(45) How To Think About Risk, Leverage, And Timing In Real Estate Development - Mazyar Mortazavi - TAS Impact

In this insightful episode, Payam sit down with Mazyar Mortazavi, the President and CEO of TAS, a Toronto-based real estate company. Mazyar shares his inspiring journey from immigrating to Canada to working in real estate development and asset management. They delve into the core principles and lessons learned from scaling a real estate business, the importance of financial discipline, risk, leverage and timing. Mazyar also discusses the paradigm shift currently impacting the real estate market, highlighting its challenges and the potential for innovation and community-centric approaches. Moreover, they touch on the importance of impact investing, sustainability, and social equity in real estate. Tune in to gain valuable insights on navigating the current economic landscape and building a resilient, impact-driven real estate business.

• First Development Projects and Lessons Learned
• Understanding Correlation in Business Decisions
• Starting with Impact from Day One
• Scaling and Risk Management in Development
• Nonprofit Leadership and Governance
• The Importance of Community and Collaboration

TAS is an industry leader in impact-driven ground-up development and asset management.TAS manage a best-in-class private equity platform focused on the belief that profit is foundational, but not the only goal. 

For more information, please refer to RealEstateDevelopmentInsights.com

Take our Free Assessment at: DevelopmentReadinessAssessment.com

Transcript

Mazyar Mortazavi - Interview

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: [00:00:00] Perfect. Hello Maier. Thank you for being here today.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Great. It's a pleasure.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: I very much appreciate your time and, um, you being here. This has been one of our targets to get you on the show this year. Um, I wanna explore a couple of tracks in this episode with you, hopefully here. You, uh, when you and I were having an offline chat, you asked me what is the purpose of this exercise, of this podcast and this episode.

And, uh, so. I came up with these two goals and um, one is to document your path as an entrepreneur, as developer from your family. I obviously done a little bit of homework, I know where the company started, and also talk about the future and the current situation and the impact that, the impact that is incorporated into your, the name of the company.

But before we dig too deep into those things, why don't we go ahead and [00:01:00] ask you to introduce yourself to our audience, who, who might not be familiar with your work, and then we go from there.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Sounds great. Uh, well thank you so much for having me, Pam. It's a pleasure to be here. Mavi, I am, uh, the president and CEO of TAs. We are a real estate company that is based in Toronto. and we've been operating predominantly across, uh, the GTHA sort, the within the province of Ontario. Um. Our business has been active in the areas of ground up development, asset management, and private equity.

Our private equity has been all real estate focused and developments have ranged everything from, uh, condominiums, purpose-built rentals, mixed use developments, um, infill and multi-phase developments, and, um, have really been sort of approaching the work that we do. Um. Through a lens of what is now termed as impact.

Um, but thinking [00:02:00] about breadth of capital, uh, really at its core defining capital beyond just financial capital and thinking about the social, the environmental, and the cultural capital, how do we actually, uh, create a multiplier effect through the projects that we do. Um. With a really deep belief that, you know, we act as stewards, uh, not as owners.

Uh, and when you're stewarding, you are taking responsibility for the next. Um, and for us it's been sort of a generational lens and we see that future generations is our core responsibility in the work that we do.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Perfect. Thank you very much. Can we, can we go from, go back a little bit more? Can you go to the beginnings? Uh, when I was doing my homework, I figured, or I read that your parents started. The company about three or four decades ago, maybe not in this exact setup. And from my perspective, based on what I can read, it's, it's almost a [00:03:00] Canadian dream story of, uh, immigrants coming here and building something from scratch and getting it to a point that I read on your website that you guys have multimillion square feet of asset under management on in terms of GGFA.

So I think that in itself is an interesting story that I, at least I, I'm very curious to learn about.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Yeah, for sure. Um, so family, uh, originally from Iran, uh, we immigrated to Canada. Uh, March 10th, 1981, I was a, uh, mature age of five. Um, so, uh, Toronto and Canada have been home for, for many, many years. mom and dad, uh, both trained as architects, uh, in Iran, uh, came here and very much the immigrant story.

You know, dad's qualifications didn't qualify him to get a job. He ended up going back to university for a third master's degree in architecture, and so he pursued that at U of T. Simultaneously went to school, worked. Um, you know, we knew dad was there because there would [00:04:00] be, if anyone who was from old from from has been in Toronto a long time, there used to be a cookie shop called Treats. And so dad would leave, um, cookies under our pillows and there'd be stickers under our pillows. So it was sort of a sign that Dad had come and gone. Um. And, you know, mom was, you know, taking care of two young kids. I have a younger brother who's two years younger than me, so, you know, coming to a country with two young kids, you know, and, and starting, starting from scratch, dad graduated, started working in architecture.

Um, didn't love the, the office sort of aspect of it. He was, uh, in Iran. He was working with his brothers in a, in a civil engineering and contracting company. And so his first chance that he had, um, he sort of took whatever money they had and borrowed money from friends and family and sort of started off, uh, with building a house, uh, in the Bayview and Shepherd area, and sort of, sort of started infill housing. It was a spec house that he, you know, as by the time he finished it, the economy had completely bottomed out. And [00:05:00] so bit of a reminiscence of, of where we are today in the cycle. Um, but you know, they had the tenacity to keep pushing and so they effect eventually sold that house, uh, in between building it and selling it.

He took a job in Houston, Texas, so he was sort of flying back and forth and doing that. Um, but eventually sold the house, bought another, two, bought for, and built the business in the early eighties as a spec home building business. Um, given their background in architecture. they had a flare to their projects.

And so by the, by the late eighties, they started doing custom home building. and those custom homes began to sort of, uh, sort of effectively kept going south. Um, and so at one point they were building uh, bay and Shepherd, then Bay in York Mills, and by the. Early to mid nineties, they were building almost all of Brattle path.

Uh, and so it really went from building these small 2,500, 3000 square foot homes to building [00:06:00] 25,000, 30,000 square foot homes. and that trajectory sort of continued. Um, interlay into this, and I might, I, I, I joke, but un but not jokingly. My friends went to summer camp. I went to construction sites. So I, I grew up working on construction sites and I, I feel very fortunate to have had that experience. Um, I eventually went to, uh, university of Waterloo. I did my undergrad in Architecture, university of Waterloo. I did my work terms back at the family business. Um, and then, you know, pretty much, um, began to transition the business. Uh, initially when, when mom and Dad started, it was, it was Um, and so we were, we had sort of a small design team, and we then. Began to do, um, sales offices for condo developers, and we had a great partnership with Tridel for a number of years where we were designing and building out their high-end custom units. then, uh, in [00:07:00] 2002, took the leap and bought our first development site. And that's, uh, I was sort of midway through a master's degree at that point.

I, I much started working full-time as I started doing my master's degree. Um, that sort of began our oriented development.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Fantastic. I, I love that story because, uh, in my. Any shapes or forms, I think, um, a good chunk of our audience is going through that journey. They might be at some of the steps of those journeys. I just had a meeting this morning from, with someone who has been a house custom home builder for a number of years, and now they're trying to take it up a notch.

And that's one of the things we try to do on this podcast to kind of. Create frameworks and create roadmaps for people who've gone from people who've done that before, and, uh, allow other, share it with, with the others. So going to that first project, I'm not sure how involved you were in that pro first project.

What was the one thing you would've liked to known before entering that project? What was the one big takeaway [00:08:00] or lesson that, you know what, this was the first project we learned, one or two things. We should not do that again.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Um, that's a great question, you know. I guess I, I frame the experiences all as additive, so there's nothing that I wish I'd known. I think part of it

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Perfect.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: you almost need to go through what you do in order to get to where you are. Um, you know, some of the decisions we made at the time, you know, we, we were custom home builders, so we chose to bring on a party construction manager to oversee it because they had the experience. We brought on a development consultant to work with us because they understood the process and, and they'd been through it. Um, we sort of made sure we hired the best consultants and not, we didn't go cheap on the consultants because, you know, we could either make the mistakes pretending we were really smart, or we could pay for the intelligence and we see it as an [00:09:00] insurance policy. without sounding sort of arrogant around that, I actually don't think there's anything we would've done differently. At that time, um, we went at it in a very cautionary way. Now following that, I think there's a lot of things I would've done differently because on subsequent projects. Uh, but on this one I think we just, we went in sort of very much eyes open. Um, but the first one went really well and I think we almost took that for a bit for granted. Um, and, um, and I think sort of subsequent projects, there were, there were lessons learned. Um. That I would, that I

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: S So is it fair?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: I think

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Is it, that was the

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: and

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: peak in everything.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: I can tell you about all the mistakes I've made.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Okay. We're gonna go there in a second, but is it fair to say on the first one, uh, you had the reps in from the building, the multi, uh, the custom houses and probably the, like you mentioned, the fact that you were new and, uh, open to hearing it, that that really helps you minimize [00:10:00] your risk.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: listen, I think that, that, that definitely a fact. And I, you know, and, and we got lucky because it was the start of the market taking off, Like, you know, over the last 25 years. The market has saved many of us. Um, and, and I think that's something that I don't take for granted. Like you're just, it's not just about being smart, it's about being lucky. I, I think I, I, you know, it's been a, been 80% lucky and, and 20%, I've made a lot of mistakes around, so.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Thank you for saying that. Very, very much appreciate that because I think these days, many, many of us and many who are involved in the industry are seeing that and learning that the hard way just because for a long time the, the tide was rising and was just lifting all the boats together. And, uh, that.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: For

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: That market situation paid for a lot of bad decisions, and these days those decisions are very expensive. So now let's change gear. Let's go back and, um, follow that train of thought if you may, or let's say fast forward, how many [00:11:00] years do you want to look at? But let's say, what are the five mistakes or lessons you learned throughout the way that you wish you had known when you started?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Oh boy. Uh, you're asking me to like narrow down from like the, the, thousand

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: asking you to narrow down. Go as as wide as you like. Go 50 I.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: listen, I, so I, maybe a bit of a reframing. I think that mistakes often are anchored around a negative connotation. Um, and I think part of all of this and the perspective of that I bring to all of us is that, you know, we frame all of our pursuits as one of growth. Uh, more often than not, uh, given the construct we live in, is anchored to a financial paradigm, yet true growth is about personal trajectory and personal journey. And so [00:12:00] my greatest growth has come from the lessons I've had, from the things that have gone wrong. Um, are they mistakes or were they the creating the opportunity for the growth?

So I, I think there's a real important framing. And in particular, given the market context, I share this with a lot of friends who might be listening, who are feeling like, oh my God, I can't believe I, I made this mistake. And that mistake, everything feels like it's as it's been going wrong for a lot of us in the industry. Um, and I think it's just part of the, the market dynamics of it. So I, I think I would just sort of frame that, um, you know, there is nothing more. Important than time. And I think framing time relative to the journey is really important. Um, and in that, I would say that one of my big lessons has been how do you actually time such that the choices you [00:13:00] make are at a pace that is accelerating you forward. There's a difference between accelerating you forward versus tipping you over the edge. Uh, no different than driving a car. You can go fast, but it's going fast that if something happens, you go outta control. and so I think one of my big lessons has been understanding pace. Um, and what PACE does is that pace then in the respect to our industry, correlates to scale. Um, and so how much do you want to take on when and how, uh, I think is a really, really important lesson. That I've garnered and sort of take that as, as one, one big sort of bucket, um, is the correlation of, of time and scale. I think that that's really, really important. Um, the second thing I would talk about is around establishing first principles.

Um, you know, I have consistently throughout my entire career run a business that has been [00:14:00] anchored around. A set of core principles and a set of core values. Um, and I would say that the one principle that is all of it are the choices that you make, that anchor financial principles, uh, and becoming unwavering about your financial principles. and so it's very easy and when times are good to frame everything as an investment. But I think being able to understand the framing of the investment against a set of core principles that are unwavering becomes really important. Um, and I would sort of say one example that I would use is. We had a great opportunity run buying an asset.

I've generally run our portfolio at 50% leverage. I've never taken more than 50% leverage and in development, many people would take, you know, an A piece, a B piece, a C piece that would get it up to 95% leverage. They put in 5% equity and they would target [00:15:00] a 10 times multiple on 5% equity. Uh, we never did that.

To me it was like if you can't own it with 50% leverage, you can't own it. I decided we had a great opportunity around one deal. Um. We decided to take 70% leverage. Um, and that became my biggest challenge and problem over the last number of years. And I broke my own principle of never going above 50% leverage. Um, and you know, when I look back in that moment of time, what likely made the same decision I would've with everything that I knew then. And at that point. But the premise of those principles is that even when something looks really good, you can't cross those principles. Um, because I think that's where you can sort of set yourself up.

So my second point being, establish your financial principles and don't, don't let them, don't let them waiver. Um, thing, um, which I think has been a really big [00:16:00] lesson, and this is very personal, is, um. You know, you can have a why around your business strategy, but having a very clear articulated why around your strategy and being clear on your personal strategy, I think is really, really important. because that personal strategy, is actually your intellect can fool you. Um, and for anyone who often gets into this business, there is sort of an intellectual. So the discourse that comes into play and our intellect is incredibly great at fooling ourselves. And there's nothing that can, that can trick the ego better than the intellect can and vice versa.

So that would be really the third lesson, is how do you clearly articulate your own personal why? If you wanna get rich, I think that just needs to be clear. Like that's like you can't, like it can't, you can't fool yourself. Instead, I'm doing this for the greater good and that and the rest. Um, and. It really, then [00:17:00] all of this ties back to my first statement around the fact that it is about a personal journey, uh, and going through these processes, um, is about the great growth that that one achieves, uh, as an individual, as a soul, as, as a mind, as, as an intellect. and so I would sort of use those three buckets is kind of the, the big lessons learned at a macro level.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: I very much appreciate your transparency and your willingness to share, uh, those things. So be careful about your timing and, uh, scaling. Have your financial principles and be clear on your personal why. I want to kind of tie. Dive a little bit more into those just to make sure I get them right. And so under scaling, because this is a very common conversation that I've, I've heard come up multiple, multiple times and uh, that the way I understand it is that if you have been doing a custom house or 10 of them per year.

Probably the next best step for you is not to start doing a 30 [00:18:00] story 400 unit building, and like you said, start leveraging and maybe go to a six story, maybe do a 16 story and then step up. Is that the same realm of scaling that you're thinking, or am I getting it wrong?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Listen, I think scaling is a correlation between time and resources. Right. I think it's about attention span. Um, I think it's about focus. Um, choose to go wide and thin or narrow and deep. Um, I think it's the intentionality and then it ties back to the two other things I spoke about. So I don't think any of these things talked about in a silo, but it's about a system.

So it's about the system you're defining for yourself. And so the system that you define for yourself is predicated around those three core principles. Um, if you're going to go from building 10 homes to building a 300 story, 300 unit [00:19:00] building, it's like someone who has been making ham and cheese sandwiches and now they wanna serve seven course oat cuisine meal, right?

So if you're gonna make that leap. How are you making the leap? it's not a question of should you or shouldn't you, but I think there's an an, an inherent understanding that the leap from one to the next not because your ego says, I can do this because I've done this, to understand that it's a completely different thing.

And it's not that you can't do it, but you just have to go into it sort of eyes wide open. Um, so I think it's understanding. What the transition means versus making the transition. if the transition is because you think you're smart, that's a pretty huge risk profile. if the transition is here's an opportunity, I'm going to [00:20:00] gather the right resources and the right people and the right around me, then that's a different thing. would also say that very often, you know, you might see it and say, oh wow, look at all the money I can make. I think the more important question is how much money can I lose? Um, and so if you frame everything on, not the potential of what can be, but the possibility of how much you can lose, it reframes it. And then thirdly, I think what becomes really important in these conversations is around what am I willing to give up for success? Okay. Because you might have to say, you know what? I'm gonna take on this 300 unit building. give away 50% of the profit to someone who's really, who's done this already, and bring them on as a partner. Well, are you giving away 50% of the profit or are you saving the 50% of [00:21:00] profit that, are you saving a hundred percent of your equity that you could lose? Right. So I, I think a lot of these things are around the framings.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: I, I appreciated what you said. Reminds me of, um, something James Clear says in his atomic Habit books, which is at the start line of a hundred meter race, everyone wants to get the gold medal, but uh, they don't go just because they have the gold. They don't get it. They fall back on the systems and support and practices and routines that they've had throughout the years to get them to that point.

Uh, speaking of systems and practices, so if you were to talk to your. Younger version or someone who is in that shoes and they're going from that. I, again, go back to, uh, example of 10 custom houses per year. Now one step up the game. What are the 1, 2, 3 key processes or systems that you think you should have in place to make sure that you are as much as possible, ready to make that leap?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Um, the single biggest thing is having a very clear [00:22:00] risk matrix, understanding what are the risks that you're assuming and how are you tracking your risks against every single decision that you're making? Um, so understanding sort of a clear risk matrix is probably the first thing I would sort of say, that then begins to set out exactly where things can go wrong. So the clarity of that risk matrix, I think is really important.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Can you maybe cl elaborate a little bit more on that? Like, are you talking about okay, am I gonna lose, uh, like is the risk in terms of how much I'm willing to sell this for like per square foot price, how long it's.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: So for example, like what's, what is the risk around schedule? What is the risk around. Um, entitlements. What is the risk around interest rates? What is the risk around, you know, like, so like there's, there's some core fundamental risks around every single development project, depending on where you start in the cycle, where you are in terms of the acquisition. Everything from your land cost, your carrying cost, your entitlement risk, your financing risk, your equity risk. Like, I just think needing to [00:23:00] understand of those different risk components is fundamental. Um, because. It's, it's almost like a, you think of it as an equalizer, right? When one risk goes up, another one comes down, but they're alway, they're constantly moving. So being able to have a very clear risk matrix where you're constantly tracking where your risk is at any moment in a project, to me, is fundamental. Um, second, um, is the people around you, right? Like, who's your team? Like it's. The, I, I always have had incredible success of putting people that are a lot smarter than me around my tables. And I think if you can manage people who are smarter than you are in what they do, I think that's a huge, huge piece. None of these projects gets done by a person. Um, the greatest success comes around the team. And so how do you build, um, the strongest team? Um, and then thirdly, I would just, again, it, it's about [00:24:00] understanding. The financial framework, um, capital stack, um, and understanding your capital stack, not at the beginning of the project, in its most dire sort of moments. Um, I would say every developer is very wealthy on an Excel spreadsheet. Um, and then you put all of it at risk. The moment you put a shovel in the ground and everything is, is at the risk

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Very true. Very true, very true.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Capital stack, uh, of your project over project lifecycle is critical.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing that. So I want to switch gears a little bit. I wanna go look at, start talking about tasks as a whole, a little bit task impact. So when I was doing a little bit of my research, it's uh, task is a leader in impact real estate. Can you open that up a little bit for us?

Like what does that mean? Impact real estate.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Yeah, for sure. So I started off the top, so talking about the fact [00:25:00] that we look at capital across, across the various segments. We define our impact through our impact framework. Um, where we were measuring, we've been measuring for sustainability, social equity, uh, affordability, and environment. Um, and so we, you know, we we're, we're tracking everything by numbers. And I think that's a really important element when, when people talk about impact, it's about measurement and, and no different than a financial report card. A impact report card is critical. If you can't measure it, then it's not real.

Uh, and I'm a big believer of that. Um, this has been an incremental process for us. Uh, it's been through experience as we've advanced project to project. We've layered on different things, um, and we've been measuring everything. And then that's the real, the real, real important thing. I think our last impact report had us measuring EBIT 95 different outcomes across our portfolio.

And the way that we look at it, um, you know, impact as I, we we say impact is, isn't. A strategy is just what we do. Um, and [00:26:00] so again, it's really thinking about the role that real estate has in the broadest of senses. And without a question, first and foremost, it's financial returns. If you do not have financial returns, none of the other things come to play. And so we are stewards of financial capital for our investors. and so first and foremost, our responsibility is towards financial capital, we measure the other elements as well, because. You have to be thinking about the correlation of the parts. Uh, and I think that's really what our impact approach does, is it considers how the different parts are correlated together, and so we measure the total outcomes of what we do, in considering the choices we make.

Mm-hmm.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: And look, I, I read that you are, um, trying to align. Purpose and profit. Going back to what you were just saying a few minutes ago about the why is that the why?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: A hundred percent I get to me, they, they, they go hand in hand. Um, if it's not a good, you know, we, we chose to, to pursue impact because it was the right business decision. [00:27:00] Um, and so it was never, we, we never looked at it as altruistic. It's, to me, it's how we do business and it gave us an advantage. We invested in the way that we do this as a commitment to driving a return, a capital return out of it, and being able to demonstrate that. If you make the choices from the outset, you can actually lever it to drive financial returns. And so for us, our impact strategy wasn't an altruistic strategy. It was a financial strategy to drive better returns in in our, for our capital.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: So do you, do you think that for someone who is, again, I go to the profile of the person that we were talking about, who is someone who's just, um, trying to step up their game or getting in your shoes for the first time early on in the journey, is that something that you start from day one or do you need to get to a critical mass of capital and.

Backing for you to be able to start incorporating that into your mission and vision. Why?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: So I, I think you [00:28:00] need to have the principles of your mission and. Y right out of the gate, but do I think you should have an impact report out of the gate? I think with the advent of the technology available to us today and the way that things are done, I think it's completely possible in a way that it wasn't possible even three or five years ago. Um, I think being able to articulate sort of what your objectives are really, again, I think you have to go back to, to a fundamental principle. Real estate needs to be seen through in 10 years, investment cycles. So if you're investing and your core objective is to make money and get on, make money and get on, be honest with yourself. If your objective is to do more than just make money, but you ask yourself, well, what else do I want to do? And you have to measure. I, I just, I don't think it's, I actually don't think it's, you know, it's, we call it impact at a time because we needed something to call it, but it's just what we've been doing. Right. Um,

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: So it's a, it's a [00:29:00] by, it is a byproduct of your way of doing business, is what you're saying?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: of our a hundred percent. It's a great way of

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Yeah.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: It is absolutely a byproduct of, of, of what we've done, and it's something that I believed in. Um, and so we invested in it and we, that's

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Right.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: I'm proud of at the fact that we sort of led the charge.

And, and always believed in sort of, you know, we are very locally sensitive, but we believe our, our leadership do is through a global mindset. You know, we, we created probably one of the most comprehensive. Global frameworks around impact investing for real estate. And that's not what we believe it, it's, it's what we've been told by our European colleagues and investors and what we've been told by, by many that we were at the forefront of this work and, and, but we're at the forefront because we invested time and resources to it.

You can be at the forefront of anything if you invest time and resources on it. It's not, do anything special. We just made a decision as to where we want to spend our money. You spend your money, you get the results.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: And that's, that's, uh, I'm, I'm very happy to see this movement and we, uh, I've had the PLE pleasure and privilege of [00:30:00] being exposed to that firsthand with, uh, one of our clients Windmill Developments, which they have their own internal set of Met Matrix. And it, it's, it's. It's painful sometimes to make it happen, to make sure you stand by what you, what you claim to believe in.

And it's sometimes, it's not the cheapest decisions to make, but, uh, no different than what you said. Like those are, these are long term decisions that you, you, you make before. Yeah. 'cause you believe in something and just for. For context, for our listeners who are not necessarily, uh, uh, familiar with this verbiage or this vocabulary, I just wanna put this context.

So I read in your report that you are, you are targeting net zero operating certifications in some of your buildings, or you are targeting 10 for 10% affordability target throughout your, I guess, portfolio, right? Maybe elaborate on maybe two or three key objectives of your impact for those of our listeners who are not familiar with the concept.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Yeah. So for example, you know, when we design our build, so there there is, when you're looking at [00:31:00] carbon measurement, there's two elements of carbon measurement. There's embedded carbon and there's operating carbon. Embedded carbon is the carbon that goes into building the buildings, whereas operating carbon is the systems and the operations of the building after they've been completed. it is impossible to get your building to carbon zero for embedded carbon. Um, when you build something, inherently it has carbon in it. Um, our view has been around carbon reduction through design, uh, and core design principles. So how do you design the most efficient, structure? How do you reduce rebar?

How do you think about the kinds of the, the full cycle, the full carbon cycle of products and materials going into your building? So that's the embedded carbon side. So we've. a lot of work in terms of thinking of how do we go through carbon reduction. Um, the second part of it is about making the choices around your building systems to get them to carbon neutral or carbon positive as it relates to operating. That's the mechanical systems you put in the flows of, in your water systems. It's [00:32:00] looking at the, the, you know, the, the types of insulation that you use, you're building envelope, and how those things are designed. And so we're just very intentional in how we design those elements in our buildings. And so it's embedded into our specs.

It's embedded into our subcontract agreements. Uh, we've been at the forefront of waste reduction and demolition. We've reduced close to 95% in terms of carbon waste reduction and, and repurposing and reus. embedded those into the way that we do our tenders and, and, and sort of do our tendering for our subcontractors. So it's very much sort of a systems based approach to reducing carbon. Uh, and so our impact report and our impact strategy measures for all of those types of things. on the social impact side, um, we have. Um, been very deliberate on how we run our projects from inception. So we haven't been to ALPA or OMB in 15 years, and we've had millions of square feet approved. and that has to do [00:33:00] with the level of, of engagement that we have with our various stakeholders from the onset of any project. So, um, you know, we don't wait for a mandatory planning community meeting. We run multitudes of community meetings beforehand. and we work with communities to learn from them.

I always sort of say. Every time we go into a new neighborhood, we engage with a community like being at a, at a dinner party. Um, they are the host, we are the guest. We want to be invited back for the next dinner. Um, and so, you know, you're, you're there not to teach. You're there to learn. And I think that's an overarching element of our business model as that we lead with curiosity, um, because we're there to learn.

Um, and we believe in terms of the, the value of learning along the process. And so that really does frame up the way that we think about our social impact. Um, and then that ties into the kinds of groups we work with from we're big proponents of disability and working with, with groups with disability we're big proponents of working with indigenous communities.

We developed a reconciliation action plan, which is [00:34:00] regarded as one of the leading sort of wraps in, in, in, in Canada. But all of it is around deep engagement with, with an authentic view to curiosity and learning. And so that has been a significant part of it for us in terms of how, how we, how we've done that. so again, then the report lays all these things out and we have

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Yeah.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: of how we do it. So, um.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: And, and I think, like you said, all of it stems from the long-term view and the, that the role that you guys have envisioned for your investment purposes. It's not just just the money, it's not just the ROI versus maybe a more long-term vision and. Creating an impact, for lack of a better word. I want to go to, uh, your, you're part of a whole bunch of nonprofit organizations.

You do nonprofit boards, uh, you're on nonprofit boards.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Yeah.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: What do you see? Like if, if we have someone listening from a nonprofit, which I think we have a few of them, and they want to take away some things or some lessons in terms of effectiveness, being more [00:35:00] efficient with the resources, I, I believe you used the word stewardship.

Um, what are some. Takeaways or key lessons that they could use.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Um, most successful nonprofits I've been at, uh, have been a combat, have, have really been. At, at to the lens of leadership, um, and a clear articulation of leadership. And leadership has been two pronged. It's been the the executive directors or the CEOs of the organization, coupled with a very strong board, non-for-profits, have a constant challenge of funding. and the hardest thing to fund is your intellectual base. Um, and a strong board can be a huge resource. and the quality of of a board, I think is foundational to the success of a non-for-profit. So, um, to anyone who is running a non-for-profit, I think being very clear and understanding that your board is your partner and the most [00:36:00] viable partner that you have, and seeing your board, um, as a of your success is fundamental. Um, the second piece, um, which I would almost say overrides the first piece, but is directly correlated as governance. Um, the success of any organization is predicated on governance. The foundation for innovation is governance non-for-profits are at the forefront of innovation, uh, because they're solving for some of our greatest challenges. And too often people see governance as. A, um, constraint or they see governance as a block or a barrier. governance to me is the magic that unlocks innovation because it provides you a framework to protect you, to then allow you to take those big leaps. And so governance to me, uh, would be the, would be the number one thing. and for anyone who is an executive director or a lead of a non-for-profit. Your number [00:37:00] one job is fundraising. Um, so if anyone who's leading a non-for-profit organization, if you think that fundraising is what your fundraising committee does, it's completely wrong. Um, you as the CEO or the executive director need to be the at the forefront of that and need to be articulate and clear enough as to the vision of the organization to be able to get the capital to come behind you. So those are the three things I would, I would frame it.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Fantastic. Uh, let's switch gears a little bit. Let's talk about the current situation that we are in as, as a country, as a market, as an industry. Uh, we all can hear it multiple times a day, probably in terms of record number of low number of sales for new projects, and the record number of, uh, low starts for construction projects, and you name it, housing crisis, affordability, crisis, tariffs, all the fun stuff that goes with all of that.

What's your, what's your read on the current situation? And then will, with that read, we'll transition into what's, what's [00:38:00] coming up next?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Can I use profanities?

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: By all means.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: It's really shit. I can keep going with the profanities if, do you really want me to go? Um, listen, we are at, we are at heart of a paradigm shift. and it's not a paradigm shift around real estate. It's a paradigm shift at the most macro levels, um, as it relates to political constructs, as it relates to political sentiment, as it relates to social sentiment, as it relates to economic sentiment. Um, we are seeing the manifestation of the choices made over the last 20 years coming to roost, and we're sort of seeing the downside effects of those. Um, when you go through a paradigm shift, systems become reset. And as systems are getting reset, the most challenging part of any reset are the social and cultural norms that become [00:39:00] ingrained in the way that people think. so in the midst of a paradigm reset, what you're effectively doing is breaking apart all of the things that had become normative for society. And so it just feels like everything is crumbling. In our view, it's a Phoenix process is around. We're going through a Phoenix process right now, and we're at the stage of the thing burning, uh, before a rebirth.

Um, it's very hard when you're in the midst of a paradigm shift or a phoenix process to believe that there's hope on the other side. Um, but the reality is that nothing is stagnant and everything cycles. It is the magic of nature. read a beautiful Japanese proverb that even trees lose their leaves. Um, and so I, I think it's, it's the reality of being in the midst of a massive paradigm shifter phoenix burning. And so the social [00:40:00] or cultural reference is shit. The real element of it is opportunity now. And so we're going through a massive opportunity reset. Uh, in the current time,

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Okay, so if I take that and I asked you to do the impossible, fast forward five years for, for us as an industry, as a economy, and for task as. A company, what do you see?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: I don't know, is my real answer. And. think that we try to frame these conversations of what the future looks like to satiate our fears of the unknown. And I actually think it's not a time of doing, it's a time of observing. when we [00:41:00] begin to forecast what we're doing is that we're trying to hold on to how we control an outcome. Yet. I think that in these times it's not time to hold on, it's time to let go, um, and to be an observer. and I say that in the context of someone who's managing receivership's debt, financial crises, all the rest. So this isn't as though I'm not sitting here the plinth of a billionaire who is sort of, has all the money and doesn't care. I'm, I'm sort of, you know, I might, so the, the, the challenges are sort of just underneath my nostril. So I'm, I'm, I'm trying to stay afloat like many of us are in the industry, so I wanna be very, very clear that this isn't coming from a, from a lens of financial p privilege. Um, but I think what becomes most challenging in these times is the fear of the unknown. Um, and. We've made the decision as an organization to sell the assets that we have. Um, we've made the decision to take losses if we need to take losses, [00:42:00] and to effectively unconstrain ourselves from the system. That was, um, and so we've made the hard decision to take a lot of losses. Um, but I do believe that in order to transition, you need to make a decision. The most challenging aspect of being in these circumstances is not being able to make a choice, being so sort of afraid of the unknown, on the one hand you're terrified of what's ahead, on the other hand, you're holding on to what the past was. Um, and so unfortunately I don't have any perspective on what the future is. What I do know is that to be present in this in time is the most important thing. And in order to be present, it's about making the choices to move on.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Again, I appreciate [00:43:00] your honesty and transparency. Thank you for sharing that. And you did touch on something that you really got me thinking because I come from an operation mind that, uh, we need to be doing, doing, doing. And many years ago, I committed myself to this way of thinking that I think, I think it was a book from Andy Grove that was like, there are certain key elements that are within your control and you have the levers.

Just focus on the one that you have, you can control and work with them and keep moving forward. But I guess what I'm hearing also from you here is that there's so, so much turbulence in the path of if, if we're flying a plane per se, if there's so much turbulence and there's so many things that you are too much action, your or your old routine of actions might actually get you.

Do more trouble than waiting for the coast to clear hopefully within some reasonable, within some reasonable parameters of not losing everything you have, pretty much. Um, and, um, giving yourself a time to think. [00:44:00] Is that a fair way of putting it?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Yeah, for sure. Listen, it's not a matter of sitting back and not doing anything, and I'm busier than I've ever been. Um, but. I am busy moving forward. I'm not busy holding on. If there, if there's

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Right.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: I would describe it as, and I'm not afraid of what next is. Um, yeah, we're selling assets. I'm gonna have, you know, as you said, we were at our peak, we had about 7 million square feet of, of development in our portfolio. we own some very key sites, um, but everything is worth a fraction of what it was right now, even though we only had 50% leverage, Things are worth the debt value.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Yeah. That much. Yeah. Yeah.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: you know, it just, it just, it is, it is, it's just the time of, its of the cycle that would, um, and so, you know, I, I just, I, I, I guess I'm, the premise of it is how do you position yourself not to operate out of a place of fear? [00:45:00] Um, and I think to me, that element of letting go or being present is not one of, you know. Um, sitting back and not doing anything, it's a question of what are you focused on doing?

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Gotcha. It's a moment of reflection. So with that said, um, we ask our, uh, guests on this podcast, uh, a magic wand question. If we were to give you a magic wand. And asked you to make it one wish. In terms of what could help turn our current situation, as you put it, toward improvement, toward making things better.

Could it, it could be changing in law. Law or regulation, or mindset, or like you said, paradigm, paradigm shifts. Pick one, make you wish, and let us know what that wishes please.[00:46:00] 

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: That's a great question. Um, I think I would wish for everyone to care. Um, and the reason I use the term care, um, because the housing industry, the real estate industry is so multifaceted, involves so many stakeholders that the only way we can move forward. For everyone to realize that no one can do it on their own. And the moment you begin to

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Very true. I.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: you begin to actually not make it about yourself, and you make it about everyone else.

And [00:47:00] it's only when it's about everyone else and everyone behaves as though it's about everyone else that everyone can move forward.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Interesting. Thank you very much. Um, with that being said and trying to not, not wrap this up on a doom and gloo mood, are there any trends in the industry that you see that outside of our. Exact moment in time that give warms your heart a little bit and say, you know what? This is a good trend. Maybe in five years or maybe in 10 years, we're gonna see good benefits from it.

Is there anything you see like that?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: I, listen, I think, I think the magic of, of a crisis is that it spurs innovation and new thinking and it sort of, it, and I would say every, every developer is, um. Um, smart when times are good and a philosopher when times are challenging. So, um,

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: It's true.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: um, you know, what am I excited about?

Um, you know, I look at the fact that we're beginning to see elements of people caring and [00:48:00] at the heart of community is care. Uh, and I think that we're beginning to see people giving a lot more value to community and the community that they're part of. Um. You begin to sort of see new models emerging. I, I've gotten to know Ron Lovett quite well, who's based out of and runs a platform called Vida.

And the work that they're doing is, is extraordinary around, you know, preserving affordable housing by enabling communities within them to own them and run them. Um, you know, you, you mentioned the work that you're doing with Jonathan and like, I think they're

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Yes.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: who's just

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Great organization. Yeah.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: that they're doing. Um, you know, that there's a huge opportunity on reimagining the integration of seniors into our society how do we think about communities and homesteads and how do we think about rural communities. Uh, we're doing quite a bit of work in rural communities right now and thinking about how do [00:49:00] we reimagine integration of, of, of, of sort of a broad sense of, of demographics within new community constructs and how does everyone help each other? So I think at a time where we pursued by creating silos, we're now realizing that the greatest opportunity is around communities by breaking down those silos. And I think if there's anything that I would sort of say is going to be emergent out of the phoenix burning is the redefinition of the value of our communities and how we come together to care about how we think of our society into the future.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: I love that. We are all in this together. If, if there's anything that has become very clear in the past year or two is that we're all in this together.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: 100%.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: and, and that's one of the things we've also been trying to promote here in this podcast since, or other work that we do, is that we don't fight with the cities.

We don't have, uh, I don't believe anyone in this city or municipality [00:50:00] because that's sometimes the, the sentiment that is sometimes you get the frustration that comes out like that. And I say like, listen, at the end of the day, we're all into this together.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: have this with our teams, like, don't ever forget when you're dealing with a municipality, their hands are tied.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: A hundred percent

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: We are the ones who can sort of, are entrepreneurs and can make a decision and move forward. They're not, and so our job is to enable them. Their job is not to enable us, right?

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: yes.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: you care, when you see the person across the table as truly your partner, your job is to enable what they need to do. And when you show up with that care, you begin to form partnerships. It's why we haven't been to El Pao and B for 15 years is because we show up caring.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: That must be some sort of record, by the way, the the amount of work that you guys do and not having to do that because I know a lot of people out there, unfortunately, that's their general mode of operation.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: no. So it probably is a record, and I think it's something that we're proud of, but it's because it goes [00:51:00] back to those core principles. It goes back to the fact that we don't see ourselves as of the one on top of the pyramid. I believe in horizontal structures where the people you work with stand side by next with you, and you hold hands together and you move forward. It's very different than when you think of hierarchies.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Thank you very much, Maier. This has been a lot of fun. Is there anything that I haven't asked you or do you have any thoughts that you wanna share with the audience before we wrap this up?

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: You know, I

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Um.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: context of caring and doing this together, I just really appreciate the leadership you're showing in, in putting the effort to do this podcast. I think it's a great example of how we can all learn together. And I just thank you for giving me the time. I, I find I, I learned more about, about my own thoughts in these contexts and, uh, and I really appreciate, uh, you inviting me here.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Thank you very much for saying that. And uh, frankly, there was a point in time I got tired of just venting and hearing all the complaints and knowing about the issues, and we said, let's try and be part of the solution. [00:52:00] And this is our attempt at. That's exactly, that's it. That this is our attempt of being part of the solution to the extent that we can these days.

So thank you very much. Thank you for being here and I'm really hoping that in a year or two we can have a second part of this conversation where the situation is not as shitty as it is today and we might have better, uh, better vibes. Let's put this way and we go from there.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: We'll talk about the Phoenix that has risen.

payam_2_11-20-2025_130131: Thank you very much. Have a great day, Maji.

mazyar-mortazavi_1_11-20-2025_130132: Thank you.