Category Archives for "Urban Economics"

Over the Christmas holidays, I was rereading The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. I read it when I was a kid and enjoyed it, so I thought I’d see what I think of it now. It’s about five Union soldiers who escape Confederate captivity during the US Civil War in a balloon that is swept […]

Main Street Makeovers He must have received his law degree in the snail-mail. The guy didn’t know the difference between foreclosure and power-of-sale. Why is this even important? Foreclosure versus Power of Sale Because I advise a number of funds (REITs, MICs, Private Equity Funds, Mortgage Trusts, Mutual Fund Trusts, individual private lenders such as […]

Years ago, I wrote, Why Cheering for the Maple Leafs is… Unnatural. Essentially, I argue that when your home team does well, whether that is in Van city, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa or now Winnipeg or, for that matter, Montreal, it’s good for the local economy, so cheering for the Leafs anywhere but in Toronto is […]

I’m sure there are many people who work from home and enjoy that experience. I am not one of them unless forced to by, say, for example, Covid-19 or because of economic constraints. I had a home office for 14-months in the mid-2000s and came to really dislike it for a number of reasons, the […]

Book review of Pitch Anything, an innovative method for presenting, persuading and winning the deal by Oren Klaff, https://youtu.be/0ihMwKc2Sow With insights from Bruce M Firestone, PhD Plus, how a yoga teacher went from earning just over $30k a year to more than $100k Plus, how Prof Bruce successfully pitched the NHL for an expansion franchise […]

Here’s an article I wrote some time ago. In it, I was trying to understand why someone might pay $171,000 more for an urban townhouse, which was essentially the same as a suburban, much less expensive one, except closer into town. Was it a rational economic choice? Here’s what I concluded… then. Today, in an […]

A client of mine asks, “Hi Bruce, what are your thoughts on real estate and the economy over the next 12-24 months?” Here’s what I answered: No one really knows what will happen, but in my view, there will be many opportunities for people with cash. I suspect several trillion dollars of real estate in […]

Or what to do with underused parking lots and golf courses… OK, I’ll admit it. I am a bad (actually terrible) golfer and a not much better driver (of cars, that is). These days golf is a sport in decline (even before Covid-19 cratered much of the planet’s economy), which has triggered questions like: What […]

Traveling without moving, a new approach to downsizing Most realtors tell a person who is thinking of, say, downsizing, to list and sell their larger home and buy something smaller and presumably cheaper. This kind of talk is a bit self-serving because, if the client follows this piece of advice, the realtor gets another listing […]

I woke up on the Easter long weekend thinking I could help people become successful entrepreneurs by offering a new online course called: Pivot! Start a business in just 3-months w/ practically no money down. “Hi Bruce, I just wanted to say that I was on your Pivot! webinar this afternoon and it was awesome. […]

for LANDLORDS, INVESTORS (AND TENANTS) Here is a webinar in which Bruce M Firestone, PhD, and host Dave Dubeau talk about how to stay afloat during the Covid-19 era and also how to prepare for a hopeful future. Here’s what is covered: -snowbird real estate prices about to collapse? -big market correction coming #Gulp -buying […]

[A version of this article first appeared in Ottawa Business Journal] Since the dawn of the industrial age in the early 1700s when Thomas Newcomen produced the first successful steam engine (later perfected by James Watt in 1769), there has never been a major economy that contracted by 40% in a single quarter. This happened […]