Blueprint for Change: Tim Hudak on Boosting Ontario’s Housing Market

Desmond and his guest Tim Hudak of OREA explore the complexities of Ontario's housing market, starting with a focus on the affordable housing report. 

A few years ago, the Ontario government announced an ambitious plan to address the housing crisis, aiming to build 1.5 million homes over the next decade. 

Despite challenges such as COVID-19, supply shortages, and rising costs, progress has been made, with the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) analyzing the government's efforts in implementing the task force's recommendations. 

Beyond housing, the conversation touches on various topics, including the impact of high interest rates, labour shortages, and the potential for converting commercial spaces to residential use to boost housing supply. 

They also discuss the importance of addressing NIMBYism, the need for more efficient land use, and the role of transit-oriented development in creating more affordable housing options. 

And they cover OREA's wellness program for realtors, the upcoming Reality conference, and the broader implications of these issues for Ontario's economic and social fabric. 

Listen For
4:51 The Impacts of High Interest Rates on the Housing Market
7:43 Strategies to Boost Housing Supply
11:47 Challenges Posed by NIMBYism
26:12 OREA’s Wellness Program and Industry Initiatives 

Guest: Tim Hudak
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OREA Links: X |  LinkedIn  

REALiTY 24 Conference (to register and to see the full list of speakers and the agenda): https://realityconference.ca/ 

OREA’s latest housing supply report titled Analysis of Ontario’s Efforts to Boost Housing Supply: https://www.orea.com/advocacy/Housing-Supply 

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Desmond can be reached at:
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Recorded in Sep 2023

Transcript

Desmond Brown (00:01):

A few years ago, the Ontario government announced an ambitious plan to solve our housing crisis. A housing affordability task force made up of many business and community leaders was put together and 55 recommendations were developed. With these recommendations in mind. The provincial government made a bold prediction and promise they would build 1.5 million homes in the next 10 years. That's 150,000 new homes every year for the next decade. Since that announcement, many things have happened. Covid, which led to a building supply shortage, then a huge cost increase in these supplies when they finally became available, a labor shortage, higher interest rates, and the province's greenbelt scandal, the Ontario Real Estate Association is our member organization and last week it released its latest policy report where it analyzed the progress of the provincial government in implementing the recommendations from the task force. I'm Desmond Brown, and today on sold in the 6ix. My guest is Tim Hudak, the CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association, and Tim was also a member of that housing affordability task force. Tim, welcome back to Sold in the 6ix.

Tim Hudak (01:34):

Hey Des. Good to see you. Thanks for being back on. Sold in the 6ix As we do. We still say kickoff 2024. Anyway, close enough. Hey, for sure.

Desmond Brown (01:42):

For sure. And real estate, our kickoff goes for the first quarter anyway, and things are a little slower right now, but we're seeing signs that things are going to be picking up for our traditional spring market anyway.

Tim Hudak (01:55):

Well, I appreciate back on Des, you're a fantastic leader, real estate professional. The broadcast has a large audience and always an honor to come on and talk about the Ontario Real Estate Association, what we're doing for our realtor members as well as for consumers who want to get in the housing market.

Desmond Brown (02:10):

Well, thanks very much for those kind words, Tim. So this report that you released is called the Analysis of Ontario's Efforts to Boost Housing Supply. So let's start by assessing how well you feel the provincial government has done in fulfilling some of these recommendations since this report was released or since the housing affordability task force was put together and released those recommendations a couple of years ago.

Tim Hudak (02:37):

Yeah, well I'm going to say very good, but there's still important work to do. So let me back that up a little bit to give some context. So in 2022, premier Ford appointed a housing affordability task force to look at how do we get more homes and people can actually afford built in Ontario. And I had the honor, he asked me to sit on that task force. It was a great pleasure, and we produced in just over a month 56 recommendations that you could do and hit the ground running to get more homes built. And Des, you've covered politics and you follow it closely. Often when there's a committee report, it's like this thick and it goes on the shelf somewhere. It gets me really good at gathering dust, right? Not with this one. So here's the scoop. In two years, we launched it in February of 22, they've actually implemented or made underway 76% of those recommendations.

(03:27):

So when that comes to government, that's very good. The payoff in 2021, we had the most homes built in 30 years in 22, the second most number of homes built and also purpose-built rental, 23 things slow down. You've talked about this on sold in the 6ixth, higher interest rates, higher mortgage rates, not as many homes are getting built. So I said, alright, 76 underway, here's 10 that are still sitting there that we need to hit the gas on. We need to do some catch up because 23 was slower and that was a focus when press conference at Queens Park. And I hope the government's listening because we've actually seen some action since our press conference.

Desmond Brown (04:04):

Okay, yeah, I'm going to get into those 10 recommendations, but I just want to take a step back as well. So you say that basically the government has made good inroads. I mean for us here on the street or selling houses, we're still seeing a huge supply shortage, but you're saying that they are building a lot. I know they're very ambitious. They wanted 150,000 houses a year and I think they're probably, I mean put that over 10 years and I know you're not going to hit that number right away. They might have to ramp it up to 1 75 1 year or 200 down the road, three, four years down the road. But so far, I think, what are the numbers that have been coming in like 90,000 last year, 95,000, somewhere around there. They've been under a hundred thousand though.

Tim Hudak (04:51):

So rule number one, when you're in a hole, you stop digging, you put the shovel down and the hole where it is in affordability crisis. So step-by-step climbing out of that hole, we got to quicken the pace. And that's why I put some ideas on the table that will help us get to that target of 150,000 homes a year. The challenge has been though at a federal level, they're pushing us back down the hole by keeping interest rates high for too long a period of time and they really need to ease off on that. Dev. When you look at, you take out mortgage costs and you take out rental costs, both of those are driven higher by higher mortgage rates. The underlying inflation is pretty much on target with what the government wants. So we need governments both federally provincially and municipally rowing in the same direction because right now they're clashing,

Desmond Brown (05:38):

But the head of the Bank of Canada, he even came out and said, look, it's not up to me or the Bank of Canada to solve the housing crisis that we have in this country. It's up to me to put a lid on inflation and to get the economy moving again. And I know it's a tough line to walk for him. And then you've got people like us or the housing crisis, people like Ford and you who have committed to getting more affordable housing built and they just can't move in that direction as quickly as we'd like.

Tim Hudak (06:15):

Yeah, for sure. I think that's a bit of a cop out respectfully to the head of the Bank of Canada because they recognize, yep, we've got to get inflation under control. We've made progress. But when you have the hands around the throat of potential home buyers, but keeping rates high for too long, you've got to ease off and you're causing the crisis to become deeper. So on the national level, I think they need to move in the right direction by allowing people to get 30 year amors for example, for the mortgages, great for first time home buyers, easing off on the interest rates, allowing builders to actually finance their projects by some of the restrictions coming on from ity are too tight given where we are. And then take it back here provincially, A number of good ideas that the government could get going on today to make sure those keys are closer at hand to first time buyers, for example. So using government property targeted at first time home buyers would be a great idea. That's in the report, turning water and sewer into a utility. The biggest upfront costs when it comes to development charges and particularly in urban areas, does allowing commercial to residential conversion for empty commercial properties and upsizing particularly around big transit investments like we're seeing in Toronto, Mississauga and Hamilton.

Desmond Brown (07:36):

Yeah, I saw that as one of the recommendations along the transit lines. Can you explain a little bit more about the utility, the municipal utility?

Tim Hudak (07:43):

Yeah. In parts of the problem, especially the GTA development charges can be up to 150,000. So what does that mean to the home buyer before the first shovel goes in the ground for that new development happening, that new neighborhood, it's 150 K that the home buyer has to pay in development charges. So how do we get those down? Well, the biggest one is water and sewer, and the way that's financed is you have to pay upfront for those costs. So goes on the price of a home, the savings would actually be about $50,000 on a home in the GTA. That's substantial money that you'd have to have on hand.

Desmond Brown (08:20):

It's substantial.

Tim Hudak (08:21):

And the way this would work is we propose, just like the housing affordability task force, did you turn it into a utility like we have for electricity or natural gas where the user pays over the lifetime of the asset 40 years or so, just like a longer term mortgage. So you don't have that upfront hit. You have the hit over time and much more affordable rates as you use water or wastewater.

Desmond Brown (08:46):

That helps me understand a little bit more, and I hope everybody else does as well. The other thing that came up in,

Tim Hudak (08:51):

And it's the way we do hydro, it's the way we do natural gas and that it's not the first buyer. It could be the second buyer, third buyer, whoever runs that home down the road, they all share in those costs of services that they all benefit from.

Desmond Brown (09:02):

So it makes a lot more sense. One of your recommendations also was implementing land use changes to end the exclusionary zoning policies. And you were seeing a lot of this in the municipalities.

Tim Hudak (09:13):

Yeah, look, picture that wartime bungalow, I'm sure you've got a lot of clients like that Des wither in Lee side or North Toronto or in St. Catherine's. And today that owner, she could knock down that war side wartime bungalow as past as prime, and they're putting up four story monster homes. And that's your right. We support property rights. You've worked hard to provide for your family, you should have that ability, and it happens all the time. But if that same owner sitting, I going to knock down that bunga and I'm going to build a triplex or fourplex or a duplex something, first time home buyers would really like or maybe empty nesters, holy cats, they go through this regulatory ringer, the lawyers get involved, NIMBY forces descend. You got bad hearings at the city council and it can drag on for years and costs go through the roof. What happens? The homeowner says, "I'm out of here," walks away, and who suffers is those three or four families that can't get in the market. Our position level, the playing field you want to build up, God bless you, but you want to build a townhouse or a triplex for three young families. They should love to do that. Yeah.

Desmond Brown (10:17):

Now the city of Toronto has moved in that direction though. We're allowing Garden Suites now, laneway suites, we're allowing I think just a single family property can be turned into four units and they're great ideas, but a lot of people don't want these next door to them.

Tim Hudak (10:35):

Look, we can either listen to the NIMBYs and build nothing and see our young talent go to other states, other provinces. I don't think we want that. So that's why government should have this policy for sure. I was happy to see this as Mayor Tory that led this initiative, Mayor Chow, hopefully continue it in Toronto. It really will be the biggest single key to unlock home ownership in urban areas. Mississauga has now moved that way in what was a split vote? London's another community. What we're saying in our analysis of the report, you need to go province wide and reward municipalities that do it, use sticks against those that don't or force 'em to do it. But that should be a policy in every city across of our province to allow for affordable home ownership, whether you're in a big city or a smaller community.

Desmond Brown (11:20):

Okay. Also in your report you talked about those who opposed to actual development and how that can tie things up. And we have enough red tape as it is already at the different levels or the different municipalities, whether city hall here in Toronto or whether it's in Orangeville. But then you get people stepping in and saying, we're going to fight this. We're fighting this developer and so on. And you had something in your report to address that as well.

Tim Hudak (11:47):

I think that the biggest single obstacle to getting homes built that are affordable for average hardworking Canadians is the political will to take on the NIMBYs. nimby, of course not in my backyard. When we wrote that report, Des, we heard it's got so bad across Ontario, it's now called Banana. Build Absolutely nothing near anyone. That's how bad it has become. So I'll tell you an example. I was talking to one of the cabinet ministers in Ontario who was a municipal counselor, and he said there'd be a project come forward to build some homes. It checked off all the boxes in the official plan, it met all the rules and regulations. It would go to council for a vote and council would vote against it and they go up for beer after said, well, you know what happened? I thought we were behind this project. It met all the criteria. And a counselor would say, well, bill from down the street was there and I kind of liked Bill and he's one of my voters, so I turned it down. We can't have that anymore. You got to have the clear rules. So we talked about fixing the Ontario Land Tribunal. That's kind of the court to decide fairly based on the rules, and again, to use carrot and sticks, reward municipalities who are welcoming, who are wanting to see young people build a home in their community and use some sticks against those that are closing the doors.

Desmond Brown (12:59):

Okay. The sticks you talk about, is that a penalty or a fine against these people that are opposing these things with in a frivolous way?

Tim Hudak (13:09):

Yeah, absolutely. It's very well said. So I'll give you an example. The Ontario Land Tribunal, again, that's kind of like the court that decides these decisions, did a municipality or did a builder follow the rules of the game? And what has happened is these NIMBY forces have used and abused that process just to try to drag it out, make it as long as possible to the point where costs have gone up over time, the developer walks away and the homes don't happen, and then young people are stuck in the parent's basement for another year or two. So we've said if there's vexatious frivolous that you should be allowed to assign costs to those that are tying up the system without merit. And also for municipalities, if they're intentionally delaying projects or setting 'em that way without cause similar, there should be fines there. You can do that in the regular justice system. So similarly, if somebody is abusing the process, they should face a risk of fines in the Ontario Land Tribunal as well.

Desmond Brown (14:02):

Yeah. I guess what I'm hearing from you though is that regular person that NIMBY is getting in the way of a lot of development

Tim Hudak (14:13):

And hey, human of nature, they've got their home and maybe their daughter or son got a home somewhere else or they're rich and they can afford it or whatever. But man, it is really the red tape and the abusive process by NIMBYs that cause some developments to take 10 years to get through the process. Meanwhile, every year construction costs increase. So that means those homes when built are going to be further out reach of a middle class family and your viewers can see it at OREA.com OREA.com. We surveyed people, we looked at people who are 45 and under and we found that more than half of them who didn't own homes were doing active searches in other provinces of the states considering moving based on home prices alone. That's our next generation of job creators, our next generation of entrepreneurs or skilled workers, right? If we let the NIMBYs continue to run things, they're just going to move somewhere else and we lose that talent in Ontario.

Desmond Brown (15:12):

Yeah, for sure. I know think even Ottawa is a lot more affordable than Toronto. People can get in for the $500,000 range you get into Alberta as well. So it does become really attractive for people in that way. And then we're going through a rebuilding here in the city of Toronto too. And you know what it's like to get from, well, I'll just say from the beaches to the other side of the city, it's taken me 45 minutes to get to ancy around that 45 minutes. And it's because of all of the construction, and I know it's going to be really nice when everything's built and all that, but there are a lot of growing pains right now where people have just kind of said, look, I can't be here anymore. And that's really too bad for the largest city in the country and the economic engine of the country for people to just start saying, I can't handle this anymore.

Tim Hudak (16:01):

I mean, people rightly care about the two most precious commodities in life, right? Time and money. They want that time to spend the kids some recreation. You don't want to waste money stuck in traffic and running up the gas bills. Toronto is a great place to live. Ontario is an amazing place to live. We just need to make sure we have the homes to meet the demand. And orea has laid out a number of those ideas to do just that and talking about traffic. So the government is rightly investing in new subways and new LRT lines in a number of our major cities, including Toronto. So how about this guys, when you lay down that build up Eglinton or the new Ontario line or what have you, allow buildings to be on those lines? A minimum of 6ix to 11 stories. As of right, if you're putting billions of dollars into the ground of taxpayer money, doesn't it make sense than to allow more homes to be along those lines? Plus we live in Canada despite the former February we've had, I think a lot of people would rather be able to hop into a subway from their home than pack up the boots in the park every day.

Desmond Brown (17:07):

For sure. If reliable transits there, people will get out of their cars, but right now it's not. And that's led to this crazy traffic congestion, which people are saying is probably the worst or the second worst in the world. That's quite a statement

Tim Hudak (17:24):

For sure. And getting worse right now as you been through all the construction, I like to look on the bright side as we start off 2024. There are big investments happening in transit and roads. It takes a while to get built, but when you're opening up new land, you can't forget. You have to have homes and businesses there. And if we don't allow for greater development along our transit lines or above go stations, TTC stations, we're not going to have the places for people to live. They'll be farther away and traffic will get worse as a result. So it needs to go hand in hand. And that's why among the recommendations from Maria is to allow as of right greater intensification along our transit lines and also to allow for conversion of commercial to residential. In a world of more common hybrid work environments, more things being delivered there is excess commercial space. Yeah, definitely. So what if we allow that to be converted into residential or mixed use makes a lot of sense,

Desmond Brown (18:24):

Especially after Covid where like you said, the work models have changed, people are working from home now. We've got a lot more vacant commercial land or commercial properties out there right now, so let's talk about those conversions because sometimes I've spoken to some developers who say it's cheaper to put a shovel in the ground than it is to do a conversion. We'd be seeing that with a lot of the, I mean the lofts developments downtown where they used to convert over warehouses and then they just said the costs. They just keep opening up all kinds of different cans of worms as they start these conversions and they just say, forget it. I'd rather just build new. How can you convince the builders or the entrepreneurs developers to go this route with the commercial to residential?

Tim Hudak (19:14):

And again, this is going to be something where some is better than none. Not every building is going to be appropriate for it. I get that, but surely the goodness we can do at least some of the projects. Now, what I hear from a lot of builders, there's a lot of red tape in the way. There's additional tax issues they face from the city. Rezoning is very difficult to do. So if we're going to do this along transit lines, they should have that automatically in our province. The city of Calgary has done a very good job. There has been some government assistance in helping businesses convert to residential or mixed use. So you've got your restaurant, your grocery store in the exact same building as your home. So I got to think if Calgary Alberta can do it, we can do that in the province of Ontario.

Desmond Brown (19:55):

Yeah, I think we can too. Okay, so you just spoke about taxes and one of your recommendations was for the land transfer tax to be eliminated. I mean that's huge. That's a huge recommendation. I can't see it happening. Let's take a look at this land transfer tax. So an average house in the city of Toronto is 1.1 million. $18,000 goes to the province for the land transfer tax. Another $18,000 goes to the city of Toronto because of the wonderful city of Toronto Act that was brought in back just before David Miller took over as mayor, the city of Toronto in its height of the real estate market in 2021, pulled in more than $1 billion from the land transfer tax. Do you really think that we can eliminate this tack? I can't see it happening, especially with the city of Toronto always going, you see the big smile on your face, but going with their hand out to the other levels of government to balance their budget, a billion dollars. I mean, it's not that high right now because the market slowed down, but anywhere between 700 million to a billion a year.

Tim Hudak (21:11):

So yeah, I think it's a bit like sailing across the ocean and the land is far, far away, but we still should tack in that direction and make some gains along the way. This was part of the housing affordability task force is report. We like the idea if you can't do it all at once, do it partially or love it, forgive it all together for first time buyers who come from modest meets, right? Let's just get moving in the right direction. The essence of it de, and I'm sure you see this with your clients all the time. Deb and I had a place Yonge and Lawrence and kids came along. We were in a semi and we said, we've got to move to a bigger house. We were one of five couples kind of in the same spot. The other four, they said, we got to pay a double land transfer tax just to move a couple of blocks away. That's cash at hand. We can't do it. So they renovated their home instead. And that means that's a first time buyer home that did not come into the market. So land transfer tax actually kills mobility. It hurts the ability to climb up that ladder. It means less money spent in the local economy when you're buying furniture or appliances for a new home. That's why it's important. And if we can't get it all done at once, I get it, but maybe start out with forgiveness or first time home buyers who don't come from wealthy families

Desmond Brown (22:26):

Or even reducing it a little bit.

Tim Hudak (22:29):

Sure, I'll take that as

Desmond Brown (22:30):

Well. In fact, something will take. Yeah, and you made a good point there because it's funny you said you moved from the semi to the detach. Allison and Allison, I did the same thing. We actually moved two doors over. It was the longest move ever. We thought it was going to be easy. My God, we have pictures of the movers actually taking the stuff along the sidewalk from the one house to the other. But the thing is, okay, let's just take a look at the average price in Toronto. So 1.1, and if somebody's moving up from a condo to that 1.1 million property, you're looking at, like I said, the $36,000 in land transfer tax. Then you've got commissions to pay on top of that and it's costly. Like you said, people would rather renovate than do this and then you start moving up in price a little bit more.

(23:15):

Let's say they're selling a million dollar property and going to 1.5, the closing costs with commissions and the land transfer tax, this is exceeding more than a hundred thousand dollars easily. Easily. So you're right, it has contributed to the shortage that we have in our housing supply out here. People are just saying, forget it. We're not doing this. So that's why I guess why we have to build new. We really do. Now getting back to the recommendations, I think they are great. However, we still have a number of challenges out here. Number one, like you said, you already mentioned it's the interest rate. Number two is our labor shortage. Another one is the cost of building supplies now. So how much traction do you think you're going to get by releasing this policy report and how much traction do you think you're going to get from the provincial government and just overall from builders out there and developers?

Tim Hudak (24:10):

Well, we've made a lot of progress already. There have been five different pieces of legislation the province has done. They've incorporated recommendations arre has brought forward and it did result in the top two biggest expansions of homes in three decades. So progress, we just got to keep going at it and putting our best ideas on the table and just continue to push this boulder up the hill. You and I talked as a moment ago about water and wastewater, water and sewer being a utility like we paid for hydro and natural gas. So I think within a week of us doing this press conference, the Minister of Housing actually directed Peel Region to examine that exact idea for their water and sewer. Oh, that's great. So I'm feeling good about it, right? My message to the government and my message through sold in the 6ix here today is bold choices, get homes built. If you put your head in the sand because you're worried about the nimby, something is too hard, well then we're not going to build and we'll lose our young talent. Steal the spine, keep the foot on the gas, be bold and use those tools that are already in the toolbox to get those homes built, including more people in the skilled trays that you mentioned a moment ago.

Desmond Brown (25:22):

Okay. Yeah. Okay, well, I guess we'll have to check in on this in probably another 6ix months to a year to see how much traction we've gotten on all this. I mean, like I said, it doesn't happen overnight. It just

Tim Hudak (25:35):

Doesn't love to come back and give the progress

Desmond Brown (25:37):

Report. Okay, great. We're going to have you back now, so we're going to close on that right now. But I wanted to touch on a couple of other things that orea has been in the news about over the last six months. Number one was the wellness program. I had members from OREA on here about our wellness program, which is our benefits program and the huge opposition that we had from a segment of our membership here. So just want to give us an update on this. It did go through, we still have a very disgruntled segment of our membership, but how are you feeling at all about that?

Tim Hudak (26:12):

It feels really good when you see now 90,000 realtors who have been enrolled in the program, over 15,000 benefits have already been paid off for people using the health or the insurance program, people using the Maple Health option, seeing a doctor in eight minutes or less online. So we're seeing realtors using the program and it was very kind to have, our leaders I think had Tanya Artenosi and Stacy Evoy on Sold in the 6ix a while ago. And they would've said, well, we surveyed our members desk. We found that 60% of our members did not have any kind of health insurance. A significant number had no insurance whatsoever, and they're walking a tightrope and we all know that fake and throw a curve ball and you're not going to be as focused as you want on the job when you're worried about your family and the ability to take care of health emergency. So we had one woman guilt me in tears saying, thanks for this program because I could never cover my son's medical bills. So they didn't have health benefits. And now I've finally, Tim, so no doubt some on the the side, we did have a vote and a revote, but I'm pleased to say we have launched in January and services are being delivered to the realtors. We're going to give them that safety net. They're out there busting their butts each day for their clients. We've got their back

Desmond Brown (27:32):

For sure. And I think we're going to be losing some realtors as well, just because the market has slowed down quite a bit. And then of course the fees for Arria went up by about, what, 600 bucks or whatever. And there's still a group out there that are just saying, enough is enough. I can't handle this. And I know there is word out there that they're still going to be fighting this right till the end, but that's fine. I'm good with it personally, I'm good with it. I'm lucky that I have benefits through my wife's plan as well, but I'm paying the full freight for the other realtors and I don't mind that. I'm 65 years old right now and I see the benefits of it for everybody. So I'm good with that. And I hope everybody else looks at that too. It's like sending my kid to an independent school, but still paying the property taxes for the public school system. I'm good with that and I've done it.

Tim Hudak (28:27):

That's a fair analogy. You don't have to take it. Some people don't want it. We're not going to drag you to the chiropractor and force you to put the bill through the insurance. That's

Desmond Brown (28:36):

Right. You have to have this adjustment.

Tim Hudak (28:41):

But this notion that people will lose existing plans that turn out to be, well, I think a lot of hot air people that are trying to stir up controversy, you can actually build upon existing existing plans. Our goal in 2023 and going forward was to make sure that the Provincial Association was there for realtor members to have their backs. As I said, we brought in with the government, the trestle legislation, which raises the bar when it comes to professional standards, consumer protection, north America leading standards, and also a health and wellness benefit program to support our members. That's making us leaders in North America and we're proud of the progress that we've made together.

Desmond Brown (29:18):

Yeah, no, I think we are moving in the right direction there. And we have a big conference coming up, a big industry conference coming up in Ottawa and thank you. I'm going to be moderating a couple panels there and it's called Reality. So tell us about the lineup that we have there, if any realtors are listening to this and just how it's going to benefit the general public through the education that we get as realtors.

Tim Hudak (29:40):

Yeah, it's the reality conference. We do it every two years. It's for realtors, fans of real estate clients this year in Ottawa, March 6th and seven. And you can see all the details of Realityconference.ca, but here's a nutshell. If you want a front row ringside seat on where real estate is going to help build your business and help build opportunity, the real estate market, this is the conference for you. We have some of the best coaches in North America talking about how to improve your business, extraordinary networking opportunities to get to know other real estate leaders throughout Ontario and across Canada. Des you're of course hosting a panel of our leading CEOs who will give their perspective on where the market is heading and how to grow your business in anticipation. And then some exciting keynote speakers including Magic Johnson, the famous basketball player who's been a very successful investor and real estate investor in his retirement from hoops.

Desmond Brown (30:36):

Okay. Oh, that's good. So I was wondering how you were going to tie that in. That's great with Magic Johnson. Fantastic. I'm really looking forward to this. And yeah, I'm going to be moderating the CEO's panel. I'm also going to be moderating, sorry, the coaches panel as well with some of the leading coaches for real estate agents in the country that we're going to have there. So Tim, this is great. Thanks for letting me be a part of this and thank you for being a part of Sold in The 6ix again. Really, really appreciate you coming on. Of

Tim Hudak (31:02):

Course, de you. Keep the good work. Thanks for being back on Sold in the 6ix, and thank you for lending your talent to our stage at reality. And one more time for the viewers reality conference.ca. We'll see in OTT on March 6ix and seven,

Desmond Brown (31:18):

And that's our latest episode of Sold in The 6ix. Boy, there are so many ideas being thrown out there to try to solve this housing crisis, and I really, really hope we can start making inroads. It's going to be for the best of our province and for our next younger generation. I want to thank my producer, Doug Downs of Stories and Strategies for this latest podcast. And if you liked it, please subscribe and leave a rating that's really important and then send it to a friend. To get in touch with me, you can email me a des@desmondbrown.ca and also follow me on all of the social media platforms. I'm on all of them. Instagram, LinkedIn, you name it. And if you are a realtor outside of Toronto and you need someone to look after your clients who are either moving to or from the greater Toronto area, please keep me in mind. I promise that your clients will be well looked after. Next time. I'm Desmond Brown.