Welcome to the CRE podcast. 100% Canadian, 100% commercial real estate.
In this episode of the Commercial Real Estate Podcast, hosts Aaron Cameron and Adam Powadiuk are joined by Sarah Esler, CFA, and Managing Director of Mortgage Investments at AIMCo, for a look inside an $8B institutional mortgage portfolio spanning Canada, the US, and Western Europe. Sarah explains how pension capital is navigating one of the most competitive lending environments on record, with spreads at historic lows and borrower confidence slowly returning after years of short-term renewals.
The conversation explores why longer-term mortgages are back in favour, how Canada’s fixed-rate market contrasts with floating-rate structures in the US and Europe, and which underwriting metrics matter most when deploying capital at scale. They also unpack the $2B maturity wall AIMCo faces next year, renewed lender appetite for downtown Toronto office deals, and how asset owners can assess refinance risk at today’s rates. The episode closes with a candid view on bid-ask dynamics, condo market spillovers, and why institutions are positioning for a gradual recovery beginning in 2026.
What you will learn:
- How to navigate the 120 basis point spread compression
- The institutional lending advantage: AIMCo’s fixed-rate, 25-30 year amortization model
- Why the Bank of Canada’s rate pause signals the market bottom
- How to deploy capital efficiently across geographies
- The $2 billion maturity wall arriving in 2025, and what every institutional lender is doing
- Why unsecured borrowing is outcompeting secured mortgages on pricing
Sarah (Broad) Esler is the Managing Director and Head of Mortgage Investments at AIMCo (Alberta Investment Management Corporation), and oversees an $8 billion real estate credit portfolio deployed across Canada, the United States, and Western Europe. With over two decades of experience in commercial real estate finance, including pivotal roles at Canada ICI, TD Securities, and Brookfield Financial, she brings deep expertise in mortgage lending, CMBS structuring, and institutional capital deployment across market cycles.
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