Mike Czestochoski, Executive Vice President of CBRE, joins Aaron and Adam in this episode. He specializes in land, and has been buying and selling it for the last thirty-six years. Mike is here to discuss what to expect from land in the near-future and beyond.

 

With such a long career, COVID-19 is certainly not the first market crash that Mike has witnessed. He points out reasons to be optimistic towards real estate and talks about the kinds of deals he is seeing happen right now.

 

Topics covered include:
• How Mike got to where he is today and his twenty-seven years at CBRE.
• The type of land sales that CBRE is involved with.
• COVID-19 compared to other hard times Mike has seen in his career.
• What the real estate market looked like in the early 90s.
• CBRE’s success in the first quarter of 2020.
• Large, institutional clients currently looking for property.
• The change in clientele since Mike began his career.
• What it was like selling the Dunlap Observatory in Toronto.
• The largest transaction that Mike has worked on.
• Ontario’s slow process and how it impacts developers.
• Taking politics out of planning for the greater good.
• Who is getting the biggest returns on their pro formas.
• Why Mike would choose to invest in industrial land above all else.
• Dips in rent due to the pandemic and if this will impact land prices.
• Foreign investment in Toronto.
• Activity that Mike plans to see in the next six to twelve months.
• How deals are getting financed.