The Canadian Real Estate Investor

Thousands of completed condos sit empty in a housing crisis, and now governments in Ontario and B.C. are using public money to fix it. Nick and Dan break down the Ontario "template", a government-backed buyer for unsold units, GST/HST relief up to $130K per home, and development-charge cuts, and ask whether it's smart housing policy or a bailout for developers who bet wrong.

They tackle the hard questions: Why does all this invento...

Ottawa and B.C. just unveiled a plan touching 2,200+ vacant condos, and the headline says taxpayers are now the buyer of last resort. Nick and Dan break down what was actually announced, billions in infrastructure, development-charge cuts, and a condo-conversion plan whose financing details won't drop until fall, and ask the question that matters: is public money buying real value, or rescuing a condo sector that overbuilt for inve...

CREA says home sales jumped 5.5% in May, but that "comeback" deserves a closer look. The seasonally adjusted bounce was real, yet actual sales were still 5.1% below last May, itself one of the weakest years in two decades. We break down why a strong monthly percentage can hide a market sitting near a 20-year low.

The real story underneath: Canada has split into two housing markets. Ontario and B.C. remain below their January 2022 p...

A 2026 guide to which home renovations actually return money for Canadian investors and homeowners. Walks through the big four (kitchens, bathrooms, basement suites, garden/laneway suites) with three-tier pricing across five cities, then covers the quiet high-ROI wins (paint, doors, flooring), the regret list (pools, smart homes, bedroom conversions), and the investor math, BRRRR, rental uplift, financing programs, and CRA capital-...

***Correction: KV Capital's ~$961M AUM as of June 2026 represents capital deployed across lending and investment strategies on behalf of investors, not real estate asset holdings.***

Nick Hill and Daniel Foch are joined by Jesse Warwa, Senior Director of Origination at KV Capital, an Edmonton-headquartered, vertically integrated real estate firm. With nearly two decades in commercial real estate finance, Jesse breaks down what's dr...

A new Bank of Canada staff paper tracked 9 million mortgage holders and found that mortgage delinquency has a warning signal, and it starts about two years before the missed payment, on credit cards and lines of credit, not the mortgage. We break down the two-year timeline, why households protect the mortgage until everything else breaks, and what it means for buyers, investors, lenders, and anyone underwriting Canadian real estate...

Statistics Canada just confirmed two consecutive quarters of negative annualized GDP. But half the country's economists say it doesn't count, the Prime Minister calls it "settling in," and the Bank of Canada is signaling the next move might be a hike, not a cut. We break down what the print actually said, why gold imports and frozen housing turnover are doing most of the damage, and what every Canadian real estate investor needs to...

Every spring, Canadians convince themselves a lakefront cottage will "pay for itself" on Airbnb. Most won't. In this episode, Nick and Dan run the actual 2026 math — Royal LePage's $604K national median, Muskoka's slipping $950K, Atlantic Canada's 11.8% surge — and break down the $44K-a-year true carrying cost nobody mentions at the showing.

They explain why the short-term rental thesis is dead in most of BC and Ontario...

Ontario just hit a two-year high for publicly visible power-of-sale listings, and CMHC's Spring 2026 report confirms what the headlines miss: national mortgage delinquencies are still calm at 0.24%, but Toronto is up 45% year over year, Ontario is up 35%, and mortgage investment entities are running at 1.96%. This isn't a U.S.-style foreclosure crisis, it's stress becoming visible unevenly, by lender type, property type, city, and ...

Nick sits down with Josh Findlay, co-founder of BLD Financial, for a tactical deep-dive on financing Canadian real estate deals in today's market. They break down CMHC MLI Select (how the points work, why 95% isn't always 95%), compare CMHC construction financing vs. private-then-takeout strategies, and explore where bridge debt fits in. Josh explains why Edmonton remains one of the strongest MLI Select markets, the realities of un...

The most common question in Canadian real estate investing has one real answer: capital is everywhere... you just need to know where to look. Nick and Dan walk through 14 distinct capital sources, from conventional A-lenders, B-lenders, and credit unions to HELOCs, BRRRR, private lenders and MICs, mezzanine debt, joint ventures, VTBs, CMHC MLI Select, Build Canada Homes, and family/network capital. Every source gets honest pros and...

CMHC's 2026 Mortgage Consumer Survey is out, and Dan and I dig into what the numbers actually say about Canadian homeownership right now.

The headlines: 35% of renewers felt financial pressure with payments up $375/month, but default concern dropped from 53% to 39%. 28% of first-time buyers needed a co-signer (54% leaned on parents). 23% got a down payment gift, median $30K. First-time buyers rented 7.6 years before buying. And 16%...

Nick and Dan break down the one line in the Spring Economic Update that actually matters: Ottawa wants private insurers to cover 5–8 unit buildings, with more flexibility for triplexes and fourplexes. Plus $7B accelerated for the Apartment Construction Loan Program.
The backdrop has flipped — population growth went from 3.2% to -0.2%, rental starts hit 5x the historical average, and asking rents ar...

A deep dive into 10 Canadian secondary markets worth serious investor attention in 2026. With Toronto condo sales at a 35-year low and Vancouver projects struggling to hit presale thresholds, capital is flowing into cities where the fundamentals actually pencil.

The episode covers Moncton (2.9% population growth, $386K avg price), Halifax (#1 nationally for investor interest, lowest office vacancy in Canada), Quebec City (13...

Nick and Dan break down Canada's four major modern recessions and what each did to real estate. Key insight: economic recovery and housing recovery are different timelines, Toronto took 13 years to recover from the 1989 peak, while Vancouver bounced back from 2008 in just 20 months. Bubble-driven corrections take far longer than externally-driven ones.

Looking ahead, oil shocks historically precede recessions, and USMCA trade tensi...

Nick and Dan unpack Real Brokerage's acquisition of RE/MAX and argue the market reaction tells the real story, RMAX trading ~30% below the headline $13.80 deal value and REAX selling off signals investors aren't convinced the combination creates shareholder value. They frame it as two stressed models trying to solve each other's problems: RE/MAX needs modernization, Real needs distribution, but both are operating in a transaction r...

Nick and Dan break down how AI is rewiring Canadian real estate layer by layer, search, valuation, mortgages, construction, and operations. They cover where it's genuinely transforming the industry (40% faster underwriting, 30% faster builds, QuadReal and Cadillac Fairview already at scale) and where it's hitting real limits (Zillow's iBuying collapse, hyperlocal market nuance, the negotiation itself). Skilled trades stay protected...

Sits down with Keaton Bessey, broker-owner of Greater Vancouver Tenant and Property Management, to break down what it actually takes to own and manage rental properties and especially multiplexes in one of Canada's most tenant-friendly markets.

 Keaton walks through property management fee structures and the hidden charges to watch for, his tenant screening process (income at 3x rent, plus the behavioral signals that matter mo...

Prices aren't crashing, but almost everything just got cheaper. About 22% of new construction units have visible price cuts, but factor in the expanded HST rebate and roughly 90% of inventory is effectively discounted right now. Dan and Nick break down the data, the game theory keeping builders from cutting publicly, and why resale sellers are about to feel it first.

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