Coming to you from the Canadian Apartment Investment Conference, James Wilson sits down with the guys today. He is co-chairing the entire conference and is also the Managing Director of Realstar.
James talks about the Realstar strategy and pays special attention to the need for affordable housing across the country. He expresses why he loves working with apartments instead of other real estate asset classes and discusses what he is seeing in markets across the country.
Topics covered include:
- The scope of the Realstar portfolio.
- Realstar’s approach towards affordable housing.
- Risk that comes from the potential of new government regulations.
- Markets that James is the most bullish on.
- Growing the portfolio through forward sales.
- New rent control regulations that have been enacted in Berlin and New York City and what it could mean if implemented in Canada.
- How Realstar addresses the threshold for cap rate return.
- Retaining and attracting tenants based on property management.
This episode of Commercial Real Estate Podcast powered by First National was recorded live at the Canadian Apartment Investment Conference as part of our Forum Series.
For more commercial real estate content, visit the First National Commercial Resource Centre.
More about our guest:
James Wilson is Managing Director, Investment Management at Realstar Management, a leading privately-owned real estate investment and management company with approximately 25,000 rental units under management.
He is responsible for acquisitions and financing of multi-residential properties in Realstar’s Canadian portfolio. In this position, he has presided over $1.5 billion in acquisitions and $1.75 billion in separate mortgage financings.
Prior to joining Realstar, James was a partner at a leading Canadian law firm, where he worked on corporate and infrastructure transactions. James has a B.A. (Honours) from the University of Toronto, a LL.B. from the University of Western Ontario and an MBA in Finance from the University of Cambridge.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download