The Nest: The Home Revolution Is Here!

25 Aug 2025 1 Comment

by John Amardeil in Case Studies, Strategies Tags: , ,

I’ve been working in real estate since 1979, so I’ve seen a lot.

My feeling is that we are in a housing crisis because we aren’t approving enough housing. Construction is not the issue – Canadian builders are amongst the most skilled in the world. 

Getting a new home project approved takes several years and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s where the bottleneck is.

So, I am thrilled to have played a role in shaping the vision for the development of a new home community that’s the most innovative I have ever seen in Ontario. It offers an unmatched opportunity, with detached homes starting from $399K.

Imagine a 100+ acre site with only natural gas and electricity services available. Normally, such a site would have to wait years for municipal water and sewer infrastructure to become available – a costly, time-consuming and complex process. 

Enter The Nest, a revolutionary new home community in Seguin Township, beside Parry Sound, envisioned by Hall Development Group, an arm of Hall Construction. This company is using its expertise in land servicing and earthworks to create private water and sewer infrastructure. Private individual septic systems and wells shared by up to five homes are the reasons this new home community was able to be conceived and launched in record time and at prices never before seen.

It took conviction and past experience to believe in the viability of the vision and then work with the Hall team to execute it. The Nest offers a bold new model for how housing in Ontario can be built and approved.

Also unique are the condo tenure with homeowner land ownership and the siting of the homes in clusters of five homes set into the natural landscaping to minimize disruption, as opposed to overwhelming the environment with rigid subdivision design. Even the architecture of these right-sized homes is refreshing.

Kudos to Seguin Township for embracing Hall’s vision and for helping to make it happen – it’s encouraging to see such bold and progressive leadership.

Visit TheNestLife.ca to learn more. I’d love to hear what you think.

Canada’s Housing Crisis: Why Our Leaders Are Failing Us

18 Jul 2025 Leave a comment

by John Amardeil in Thoughts Tags: , , , ,

Why, at a time when we most need action and results, are our leaders failing us again?

While the federal government’s rental incentives have contributed to a meaningful increase in new purpose-built rental construction, overall new home construction has crashed to early 1990s levels, the lowest in 30 years. This is alarming when our population has grown by 11 million people – an increase of one third.

It seems like there is a movement to deter real estate investors, but who else is going to buy an un-built condo and wait several years for it to be completed? A better approach could be for the government to encourage condo builders to proceed with construction by co-insuring construction loans prior to achieving 70-75% presales as required by lenders. This would stimulate condo construction and offer quicker move-in dates to end-user buyers.

Toronto imposed a vacant home tax, which has been an administrative disaster and will likely cost more to administer than it will increase the supply of rental properties.

The Province of Ontario has passed much legislation aimed at reducing red tape and NIMBYism, but without the cooperation of municipalities, many of the policies are ineffective. For example, when the Province tried to speed up development approvals, municipalities shot back with new procedures, such as pre-consultations aimed at slowing down the approval process and reducing pressure on municipalities to meet provincially mandated deadlines.

As Mark Carney stated in his Globe and Mail article on Dec. 30, 2024, “We need Canadian builders to be unleashed…to build housing, energy, technology, communities and security.” Governments can achieve this by getting out of the way, and eliminating restrictions rather than imposing them. In addition, all levels of government need to step up and work together, across political lines and provincial borders, rather than continue with the siloed approaches being taken by Trudeau, Doug Ford, and Olivia Chow, for example.

And as claimed by Professors Pandes and Robinson in The Globe and Mail on Dec. 31, 2024: “Recent tax changes have made Canada even less attractive for private investment. Raising the marginal tax rates on income and capital gains means Canadian entrepreneurs will be further inclined to sell their businesses early instead of investing time and effort to grow them into global champions. This not only stifles innovation in key industries of the future, but it also sends the message that success is penalized in Canada, rather than celebrated.”

While I love the social safety nets our Canadian society provides, I fear they somehow compete and conflict with our need to be entrepreneurial and competitive in the business world.

Some Canadians seem to view business success as a bad thing and some of us even consider wealth to be evil. And our disdain for builders and developers only exacerbates our housing crisis, as all levels of government fear associating with the suppliers of our most needed infrastructure – housing. 

Mattamy Limits Over-Eager New Home Buyers

04 Jul 2019 Leave a comment

by John Amardeil in Thoughts, Trends, You Need to Know Tags: , , ,

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Wow! We’ve never seen this before in the new home industry. A marketing email from Mattamy Homes that recently landed in my inbox caught my attention. The email was about a new release of homes for sale at Mattamy’s Hawthorne South Village community at Sixteen Mile Creek in Milton. In the list of rules and information about the new release and registration for it, this item was included:

“Previous Buyers With Pending Agreements Of Purchase & Sale With Mattamy Homes Are Not Eligible To Purchase. We Thank You For Your Interest.”

Mattamy Homes is not allowing existing buyers of unclosed Mattamy homes to buy any more new homes.

Mattamy has historically been a price leader. They have attracted more than their share of investors. Their main concern now is that buyers of multiple homes may not be able to close – the buyers may be able to come up with a deposit, but they need/want price to be up at closing. Mattamy sees that prices are not going up these days, so the likelihood of the homes they sold appreciating before closing is small. Therefore, buyers of multiple homes may be biting off more than they can chew, which will ultimately affect Mattamy.

This is a statement by Mattamy that they see market staying flat and/or their buyers not being financially able to close on multiple homes.

(Read my recent blog post, 2019 Toronto Housing Market: A Year of Opportunity?, for more info on the current state of the market.)

What are your thoughts? Comment below or find me on Facebook or LinkedIn to join the conversation!

BAM Goes to the NAHB International Builders’ Show

12 Feb 2014 Leave a comment

by John Amardeil in Thoughts, Trends Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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This past weekend, I embarked on a trip to Las Vegas for the NAHB International Builders’ Show in search of inspiration. What I found was a plethora of new and fresh ideas, and I could not be more ready to tackle the year ahead.

The first part of the event is taking in the new offerings from manufacturers. I got to browse all the latest trends in building and design, and this year there was a big emphasis on new luxuries for kitchens and bathrooms. It seems as though the market is catering to a more luxurious and almost escapist approach. Bathrooms are looking more like spas and kitchens are looking more like restaurants, and it’s creating better experiences for homeowners. We’re in the age of multiple showerheads and jets! One product that stood out for me was a showerhead from Kohler; it had a speaker built in so you can play audio from your handheld device via Bluetooth.

Another thing I noticed is that many Chinese companies are beginning to enter the market. What the Chinese bring are innovative designs at lower prices, ultimately lowering prices of products that are expensive in the current market. This will create more value and selection for homeowners.

Another great thing about the Builder Show is the chance to get a first hand look at the products and trends coming to the GTA. Understanding what is available for GTA homebuilders always helps with pitching projects and encouraging our clients to offer more to consumers.

And lastly, what would a building show be without the seminars. This year we made a special effort to attend as many digital marketing seminars as possible; staying ahead of the curve is very important in today’s always changing and expanding digital market.

As expected, my trip to the International Builders’ Show left me more passionate about this industry than ever, and revved up with new ideas for 2014.

Visit the BAM Facebook page to see a photo gallery from the event.

Fear and Loathing in a St. Martin Sales Office

20 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by John Amardeil in Thoughts Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Indigo Green sales centre in St. Martin.

The Indigo Green sales office in St. Martin.

My recent vacation to St. Martin wasn’t all pleasure. I took some time to visit a local sales office as a reconnaissance mission. Upon entering the sales office, I was first surprised by the size and, let’s say, lack of quality. As a real estate marketer, I will say that I wasn’t impressed. Inside the sales office, one lone desk sat stagnant in the tiny room. The walls were practically bare and the lighting was dim. The place lacked emotion without any visual stimulation.

There is a point to all this! I was appalled by how horrible the sales experience was for $600,000 homes and visiting this sales office made me think of how well we present and package pre-construction housing here in Toronto.

The market here at home is vastly different; new developments and communities sell fast and before the shovel breaks the soil. As a marketer, this style of buying forces you to deliver your best marketing time and time again. I’m proud to say I’ve contributed to making Toronto the number one pre-construction market in the world. As a result of the technology and strategy we’ve implemented in our campaigns, we sell more homes before they’re built than anywhere else. That stat alone speaks to the caliber of marketing in the Toronto scene.

The way in which Toronto has grown to such a successful pre-construction market is because we offer something extra. We offer touchscreens, scale models, social media and much more, and these interactive marketing materials and showrooms create an experience for homebuyers. We attempt to sell the lifestyle and benefit of new home communities and to educate and excite them. This was solely lacking in my experience in St. Martin. We’ve evolved this way because people like me are always hungry and always searching, traveling and researching our competitors and other markets with the goal to always get better and outdo one another.

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