Canadian companies have been scaling back on office space, reversing the pre-pandemic scramble that made it scarce. BMO senior economist Sal Guatieri looked at commercial office space in his latest note. The bank found long-term tenants locked into space are paying their bills just fine. However, companies that could, have been scaling back on the […]
Many Canadian retail stores closed, but households are still finding ways to spend. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) data shows retail spending made a big jump in February. The rise in sales was strong in the building materials and gardening categories. Combined, both of those trends represented nearly a third of all annual growth. The combination […]
The mystery of how Canada attracts so many big tech companies was revealed in a commercial real estate analysis. The country scored 5 spots on CBRE‘s 2020 list of Top 50 Tech Hubs. High-quality labor is one of the key reasons real estate prices haven’t been a drag. The other is Canadian tech workers make […]
The consensus is work-from-home is temporary, but real estate developers might not be so sure. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) data shows construction investment reached a high in January. The trend is driven by residential construction investment, which reached a new record. Non-residential construction showed minimal growth, and is now effectively negative in real terms. Canadian […]
Canada’s commercial rental market is split, and probably not how most would guess. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) data shows commercial rents are down in Q4 2020. A breakdown shows the decline is largely due to retail rents falling. Despite a broad adoption of work from home, office rents are still chugging to all-time highs. Retail […]
Brick and mortar small businesses have been forced shut, or face almost no traffic. Wage relief is being delivered, with the government covering up to 75% of payroll costs at impacted businesses. Subsidized wages help, but another very large expensive still needs to be considered – rent. Commercial rents have been soaring, and tenants, even […]
Canada’s restaurant apocalypse is bad, and about to get a lot worse in the next few weeks. Restaurants Canada estimates the industry lost 800,000 jobs in March, and a tenth of restaurants have already permanently closed. The organization is forecasting Canada will lose almost a third of restaurants by month end. Why Do You Care? […]
Canadian restaurants were already getting crushed by soaring real estate prices, and now they’re facing pandemic fallout. Data from Open Table shows the big drop off in traffic for restaurants in Canada’s largest cities. Cities like Toronto were already facing weak traffic growth. However, this was capitulated after COVID-19 cases began to rise. Montreal had […]
US tech firms are flocking to Canada for high quality tech employees, even with pricey real estate. This comes at the expense of wages.
Residential land accounted for almost a third of all commercial land sales in Vancouver, down from 50% the same time last year.
