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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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