In a Hot Housing Market, ‘Storeys’ Delivers the Inside Scoop

Storeys is on the rise.

The online publication covers all things Canadian real estate, from interviews with big developers and housing ministers to the nuts and bolts of putting buildings together to the dollar figures of projects that fall apart.

It has become an in-depth resource for both the industry and average readers curious to have an insider’s guide to real estate today.

The past year has been a tumultuous one for the industry, and Storeys has had no shortage of news to chase. High interest rates pushing developers to ditch condo projects for rentals. The surge of insolvencies and foreclosures across the country.

The outlet was launched in 2016 as Toronto Storeys by Danny Roth, who works in real estate public relations and felt that there was an opportunity for an editorial publication to step into the online space and cover the industry. After a few years of growth, Storeys dropped the Toronto label and went national in 2021.

Roth remains as publisher and CEO. The publication has 10 full-time staff and dozens of contributors, with about five to 10 regulars. Christopher Hume, the former urban issues and architecture critic for the Globe and Mail, is among them. Readers in British Columbia will recognize the bylines of local veteran journalists Kerry Gold and Frances Bula.

“We want to become the go-to real estate publication in the country,” said Eric Wainwright, the chief operating officer, who believes that providing coverage that is consistent, reliable and truthful has helped the publication become well read and respected by the industry.

“It’s been a really hard couple of years for real estate, and in no way does that mean we’re going to shy away from telling the stories that matter and are affecting people in good times and bad.”

‘Real estate leads into many aspects of everyday life’

While the market might go up and down, revenues have been steadily climbing. Storeys’ revenue model is fairly traditional: display ads, sponsored posts, social media amplification and events.

Readership has been climbing too. You don’t have to work in the business of real estate to be invested, says Wainwright.

“Real estate has moved itself out of tertiary discussions and more to water-cooler conversations and around every dinner table,” he said.

“Real estate leads into many aspects of everyday life, from local politics and policy to provincial and federal implications to ownership and home equity to retirement plans.... We’re going through one of the largest transfers of wealth in history in Canada, and most of it is tied up in real estate. So there’s a lot riding on this for a lot of people. And that’s not even mentioning affordable housing and homelessness — huge issues throughout Canada.”

Also, personal curiosity.

“There’s always been something about real estate that’s — not quite salacious, but like you want to know what your neighbour paid for their house,” Wainwright said.

Reporters like myself in Vancouver, a hotbed of unaffordability and market activity, have chatted about the benefits of having Storeys as a new player in the media landscape with a closer eye on real estate than general-interest publications can sometimes afford.

We’ve gotten to read about what Vancouver-headquartered developers like Westbank are up to elsewhere, like in a 2023 story about how the contractors of its Toronto Honest Ed’s development alleged that they had not been paid for their work in 2023.

There are colourful peeks inside the world of development. Storeys published a story about the presentation centre to be envied by all presentation centres: a $10-million mass timber building for Beedie’s Fraser Mills community in Coquitlam.

There are also profiles of developers, the heirs of family companies looking to make their own mark like 32-year-old Nic Paolella, who has worked on hotels and seniors’ housing and is looking into founding a non-profit after experience partnering on a church redevelopment.

Elected officials show up too, considering how they’ve been looking to the private sector as partners to solve the housing crisis.

B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon and his federal counterpart Minister Sean Fraser have been interviewed about their seemingly developer-friendly policies to boost supply.

Storeys provided the response from developers in the province: the feelings are mixed, ranging from one calling Premier David Eby an “autocrat” to another saying that his policies are “actually quite good.”

And then there are the many stories of troubled companies in the recent market downturn.

One of these developers reported on by Storeys is Thind, founded by recent Order of British Columbia recipient Daljit Thind, which has faced receiverships and lawsuits.

Just this month, the publication reported on the City of Burnaby suing Thind for missing payments for a density bonus.

‘I want to know how all the teams are doing’

Howard Chai, who joined Storeys to lead western Canadian coverage as the first staff writer in the region, says covering real estate can be like covering sports.

“I want to know how all the teams are doing. I want to know all the transactions,” he said. “It’s a huge issue, and it’s only gotten more important. It touches on so many things: the economy, business, politics, labour issues, arts and culture, housing and homelessness. That whole breadth keeps things interesting.”

Some of Chai’s big stories include a look at how the industry pushed back against the original federal foreign buyers’ ban (successfully suggesting an exemption to allow non-Canadian entities to purchase land for the purpose of development) and how developers are turning old malls with seas of parking into dense new projects (Oakridge, Metrotown, Richmond Centre and Capilano Mall are among the many examples in Metro Vancouver).

Going through court filings and the land ownership registry is an important source of stories for Chai.

“I think land ownership is something that’s a bit opaque in B.C. — obviously we have the landowner transparency registry now, which has been helpful, but I think a lot of people don’t necessarily know which developer owns which property and what their plans are. Sometimes you might know the holding company, but people don’t know who the beneficiary owner of the property would be. So that’s something I try to include in my articles.”

What have Storeys staff noticed as a tough year has come to a close and 2025 begins?

“Over the past 12 months, probably the insolvencies and the foreclosures have garnered the most headline hits. We cover the good news as well, but it’s hard to find in the worst market in 30 years,” said chief operating officer Wainwright.

“At the end of the day, most of the industry we’ve engaged with respect what we’re doing — we would never celebrate any of this, but we’re going to cover it as well as we can and be as honest as we can.”

In B.C., Chai does see more optimism compared with 2024 as interest rates have come down. However, there is still worry about high construction costs and development cost charges levied by governments. Eyes will also be watching the BC NDP following their recent and narrow election win.

“It’ll be interesting to see whether or not they continue to do more legislation or whether they let things settle, let local governments figure things out.”