The latest episode of the Livabl Launch podcast features an exciting conversation with Zev Mandelbaum, founder of Altree Developments.
Zev comes from a long line of real estate tycoons in the Toronto area and has a lifetime of experience bringing landmark projects to the GTA. His enthusiasm and passion for his work shines through as he speaks with Matt about everything from innovative new condo amenities to his childhood walks with his grandfather.
Here are some highlights from the episode.
On Toronto’s vastly different neighbourhoods:
“I believe that Toronto is not one city with one identity. I’ve said this over the years in my career. Toronto is a mosaic. […] America is a painting. All the colors blend into each other and you’re in one big place. Toronto is a mosaic, its tiles, every tile is its own painting – and together it makes a collage called Toronto. Each part of the city is a village and each neighborhood that’s a village has its own culture and its own uniqueness.”
On real estate (and life) wisdom from his grandfather:
“I walked my grandfather [to synagogue], I was the designated grandchild to walk him every week. So, we walked 30 minutes each morning – cold, rain or shine to synagogue and back. And I got a lot of pearls of wisdom from him. And this is a man who survived Auschwitz, who’s started from nothing. He was an egg salesman on the back of a bicycle and really built our family up in a short period of time. And they’ve been through a lot. They’ve been through good times. They’ve been through bad times from holocausts, recessions, you name it, it hit them. And one of the things what he was always able to do was look at the big picture in life and see past the storm […] to be able to take a step back say, ‘Okay, what are the fundamentals? Where’s my goal? Where am I going?’”
“It’s always been about ‘Where am I going?’ See the thing about Toronto is, it’s only going in one direction. And whether the media or whoever clouds it, the market may be good one day or bad one day, at the end of the day, when you look over the period of time to where Toronto is going. It’s only going up. Keep your eye on the goal. Because at the end of the day, real estate in the city can only get more expensive, it will only get more expensive, there will only be more people coming in the history of mankind. They say real estate in Manhattan was overpriced 50 years ago, and 25 years ago it was overpriced, it’s overpriced now and will probably be overpriced forevermore, and that’s Toronto. It’s growing up into that city. And we’re just riding that wave.”
On Zev’s five-year plan for Altree:
“The world is going to change. You can plan. You know, they say ‘der mentsh trakht un got lakht,’ man plans and God laughs right? So, we can plan, but we always have to remember pivot strategies. You have to adapt and evolve with the times. So, I do have a vision of where I’m going, what I’d like to do. We kind of see resort living, hospitality living becoming more and more prevalent in our lives, making our lives easier in many respects, whether it be through technology, or amenities, or the way we design these buildings.”
On shifting preferences for unit sizes:
“I’m actually starting to see units go larger now with higher end selling prices, creating a dynamic in the marketplace. And you’re seeing this in Florida and New York where maybe agents need to be paid a lot more commission for those units because they’re harder to sell. But at the end of the day, the demand and the inherent demand meaning not the demand for the pre-con, but the demand for the actual product that people need to live in. You can’t live in a 400 square foot box. So, we’re starting to see unit sizes creep up. Funny thing is they used to be huge demand for studios. And now that studio demand has changed as well.”
To learn more about Livabl Launch with Matthew Slutsky, visit the full podcast webpage.
