Toronto Real Estate Investing in 2026 | Why Smart Investors Are Buying Small Multifamily Now

Carol Foderick (00:00)
Well, what’s remarkable is that we have never had more available inventory and the conditions for, purchasing real estate have never been more favorable. It’s of course a reflection of consumer sentiment. And I know this podcast is going to reach people all over the world. have an incredibly large audience that stretches over different continents. But I think that, it’s a true statement that, you know, as we record this in spring of 2026,

Michelle Kesil (01:54)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Carol Foderick of the Carol Foderick Real Estate Group in Toronto, Canada. She is a real estate broker as well as a real estate investor. So really excited to have you here today, Carol.

Carol Foderick (02:14)
Michelle, I’m so excited to be here today and to just share my knowledge and my 25 years of experience with your audience.

Michelle Kesil (02:21)
Amazing. So let’s dive in. First off, for those not familiar with you and your work yet, can you share what your main focus is these days?

Carol Foderick (02:29)
Yeah, thank you. So in addition to being a real estate investor with over $20 million worth of residential real estate here in the greater Toronto area, I am also the leader of the Carol Foderick Real Estate Group, which is one of the most successful real estate groups in North America. I’m also the broker owner of Signature Elite Realty, which is a brokerage that is home to other top producing groups here in Southern Ontario. So really busy. I would say, Michelle, my life is like a giant game of monopoly that never ends.

which is exciting and also stressful. And I’m sure it’s a perspective shared with a lot of your viewers today.

Michelle Kesil (03:00)
Absolutely. And so what are the markets that you operate out of?

Carol Foderick (03:05)
Yeah, so primarily Southern Ontario and the Greater Toronto area. So for those of you that are watching or listening that are not familiar with the Canadian marketplace, we’re sort of central Canada and Toronto is the largest marketplace here in Canada. Also the largest MLS in the world with 80,000 realtors representing a very large population spread across Southern Ontario.

Michelle Kesil (03:29)
Awesome. So what do you feel have been some of the main keys that have allowed your business to be able to grow and run successfully?

Carol Foderick (03:39)
Well, I think Michelle, just like building a successful real estate portfolio, building a successful real estate business is really built on consistency over time. know, before a client is going to work with you, whether they’re investor, a first time buyer, a downsizer, you know, really any client, they want to know that you are good at what you do. They can trust you and that you care about them. And so continued contact and building a community among the clients that I have had the honor of representing over the years and just staying in touch with them. So I would say that that’s what makes

our real estate group different. We are not transactional. We are highly relational in nature. And I think especially for investors, this is important. Selling somebody a piece of investment real estate isn’t just about getting a deal done. It is about walking alongside them through a journey of real estate ownership and helping them understand not only how to manage that asset, but also how to leverage that asset for other new opportunities.

also to help them redevelop that asset when the time calls for it as well too. So just really showing up over and over and over again for your clients in a meaningful way.

Michelle Kesil (05:29)
Definitely. And as an investor yourself, what have been some of the main challenges or obstacles that you’ve had to overcome in order to grow and learn in this career?

Carol Foderick (05:43)
Yeah, so I’ll sort of share with your viewers where, you know, my real estate journey started and that was, you know, buying my very first investment property. So when I was 22 years old and I was working in a real estate office, we had the opportunity, my brothers and I had the opportunity to buy a legal triplex, which for those of you who are not familiar with that asset class, that is a detached house where there are multiple stacked units that are legally recognized as individual rental units.

I moved into the basement apartment. rented the other two units out and it became the cornerstone of our investment portfolio. It was, I remember the year was early 2000s and it was $500,000, which at that time seemed like all the money in the world. And of course now that asset is worth many, many, many times that. But I think like a lot of investors, you start small, you fail forward and you recognize the fact that

learning as you go has to be part of the journey as a real estate investor. There is no guidebook that you can read. There is no one resource that you can familiarize yourself with. It is going to set you up for continued success. Markets change, policy changes within different markets, and you have to be in a continuous learning pattern, but also willing to make mistakes and figure things out as you go. So I would say in terms of the biggest challenges that I faced as an investor, it’s really that remembering that

you are on a path towards building something greater, building something that’s gonna last longer, even perhaps in your lifetime. And it’s important to just remember that we have to take it with a sense of humility. Any real estate investor that comes to the table thinking that they know everything and there’s nothing that they can learn, soon understands that there’s probably gaps somewhere in their vision. And they’re either missing opportunities or missing opportunities to…

really be able to double down on what their potential legacy could be.

Michelle Kesil (07:33)
Absolutely. And what type of real estate assets do you normally work with?

Carol Foderick (07:40)
Yeah, it’s really interesting because you know, they say your niche will make you rich, right? Sorry, your niche would make you rich. And I think that this is an important thing to remember. It is really exciting to get, go down the rabbit hole of different types of asset classes. And certainly diversification is an important part of anybody’s real estate portfolio. But for me, it has been primarily smaller scale multi-res. And that is because the market here in the greater Toronto area has performed very, very well in that space.

We have seen many, you know, many times growth of a lot of the assets that we’ve owned and that’s been beneficial. But so for me, it is still going to be primarily a small scale, multiple residential homes. So anything between three and six units, it has just been a very, very lucrative space here in Southern Ontario for a lot of investors. And I think it will continue to be in the future. We here in Ontario and in particular, the city of Toronto, we are, we have what is

likely considered to be the most permissive urban growth plan that exists anywhere in North America. So for us in most places in the city of Toronto, you can have six units on every single lot as of right now. Most homeowners of course have not yet taken advantage of that.

trajectory, but for savvy investors, we are seeing people be able to redevelop assets like legal duplexes into legal sixplexes. And that’s going to be part of building out Toronto’s housing plan as we move forward into the decades to come.

Michelle Kesil (09:06)
Definitely. And how do you see the market in Toronto right now? ⁓ How is that kind of affecting the way that people are currently investing or could be investing better?

Carol Foderick (09:20)
Well, it’s really interesting, Michelle, because, know, Toronto, unlike the United States, the Canadian market did not undergo the 2008 real estate reset that, you know, our friends south of the border experienced. So for the first time in 30 years, this is a market that is not turning year over year capital growth. So I think that there has been a lot of people that have been active in the real estate space that didn’t have great business plans for how they were going to, you know,

manage an asset or make money out of an asset. They just simply bought real estate, waited, and it greatly increased in value. And capital appreciation is obviously one of the benefits of being a real estate investor if you hold your real estate long enough. But what’s really challenging is for the first time, you know,

investors and especially like the smaller mom and pop investors who own you very small portfolios or one or two units ⁓ have been scared off by the fact that their investments are not growing over time. So what’s interesting is you see sort of this k-shaped market that’s happening right now where you have savvy investors or the ones that see the long-term trajectory even if they’re not they don’t have huge portfolios yet they see the long-term trajectory of the Greater Toronto Area.

as continuing to be undersupplied, but they’re benefiting of the fact that there are so many people that have taken a step back out of the market and the investors are very, the smaller scale investors are very nervous and they’re stepping back. The biggest real estate investment funds in Canada are heavily, heavily investing right now in the rental market, but it is the smaller scale investors that are largely absent from the market right now.

Michelle Kesil (10:49)
Yeah. And is there a way that the smaller investors would like fit into the current market or how do see it?

Carol Foderick (11:30)
Well, what’s remarkable is that we have never had more available inventory and the conditions for, purchasing real estate have never been more favorable. It’s of course a reflection of consumer sentiment. And I know this podcast is going to reach people all over the world. have an incredibly large audience that stretches over different continents. But I think that, it’s a true statement that, you know, as we record this in spring of 2026,

that there’s a lot of concern over, you know, larger geopolitical issues. People have concerns over the economy, whether it’s their local.

economy, the world economy, and it is a true reflection of humans, you know, the human condition that a confused mind will always say no. So there is more opportunity and more favorable conditions than we have ever experienced in history here, especially in the, in the Ontario marketplace. What’s missing is the consumer confidence. So what I would say to those people who are nervous is to partner with somebody who truly understands both the macro,

economic conditions, the micro economic conditions, and then understands the real estate market at a very granular level, because there are amazing, amazing opportunities out there. You just need to be partnered with somebody who knows how to identify them and put them in front of you.

Michelle Kesil (12:40)
Yeah, definitely. And so what advice would you give to someone that’s earlier on in their investing journey right now?

Carol Foderick (12:48)
I would remind them that real estate is not like day trading. It is not like buying Bitcoin. The trajectory and the nerves that you need for real estate investing have to be over a longer period of time. So if your intention is to buy real estate, you know, in January and sell it in July for a profit, this is not likely to be the market that you’re going to achieve success in. If you are looking for something that is going to build long-term wealth,

greater than any other investment vehicle that exists. You have to be prepared.

for the long haul in real estate. You have to be prepared to buy real estate, hold it for a long time to eventually reap the full benefit of what real estate has to offer. And listen, there is no shortage of ways that you can make money in real estate. You can trade it like I do for a living as a real estate professional. You can flip it, which I’ve also done. You can order the short-term rental. You can order it as long-term rental. There are just so many different avenues for which you can make money on real estate, but most of them include having the fordage

to be in it for the long haul. And so I would encourage anyone if you’re thinking about expanding your investment portfolio or jumping into rental real estate, you’ve got to be prepared for it to be at least a five-year commitment, which sounds like a hundred years when I say it in the context of other things that are more short-term, but the long-term benefits of real estate are unmatched to anything else in the trajectory of human history. You look back, the greatest accumulation of wells have not been made by Bitcoin. They have not been made by oil.

It has been made over real in real estate. So I think that that’s just really important for people to just keep their eye on the ball that this is a long-term investment. And there is a reason why it is the most lucrative investment that you can possibly make, but it takes time.

Michelle Kesil (14:30)
Yeah, absolutely. And what would you say like when your clients come to buy houses? Is there a sort of strategy or yeah, like what does the process look like when you’re helping them find like their best property for themselves?

Carol Foderick (15:32)
Yeah, so I think any real estate purchase has to start with a really fundamental understanding of what your financing is gonna look like. So our average price point here in the greater Toronto area is a million dollars. It is very unlikely that somebody is coming forward with a million dollars in cash in our marketplace, almost all buyers and especially investment buyers because of the way our taxation system is set up, almost all investment buyers buy with some.

component of financing. So you really need to understand the financing products that are to work best for you. You can walk into, you know, your bank that you have a relationship with and somebody at that bank may give you information that is not true across all banks or all lenders. And so

before we ever even step foot in a house, a big part of the conversation that I have with my clients is let’s understand what your financing looks like. And that’s where we partner with a lender who also has a specialization in investment real estate to understand not only what is the best product for this first purchase, but what your goal or your intention is in building out your real estate portfolio, because it will matter ⁓ how far you intend to take this when you’re thinking about where you’re gonna put your first loan or your first financing.

partnering alongside a mortgage professional or a financial professional who understands and aligns with your goals becomes absolutely key. So that’s always the first part of the conversation. From there, of course, we identify ⁓ the second most important thing, which I would say is understanding what kind of investment of time you’re prepared to make in owning real estate. So it is a job, I remind people of that. This isn’t passive income. It’s not like buying a mutual fund or a stock.

It is something that requires your investment of time and energy in order for you to get the best possible return out of it. And so I will often match a client based on what sort of time commitment they can make into that investment. So as an example, if you are in a season of your life where you’re working full-time, you’ve got a family, you don’t have a high threshold for being able to answer a tenant call or something like that.

Perhaps a condominium is a great option for you because a lot of the management is done in-house by the in-house management company that manages that condo. If you have a little bit more time, you have a little bit more freedom than perhaps a multiplex is appropriate for you. I would also encourage people to really think about partnering.

or marrying two of their goals together. So if you have a desire to own lifestyle real estate, so for example, a place in Costa Rica, a place that you can vacation in in Mexico, a lake house, a second home in a warm Southern state, which many, Canadians do also have, can we partner this idea of enhancing your lifestyle or meeting a lifestyle goal with

also making it financially lucrative for you so that you’ve got the benefit of some rental income to be able to offset that. There’s so much changing in the world of short-term rentals, but there’s often an opportunity to be able to leverage short-term rental to be able to offset the cost of a dream home.

Michelle Kesil (18:27)
Yeah, definitely amazing. And is short term rentals a lucrative market in Canada?

Carol Foderick (18:36)
What’s really interesting, Michelle, is that short-term rentals are, they can be a lucrative market in Canada, but we have many municipalities that have stepped in post COVID to heavily regulate the short-term rental market in many regards. So here in the city of Toronto proper, we saw a huge amount of our long-term rental inventory being shifted over into short-term rental because understandably, you know what you might be charging $2,000 a month for as a regular one bedroom rental, you might be able to make $4,000 a month

as

a short-term rental and that was eating through a lot of our available inventory for the people who need long-term rental housing in Toronto. So the City of Toronto stepped in to eliminate the ability for a lot of owners to do that and I would say second to that we have our second home market which is our lakefront communities here in southern Ontario.

⁓ which exists all throughout what we would call cottage country and these are lake houses and during the pandemic, in those first few years of COVID-19, because of course, like many countries, the Canadian borders were closed, it was difficult to leave, it was difficult to come. So had a lot of people that focused on purchasing second homes because it was so lucrative to take advantage of short-term rentals. Many smaller municipalities outside of the greater Toronto have also stepped in and said, if not banning short-term rentals, then they at least want to monetize it.

with short-term rentals anywhere, understanding what the current municipal laws are relating short-term rentals are absolutely important. You wouldn’t want to buy something and then find out what you intend to do can’t be done. But it’s also understanding what the appetite for change in that location is as well. There will be some places in North America and in the world where short-term rentals have always been and will always be a big part of their economy. In other places, there is very little appetite for it and laws are moving towards

owners not being able to do it. So working with a professional who really understands how to interpret what’s going on on the ground with those municipalities before you buy becomes absolutely key.

Michelle Kesil (20:31)
Absolutely. And are all of your clients Canadian?

Carol Foderick (20:36)
The vast majority of our clients are Canadian. And I’ll tell you why, Michelle, in a few years ago, there was a ban put on foreign buyers in the Canadian marketplace. And the intention was that excluding foreign investment in our larger markets like Toronto and Vancouver would help to ease affordability for the buyers that

that were kind of homegrown. So people that already were permanent residents or Canadian citizens. I think it was a little bit short-sighted because part of the real estate downturn that we’re in now has come directly from the lack of foreign investment. But yeah, the vast majority of our buyers are Canadian simply because we’re selling Canadian real estate. What’s interesting is that we have many Canadian buyers that buy other places in the world and they go and choose to either buy, as I said, lifestyle decisions to be moving into warmer climates.

during the winter months especially. So one in six Canadian homes own real estate somewhere outside of Canada, which is a really interesting statistic because I’m not sure that there are many other countries in the world that have that level of foreign ownership among their citizens.

Michelle Kesil (21:38)
Yeah, absolutely. And that makes sense. Thank you for sharing your perspective.

Well, before we begin to wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more about what you’re up to, where can people find you and connect with you?

Carol Foderick (21:52)
Yeah, so on all socials, I’m Carol Foderick. So Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. If you’re an older millennial like me, you can certainly connect through any of those platforms or [email protected], which is my email address. And I’m always excited to, you know, have a chat with somebody who is on a real estate journey, whether it’s relevant to the Toronto market or not. I just love to share my experience and my knowledge as a as an investor and as a real estate broker with anybody that’s interested.

in walking this path.

Michelle Kesil (22:20)
Perfect, well I appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Carol Foderick (22:24)
I’m grateful, Michelle, for the opportunity. Thank you.

Michelle Kesil (22:27)
Of course. And for those tuning into the show, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Carol, who are building real businesses and we will see you on our next episode.