Looking out the windows of our office we count only three construction cranes. You can imagine our surprise after coming across the below chart – Toronto, it seems, has more construction cranes than anywhere else in North America. In fact, as of July 2019, Toronto has more construction cranes in the sky than New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston combined. The Rider Levett Bucknall’s Crane Index for North America is published biannually and tracks the number of operating tower cranes in 13 major cities in Canada and the United States. Current data available suggests that residential and mixed-use projects make up the majority of cranes in use, however, it is anticipated that increased infrastructure spending could trigger additional activity.
Toronto once again leads North America in terms of how many active construction cranes can be seen in the sky at the beginning of Q3 2019. Image via Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce/Rider Levett Bucknall.
Looking abroad, a Danish bank launched the world’s first negative interest rate mortgage; yes, you read that correctly! A negative interest rate effectively means that the bank is paying borrowers to borrow money for the purchase of home. In Canada, one has to wonder how real estate prices will react as rates continue to fall; the biggest risk would be a further increase to already inflated prices.
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