Minto Group chief executive Michael Waters probably speaks for most people in his industry when he offers his straightforward take on life in real estate over the past several years. “It has not been dull at all,” says Waters, who runs one of Ottawa’s largest real estate portfolios with more than 11,000 rental apartments and […]
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Minto Group chief executive Michael Waters probably speaks for most people in his industry when he offers his straightforward take on life in real estate over the past several years.
“It has not been dull at all,” says Waters, who runs one of Ottawa’s largest real estate portfolios with more than 11,000 rental apartments and 2.4 million square feet of commercial space.
Anyone who’s followed the topsy-turvy world of building and leasing real estate since the pandemic would suggest that might be an understatement.
The industry as a whole has been on a roller-coaster as office towers emptied out during the COVID crisis and housing prices skyrocketed amid an acute supply shortage. But it’s been a particularly rough ride for real estate investment trusts like Minto Group’s sister company, Minto Apartment REIT, that make money from renting apartments in urban cores.
Spun off from Minto Group in a $230-million IPO nearly eight years ago, Minto Apartment REIT quickly grew into one of the country’s largest REITs under the leadership of Waters, who joined Minto Group in 2007 as chief financial officer and ascended to the role of CEO six years later.
The REIT’s unit price, which opened at $14.50 on the Toronto Stock Exchange in July 2018, nearly doubled over the next few years as ultra-low interest rates and a growing rental supply crunch fuelled a wave of investor interest in the sector.
As a result, Minto’s market capitalization soared to more than $600 million, allowing the company to go on an acquisition spree that doubled its portfolio from 4,300 rental units in 2018 to more than 8,000 four years later.
Lately, however, the picture hasn’t been as rosy for real estate investment trusts across Canada, and Minto is no exception.
After peaking at more than $25 in mid-2021, the REIT’s units plummeted to a low of about $12 in April 2025. The REIT industry – which weathered the COVID storm with help from government stimulus programs and then benefited from a surge in immigration that fuelled massive demand for its product – was soon dealt a series of body blows that left it reeling.
“The whole purpose of the REIT … was to be able to tap into the capital markets to fund growth. And it worked wonderfully for (a few) years,” says Waters, who served as the REIT’s first chief executive before stepping aside to focus on his responsibilities at Minto Group in 2023. “But for the last three years of the REIT’s existence, it’s been an exercise in frustration.”
Waters rhymes off a laundry list of reasons for the sector’s recent woes.
The ultra-low interest rates of the COVID era evaporated as the Bank of Canada implemented a series of rate hikes aimed at curbing inflation, driving up construction and mortgage costs. Consequently, many builders pressed pause on new projects, while other developments went into receivership, spooking investors.
In addition, the tsunami of new immigrants that helped Canada’s population growth soar to its highest levels in decades began to slow as the federal government curbed the number of new temporary residents it allowed into the country. After growing more than three per cent in 2023, Canada’s population fell in 2025 for the first time ever.
Meanwhile, unsold condos flooded the market in cities like Toronto, while a wave of new construction boosted rental inventory to historic levels. Noting that rental rates have dropped year-over-year for the past 18 months, Waters wonders how much lower they can go.
“I think if you talk to a lot of my peers, they would say the same thing. The housing sector has been tough,” he says.
All these factors weighed on investors, leading to what Waters describes as a “very significant disconnect between the public market valuation and the private market valuation.” Units in many REITs have been trading at as much as 30 per cent below the assessed value of those companies' real estate portfolios in recent years, he believes.
“The public markets were significantly undervaluing these public REIT portfolios, and it was particularly acute in multi-family because of the immigration changes and some of those trends,” Waters adds. “The outlook was poor, and so investors fled the sector.”
