Fireside Chat | Remodeling your real estate business: Finance Edition

Our most recent digital event gathered up real estate industry experts to discuss all things finance to remodel your real estate business. To further our series of digital conversations, this last event brought together Zeifmans team members with panelists David N.H. Bell, David S. Gasch, Daniel Marinovic, and Justin Walton to cover: – Finance best practices – Key lessons learned during COVID that still apply to real estate business today – What banks and investors are looking for and how to stand out – Rethinking financing, what opportunities lie ahead? – And much, much more!

Watch the full panel:

Here are the highlights:

David N.H. Bell

Senior Director, Canada ICI Capital

David specializes in arranging commercial mortgage financing and debt capital for private equity groups, institutions, and real estate owners. Focused on apartment buildings and industrial properties in Toronto and Montreal, David and his team have expertise across a wide variety of financing types including acquisition, refinance, construction, bridge loans, mezzanine, and CMHC insured. In 2020, his team successfully closed over $275M in commercial mortgage financings.

During the event, David provided insight and guidance for clients who are seeking financing following a down year during the pandemic.

David S. Gasch

Sales Representative, Marcus and Millichap

David S. Gasch is a Sales Representative in the Toronto office specializing in retail and office investment properties, with a focus on Midtown Toronto and North York. He brings in-depth knowledge of Toronto’s commercial real estate market conditions and trends. As a CRE advisor David helps his clients make well informed and strategic real estate decisions through on comprehensive data-driven market analysis.

During the event, David spoke about commercial real estate; both the current state of the industry post-COVID, and his predictions for the future as well.

Daniel Marinovic

CEO, Managing Partner, Forest Gate Financial Corp.

Daniel Marinovic is the CEO and Managing Partner of Forest Gate Financial Corporation – a private equity real estate investment, development and asset management company. Prior to Forest Gate, Daniel Marinovic served as Chief Development Officer with Dream Unlimited (TSX: DRM) a leading Canadian developer and asset manager with over $10 billion in assets under management. His responsibilities spanned all aspects of the organization including finance, development, construction, and operations. Daniel was also Vice-President of Finance with First Gulf, the commercial arm of Great Gulf, one of Canada’s most recognized home building and development organizations. In his career, Daniel has spent 20 years leading high-profile, complex real estate development and investment projects in municipalities across the country. Daniel is on the Board of Directors of Toronto Artscape Foundation and volunteers his time with a number of other industry and non-profit organizations.

During the event, Daniel discussed his recently launched private equity real estate investment, development, and asset management company. He spoke about the current state of the industry, and what sets Forest Gate apart from its competitors.

Justin Walton

Managing Director, KingSett

Justin’s role at KingSett is to co-lead an origination team to source commercial and residential mortgage loan investments across Canada. Justin was formerly the Vice President of a private Toronto based mortgage lender where he was responsible for the growth and management of a $400 million portfolio of construction and term loans. Prior to this, Justin developed his real estate lending expertise with Scotiabank and a U.S. based commercial real estate company where he was responsible for sourcing, underwriting and funding construction and term loans throughout North America. He brings to KingSett a comprehensive understanding of real estate lending.

During the event, Justin discussed interest rates. Though interest rates are currently at an all-time low, many clients are concerned that the rates will be much higher when their financing period is up.

Jona Lemmonds

Founding Partner, Asthree

Wealth Group Jona’s early career started in the banking and mortgage lending industries. In 2008, she went into business building, and started their Tech-Software Consulting company. By 2017, she decided to hack into the real estate business and now, she is launching new ventures ( just to name one ) such as working with Key Principals & Operators to acquire commercial/multifamily real estate in the USA and partner with investors to syndicate for passive wealth – income opportunities. Jona’s personal mission is to make wealth creation accessible to all walks of life, through financial literacy and by investing in the future of diversity growth in education, real estate & entrepreneurship

In the event, Jona discussed his personal mission: Making wealth creation accessible for all walks of life. In “rethinking” the future of financing in real estate, Jona brought some innovative thoughts to share.

Freddie Maverevedze

Tax Manager, Zeifmans

Host of the event Freddie Maverevedze has 10 years of experience working with clients in various industries, including banks and brokerages, leasing companies, insurance companies, asset managers and their related investment funds, real estate developers and builders, rental businesses, professionals, technology companies and private investment funds. His professional experience has largely been geared toward publicly traded corporations, private companies and high net worth individuals on intricate tax matters, helping them comply with the growing and increasingly complex tax compliance requirements. Freddie’s areas of expertise include the taxation of corporations, partnerships and trusts, succession and estate planning, financing strategies, dispute resolution with the Canada Revenue Agency and planning for the sale or acquisition of a business.

David Posner, CPA, CA

Partner, Zeifmans

David Posner joined Zeifmans in 2006 and became a partner in 2016. During that time, he’s amassed a wealth of knowledge and experience in Canadian taxation in many industries, with a primary focus on real estate. Known by his clients for his outgoing personality and optimistic outlook, David is a problem solver. He’s skilled at crafting results-oriented solutions that lie within the law, while being as creative as possible to maximize the benefit to the client. Regardless of the complexity of the situation, he seeks to help his clients weed through the red tape and reach the finish line in a practical manner.

To learn more about Zeifmans’ expert real estate financing advice, reach out to our team today.

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