A brief history of Canadian real estate investors

Recently has been lots of talk about real estate investors, a good time to look at investors over time.

Jens von Bergmann Nathan Lauster

8 minute read

(Joint with Nathan Lauster and cross-posted at HomeFreeSociology) The newest trend in the search for reasons for rising home prices is to look toward investors. The Bank of Canada released a report showing that the share of investors has risen over time. For this they took mortgage data from federally regulated financial institutions and matched them with credit history to determine if some of the buyers already owned property before they bought (during roughly the past 10 years) and kept it after they bought.

Ins and outs of CMHC data

CMHC produces and curates important data on housing in Canada. An overview over some of this data, it's quirks, and how to access it.

Jens von Bergmann

15 minute read

This is a data-focused post, it’s targeted at people consuming or otherwise working with CMHC data. And also at the future me that will stumble again over problems outlined in this post and will have to remember the ins and outs of CMHC data. The data CMHC creates and maintains lots of important data on housing. We start with an overview over the more important data sources, and the relevant definitions.

Residential mobility in Canada

Residential mobility is essential for family formation, accommodating life changes, and the economy. A look at residential mobility in Canada over time.

Jens von Bergmann

8 minute read

This excellent NYTimes article on mobility in the US coming out today nudged me into doing a quick post on residential mobility in Canada. While there are lots of similarities between Canada and the US, there are some important differences when it comes to residential mobility. A while back Nathan Lauster compared residential mobility between the two countries and noticed that the declining trend in US residential mobility is much more muted in Canada, and may have reversed by the 2016 census, the last year for which we currently have data in Canada.

Nanaimo Station

Vancouver has been squandering opportunities around existing Skytrain stations. We take a closer look at the Nanaimo Station area.

Jens von Bergmann

9 minute read

With a new redevelopment proposal around Vancouver’s Nanaimo Skytrain station hitting the news, and a local journalist feigning ignorance about zoning around skytrain stations, maybe it’s time for a quick post on zoning and population growth around the Nanaimo Station. To start out, let’s take a look at the zoning around Nanaimo Station. We marked the Nanaimo Station at the centre and the 29th Avenue station to the south-east just outside of the 800m radius circle.

On Broadway

The Broadway Plan is coming before council, time for a review of what's being proposed, which parts are good and which might need work, and how that fits into the historical context.

Jens von Bergmann Nathan Lauster

13 minute read

(Joint with Nathan Lauster and cross-posted at HomeFreeSociology) We have finally found some time to take a closer look at the Broadway Plan. There are many good things to say about the plan, it adds housing in an amenity and job rich area about to get a new subway line. It promises to not just undo the downzoning the city imposed on parts of the area in the 1970s but enables a bit more housing to make up for lost time.