Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 713

Here's a weekly round up of links and articles that you may find interesting. The topics cover the sorts of things that we usually talk about on this blog.

• The latest Mackay Laneway House update is now live on the Globizen Journal. The ground floor steel is complete, with framing currently underway. The post has some background on the challenges faced in order to get to this stage.

• Brick comparison. Here's a recent tweet of mine . I'm curious if any of you can tell the difference between these two brick finishes and if you have a clear preference. One of them is stamped concrete and the other is real brick (precast concrete with brick slips).

• Pools as art . Apparently this is a trend right now, but it's not necessarily a new one. Pablo Picasso accidentally created one when he "signed" the bottom of one in Spain back in the early 1960s. A pool would be fun right now. [FT paywall]

• Alley house in King's Cross by architect David Adjaye is currently on the market for £6.5 million . Lots of black. I love the mint green room with the exposed concrete ceiling. Oh, and there's a pool.

• Nightclubs are, not surprisingly, really struggling . Most have been closed since March. Unlike restaurants, you can't really hack together a solution with outdoor dining, heat lamps and takeout. They're predicated on people being proximate to each other. [Sorry, another FT paywall]

• SPACs are so hot right now , particularly in the world of Chamath Palihapitiya and Social Capital. A good follow-up to this week's earlier post about $IPOB's merger with real estate startup Opendoor .

• Monocle has just published a new book about "gentle living ." It's a guide to "slowing down, enjoying more and being happy." I'm trying to do more of this, or at least be more mindful about it. It doesn't always/usually work. Perhaps I need this book.

• " Decade of the home ." Opinion piece about the current desire for suburban over urban locations. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I am steadfast in my belief that urban life is going to prove to be incredibly resilient on the other side of this.

• McKinsey report about the impact that lockdown is having on digital adoption, e-commerce penetration, and the overall customer experience. You'll need to enter some information in order to download the PDF, but it's free.

Photo: Lost House by Adjaye Associates via The Modern House

This recent WSJ article , which is largely about single-family home landlords in the United States, has some interesting charts about mortgaged homes. The following chart shows the percentage of US homes that are worth less than their debt (i.e. they're underwater). Following the financial crisis, the figure was about a quarter of all mortgaged US homes, and it stayed that way until almost 2012. This percentage surprised me.

The other chart that I'd like to share today shows the percentage of US mortgages in forbearance (i.e. people deferring payments). Not surprisingly, the percentage really increased in April, peaked in early summer, and has since started to seemingly decline. I say seemingly because who knows what this fall/winter will bring. As of September 6, the number was about 3.5 million home loans (or about 7.01%).

The point of the WSJ article is that there are a segment of people who are house-rich, but cash-poor. They have equity that they have built up, but maybe not a lot of cash to weather a storm. That could force some to sell. And it could be a boon for the rental-home landlords, who have been, in many cases, betting on the the suburban rental market since the last recession.

It has been well documented that Tokyo tends to build a lot of housing. And the argument goes that this has helped to maintain a certain level of housing affordability. The city is constantly building and rebuilding. It also has different views about housing . Now, we could, of course, debate how much of its relative affordability is a direct result of supply but, regardless, there seems to be a lot of it. In 2014, the city of Tokyo saw 142,417 housing starts, according to this recent FT article . This is compared to ~5,000 units across the Bay Area ( 2015 data ), 83,657 units for the state of California, and 137,010 units for all of England.

If you're wondering how Toronto is doing, here are the latest numbers:

https://twitter.com/GreggLintern/status/1306614244650164226?s=20