Real deals. Real numbers. The mistakes I paid for in cash.
Most real estate content is written by people who have read about real estate.
This is not that. Everything on this page comes off a deal I own, a deal I consulted on, or a mistake that cost me money I would rather have kept. Twenty six years. Condos, townhomes, single family, apartment buildings, infill development, new construction, new subdivisions.
Some weeks it is a financing structure broken down to the dollar. Some weeks it is a market I think everybody is reading wrong. Some weeks it is something I got badly wrong in 2004 and still think about.
New post most weeks. No hype. No theory. If a claim shows up here without a number attached to it, I have not done my job.
Everything is below, newest first. Dig in.
Business as Usual
Two investors read the same announcement. One got excited. One got nervous. The difference was decided years ago. Two investors read the same news. The first one leaned back, thought for a minute, and said, "Hmm. I think our projects just got more valuable." Then...
Just Because You Can
The neighbours didn't get angry out of nowhere. Some of that anger was earned, and it was earned by people in my industry. On our first build, the spreadsheet wanted eight. Big mid-block lot. Room on paper. We ran the drawings. Then we ran them again. Black line after...
Right Answer, Wrong Room
The province is mostly right about the problem. That's exactly why the way they handled it bothers me. On October 8, the Province of Alberta ordered the City of Edmonton to roll back its infill zoning. On October 10, the Premier went public criticizing Ottawa for...
The Problem Every Other City Wants
Edmonton is in a fight over how to handle growth. Most of Canada would trade places tomorrow. I laughed. It was the guilty kind of laugh. The kind you catch halfway out because you know you shouldn't be laughing. This is serious. Real people, real money, real...
Scar Tissue or Scab?
I went back through my own blog this week. Not to admire it. To count something. I wanted to know how many posts open with me screwing something up. The blinking light. The crappy writer. The microphone I tested for a year instead of recording. The deal that went...
I Stopped Buying Lots: Partnering With Builders on Infill
I Stopped Buying Lots Four years ago the solo build made sense. The financing window closed. Here's the model I run now. A stranger in a Facebook group asked me a question a few weeks back. He was circling an infill project in Edmonton. Duplex, legal suites, garage...
Builders Don’t Make What You Think They Make
The margin you're planning to capture by cutting out the middleman? It was never there. I've been in a lot of rooms with builders. Not conference rooms. Truck cabs. Job trailers. Kitchen tables with coffee going cold and a set of plans taking up the whole surface. And...
Build-to-Sell Is Dead (For You)
I caught myself running flip math on one of my own hold properties. Here’s why I closed the spreadsheet, and why the volume builders already told you everything you need to know about build-to-sell.
Nobody Knows. Do The Work Anyway.
Michael asked how tariffs will hit real estate. The honest answer is that nobody knows. Here is what 26 years of shocks taught me to do when nobody knows. Part 4 of a four-part series. Michael asked how tariffs will hit real estate. Three articles later, here is the...
You Are Allowed To Have Other Friends
Diversification is not disloyalty. Same rule for a country, a marriage, and a portfolio. Part 3 of a four-part series. Back to the couple from Part 1. The best marriages I have been around have one thing in common that nobody puts on the wedding invitation. Both...
Four Questions. Still No Answers.
In April I wrote down four worries about where this country was headed. Four months later I went back to look at them. Part 2 of a four-part series. There is a particular kind of discomfort in reading your own writing back. Not the typos. Not the sentence you would...
Thoughts? Lots Of Them
Michael Ponte asked our community how tariffs would hit real estate. I gave him a coffee emoji. Here is the real answer. Part 1 of a four-part series. A weekend morning, a couple of weeks back. Michael Ponte, who leads the Savvy Investors Facebook group, one of the...
