This is Patrick’s bio
A household earning $235,000 can now barely qualify for a median-priced home in Vancouver. That figure, roughly double what most dual-income professional couples actually make, captures the structural problem that intensified across Canadian markets in June 2026. Prices rebounded while incomes stayed flat, and the arithmetic stopped
In Vancouver, a household now needs to earn $232,000 per year to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced home. That figure is up from $218,000 eighteen months ago, despite home prices themselves moving sideways over the same period. The divergence is not an anomaly. Across nine
A group of taxpayers asked the Federal Court to declare that the Canada Revenue Agency lacked the authority to collect tax on capital gains at the new two-thirds inclusion rate before Bill C-69 received Royal Assent. The court declined to answer the question. The dismissal, handed down in
Roughly 400 candidates sat for the CFP exam in May 2026, and three-quarters of those writing for the first time passed. That 77% mark, along with the 72% first-time pass rate for the QAFP, represents more than a statistical milestone. It signals that the pipeline into regulated financial
Sarah just moved $180,000 from a savings account into her RRSP and opened the Questrade dashboard. VOO is 0.03%. VFV, the Canadian wrapper for the same S&P 500 index, is 0.09%. She's staring at a 6-basis-point spread and wondering if it&
A financial planner who charges 1.2% of assets under management will recommend you consolidate your investments with them. A commission-based advisor will suggest you buy the mutual fund with the highest trailer fee. A fee-only planner charging $200/hour will tell you to manage your own portfolio
Toronto's Condo Recovery Runs on Investor Bulk Buys, Not Organic Demand A 42-storey tower in Scarborough that stalled at 61% pre-sold in early 2023 closed at 84% eighteen months later. The difference wasn't a wave of first-time buyers. It was a single institutional
The Entertainment District saw 47 unsold units in a single tower move in one transaction last fall, not to 47 families, but to a single institutional buyer who paid roughly 15% below the developer's original asking price per unit. That transaction, and dozens like it across the GTA,
A professionally installed smart water valve runs about $500. It will save you roughly $8 on your monthly home insurance premium in Ontario. At that rate, it takes five years to break even, which makes the device look like a terrible investment until you remember that the average basement flood
The last time an auto part crossed the Canadian border into Michigan, it had already been across that same border five times during assembly. That movement pattern, common in North American manufacturing, now faces a tax structure that could compound a 50% tariff into something closer to a 300% cumulative
A 32-year-old accountant in Mississauga walks away from a viewing after learning the seller paid 1.84% on their mortgage in 2021 and has no intention of moving unless someone offers well above list. The buyer can finance at 5.1%. The math doesn't work for
A 29-year-old senior analyst in Kitchener just closed on a $615,000 pre-construction townhouse. Her actual out-of-pocket at closing? Roughly $38,000. She'd maxed her FHSA at $40,000, withdrew $60,000 from her RRSP via the Home Buyers' Plan, and claimed