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The paper offers clarity to the market orientation (MO) and performance relationship in real estate by examining the limited relevant literature, presenting international results and discussing the implications for market orientation researchers and real estate practitioners.

Based on a survey of 1,251 individual renters in the USA, the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada, this study examines the relationship between residential property managers’ MO and performance. It extends MO research in real estate by focusing on property management as opposed to property development.

The results show that MO and performance are correlated in all three countries. Commitments to understanding and serving customers and differentiating from competitors are shown to enhance performance measures including residential tenants’ loyalty toward the property manager, trust in the property manager, pride in rental accommodation and commitment to paying rent on time.

This study is one of the largest MO studies in real estate in terms of sample size and offers a unique international perspective. The research is novel as MO is evaluated by tenants as opposed to self-assessed by firms. The paper offers a new measure of property manager performance and provides strategic directives for real estate professionals seeking to enhance competitiveness.

Responding to the needs of homeless and marginally housed persons has been a major component of the Canadian federal and provincial responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, smaller, less-resourced cities and rural regions have been left competing for limited resources (Schiff et al., 2020). The purpose of this paper is to use a case study to examine and highlight information about the capacities and needs of service hub cities during pandemics.

The authors draw on the experience of Thunder Bay – a small city in Northern Ontario, Canada which experienced a serious outbreak of COVID-19 amongst homeless persons and shelter staff in the community. The authors catalogued the series of events leading to this outbreak through information tracked by two of the authors who hold key funding and planning positions within the Thunder Bay homeless sector.

Several lessons may be useful for other cities nationally and internationally of similar size, geography and socio-economic position. The authors suggest a need for increased supports to the homeless sector in small service–hub cities (and particularly those with large Indigenous populations) to aid in the creation of pandemic plans and more broadly to ending chronic homelessness in those regions.

Small hub cities such as Thunder Bay serve vast rural areas and may have high rates of homelessness. This case study points to some important factors for consideration related to pandemic planning in these contexts.