CBRE Land Services Group Reflects on 30 Years of Market Ups and Downs

Land sales in the Greater Toronto Area aren’t exactly stellar at the moment.

But CBRE’s Mike Czestochowski and Lauren White aren’t worried: the two veteran brokers have seen plenty of economic ups and downs in the decades they’ve spent supporting clients.

“One thing you know for certain in this business is that it will change,” says Czestochowski, a CBRE Vice Chairman who launched the Land Services Group (LSG) in 1995, with White joining him in 2006. The team has since grown to 10 members.

“Nothing stays the same for that long,” Czestochowski says. “So you have to keep your head down and keep working and not overreact. You need the patience to go through the downturns as much as the upswings in the market. You can’t get too concerned about booms or busts.”

That said, getting deals done in the current environment has been especially difficult, according to White.

“Government policies constantly changing, financing is challenging, global economic swings change the shape of things,” she says. “It’s just not easy getting a deal done. What used to take two to three months now takes six months to a year.”

Pivoting to Receiverships

Land sales may be challenging at the moment but the Land Services Group is still getting calls, particularly for a rapidly expanding part of their business: managing distressed property sales for lenders and receivers.

Rising interest rates dealt a big blow to the property sales market, and the velocity of distressed sales through receiverships and power of sales has increased significantly in the past two years.

“Once you’ve been through a couple of bad recessions you can almost feel them coming,” Czestochowski says. “We felt it coming years ago and pivoted our business to ensure that we were ready to support lenders and receivers on distressed sales.”

Integrity Stands Out

LSG’s devotion to servicing clients has helped the team earn their clients’ loyalty through the years.

“We will not tell a potential client what they want to hear just to get a listing ,” White says, “ sometimes that means losing a listing to a competitor, but at the end of the day we rather take the approach of being forthright with our clients and build their trust.  We stand behind our word and our value. We are in it for the long game.

“Especially when it’s a tough market,” she adds. “We are doing the right thing and providing value for our clients in good times and in bad.”

Long Term Relationships

The transparency and integrity of the LSG process gives clients comfort when they’re bidding on properties they have in the market, according to Czestochowski. “That has allowed us to resell some parcels over the course of their development trajectory.”

As an example, he and White recently sold a property in Oshawa for $165 million that Czestochowski had originally sold to the vendor’s father-in-law in the mid-1980s when it was just a farm. It is undergoing servicing at the moment and will eventually become its own community.  

“It’s all about long-term relationships,” Czestochowski says. “People get to the point where they don’t want to develop the land themselves but they want to sell. Their relatives and friends are calling us to sell properties because they know we will look after their family’s interests first.

“When you’re selling a $100 million property you want to work with a professional who is focused on you, not the commission cheque,” he adds. “We’re always going to look after the client we’re representing, which is why we’re still here after all these years.”

Big Deals, Big Changes

LSG has had no shortage of significant deals over the years. But the team takes the most pride in seeing how those transactions have created communities and improved people’s lives.

Take sourcing the land for the new Vaughan Hospital as an example. LSG, represented Cedar Fair (the parent company for Canada’s Wonderland), worked with the City of Vaughan, attending council meetings and providing input and information where required on their client’s property.

“Yes you’re selling land, but how is that helping cities and towns grow into more prosperous places?” Czestochowski says. “Those are the outcomes you want to see when you do this job. Especially when it’s a facility like a hospital, which cities need.”

“It makes you feel proud when you drive by a site you worked on from when it was nothing but a field, then it’s functioning, whether it’s single family homes, condos, industrial, retail or a hospital or some other institutional use. It makes you feel good that you were a part of that.”

Another landmark deal for LSG was the sale of a large industrial redevelopment site at Leslie Street and Sheppard Avenue where Concord Park Place now stands. With a total of 20 residential towers, Park Place is the second largest master-planned community in Toronto (Concord’s CityPlace in the former Railway Lands is the largest).

“I remember walking through the Park Place site when it was just a warehouse for Canadian Tire next to Highway 401,” Czestochowski says. “It’s come such a long way.”

Community Minded

At the nonprofit end of the spectrum, White notes that LSG has done work with community organizations such as the YMCA and the Salvation Army, assisting with fundraising efforts and real estate solutions. “Sometimes it’s not even about the site you’re selling – it’s about doing a good job for these non-profits,” she says.

LSG advised Girl Guides of Canada on the sale of the organization’s head office in midtown Toronto; Czestochowski and White suggested the group band together with the private owners of a neighbouring site and sell the combined property to a condo developer.

“The value of the two sites together was far greater than they would have been individually, attracting more funds and more activity from interested parties,” Czestochowski says.

Following the transaction, he purchased 3,500 boxes of Girl Guide cookies, which were distributed during the COVID lockdown to all employees at Markham Stouffville Hospital, where Czestochowski sat on the Foundation Board.

“It was great to see how happy that made everyone at a very challenging time for healthcare workers.”

Looking Ahead

What does the future hold for land in the Greater Toronto Area?

“Toronto is now truly a global city,” Czestochowski says, “and the size of the city and the diversity of its people and industries will continue to drive growth regardless of macroeconomic conditions.”

“We’re a place that people from around the world want to live and work. We have diversity amongst people and business opportunities. I have faith that the GTA and Greater Golden Horseshoe will continue to grow and be prosperous.”