Introducing Public Market Reports. If you’ve met me in person and heard my elevator pitch, I often like to say that I sell real estate “North of Bloomington” – also known colloquially (or co-local-y?) as the “N6”. I always stipulate that I don’t discriminate on the product I sell, and I have clients who like the way I analyze a deal, so I’ve been a little promiscuous lately, working on some development sites in The Beaches, Brampton and Sudbury currently. The N6 stands for the North 6 (WE THE NORTH), and includes the following municipalities: Aurora  East Gwillimbury Sharon Queensville Mt. Albert Holland Landing Georgina Keswick (North & South) Historic Lakeshore Communities Sutton & Jackson’s Point Pefferlaw & Virginia Baldwin & Belhaven King King City Schomberg Nobleton Pottageville, Lloydtown, and a bunch of other rural communities I’m going to get an earful for missing (sorry) Newmarket Whitchurch-Stouffville Regardless of the promiscuity, the N6 is home, and it’ll always have a special place in my heart. It’s visible in my work in the area. I’m progressing on my statistical recall for napkin math with out-of-town developers who need the local touch. The reason I’m so in touch with the information in this area is that I analyze it on a monthly basis for my clients, who range from first-time homebuyers to developers with billion-dollar budgets. I am a data-driven real estate broker. Because of the nature of the market right now, I’ve decided to start releasing my market reports to the public, for a few different reasons. My motivation is about 50% selfish, 50% selfless, and I have no reason to lie about that. Everything has to be win-win in this real estate.  I’ll be as transparent as I can here, because the lack of transparency in this industry can be pretty sickening: Consistent, high-quality content helps me from an SEO perspective. Consistent, high-quality content helps me prove that I know what I’m doing. I am fed up with the misinformation I see about real estate. I feel compelled to help people who are making decisions with the wrong information by giving them the right information to make a decision in their best interest (it’s literally my fiduciary duty as a broker). I am competing daily with app-style “tech brokers” who run all of the same data through an algorithm to pump out a bunch of metrics that don’t really mean anything, but look modern and generate leads. My goal is to distil a month’s worth of information at a time and present it in a local context on a relevant timeline with concise conclusions. I will not skew data. I will not tell you what you want to hear. I will tell you what is happening. I promise to tell it like it is. Sometimes my conclusions may be wrong. I will do my best not to make recommendations based on the conclusions. If you’re curious as to whether or not I’m qualified to do this, let my work speak for itself. Below is an album of the infographics I use for my market reports. I’ll be compressing the report into 4 segments, analyzing 1-week at a time. I’ll also be releasing videos of my analysis on instagram focused on more personalized explanations, neighbourhood metrics, and anticipated trends. If reception is good, I may ramp up to multiple posts per week. If you want to subscribe to e-mail updates let me know! Sample Neighbourhood Report Infographics    Sample Local Infographics   Sample Regional Infographics

Is technology designed around the home, or is the home designed around technology? I sort of arrived at this concept a while ago before I read How Buildings Learn, and The Timeless Way of Building back to back-ish, although it does seem to me that my idea is a little bit derivative from the concepts presented there. With that being said, what I have learned seems to be more focused on explaining the very interesting phenomena of how the layout of a home adapts to the introduction and development of technology. Perhaps there is nothing novel about this realization... but I have surmised that the layout of the home has adapted more to the stuff we fill it with than the people who inabit it. The most obvious iterations of this would be standardization of appliance sizes. A dishwasher is 24 inches. A stove is 30. Fridges still haven't figured it out. But what about things with screens? Over the decade since their invention, TV screens have been growing in size, but they've been decreasing in thickness. I figure this is a worthwhile thing to analyze because it's an extremely clear iteration of how modern technology that we still use is still changing the way we create the spaces we live in. Let's plot it on a timeline: 1900: Think about a century home. A classic foursquare has a relatively narrow living room with the focal point being arranged around the fireplace. The rooms weren't really even designed to have people staring at the fireplace, they were actually designed to have conversation areas, where people looked at one another, and were able to be warmed by the fire. Co-incidentally, we've almost arrived at the same shaped room in modern times, because TV sets hang like a piece of artwork on the wall, and often, above the fireplace.    1950: Widespread TV adoption. At this point, a TV set is about 2-3 feet wide and 1-2 feet deep, and ornamentally decorated to resemble furniture. Midcentury homes were often built with enough space for a television set to be placed a room, with furniture to be arranged around it. The alternative scenario, if you could afford it (and many could at the time) was that you'd have a family room, an informal living space where your family could spend time looking at the TV set. This brought on a handful of changes in the design of furniture, such as the sectional couch, but it was also one of the major changes in building as a result of digital technology. 1970: Once we got to colour TV sets started growing with the tube technology, the amount of programming increased, and all of the sudden the TV became the centrepiece of the room. Televisions were designed like furniture, and stood in the corner of the room. Furniture was built around it. This meant wider, more square living rooms with pass-throughs from the kitchen. It meant higher, taller, narrower windows, further away from the corners of rooms. It meant that buildings were learning to adapt to technology, and technology was not really adapting to the building.  1990: BIG SCREENS!!!! - the 90's made EVERYTHING BIG (except people, because they were all on the Atkins diet). Big screen TV's came in, which mean BIGGER corners of BIGGER family rooms and BIGGER thoroughfare from BIGGER kitchens and, for the first time, kitchens designed to get a peek at the TV while doing chores. This was one of the first times we really saw kitchen islands become prominent outside of commercial cooking. I believe the TV played a role in that. Did we make wet islands so we could wash dishes and pay attention to our guests, or did we make them so we could wash dishes and tune in? I really don't know.   Today: Today, TV's take up less space than the artwork that used to hang above the fireplace in the 1900's homes. I don't think this is the only reason that century homes (and the farmhouse style everything) are so popular today, however, I think it plays a role. With the wall-mountable TV set, any of the past home configurations could work. This might be the first time that technology adapted to the home, not the other way around. 

Briarwood Development Group unveils proposal for 2 condo towers, senior residence, public park, community facility at Davis and Patterson NEWS Feb 06, 2019 by Teresa Latchford  Newmarket Era   Briarwood Development Group planner Diarmuid Hogan speaks to residents about one of the two proposed designs for the corner of Davis Drive and Patterson Street at an open house hosted by the developer at the Newmarket Community Centre and Lions Hall. Feb. 5, 2019. - Teresa Latchford/Metroland   The Briarwood Development Group intends to make an offer to purchase Newmarket’s Hollingsworth lands.   The group hosted a public open house to unveil two proposed designs for the properties surrounding the Hollingsworth Arena on the corner of Davis Drive and Patterson Street. The designs feature two 15-storey condominium towers fronting onto Davis Drive with retail uses on the ground level, urban park and a public walk-through from the front of the development to the back. One of the design options include a 5,500 square-metre public park, community facility and senior’s residence that would require the purchase of the Hollingsworth property currently owned by the town.   “In a year we have had 20 to 25 iterations of these designs,” Briarwood Development Group’s Hugh Magennis said. “What we are trying to do with the project is bring something that works for everyone.”     The renderings of the park included a host of ideas including a water feature that doubles as an ice rink, walking paths, leisure green space, splash pad and would act as a community gathering place for all ages. As for the community facility, that would be up to the town to decide the specific use when the time came. RELATED CONTENT Town of Newmarket asks residents to shape future of Hollingsworth Arena Newmarket council set to pass on proposed Hollingsworth arena development   “We have not submitted a formal application to the town as of yet,” Magennis confirmed. “We wanted to reach out to the public and get some feedback before finalizing the proposed design.”   Magennis added that the proposals currently meet the town’s zoning bylaws and that Briarwood intends to tap into the density bonus allowances ranging from two to three times the floor space index (FSI).   After reviewing the proposal diagrams at the public open house, some residents had concerns while others were fully on board.   A number of residents were concerned about the height of the towers, density and additional traffic in an already congested area.   “I moved to Newmarket to get out of the city,” Frank James said. “Traffic getting off Patterson onto Davis is already a nightmare and this will just add to it.”   He fears adding more vehicle traffic to the intersection and pedestrian traffic, considering there is a proposed senior’s residence and an existing school nearby, it could become a very dangerous intersection for all. YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN... NEWS Previously convicted impaired driver charged again... NEWS Police sweep 23 more impaired drivers off York... NEWS Georgina man hands over 20 grams of marijuana to...   “Newmarket is growing too fast and I feel like it just doesn’t have the infrastructure in place to support it,” he said. “Even with the widening of Davis traffic is still difficult.”   He also pointed out that other development projects, like 212 Davis Dr., stick out like a sore thumb due to the height of the towers.   However, Gianluca Rocco feels a development like this is exactly what Davis Drive needs.     “The plans fit with the area and the direction the town is going with intensification of the corridors,” he said. “Davis needs to be redeveloped.”   Density in this specific area would not only feed the transit system but it would also help young professionals or families enter the housing market and stay in Newmarket rather than moving elsewhere to find something they can afford, he said.

If I were to summarize March, 2019 in a word, it would be "uncommunicative." I've been trying to derive some conclusions from all of the information we've got about the month, but the only conclusion I can draw is that the spring market likely isn't here yet, and if it is here, it sucks. Here are the major takeaways I've got from March, let's hope that this was all just a result of our extended dance with old-man winter: All but one price metric have moved down: average; median; price ceiling The price floor moved up: this could mean that first-time homebuyers and investors are leading the charge in the spring market, a trend that I'd honestly love to see continue as a theme for 2019.