Mid-Rise Purpose-Built Rental: Underwriting Rent, Absorption, and Exit Risk
Mathieu Fleury
Founding Partner at Leader Lane Developments, he holds a Master’s in Real Estate Finance from The University of Cambridge in England. Over the last 12 years, with firms such as Loblaw Properties Limited, Great Gulf, and Dream Unlimited, Mathieu has been responsible for the financial forecasting and budgeting for over 15,000 residential units and over 7 million s.ft. of development across Canada.
Mid-Rise Purpose-Built Rental – Mathieu Fleury on Leader Lane’s Mid-Rise Mass Timber Rentals, Market Risk, and What Toronto Needs to Build More Housing Payam interviews Mathieu Fleury, partner at Toronto mid-rise developer Leader Lane Development, focused on purpose-built rental, including a nine-storey, 60-unit mass-timber project at 230 Royal York nearing occupancy, plus other Etobicoke projects and partnerships with Windmill, Elm, and the One Planet Living Fund. Fleury recounts his path from Montreal to Cambridge’s real estate finance program, early roles at Loblaw Properties, Great Gulf, Dream Unlimited, and private equity at ForgeStone, where he underwrote 100+ deals annually and identified a gap for repeatable urban infill “missing middle” projects. He describes using site plan/minor variance to avoid rezoning, the challenges of small floor plates and code thresholds, and shifting from condos to rentals as the investor market weakened. They discuss purpose-built rental risks (rent levels, absorption, servicing debt), a looming supply cliff, innovation like mass timber and modular, balcony/amenity tradeoffs, and his top policy wish: reduce government fees and taxes that drive housing costs. Fleury also notes interest in multiplex housing as a complementary solution.
- Policy Tailwinds And Bottlenecks
- Big Developer Playbook
- Condo Vs Rental Risk
- Purpose Built Rental Uncertainty
- Rent Underwriting Caution
- Supply Cliff and Immigration
- Affordability and Salaries
- Purpose Built Rental Shift
- Condo Presale Model Breaks
- PBR Returns and Alternatives
- Approvals and Underwriting Sites
Construction Innovation Checklist
This document is a supplementary resource to
episode #24 of the Real Estate Development
Insights Podcast in which Payam Noursalehi shares a practical framework for evaluating and selecting the most suitable innovative systems for your next project.
