Category Archives for "Urban Economics"

While watching Hockey Day in America, I was struck by how the city of Detroit had integrated its outdoor ice-skating rink into the very fabric of its downtown. Most of these things are done badly; in fact, it’s surprisingly hard to create vibrant street life. Most cities and towns fail at it. Loneliness soars as […]

As folks get older, they tend to earn less even before they officially retire. Many people will recall the “Freedom 55” slogan from an old advertising campaign. I tell young people I coach, “Don’t pay any attention to the idea of retiring any time soon… if ever.” Why? For two main reasons: I believe human […]

YES, I want to sign up for the Firestone Institute ninja real estate investor, co-coaching and development manager course. YES, I want to learn how to be a development manager to ensure my projects and those of others I deal with get started as soon as possible and come in on-time and on-budget with as […]

[This is an excerpt from an upcoming book I am working on called, Business Model Illustrations, Real Estate Investment and Personal Business for Life Mini Case Studies] David Leigh (not his real name) is a rich dentist, age 44 when he first comes to Firestone for coaching. He is a lean, polite married person with […]

A friend’s 500 sq ft (approximate), 3-room apartment in a Hong Kong tower in a  desirable neighborhood is worth $4 million CAD, but rents for “just” $4,000 a month.  Cap rate?  About .8% pa. Conclusion? Real estate investing in HK brings poor cash returns, which means CDN real estate looks mighty tempting with cap rates […]

I’ve just finished reading Ron Wiens’ excellent book, Building Organizations: that Leap Tall Buildings in a Single Bound, 2012. If I understood it correctly, the role of a leader is to build an organization that (eventually) won’t need him or her to function effectively. You can do this, according to Ron, by building, EI, emotional intelligence, RI, relationship […]

What is QSV, quick sale value. There is no generally accepted definition, but here is my attempt at defining it based on experience: QSV, quick sale value, is the price a property put on the market will trade at less seller administrative, legal and accounting charges, realtor fees and closing costs in a liquidation process […]

The Pit If you want your building interiors to be highly animated and increase collisionable hours, you could do (a lot) worse than copy the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism’s “pit” on the main floor of their building on Carleton University’s campus… What’s it used for? -speeches -parties -presentations -charettes -teaching -gatherings -random meetings/collisions -concerts […]

Years ago when I was teaching at Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism (a 14-year sentence), I was on campus walking to my office one beautiful early-fall day when I saw dozens of vans parked along a main road. From these behemoths, hundreds of excited freshmen and their parents scurried across the road […]

It was cool to see a tiny house parked by the Rideau river yesterday at my old stomping grounds–near the Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism, where I taught for 14-years. But it would have been a heck of a lot nicer to see it inhabited. And for that matter, how about parking a few […]

A cap rate or capitalization rate is found by dividing NOI, net operating income, by the cost of a property or its fair market value. Obviously, we can reverse the process–find property values if we know both NOI and the applicable market-dictated cap rate for that type of property. Let’s try this with some Bloomberg […]

Every year since I can remember MTO (ministry of transportation for Ontario) has been doing work somewhere along the Queensway–highways 417 and 174. You’ve heard the joke before: There are only two seasons in Ottawa–winter and construction. It’s one of the prices we’ve paid for not embracing light rail a lot earlier than we did […]