Category Archives for "Investing"

Law of unintended consequences It’s one thing for a city to allow secondary dwelling units (ie, basement apartments, in-home suites or coach houses in your backyard), it’s another to provide enough parking to get cars off streets, especially in northern shelf areas and the snow-belt. If you ban frontyard parking and second driveways, this is […]

It’s probably not where you think it is. Most observers would assume it’s downtown where all the office skyscrapers live. That may be where the highest price per square foot or square meter of land is traded but is it the most valuable? I would argue not. Huh?

I actually don’t like going away but, when I do, I find that things which were complicated suddenly aren’t. Here’s what I do to gain perspective: -exercise 4-6 times per week (20 minutes after I finish, problems miraculously “solve themselves”) -“move the furniture,” which means getting up from your desk and walking around—for example, when […]

Why do private sales often suck? Well, here’s an email I received from a client of mine (a significant and sophisticated) real estate investor explaining why this may be so: A neighbor of mine is elderly; he lost his wife a few years ago. She was a fine person. Having said this, however, I have […]

Is the best number of partners to have equal to 0? Is there a difference between a partner and an investor? Is a partner someone who wants a say in the business or joint venture while an investor is simply looking for a ROI, return on investment? L to R: Robin Chahal, Prof Bruce, Armin […]

A FREE WEBINAR WITH THE NHL’S OTTAWA SENATORS FOUNDER, BRUCE M FIRESTONE, PHD, AND DAVID DUBEAU, RESULTS ENTERPRISES FOUNDER Bruce “making impossible possible” Firestone David “magnetic investor attraction” Dubeau Here’s the unvarnished, real time video of the entire webinar. Enjoy it!   When: March 28th 2018 Time: 3 pm ET, noon PT until 4:30 pm ET, 1:30 pm PT How to join in: IT’S […]

The future of suburbia is bleak unless towns and cities act to animate them by densifying and intensifying them to make them more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable places. Here’s the story of Hemet, a suburb of Riverside California. What happened there is that folks who can’t afford to live in LA have driven further […]

As expected, NIMBY (not in my backyard), BANANAS (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything or Anyone) and CAVE (citizens against virtually everything) people are torpedoing tiny home subdivisions as this AP article by Scott McFetridge makes abundantly clear.   Tiny houses are trendy – unless they go up next door.

Introduction If you are a developer, you already know that most cities expect you to build all the roads your new development/subdivision requires and then turn them over to them when completed for a dollar. We not only had to build all the roads around the Canadian Tire Centre (where the NHL’s Ottawa Senators play) […]

[This article originally appeared in Ottawa Business Journal in March 2012, https://www.obj.ca/bruce-firestone] The sky is falling, the sky is… Many observers of Ottawa’s tech scene seem to think it’s the end of Silicon Valley North but try telling that to David Ross, 90% owner of Ross Video. The other 10% is owned by family and […]

If you read this LA Times article carefully (https://beta.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-vending-rules-20171108-story.html), you will note that Los Angeles city councilors are about to allow pushcart sellers to become legal for the 1st time except not in certain areas. Which areas are excluded?  …they would be banned from doing business within five feet of driveways, bus benches, fire hydrants, […]

[Here’s an article I wrote in 2009 for a local Ottawa newspaper that is worthwhile re-reading today amidst talk of the Sens possibly packing up and heading to greener pastures (possibly Quebec City) due to attendance woes in the 2016/17 regular season and playoffs as well as subsequent years. I think a better idea would […]