model is paused or finished, and what he'd tell an in...

Brandon Sage of  Landlord Property Management joins us to discuss everything you need to know about owning and managing property and tenants.

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Real estate searches in Canada just hit a five-year high, and Nick and Dan answer the nine questions Canadians are Googling most. Fixed vs. variable in 2026, what to do if you can't afford your renewal, where prices are headed, the best cash-flow cities, whether to incorporate your rentals, the new Airbnb rules by province, and how to save six figures on the principal residence exemption. Plus two rapid-fire bonuses: rent vs. buy, and the new 30-year amortization. No filler... just the answers.

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Multiplex starts just passed tower starts in Toronto for the first time. Condos have stalled, and the big builders aren't structured to build on tight low-rise sites, while most GCs can't properly analyze them. That gap is the whole opportunity.

We are joined by the founders of Reside Properties  Ryan & Mattison, a Toronto developer with an unusual stack: years as a general contractor, time as MPAC counsel working with planners on highest-and-best-use, and a legal background in development. They build it, they know how the city values the land, and they know where the traps are. Zero v...

The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25 per cent again. Does that make fixed or variable the better mortgage choice in 2026, and could the next move still be a rate hike?

Daniel and Nick break down the fixed-versus-variable decision, the July 2026 Monetary Policy Report, inflation, growth, housing weakness, Government of Canada bond yields, and why CMHC MLI Select financing responds to more than the overnight rate.

We also explain what investors should stress-test before buying, how lender spreads affect multi-unit debt, and why a rate forecast cannot rescue weak NOI or a bad...

Nick and Daniel debate cash flow vs. appreciation in Canada's flat 2026 market, prices 21% off peak, near-zero population growth, a $400B renewal wall, and falling rents. They start in opposite corners but land on the same truth: there is no "Canadian market" anymore. Ontario and BC are falling while seven provinces hit record highs, so the winning strategy depends entirely on which "Canada" you're buying in.

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The average first-time homebuyer in Ontario is now 40 years old, according to Teranet's Q1 2026 Market Insights report. At the same time, first-time buyers became the most active buyer segment in Ontario, while multi-property owners fell from first place to third.

In this episode, we use Ontario as the case study, then widen the lens nationally. Bank of Canada data shows first-time buyers have generally accounted for about half of mortgaged home purchases in Canada since 2014. CMHC's 2026 Mortgage Consumer Survey shows first-time buyers are renting longer before buying, relying on co-signers, and still getting help from family gifts...

Most small landlord disasters don't come from bad properties — they come from good properties run like a hobby. This is the unsexy episode that saves five-doors-or-fewer landlords more money than any reno or refi.

We break down the systems that actually matter: bookkeeping that tracks real cash flow, the insurance gaps that get claims quietly denied, and tenant screening that keeps you legal and paid. Then we go province by province on deposits, tribunals, dispute timelines, and 2026 rent-control numbers across Ontario, BC, Alberta, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada, closing with when to stop self-managing and the five biggest mi...

Canada finally agrees housing is broken, but nobody wants to admit what fixing it costs. RBC says buyers stopped waiting for perfect. Teranet shows 36% of 2022 Ontario buyers reselling at a loss. OSFI loosened bank buffers, population fell a third straight quarter, and B.C. is fighting over a condo bailout. One question ties it together: who takes the loss?

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In this episode, we get real about why we take our events across the country  it's not about selling courses from the back of the room, it's about the room itself. We break down how the right connections turn into partners, lenders, and closed deals, then hand you 8 networking tips worth stealing so you can actually work a room. 

From there we go off the beaten path into weird and wonderful real estate  car washes, marinas, self-storage, mobile home parks, and billboards the alternative assets most investors never consider. And since we recorded this one inside a wor...

Thousands of completed condos sit empty in a housing crisis, and now governments in Ontario and B.C. are using public money to fix it. Nick and Dan break down the Ontario "template", a government-backed buyer for unsold units, GST/HST relief up to $130K per home, and development-charge cuts, and ask whether it's smart housing policy or a bailout for developers who bet wrong.

They tackle the hard questions: Why does all this inventory exist? When does policy cross into rescuing private balance sheets? And why should a taxpayer in Halifax fund the cleanup of markets...

Ottawa and B.C. just unveiled a plan touching 2,200+ vacant condos, and the headline says taxpayers are now the buyer of last resort. Nick and Dan break down what was actually announced, billions in infrastructure, development-charge cuts, and a condo-conversion plan whose financing details won't drop until fall, and ask the question that matters: is public money buying real value, or rescuing a condo sector that overbuilt for investors? Smart housing policy or a bailout in disguise? It comes down to who takes the loss.

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CREA says home sales jumped 5.5% in May, but that "comeback" deserves a closer look. The seasonally adjusted bounce was real, yet actual sales were still 5.1% below last May, itself one of the weakest years in two decades. We break down why a strong monthly percentage can hide a market sitting near a 20-year low.

The real story underneath: Canada has split into two housing markets. Ontario and B.C. remain below their January 2022 peaks (down 16.1% and 9.1%), while New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Saskatchewan and much of the country sit near record highs. One national press release, two completely different...

A 2026 guide to which home renovations actually return money for Canadian investors and homeowners. Walks through the big four (kitchens, bathrooms, basement suites, garden/laneway suites) with three-tier pricing across five cities, then covers the quiet high-ROI wins (paint, doors, flooring), the regret list (pools, smart homes, bedroom conversions), and the investor math, BRRRR, rental uplift, financing programs, and CRA capital-vs-current rules. 

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