A practical guide to Canadian REIT investing in 2025 + MORE Nov 11th

All of this spending and investment is justified as an urgent measure to protect the country against the tariff and trade wars with the United States. But Canada’s industrial policy represents a crisis gone to waste on a “generational” scale.

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My dad is 77 years old and we live together in a house worth $840,000, which we own together. Dad retired at age 70 and commuted his pension so he would have money to leave to me. He has about $580,000 divided between a LIF and a RRIF and his CPP is $17,000 and OAS $9,500. He lives on his CPP, OAS, and minimum LIF and RRIF withdrawals. He doesn’t have a TFSA and I have read that it makes sense to draw extra from registered accounts and add it to TFSAs. Should he be doing that?

—Alex

Hi Alex. It is good you are asking this question because you want to be a little careful with what you read. You see a lot of smart-sounding strategies but they can produce different outcomes for different people. If your dad’s goal is to build wealth, then he is probably best not to draw from his registered retirement income fund (RRIF) and add to a tax-free savings account (TFSA). However, with a goal to leave a larger estate to you, it probably is the right strategy. 

Let’s dig into this by first understanding what will happen if your dad continues doing what he is doing and he doesn’t add money to his TFSA…

North American markets appear to have entered another “Roaring Twenties.” But unlike the last century’s version, the current “everything bubble” is driven by speculative valuations in anything related to artificial intelligence or quantum computing. Many of these companies trade at sky-high multiples of revenue—or in some cases, have no earnings at all.

The chart below compares total returns, which measure both price appreciation and reinvested dividends, across major Canadian and U.S. equity benchmarks since 2016. 

While the S&P 500 and S&P/TSX 60 have surged higher, Canadian real estate investment trusts (REITs) have badly lagged. The gap hasn’t narrowed meaningfully either. Even with distributions reinvested, the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index remains well below its pre-COVID highs, with little evidence of a sustained rebound.

I’m not a value investor by nature, nor a sector picker, but divergences like this give me pause. Canadian REITs may quietly represent one of the few asset classes that aren’t overvalued today—and could offer genuine recovery potential in the years ahead, especially as interest rates fall…

With exposed steel beams, floor-to-ceiling windows and cedar-clad ceilings, the home’s main selling point is its “very impressive” architecture, according to Justin Cohen, a vice-president and broker at Barry Cohen Homes.