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.”
Exit strategy
With the REIT’s unit price reaching historic lows, Minto Group began looking for an exit ramp. In January, Minto Apartment REIT announced it was going private in a $2.3-billion deal with Crestpoint Real Estate Investments LP.
The transaction, which will see Minto Group own a 49.9 per cent stake in the company and Crestpoint 51.1 per cent, is expected to close in the second half of 2026.
Waters says remaining a publicly traded entity was no longer a viable option for the REIT. While the organization was able to raise some cash by selling some of its holdings, it needed a bigger financial warchest in order to grow, he explains.
“The sector as a whole was really restricted to selling assets, harvesting the capital, paying down debt and buying back shares,” Waters says. “Minto was no different. As a small REIT with a relatively small float, we were trading at one of the wider discounts. We endured that for a couple of years and realized that there was no clear catalyst for change. Without the ability to raise capital, we were unable to grow and build new apartment buildings.”
Working with longtime adviser TD Securities, Minto spent 18 months evaluating more than 15 potential partners before agreeing to join forces with Crestpoint.
Crestpoint is an affiliate of Toronto-based Connor, Clark & Lunn Financial Group Ltd., one of Canada’s largest private asset management firms with more than $167 billion under management. Waters says Crestpoint, which manages more than $11 billion in assets, is “the best of the best” when it comes to taking his organization where it needs to go.
“What we found was Crestpoint checked all of the boxes,” he says. “They are seasoned real estate investors. We thought that this was an opportunity to partner with a great company with decades of experience that had an established, strong track record and reputation. And we could bring our skill set to work with them.”
The companies also plan to form a joint venture partnership that will hold the apartment REIT’s assets and aim to develop more.
Waters says the partnership will focus on the long-term ownership of “newer-vintage” purpose-built rental properties in the markets where the REIT currently operates – Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary – as well as other potential expansion sites such as Halifax.
He remains bullish on the long-term future of Canada’s rental housing market and says he hopes the deal will make Minto Group Crestpoint’s “multi-family partner of choice” when it comes to joint projects.
“They want to grow that part of their business,” he says. “We want to grow, and so we think it’s a marriage that could produce great things down the road.”
The REIT now holds 28 properties containing about 7,600 suites, with about 4,800 of those fully owned. Minto also has 29 multi-residential towers in various stages of development, mainly in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver, Waters adds, “but we don’t have an infinite balance sheet to hold these assets. We need growth capital, and Crestpoint brings that growth capital.”
Minto is the third residential-focused Canadian real estate investment to go private or announce plans to do so in the past 18 months, following fellow Ottawa-based company InterRent REIT and Toronto’s Dream Residential REIT.
Waters says it’s a sign of the times for an industry that’s facing strong headwinds.
“There were probably six names,” he says, referring to the number of major Canadian residential REITs that were active just a couple of years ago. “Now there are three, maybe four.”
– With files from The Canadian Press
