Over the last several years, the real estate market has come to occupy the cultural zeitgeist in a major way. At dinner tables and water coolers across the country, Canadians have talked about the market when it soars, when it slides, and when it stagnates.
This is something that has always been true for industry stakeholders and investors, but since the market volatility that followed the pandemic, everyday folk both young and old have been getting in on the discussion. They have opinions, they have complaints, and they have questions.
Mike Moffat, Founding Director of the Missing Middle Initiative and Co-Host of The Missing Middle podcast alongside journalist Sabrina Maddeaux, theorizes that the rise of real estate as a topic of everyday discussion comes from people simply having more skin in the game. “The general public is just trying to figure out what the hell happened,” he tells STOREYS. “They want to know why it is that affordability has cratered — why is it that their kids can’t afford a place?”
Meeting this demand for explanations head on are industry experts, many of whom have turned to one of the 21st century’s most popular information mediums to do so: podcasting.
A Robust Audience
Podcasts in general have risen in popularity over the past decade, solidifying themselves as a pillar of the audio medium. While the specific number of Canadians who listen to real estate podcasts isn’t available, around 30% of Canadians aged over 18 listened to podcasts on a weekly basis in 2024, according to the Canadian Podcast Listener, while around 40% listened on a monthly basis, equating to approximately 16.4 million Canadians.
In recent years, dozens of real estate podcasts have cropped up, and while some have puttered out, several remain for thousands of Canadians to tune into for their daily or weekly dose of real estate news updates, housing policy developments, investing insights, and more.
Meredith Martin is the producer of The Missing Middle podcast. The show essentially focuses on why today’s middle class in being left out of the Canadian dream — think episodes like: “Canada’s GST Rebate is Based On 1991 Home Prices-WTF!?!” and “Will Reduced Immigration Solve The Housing Crisis?” She says adding a podcast to the Missing Middle Initiative’s repertoire “just made sense” and that’s “it’s the medium of now.”
Left to right: Mike Moffat, Meredith Martin
Daniel Foch and Nick Hill, mortgage brokers and hosts of another popular real estate podcast called The Canadian Real Estate Investor, say that when they launched their show in early 2022, they were met with a willing audience. As an off-shoot of the popular The Canadian Investor podcast, Foch and Hill’s real estate-focused show launched at number one in Canada, has never left the top 40 for business podcasts, and typically sits in the top 20.
Despite the name of their show, Foch tells STOREYS it’s not just investors that listen. “We have a lot of homeowners, homebuyers, first time buyers, and people who just like economics and investment philosophy, who listen to the show,” he says.
‘Conversationalizing’ The Data
Part of what makes podcasting so appealing to so many, Foch says, is the ability to present a wealth of information in a way that not only holds audiences’ attention, but allows for greater connection than other mediums.
“Podcasting is just a really efficient way to go deep on content, and it’s also an efficient way to build a relationship with an audience because of that conversational style,” he says. “It’s just a really captive, intimate platform.”
It also allows for a more approachable tone at times, adds Hill. “We stick to the script I’d say 70% of the time, just because we want to really make sure that we’re getting as much info delivered as possible. […] And then we’ll throw in 20% or 30% of anecdotes and us trying to be funny every now and then. Which doesn’t work.”
Left to right: Daniel Foch, Nick Hill
For Moffat, who comes from the world of more traditional ‘think tank’ information dissemination, podcasting provides a more modern medium to efficiently communicate what is oftentimes complex data to a larger audience base. “The traditional think tank model has always been: release the 50-page report and do some media around it, and then nobody hears from you for six months until you do another one,” he says. “That works for many think tanks, but I’ve always found it a little bit dated.”
Staying On The Pulse
Moffat says that over the last few years he and his team had already begun producing more digestible, shorter-form reports, and that a podcast was the natural next step and the more “modern medium.” Over the course of a roughly 30-minute episode, Moffat and his co-host Maddeaux might break down 15 years of data on planning committee decisions on infill housing projects to find out what makes or breaks a proposal, unpack the role of REITs, or tackle big questions like: are young people giving up on Canada?
“We really try to gather as much hard data and information as possible, and then shape that into an understandable narrative,” says Hill. “Our goal is that anybody listening can leave just a little bit smarter.”
On top of efficiently unpacking stories and concepts, both podcasts also frequently welcome guests onto their shows, allowing listeners to hear, first-hand, from big names in housing and real estate who are often otherwise inaccessible. The Missing Middle, for example, has featured compelling guest interviews, including with mortgage broker Ron Butler, Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes, and Alex Beheshti, Senior Consultant with Altus Group Economic Consulting.
Honest Discussions
In mid-July, Foch and Hill interviewed the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) Deputy Chief Economist, Aled ab Iorwerth, about his June report, which found Canada would need to double housing starts to restore affordability by 2035. The report garnered significant attention in the news cycle, but by speaking directly with ab Iorwerth, Foch and Hill were able to unlock a refreshingly honest and nuanced conversation around housing starts.
Ultimately, existing separate from more formal industry associations and corporations, real estate podcasts like The Missing Middle and The Canadian Real Estate Investor are able to tackle real estate from a more unbiased standpoint — something Foch believes has been key in building their audience.
Echoing Moffat, Foch says people just want to get to the bottom of what happened to the housing market and what could make it turn around. “I think it’s created fear. And so people do research and want to get educated in trying to quell that fear a little bit,” he says. “And that’s why I think our show’s done really well… because we try not to sugarcoat things. The industry is infamous for tiptoeing around stuff… but people are really craving genuine discussions about what’s happening.”