The latest episode of the Livabl Launch podcast with Matthew Slutsky features an exclusive interview with Ryan Scott, CEO of Avalon Master Builders in Calgary, Alberta.
Ryan is a second-generation home builder with a passion for sustainability. Known in the industry for being a leader in Canadian green building, all of Avalon’s homes are built to be Net Zero.
Here are some highlights from the episode:
On discovering a passion for sustainable building:
“Building houses is great, but, you know, there’s not a lot of differentiation if you’re building what everybody else is building. So, we got in it. And we actually spent two days talking around what was important to us, and it kept coming back to green, something sustainable, something green. That’s where the future is. That’s what we could get excited about building. That’s what we could be the best in the world at.”
On what’s actually different about living in a net zero home:
“The biggest thing people are surprised by is comfort. They didn’t realize that their past home. different rooms were different temperatures, it had drafts, it was just, it was a normal house to them. That’s just how houses are. And that’s how they lived. Then they move into our net zero houses and the temperature is more consistent, the air quality is a little bit better, because we’ve got an HRV bringing outside air. And they just noticed the difference in the comfort. It’s the hardest thing to explain to somebody who’s never lived it. And as soon as you get somebody who’s lived it, they never want to leave it that becomes the standard of life. They like no, this is how a house should be built. This is what it should feel like. Why would I accept less than that?”
On the importance of affordability:
“There’s always people looking to get into housing. It’s maybe not the, you know, you can’t do some of the fun sexy things that you can do in a $2 million house, which is, you know, a lot of fun and creativity. But we really can feel good that we’re helping people get into homeownership. You know, my father before me, he started the company in 1983 with 18% interest rates, it was kind of an interesting time to start a home building company, but he really focused in on affordability because that was helping consumers get into housing, that was helping people to build a nest egg. And, you know, you look at my generation, that’s where most people hold their wealth. You know, they bought a house, they moved a few times, they built up some housing wealth. And that’s really helping people to retire. And you’ll look at today’s world where we’re moving off of people going into housing, we’re moving people into rental as a long-term thing, and, to me, it seems so wrong. This is where people build their wealth. They buy a house and that starts their savings and their wealth accumulation. And I really look at that as a thing that my generation really did well with. And we need to keep getting people to move into housing. It’s, I mean, it really is a Canadian dream to own your house.”
On high migration levels in Calgary:
“We’re in a part of the market where I think it makes a lot of sense for people that are moving. [If consumers] moved from Toronto your rent is now a great down a great mortgage. We’re certainly seeing people from Ontario and people from Vancouver coming into our market. Post-COVID we had people coming in as investors, you saw a lot of people coming in from Ontario – more Ontario than Vancouver for whatever reason, wanting to buy units as investors. And then it was a whole shift in “No, we’re moving. We’re coming here.” We’re not focused on investors, we would like our communities to be at least two thirds ownership, maybe 1/3 investors. I certainly don’t want to see a whole community go investors. It doesn’t create that community feel. So, we really, actively we’re going after people that wanted to move into our properties to live there.”
To learn more about Livabl Launch with Matthew Slutsky, visit the full podcast webpage.
