MegaMeetup recap: what the panels said

The room

About 100 people. Three groups in one room for the first time: REI Calgary (Craig and Amber DeMaere), REAL Power (Deanna Boyden) and Calgary REI Connect (Lhez Cabansag and Jobert Germono). MC'd by Deanna Boyden. Sponsored by Colin Graham and Corrine Lowen of Red Door Realty, and by Schantel Hochheimer and Chris Hochheimer of Aspire Peak Properties.

Deanna's opener, worth keeping: "Take messy action. Put people in a room and amazing things happen." This event was booked in a few weeks off a ladies-lunch idea from Schantel.

Panel 1 — Financing

Moderator: Craig DeMaere. Panel: Yoni Naidich and Andrew Galler of Peakhill Capital, and Keith Uthe, residential and commercial mortgage broker, Enrich Mortgage.

"The CMHC reality check." MLI Select was pitched as 95% loan-to-value. What are investors realistically leaving in a deal now?

Andrew: aim for 90% and treat anything more as a bonus. Alberta is fortunate — the affordability program still allows up to 95% here, and it genuinely doesn't work in provinces like Ontario because of land values. But a lot of people walk in expecting 95 and are disappointed. Keith, later: on paper the liquidity limits usually turn 95 into 90 anyway.

How long does CMHC take right now?

Andrew: four to six weeks is a fair number. Purchases are quickest, refinances slower, construction slowest. Give the lender as much runway as you can — CMHC is a government entity and moves at its own pace. Keith: note that buying a lot and building is construction, not a purchase, even though you're purchasing. A lot of investors get their information from other investors whose deal was done in a different market at a different time. He has Edmonton clients who found out what a construction mortgage actually requires and sold the land instead.

Rates — residential and small commercial — where are we, and where over the next 12 to 24 months?

Keith: the bond yield is about 100 basis points higher than a year ago. Residential rental fixed rates are pushing 5% or over depending on the lender; variable on rentals is around prime to prime minus 0.21, roughly 4.39%. That spread between fixed and variable is the real conversation — over three to five years, how much do you make up, what are your risks, and will you sleep at night? If you're set-it-and-forget-it, variable probably isn't for you. On a primary home the spread is over 1%. Small commercial conventional: he has a client at 5.3% on a ~$660,000 condo bay.

The trap for people moving from residential to commercial: your amortization is likely 20 or 25 years, not the 25–30 you ran your pro forma on. 25 is for a new, premium building; expect 20.

Short-term rentals: some lenders will now do them through small-commercial programs when their residential programs won't. Only a few lenders, the product that existed in the spring is already gone, and it changes constantly.

Keith, ten seconds: variable or fixed, and what would you buy?

A four-plex on an insured mortgage, variable. Rates coming down in the next 24 months? Not by much — a quarter point or so.

Peakhill: on a $3–4M CMHC-insured takeout in Calgary right now, what are you seeing for rates and why?

Yoni: five- and ten-year insured money is priced off the CMBS spread, and the spread is market-driven. It's also location-driven — small, medium, large centres, tertiary markets near Calgary, remote centres like Lethbridge — each has its own risk premium based on rents, vacancy and cap rates. Over the last year they've seen swings of ~75 basis points every time a news cycle moves oil. Lenders don't like that volatility, so they price in cushion: you ask "is it 4.5?" and they say 4.75 to be safe. If the world is calm on funding day you get the best spread. Where does it go from here? "It all comes down to the elections in the U.S." Alberta's fundamentals — vacancy, cap rates, investor appetite — are strong; it's the pricing that's hard to navigate.

How does qualifying change from residential to commercial?

Keith: two completely different sandboxes. Residential is borrower first, property second; commercial is property first, borrower second. Residential debt-service ratios are roughly 39/44; the CMHC pro forma sheet is the same for a $600k building as a $5M one. Net worth is a hard percentage requirement in commercial. On both sides, lenders are now looking hard at liquidity after closing — if every dollar goes into the down payment and closing costs, you'll be declined as too much risk.

A first development project — what does the lender need to see, and what gets a first-timer declined?

Andrew: first question, are you using a builder? If so, the lender is underwriting the builder's track record. For a first project he wouldn't recommend multifamily at all. The lender wants people who can write a cheque if something goes wrong — $30,000, $70,000. CMHC requires 25% net worth; on construction they're really looking for 50%. Income matters too — a $3M project on $50k of paper income is a problem. Liquidity, income, assets: they want all three in abundance, because a stalled construction project is the worst case a lender has.

If I have a lot of liquidity, do I still need income?

Andrew: there's no set line. $50k income with $4M cash, fine. $500k? Then it's a real conversation. Construction is the riskiest thing they finance.

$500,000 cash to deploy in Alberta today — where?

Yoni: multifamily, in Alberta's secondary markets. Andrew: land for housing — he thinks it's been neglected. Keith: storage.

Audience: short-term rentals through commercial — what are the hurdles?

Keith: not size — zoning, and whether the unit can be pulled out of a rental pool. Short-term rentals fall under the Hotel Act, which makes foreclosure a different and harder process, which is why many private lenders won't touch them.

Audience: conventional vs CMHC for 20–30 unit existing buildings — where's the crossover, and why take MLI Select at 90 when standard CMHC gives 85?

Panel, assembled: they run both scenarios on every file. The key distinctions:

• MLI Select: DSCR 1.1, up to 50-year amortization
• CMHC standard: DSCR 1.2, 40-year amortization (50 if new)
• Conventional: DSCR 1.25 and up, max 25-year am (30 if new), 75–80% LTV

Keith's closing point, unprompted: liquidity is the number one problem right now for anyone going into multifamily, because of where bonds are versus where rents are. If your pro forma assumed a 4.5% ceiling rate and you close at 5% on a five-year term, expect to come up with about $110,000 more equity; on a ten-year term, about $150,000.

Panel 2 — Development

Moderator: Amber DeMaere. Panel: Lhez Cabansag (investing four years; just finished her first multifamily infill this summer) and Carleen Su, Tru Capital Real Estate (25 years in real estate, six years developing; 15 projects, mostly 8–9 unit townhomes; consults on others' projects).

How do you build the right team around a project?

Carleen: vet everyone — don't just take a referral and blame it later. Get several opinions. Pick experts for your product and your municipality. Then hold them accountable and make them work together.

Lhez: she worked backwards from the builder. Sunset Homes referred her to Canada ICI for the CMHC MLI financing, who referred the lawyer, appraiser, ESA and QS — so the whole team already knew each other. As a first-timer, her job was the overall strategy and trusting a team that knew CMHC MLI.

Where are the opportunities right now?

Carleen: she's paused. With the number of starts coming online, it's no longer a sure win the way it was a few years ago — be careful what you put out and make sure it stands out. She's watching commercial bays and seniors' housing.

Lhez: quality — with the big buildings coming up, tenants have choice, so build a better product. And seniors: wider doors, fewer steps, homes people can age in.

Any areas over-developed or too expensive?

Carleen: Edmonton has been ahead of Calgary on new supply for a while; Calgary's catching up. Expect rents to come down if they haven't already — stress-test the project against a flat or falling rent, not just the upside. Lhez: Calgary's northwest, where she builds, is saturated with new families arriving.

The trend you're most excited about over five years?

Lhez: seniors' facilities. Carleen: agreed — but don't discredit the boring single-family rental. Some of hers are the best performers she owns.

The one decision that mattered most?

Carleen: not one decision — the ability to decide. Hundreds of ambiguous calls, experts who conflict; make the decision and take action.

Lhez: two. Hiring a builder who brought a whole team (site manager, project manager, client coordinator) instead of going straight to a GC. And hiring a construction lawyer to read the builder agreement before signing — scope, finance, everything specific. Every dispute on her build went back to the contract, and it was resolvable because the contract was specific.

Would you take more of that on yourself next time?

Lhez: she asks herself every night. Not yet.

Carleen: her expertise isn't construction — she was a valuations analyst in oil and gas — so she runs the numbers and the project management and assembles the team. Bring what you're good at.

Starting over today — what's first?

Carleen: zoning. Know it cold. She noticed the city bylaw changes and CMHC incentives first, then site selection and highest-and-best use. Do the design and planning work up front; mistakes later are the expensive ones. And keep excellent records — you're a steward of your own money or someone else's.

Anything you'd do differently on the first one?

Lhez: look outside the fence. She was focused on legal, finance and the build and under-weighted the city — sidewalks, Rogers/fibre, sewer, the small things that hit timeline, cost and the tenant's experience.

Audience: how do you compete with Truman-scale developers?

Carleen: you don't, really — their margins are bigger at scale. Make your own project work on its own numbers, its own operations team and its own exit. Lhez: same — check the pro forma, the location, the team, and compare it to your own other projects.

Advice for someone starting out?

Lhez: start with something you can chew. Basement suite → side-by-side duplex with suites → a multifamily program to learn the jargon → the infill. And attend meetups: the first one she went to, a woman on stage talking about multifamily made her think "one day I'll be like her." That woman is sitting beside her tonight (Carleen).

Carleen: be resourceful, pay for knowledge when you need to (a mistake avoided is worth more than the fee), and take action — don't look back at five years ago.

Deanna, closing the panel: all three are REAL Power members; Amber and Lhez each started their own community and Carleen coaches. "If you see it, you can be it." Deanna also sits on the City of Calgary council advisory committee on housing and wants to talk to small landlords about their challenges.

Panel 3 — Operations (when things go sideways)

Moderator: Schantel Hochheimer, CEO and broker, Aspire Peak Properties. Panel: Brad Longeway of Serv-It, who spent about four years representing landlords at the RTDRS and as a bailiff; and Jobert Germono of Calgary REI Connect, who has flipped houses with his wife Eillene since 2017.

(Schantel's own caveat, kept: they are experts in their fields, not your lawyer. Confirm your situation with yours.)

What surprises landlords at an RTDRS hearing?

Brad: lack of preparation. The principle most miss: tenants are rarely evicted for what they did wrong — they're evicted for their inability or unwillingness to remedy it. Your documented efforts to get them to fix the problem are what win. Landlords show up expecting the hearing officer to just believe them; you need the breach articulated and the evidence gathered.

Leases — what matters at a hearing?

Brad: use a quality lease. Home-made ones based on commercial leases are near worthless; free online ones are "better than nothing." He recommends the Calgary Residential Rental Association lease (Edmonton has an equivalent) — reviewed by committee every year. Add an addendum for property-specific things (who mows, parking). Section 21 of the RTA protects you on the statutory covenants, but contractual restrictions — no smoking, who may occupy — only exist if they're written in the lease. "Forgot to write no smoking? Nothing you can do."

The depreciation formula.

Schantel: the RTDRS is now educating tenants on a depreciation schedule for everything in the unit. Carpet: 16-year life. Paint: 6 years. Older than that and you can't charge for it regardless of damage — TV-mount holes included. The full list is on Aspire Peak Properties' Instagram.

Brad's worked example: tenant damages walls painted three years ago; contractor invoices $2,000. Ask for the invoice broken down — $1,000 repairs, $1,000 painting. You can claim the repairs in full and about 50% of the paint on depreciation. One lump-sum invoice and you'll get much less.

Wear and tear versus damage?

Brad: the hearing officer looks at who lived there and what's reasonable — a family with kids drawing on a wall is wear and tear; two 20-year-olds doing the same is damage. What decides it is move-in photos. Take pictures, take more pictures. Where landlords lose, it's usually a lack of baseline evidence, so the officer has to guess — and the guess favours the tenant. Paper inspections are dead; use an app.

Cleaning?

Schantel: the RTDRS guideline is $15–35 an hour. A $500 professional cleaning bill will be questioned. If you or family clean, don't say "20 hours" — itemize: one hour on the stove, one on the fridge, two on floors, with photos.

Carpets and pets?

Brad: returns on carpet are low unless there was an unauthorized pet or smoking, or excessive staining — then you can claim what it cost to remedy. The 1980s case law says kids are wear and tear and vacuuming is fine. And you only get money for repairs you actually did.

Tools besides the RTDRS — Front Lobby.

Schantel: under Alberta privacy legislation you can report tenant rent payments to the credit bureaus — on-time reporting needs their consent; late reporting doesn't. You can also send rent, utilities and fees (not damages) to collections without a judgment. Two options: a flat ~$100 that sits on their file, or a collection agency at $0 up front and 40% of what they recover. It has worked for them.

Judgments and collections — honestly?

Brad: collection rates are dismally low. He only pursues a damage claim when there's a reasonable likelihood of collecting — you know where they work — and even then maybe 50%. Ages matter: a 45-year-old professional renter, forget it; a 25-year-old student who partied, you've got ten years. A judgment is good for 10 years; a Writ of Enforcement at King's Bench is 2 years, renewable, and shows on their credit. Best collection tool: garnishment, which needs an employer — Google them years later. Vehicle liens rarely pay. "Landlord distress" is a 1200s common-law remedy that's effectively dead. Where it works: the tenant applies for a mortgage four years later and calls you screaming.

What actually happens at a hearing over unpaid rent?

Brad: if you have records, it's nearly automatic. Ledgers shift the burden — a tenant who says "I paid" has to prove it, and almost nobody pays cash any more. What you can't collect: late fees, NSF fees beyond the bank's actual charge, and lease-break fees — they're punitive, and the court makes you whole, not better. Keep them in the lease anyway as a deterrent; they're not illegal, just unenforceable.

Jobert — biggest operational headache on flips?

Not contractors — communication. Get a scope of work, then plan the worst case with old plumbing and electrical. Check credentials: WCB, $2M liability, and that they're actually GST-registered, not just quoting a number. Ask for updated WCB clearance statements — Schantel's office got a call from WCB about a contractor who wasn't paid up. Holdback: he keeps 25–30%, not 10%, set in the contract, because whoever sets the tone controls the job.

Audience: pet deposits?

Brad: there is no such thing as a non-refundable pet deposit. If it's called a deposit it's refundable, and it stacks with the security deposit — go over one month's rent and Service Alberta can fine you. Call it a pet fee (one-time, per lease, or monthly) and it's yours. His view after years of pet damage: charge it.

Audience: tenants calling Alberta Health Services?

Brad: half the time the property genuinely isn't compliant; half the time it's a scare tactic — and it backfires, because the AHS order usually supports the landlord's case. The RTDRS doesn't only read the RTA; it pulls from the Minimum Housing Standards, building code and fire code. Make the property compliant.

The three groups

• REAL Power (Deanna Boyden): started five or six years ago as women in the mountains talking real estate over wine. Planning workshops coming up, open to all. Deanna also builds in Scottsdale, Arizona.
• Calgary REI Connect (Lhez Cabansag and Jobert Germono): learn here, then do — door-knocking, multifamily tours, speed networking. Next event: short-term rentals, November, at the Eau Claire Athletic Club.
• REI Calgary (Craig and Amber DeMaere): husband-and-wife team, investing since 2017, 117 units across three Alberta cities. Value-add multifamily — buy under-performing, fix, raise income, refinance. Their 23-unit refinanced in July: about $1.1M in, $1.8M out. Fifth building's CMHC approval came through the day before the meetup. Next meetup: Tuesday, November 17 — AI in a real estate investing business.

Thanks: Lhez, Deanna, Schantel, Amber, the panelists, Rendesvouz and the serving staff.