Move Smartly: The Podcast

The Situation is our monthly segment where John and Davin work through real estate situations sent in by real people — the messy, high-stakes decisions that don't have a clean answer in a market like this one.

This month:

A Toronto investor walked away from her pre-construction condo when she couldn't close, forfeited her deposit, and assumed that was the end of it. Now she's reading about builders suing buyers for the shortfall when the unit resells for less. John and Davin get into what she's actually exposed to, how long a builder has to come after her, and whether there's anything she can do now that doesn't make things worse.

Then: a tenant has had her rent raised by the maximum every year for four years, while rents around her have been falling. Her landlord just sent another increase and a new lease to sign. How should she open that conversation, what leverage does she actually have, and can asking backfire?

Plus: should you buy your next home before selling your current one, and why a neighbourhood can show 2.6 months of inventory when homes are selling in 24 days.

Have a situation of your own? Send it to us and we'll take it on in a future episode.

Toronto has almost stopped building condos. Starts hit a multi-decade low last year, and by the end of the decade there will be virtually no new condo completions at all. So nearly all the new housing this city gets over the next five years will be purpose-built rental — apartment buildings owned by the people who build them.

My guest is Matt Spoke, a partner at Toronto Standard, which develops, builds, and holds midrise rental across Toronto. He's a CPA and former tech founder who runs the firm's capital side, so he thinks about housing the way an underwriter does.

We talk about why this way of building disappeared for 25 years and what's bringing it back, why he builds midrise instead of joining the multiplex boom, and which government policies actually got shovels in the ground. I also push him on CMHC — purpose-built rental depends on government-insured loans no private lender would offer, and Matt generally favours markets over intervention.

Then the question I most wanted answered: rents are down about 4% from last year and roughly 12% off their 2023 peak, and he's putting up buildings that won't have tenants for two or three years. So what rent is he actually assuming — and does he think rents go up from here, or down?

In today's live, we're diving into the latest GTA market statistics and separating fact from fiction when it comes to the headlines. Joining Gus and Davin from Realosophy, we discuss what's really happening on the ground and what the latest trends mean for buyers and sellers.

We also hear from mortgage expert David Larock, who shares his latest insights on mortgage rates. Despite changing headlines and ongoing political uncertainty, rates have remained relatively steady—but what does that mean for the months ahead?

Set-up a meeting with John Pasalis and his agents at Realosophy to discuss your own real estate questions privately: https://www.movesmartly.com/meetjohn Sign up for our email list to be alerted to the next online market update to join our YouTube session live chat and ask your own Qs: https://www.movesmartly.com/monthly-public-webinar We hope you enjoyed this month's update and found it valuable. Thanks for tuning in - we'll see you next month!

This month on the Real Estate Roundtable, I'm joined by Vancouver realtor Steve Saretsky and Toronto mortgage broker David Larock to break down the latest developments in Canada's housing market.

We discuss why housing markets in Toronto and Vancouver remain sluggish despite a modest improvement in market balance. New listings have been falling for several months, helping reduce excess inventory, but sales activity remains subdued and buyers continue to have the upper hand in many segments.

We also examine the outlook for interest rates. For the past four months, financial markets had been pricing in the possibility of rate hikes later this year. However, easing geopolitical tensions following the Iran conflict and renewed trade uncertainty after the extension of Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement failed to materialize have shifted expectations. With the economic outlook becoming more uncertain, additional rate hikes appear to be off the table—for now.

Finally, we discuss the British Columbia government's proposal to purchase unsold condominium inventory from struggling developers and convert those units into rent-to-own housing. Is this a practical way to expand homeownership opportunities, or another government intervention that risks distorting the housing market?

All that and more in this month's Real Estate Roundtable.

Over a century ago, Toronto banned apartment buildings from most residential streets — while European cities like Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam were building them as the default fabric of urban life. That decision shaped the city we live in today: a landscape of single-family houses and condo towers with almost nothing in between. In 2019, Globe and Mail architecture critic Alex Bozikovic co-edited House Divided, a book that former Chief Planner Gregg Lintern has credited with kick-starting Toronto's missing middle conversation.

Seven years later, multiplexes and sixplexes are now permitted across the city, but the gap between zoning reform and actual construction remains wide — and the affordability crisis has only deepened. In this episode, John and Alex explore the history behind Toronto's housing divide, what's changed since the book was published, and some of the harder questions the missing middle movement still needs to answer — including whether the math can work at four to six units at a time, the challenge of retrofitting a city that was physically built for something else, and a striking paradox: the European cities we look to for inspiration are built almost entirely of the housing types being advocated for here, and they're deep in their own affordability crises.

Canada's economy is showing increasing signs of strain, with weakening economic data pointing toward a technical recession—and this month's Real Estate Roundtable unpacks what that could mean for the housing market in the months and years ahead.

Joining me are Vancouver realtor Steve Saretsky and Toronto mortgage broker David Larock as we discuss how slowing economic growth, rising unemployment, and softer consumer confidence are impacting housing activity across the country.

We also break down the latest outlook for interest rates and whether weaker economic conditions could push the Bank of Canada toward additional rate cuts. What do falling bond yields and softer inflation data mean for mortgage rates, buyers, and homeowners renewing over the next year?

Finally, we discuss the longer-term outlook for Canadian real estate—and why the next phase of the market may not look like the rapid rebounds Canadians have become accustomed to. Instead of another quick surge higher, are we entering a period of years-long flat home prices as incomes slowly catch up to housing costs?

All that and more in this month's housing market roundtable covering Toronto, Vancouver, and the broader Canadian economy.

Housing debates today are dominated by one idea: if we just build more homes, prices will fall. But what if that story is incomplete?

In this episode, I sit down with Mike Fellman to unpack his report Fixing Housing Means Fixing Finance and explore why housing affordability is as much a finance problem as it is a supply problem. We break down the limits of traditional economic thinking, why upzoning alone doesn't guarantee more housing, and how the cost of capital—and the returns investors expect—ultimately determine what gets built.

We also connect these ideas to what's happening here in Canada, where programs like CMHC's MLI Select are quietly reshaping the economics of rental housing by lowering borrowing costs and enabling more development. The result is a more nuanced view of the housing crisis—one that challenges the idea that we can simply deregulate our way to affordability.

https://groundworkcollaborative.org/work/fixing-housing-means-fixing-finance-why-we-cant-deregulate-our-way-to-affordability/

Follow John x-twitter: https://x.com/JohnPasalis, Instagram @john.pasalis or email: [email protected]

Follow the show on x-twitter: @MoveSmartly, Instagram @move.smartly

About This Show

The Move Smartly show is hosted by John Pasalis, President and Broker of Realosophy Realty. MoveSmartly.com and its media channels on YouTube and various podcast platforms are powered by Realosophy Realty in Toronto, Canada.

You can also watch this episode on our MoveSmartly YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/movesmartly

If you enjoy our show and find it useful, please like, subscribe, share, review and comment on whatever platform you are watching or listening to us from - we appreciate your support!

In this episode, John sits down with Ben Rabidoux of Edge Realty Analytics for a wide-ranging conversation on the state of Canada's economy and housing market. They start with the macro picture — an economy where headline GDP growth masks a struggling private sector, full-time job losses are at their steepest since the pandemic, and an oil-price-driven inflation shock is forcing the Bank of Canada into an impossible position between hiking rates and protecting a weakening economy.

The conversation turns to mounting household financial stress, with consumer insolvencies at levels not seen since 2009, credit card charge-offs at decade highs, and a growing social normalization of mortgage default. In the housing market, Ben makes the case that the single-family segment may be nearing a floor — completions and permits are at multi-decade lows, new listings have peaked, and pent-up demand is building — while the condo market faces a deeper structural reckoning as investor economics remain broken and pre-construction defaults surge. They close with what may be the most counterintuitive story in Canadian housing right now: developers are starting rental units at record levels into a market where rents are already falling, vacancy is rising, and population growth has turned negative — setting up a potential future where single-family prices recover while the rental market continues to deteriorate.

Follow John x-twitter: https://x.com/JohnPasalis, Instagram @john.pasalis or email: [email protected]

Follow the show on x-twitter: @MoveSmartly, Instagram @move.smartly

About This Show

The Move Smartly show is hosted by John Pasalis, President and Broker of Realosophy Realty. MoveSmartly.com and its media channels on YouTube and various podcast platforms are powered by Realosophy Realty in Toronto, Canada.

You can also watch this episode on our MoveSmartly YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/movesmartly

If you enjoy our show and find it useful, please like, subscribe, share, review and comment on whatever platform you are watching or listening to us from - we appreciate your support!

In today's live, we're breaking down Toronto's two-sided housing market — where condos and suburban homes are struggling, but some central Toronto neighbourhoods are still seeing fierce bidding wars. We also answered viewer questions and discussed what buyers and sellers need to know right now. We also chatted about Canada's latest job losses, what a weakening labour market could mean for the economy, and where interest rates may be headed next. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 00:54 GTA Home Prices 09:12 Market Stats 12:43 On The Ground Questions 33:33 Mortgage Expert - David Larock

Set-up a meeting with John Pasalis and his agents at Realosophy to discuss your own real estate questions privately: https://www.movesmartly.com/meetjohn Sign up for our email list to be alerted to the next online market update to join our YouTube session live chat and ask your own Qs: https://www.movesmartly.com/monthly-public-webinar

We hope you enjoyed this month's update and found it valuable. Thanks for tuning in - we'll see you next month!

This month's roundtable digs into a shifting housing market narrative—one where the spotlight is quietly moving away from pre-construction condos and toward a surge in multiplex development across Canada. Fueled by highly leveraged, government-backed financing through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation programs like MLI Select, multiplex projects are emerging as the new "pre-con"—offering attractive returns on paper, but carrying real risks if rents, costs, or timelines don't hold. We unpack why this boom is happening now, who's building, and whether this model is sustainable—or just the latest cycle of risk masked by easy credit.

At the same time, cracks are forming beneath the surface. Mortgage arrears are rising across Canada, a signal that higher interest rates and affordability pressures are starting to bite. We connect this trend to broader financial conditions, including rising bond yields, and what that means for borrowers, investors, and housing demand in both Toronto and Vancouver. While home sales remain subdued in both markets, the underlying story is increasingly about financial stress and shifting incentives—not just supply and demand.