Latest / Contractor Business Builder Podcast / Mission-Driven Development: How Veterans Are Solving Canada’s Housing Crisis - With Chris Lunney

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Mission-Driven Development: How Veterans Are Solving Canada’s Housing Crisis - With Chris Lunney · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

0:00
Welcome to another exciting episode of the Contractor
0:02
Business Builder podcast. We have the honor of hosting
0:06
Chris Lunney. He's a managing partner of Grey
0:08
Crown Development Services. So after 25 years in the
0:11
military and four overseas developments, Chris has learned
0:15
how to lead under fire. Now he leads with precision in
0:18
an unpredictable world of property development, tackling
0:21
Canadas affording housing crisis with tactical clarity and a
0:25
bulletproof due diligence process most developers
0:28
overlook. How you doing today, Chris?
0:30
Derek, thanks for inviting me on.
0:32
Looking forward to helping you explore some new material and
0:36
anything we could do for your your networking client base.
0:39
I'll be great. You know, I'm really looking
0:41
forward to it. It's a unique perspective.
0:43
You know, a lot of our content is geared towards the general
0:46
contractor, but of course development is such an integral
0:49
part of that, the relationship there.
0:50
But also a lot of general contractors who have had
0:53
clients, you know, they want to get into some spec homes or do a
0:55
little bit of development, stuff like that.
0:57
So I'm sure it would be very interesting with your knowledge,
0:59
expertise and then your background in the military gives
1:01
it a very unique perspective there.
1:03
So can you, can you share a bit about your, your background and
1:06
your story and and how things sort of unfolded to where you
1:08
are? Now, yeah, I've had actually, I
1:11
was just speaking this morning to a group we were working with
1:14
here in the Edmonton, AB region on a major project and just
1:18
sharing how we look at things from our military background.
1:22
For 25 years, I've been getting a group of people I've hadn't
1:26
met in the morning around a table in the afternoon and
1:28
solving problems by, you know, midnight.
1:30
So, you know, working collaboratively, working
1:33
creatively and just focused on solving problems, very similar
1:37
to how a lot of the builders have to do, you know, do their
1:41
work in a day-to-day basis. You come for the tailgate
1:44
briefing only to find out that you have to your plan has got to
1:48
change and just being dynamic, creative, solve the problems,
1:51
move the project forward, stay on budget, stay on timeline.
1:53
So the only difference is I jokingly say is in property
1:56
development, no one shoots at us on a day-to-day basis unless
1:59
they're really pissed off, but that's a whole other story.
2:02
Yeah, definitely A plus I guess to the property development
2:06
over, you know, being whatever in our armed conflict.
2:10
So how was that transition for you from, you know, military
2:13
into the development world? How did that come about and how
2:16
did you maybe need to change your your mode or or learn new
2:21
things? What was that transition?
2:22
Like, so I haven't really great story from when I was growing
2:25
up. My dad was a middle manager,
2:28
built every house we ever lived in was that guy from that
2:31
generation that, you know, OK, I can do this.
2:33
So he is the one that, you know, rented the excavator, dug the
2:37
hole himself, got experts to come in to help him on the spots
2:40
that he wasn't sure, but he was still throwing, you know,
2:43
helping to pour cement, put in every nail he ever every in
2:46
every house we ever lived in. So I saw that as a very young
2:49
age and that was a spark for me to build.
2:54
I was always creative, you know, Legos and it really kind of
2:57
sparked me because he what's really interesting and I'll take
3:00
a quick kind of divergences in the military.
3:02
We, we bro amazing team. So I was in the army and we
3:06
gather in, like I said, a whole bunch of very unique individuals
3:09
with unique skill sets and over some very, very difficult
3:13
training, we build cohesion, we build teamwork and then we go
3:18
off and do operations, you know, at home and abroad training
3:20
events, etcetera. And the difference is when you
3:23
get back from that, at some point everybody goes away.
3:27
So the team is always evolving and changing.
3:29
It's like trying to capture smoke.
3:30
What, what, what a lot of your, your network will understand is
3:33
when you build something, it's there, it's permanent.
3:36
So when I finish my time in the military, having built all these
3:40
great teams that had I'd helped mold in some way, the
3:43
individuals, the teamwork and they had made a huge impact on
3:46
me. I needed to get to that next
3:48
level, which was I need to build something permanent that I can
3:51
look back on and go, yeah, that was, that's something that I
3:55
did. And so every time I've been
3:57
posted to new locations across Canada and around the world, you
4:00
know, I built a deck or I built, finished the basement or added
4:04
value, the house that was good for me and my family in that
4:07
moment, But it's well then for the next families that came in
4:10
there after. So just I did that for me.
4:12
But now, when I finished the military, all those skills of
4:15
leadership, how to plan, how to organize, how to execute, they
4:19
don't go away. You know, how do you how do you
4:22
bring people together to, you know, to to make something
4:25
great? And that just that that's I'm
4:28
not saying that's the skill sets I have, but those are the things
4:31
that I've been trained on. I'm not too my own arm, but that
4:34
is something that was inherent to me.
4:35
So I just, it was a natural to get into property development
4:38
because all those skills are critically important.
4:40
And the only other thing I'll give you is sometimes property
4:43
development is more stressful than combat because even in
4:46
combat you have a gun you can shoot back.
4:48
In property development, sometimes those things you just
4:51
have to, there's a lot of sleep in the night, sleepless nights.
4:54
And I know there's a lot of your clientele and, and network that
4:57
understands exactly what I just said.
4:59
It's the anxiety of the unknown and and when shit happens you've
5:02
got to just adjust and change which sort of like that, but you
5:05
understand the point. Yeah, I like how you
5:08
articulated, you know, that fulfillment that you get from
5:11
building something permanent and and, you know, working with your
5:13
hands and finishing something. Like that's where many builders,
5:16
developers, you know, they they come from that background,
5:18
whether you're, you know, building houses or developments
5:20
or, you know, business and or team or whatever, you know, to
5:24
be able to have, you know, clear on touch on it and and have that
5:27
fulfillment. And then, you know, this
5:29
stressful nights have everyone in construction and development
5:32
can knows how that works. And you're, you're dealing with
5:36
so many different there's from government to permitting to
5:40
clients to, you know, tenants or whatever it may be.
5:44
And everyone's, you know, got their own ideas and opinions of
5:47
how things should go. And, and of course, nothing ever
5:49
goes quite to plan. And that's that's where you
5:52
know, got to be quick on your feet and things like that.
5:54
So as far as like the acquisition of land, because
5:57
that's something that's like very inherent to property
6:00
development is finding the right land.
6:03
How do you approach that? What are some maybe some
6:05
mistakes that you've made or you've seen need to to find, you
6:09
know that first kind of building plot that you need to get a
6:13
project into imagination I. Guess yeah, Derek, that that is
6:17
from a property development perspective, that is the most
6:19
crucial piece to really understand and unlock.
6:23
I'm going to tell you how we pick dirt, how we choose
6:28
municipalities in which we want to work.
6:29
And I, I capture the story and I'll go through it, but I, I'll
6:33
summarize it right up at the front by saying, I spoke to a
6:36
gentleman who doing property development here in Canada for
6:39
30 years. You've done over a billion
6:41
dollars worth of developments from single family residential
6:45
all the way up to multifamily high rise.
6:47
And he said after speaking to me for 5 minutes, he goes in, If I
6:51
knew what you just told me 30 years ago, I would have probably
6:54
built over $3 billion worth of development because you just
6:59
captured in 5 minutes what I should have realized it took me
7:02
30 years to, to figure out. So how many times have we, we've
7:06
seen the matrix and you, you understand the girl in the red
7:09
dress. Everybody falls in love with the
7:11
girl in the red dress. And that is the most, you know,
7:13
you talk to anybody and they say, I just drove past the most
7:16
beautiful piece of land that you've ever imagined.
7:19
It's a corner locked. It's 15 to 25,000 square feet.
7:24
And I can put a Taj Mahal up like you wouldn't believe.
7:27
And I, from our experience, I can go by and look at that
7:30
within 15 minutes and a little bit of research online go,
7:33
there's no way in hell you're ever going to build anything on
7:35
that site except, you know, with two-story walk up, maybe an
7:39
aplex and there. And so I'll tell you how we look
7:42
at dirt. So we don't ever fall in love
7:44
with land. And that's a military Oxium is
7:46
you never fall in love with the ground because the enemy has a
7:50
vote and you'll always be wrong. So first and foremost, we do
7:55
market analysis. It's like seeing the sky is
7:57
blue. Everybody does market analysis
7:58
and you should and there's all those natural things.
8:01
So what are the economic drivers?
8:03
Is the community growing? Where is the growth?
8:05
Are we situated in the right spot?
8:07
You know, what does the zoning? So, so really elementary stuff
8:10
that everybody understands, but there are three other colours
8:13
that we focus on that. The second one, not really
8:16
anybody looks at. The last two no one even
8:18
considers. So we look at municipalities.
8:20
And the second pillar that we look at is an official community
8:24
plan. And whether you're in the States
8:26
or in Canada, that could be a municipal development plan.
8:29
It, it has an any number of names, but it's the long term
8:32
vision of the municipality that says we are here and we want our
8:36
community to be here in 25 years.
8:38
And they'll outline where their economic corridors are, where
8:41
their transportation pups are, where they want their
8:44
development and where they see their community growing.
8:47
It'll also outline your zoning, your deep infrastructure, and a
8:50
period of other bylaws and, and not rules and regulations, but
8:54
guidelines for growth. No one looks at that.
8:57
And, and trust me, Derek, if you've ever read 1 and you're an
9:00
insomniac, please within 5 minutes, you'll have it face,
9:04
you know, on your face and be sleeping like a baby for 8
9:06
hours. But everybody needs to read
9:08
these documents because if you don't know where your community
9:13
is trying to go, how can you support them getting there?
9:16
And that's ultimately we take a collaborative approach to this.
9:19
So once we have done the market analysis, we understand this is
9:23
a community which we want to work and we can work.
9:25
We look at those development visions and we say, can we work
9:29
within this? There's only been two
9:31
municipalities we've ever said no.
9:32
And that was just because they were smaller and we they
9:35
couldn't fit the product that we focus on.
9:37
But the third pillar is we look at elected officials.
9:41
Now that's really important because some people will tell
9:43
you we want development and then you go, but you haven't voted
9:47
anything past council in the last three years or ever since
9:51
you've been in. So we used to attend council
9:53
meetings, see in person because again in from a military
9:57
parlance, time and Recchi is seldom wasted.
9:59
So you actually see them in council, understand what they're
10:04
saying, get an understanding of their personality and who gets
10:07
along with who with current technology and since COVID,
10:10
everything's online. So you can have an ability to
10:14
look at previous council meetings, watch the video or
10:18
drill into, OK, I only want to watch 15 minutes when they talk
10:21
about this development and how they're moving it forward it in
10:24
there, see it again, understand who's voting for what and how it
10:28
looks. The other thing too, which we've
10:30
just started to do with AI is feed in council meeting minutes
10:34
from the last 12 to 18 months and say, give me a dynamic view
10:39
of how these elected officials vote.
10:41
And so if you understand how the elected officials vote, you
10:45
understand, does the product that I produce, is it actually
10:48
going to make it through council because and I'll I'll use this
10:52
example because it summarizes everything perfectly.
10:54
I'm gonna gentleman name from San Diego.
10:56
He said 12 years ago, I bought the most beautiful, picturesque
11:00
piece of land overlooking this amazing Vista and the water.
11:04
However, at no time have I ever been able to get that through
11:07
council because of all these things.
11:09
And I said, you've spent 12 years with all the carrying
11:12
costs, the opportunity cost of that, and you had no
11:15
understanding that you could have actually believe that when
11:17
you first bought it. He said yes.
11:19
I said, knowing then what you know now, would you have ever
11:22
bought it? And he said, no, I wouldn't
11:23
have. So that's where we start to
11:24
really, once we understand our elected officials and how they
11:27
vote on the development that we are interested in, we're going
11:30
to do we want to work here, yes or no.
11:32
And then if we actually determine it to be a yes, we go
11:35
to that next piece, which is we actually talked to the staff and
11:38
a lot of your builders will know this inherently.
11:40
They'll go walk into a planning or an inspection department in
11:44
any municipality and they'll say, Oh, I've been trying to get
11:47
my building permit through here for the last, you know, 18
11:50
months. The staff, you know, every time
11:52
I come in, it's through weeks for this, three weeks for that.
11:55
And he just Rolodex the time and they're, they're really get
11:57
frustrated. So a lot of the individuals that
12:00
watch this podcast will know exactly what I'm talking about.
12:03
But we focus on the staff and we say, we've spoken to your
12:08
elected officials and we've said we would, you know, we think our
12:11
product can go here, here and here based on zoning.
12:13
They've told us, yes, we've verified it through our, our
12:16
other things. What do you think?
12:18
And they'll, those are when you have $1,000,000 conversations
12:21
because you'll understand, are the planning staff or the
12:24
inspection staff, are they responsive?
12:26
Do they get back to you or is it 3 weeks later?
12:28
Well, if it's three weeks later right now when we haven't even
12:31
submitted an application, I can only imagine what it's going to
12:33
be like. We actually have an application
12:34
in. But if there are some
12:36
municipalities that they'll get back to you, you sit down with
12:39
them. It's a very collaborative
12:40
engagement. And with that we get the
12:43
understanding that we can work with them.
12:45
They've they've told us, yes, you can your product here and
12:48
here based on zoning over here, just so you know, there's like
12:52
100 year old infrastructure going to probably spend a couple
12:54
$100,000 upgrading sewer, water, storm drain or you know,
12:59
repairing roads. Maybe that is not something we
13:02
have in our Performa that we can think about or maybe that
13:05
changes the dynamic completely. Or they could say, and this last
13:08
spot you're in, just be aware there's some really interesting
13:10
parking bylaws or some things that you haven't actually
13:13
incorporated into your plan that you need to think about because
13:16
this will impact you. Those are, those are $1,000,000
13:18
conversations, but you don't get that in every municipality
13:22
because the function of personality is, is there.
13:24
So we go through those 4 stages and at the end of it we can say
13:28
can we work here, yes or no. And, and I can show there's a in
13:32
Victoria, BC, which is on Vancouver Island just across the
13:36
water. There's a, there's a Capital
13:38
Region there that has 13 municipalities.
13:40
We've done all that research and we know we will never work in
13:43
nine of those municipalities for the reasons I've just said.
13:46
They've backed off in some way, but there are four that we can't
13:49
and we've been very successful. And so when we go to our
13:52
commercial brokers and say we have a requirement for a buy box
13:57
in this municipality and we're looking for an unlock 25 to
14:01
35,000 square feet, lot of lot assembly amenities that look
14:05
like this in the three block radius zoning that can take us
14:08
to four to six story stick frame etcetera.
14:10
They're super happy because they get very detailed by box.
14:13
But then when they bring us a deal, we know we can act on it
14:16
right away because it's a spot that we want.
14:19
So again, it's a lot of research, it's a lot of work,
14:21
but it's up front work before you spend.
14:24
You spend millions of dollars buying that lot only to find out
14:28
12 years later that you could never have purchased there.
14:30
There's a lot of stomach acid and anxiety and stress that we
14:33
avoid at the front end with a little time, effort and some
14:37
money spent on coffees just to say hi.
14:40
And we do this. There is Derek, I apologize, a
14:41
little long winded there, but that's that's the way to.
14:43
Do that. That was fantastic.
14:45
You really had, you know, laid out all the steps there and
14:48
wealth of knowledge can tell you've been through this process
14:51
of many, many times before. And the overall picture of what
14:56
I gather in something I've learned over my career is really
14:59
taking the time to plan things out, talking with all the people
15:02
involved, making sure everyone's aligned, spending extra time
15:05
there. Forget who said it exactly, but
15:08
you know, an extra it's, it's easy like an 8020 or 1090 rule
15:13
of, you know, spend, you know that 510% of time that you're
15:16
gonna spend planning is gonna change like provide so much
15:19
additional benefit to when you actually go into the process of
15:23
trying to procure land or build or whatever else.
15:26
It's true for building a house as well as the development.
15:29
If everything's planned out, you've got schedules, you know,
15:31
the people, everyone's on the same page, you've talked, you
15:34
know, things through and you've got a solid blueprint.
15:37
You know, 90% of your works kind of done already and you just got
15:40
to follow all the plan. And of course you know things
15:42
will come out at you from left field, but but you adjust and
15:45
deal with those when they come up.
15:47
Now to get on to like an actual project that that you guys have
15:50
done, you mentioned be the Ludek affordable housing project which
15:53
has a 20% mix of affordable housing and 80% market.
15:58
Can you tell us a bit more about that project and tell him about
16:02
it and why that split, you know, mattered?
16:04
Again, we're a bunch of ex army guys.
16:06
So I jokingly used to say we, our whole careers was blowing
16:10
stuff up and, and destroying things in support of Canadians,
16:14
Canada's defence and Canadians both here domestically and
16:17
abroad. That now that we've left the
16:20
military, our, our support to Canadians and Canada hasn't
16:24
changed. It's just how we do it is
16:25
different. And how we do it is building
16:27
communities, building houses for future generations, which is no
16:31
different than your American network.
16:34
It's, it's the same thing. How do we do that really, really
16:37
well? And you know, like all good army
16:39
guys, we sat around on a Friday afternoon with the pets and a
16:43
few beer and said, how do we solve this affordable housing
16:46
situation? And it's a North American
16:48
problem. And we looked at an affordable
16:50
housing model and we're, you know, and I use the term project
16:54
because that is a, I can say they're loud and it has a very
16:57
strong negative connotation, right?
16:59
That was, you know, prevalent in the US And project developments
17:04
are not considered very viable, but they aren't considered
17:07
viable because the whole project isn't financially sustainable.
17:11
If everybody's paying affordable rental rates, most times out of
17:15
10, those affordable housing providers barely have enough
17:18
revenue to cover operating costs, let alone those key bits
17:22
on a development like a new roof in 25 years or an elevator in
17:27
15. So their reserve pools never get
17:29
filled and they're always cap in hand.
17:31
So that was kind of a thought we had.
17:33
So about 18 months ago, my partners and I were sitting
17:36
around, like I said, having a pizza interview on Friday saying
17:38
how could we do this better? And we started to mess around
17:41
and we, one of my partners, have read some literature about a
17:44
mixed income opportunities. Though we've seen a lot of
17:48
literature about it, we've never seen anything actioned on it.
17:51
And we then started using our Proforma and playing around with
17:54
the model. If you had 50% affordable, 50%
17:57
market building, what would those rental stacks look like?
18:00
Could it be financially sustainable?
18:02
And what we, what we benchmarked on was 20% affordable, 80%
18:07
market rental rate. And So what you create is a
18:10
building where there's no red door, blue door, there's no
18:13
affordable unit that's of this level and standard and a market
18:17
unit that's of this level in standard.
18:19
The whole building is the same. It's a rental building.
18:22
And we then had to say, alright, is that financially sustainable
18:27
because if it's not, because we all know if the performer
18:29
doesn't work, then we could just stop right there.
18:32
So the performer worked, the returns were were very, very
18:36
viable. They just weren't the returns
18:37
you'd get in a full market building.
18:39
So a little bit of reduction of NY, little bit of reduction in
18:42
the evaluation. But we make our operating
18:45
expenses every year. We have enough for the reserve
18:47
pools and there's a good return for an investor.
18:50
It's just not that 20 plus percent, it's maybe 12 to 15%,
18:55
which again, is for somebody who's trying to make it social,
18:58
social impact is, is incredibly viable.
19:01
So the other thing we recognized is there are certain things as
19:04
we as developers are good at. We're good at coordinating,
19:08
we're good at collaborating, but we're not good at providing
19:11
affordable housing. We need a partner to come in for
19:13
that. So we looked around in our
19:15
community and actually it took a while, but we built
19:18
relationships with Habitat for Humanity as well as a regional
19:22
affordable housing provider. So when we had those two
19:25
individuals organizations at the table with us as strategic
19:29
partners, we're not just one and one and one as three, we're like
19:32
one and one and one is 75 because our strengths overcome
19:35
their weaknesses, their strengths overcome powers.
19:39
So we as we're stronger as a group than we were as as an
19:41
individual. And we got the municipality
19:43
involved, we got the land at the assessed value and not the
19:46
market value. So there was a contribution in
19:48
kind there. We got fast tracked on some of
19:51
the approvals and some reduction in some of the fees.
19:55
So it was really dynamic, creative opportunity to sit down
19:58
and say, listen, you have this problem, we're looking to solve
20:01
this problem. What can we all contribute to
20:03
make this happen? So the concept then is a
20:06
financially sustainable mixed income building, but it's not a
20:10
handout, it's a hand up. So again, there's no red door,
20:13
blue door. So at the end of the day,
20:15
somebody who's in the building and is paying an affordable
20:18
housing rental rate doesn't feel like they're disadvantaged or
20:22
have the perception of, oh, I live in that building, they're
20:25
just another resident. And they have the intangible
20:29
benefit of that, of that benefit of, of basically not being
20:34
stigmatized. That's what I'm trying to say,
20:35
not being stigmatized today by somebody who's in.
20:38
Like we're trying to make you go to the next level and get
20:41
yourself in and your family in that situation where you feel
20:45
proud of who you are and what you're doing.
20:46
And that's part of that hand up, not hand out.
20:49
So that's what's exciting for us, Leduc.
20:51
And that's, that's kind of the piece we're we're we're
20:53
operating on. So.
20:54
Yeah, that's wonderful. Great to hear bringing, you
20:57
know, both making sure the the economics of of a project work,
21:00
but still having that social impact as well and having a
21:03
unique approach, bringing the right people together, you know,
21:06
on on multiple sides there to produce this, you know, solution
21:11
essentially to, to an issue like you said, with, you know, maybe
21:15
the the standard model of, of a project or, you know, affordable
21:19
housing area with the, with the mix.
21:21
So that's that that's fantastic. You mentioned a number of times
21:24
about, you know, the economics of a project and then that's a
21:27
huge part. And, and you know, you need a
21:29
certain amount of capital and, and people that are willing to
21:32
invest or have the, the means of funding these projects.
21:36
You, you mentioned as well that that that's, you know, been a
21:38
challenging part this to some degree of getting, you know,
21:42
developments funded. How can you speak to that of of
21:44
how like what you've sort of learned or how you approach
21:47
raising capital for these projects?
21:49
Yeah, that, that's a really incredibly important aspect of
21:53
of anything. And we've talked how we choose
21:56
municipalities, how we choose land.
21:57
So we do a really great job of that.
21:59
But that's, that's maybe where we have collectively amongst our
22:02
partners a bit of a weakness because for a bunch of Army guys
22:05
that do that plan, coordinate, strategically execute.
22:09
But some of those bits of pieces that capital raise involves is,
22:13
is really difficult for us because it's, it's not something
22:16
that's in our wheel. So we didn't really train for
22:18
that when we were we're serving. So, and here when we look back
22:22
over our shoulder of the last kind of 2 1/2 years, 2023, when
22:26
whether you're in US or Canada, interest rates, we're going
22:30
through the roof and all this capital pulled back because
22:33
economic uncertainty in the first half of 24.
22:36
That's been really difficult for everybody because again, I, you
22:39
know, we're going up, we're going down.
22:41
What happened in sort of late August, September of 24 is
22:45
Canadian government started to lower our interest rates.
22:47
I know in the US it's, it's been a little bit more delayed and,
22:51
and a little bit more subdued in those interest rate reductions.
22:54
But what we're seeing now is some capital coming back.
22:57
So we've got all these great projects and it's has been hard
23:00
to to raise capital. You just have to get really
23:03
dynamic and, and go do things that, you know, whatever it
23:07
takes. And I and I wouldn't say it
23:08
whatever it takes. That's maybe the wrong way to
23:10
go, but think dynamically. But again, we have some great
23:13
projects, but we just can't execute on some of them because
23:16
we just don't have the capital to do it.
23:18
So it's always, it's always, you know, important to have those
23:23
capital reserves ready to go before you execute.
23:25
And that's kind of one of our major takeaways.
23:27
And I what I predict for 25 and into 26 is there's a lot more
23:32
money that will be coming back into the market that will been
23:36
looking for these opportunities because right now, and I think
23:40
it's the same in the US, it's the whole Warren Buffett
23:43
mindset. Be greedy when others are
23:45
fearful and be fearful when others agree.
23:47
And right now the sentiment specifically in Canada, I again,
23:50
I don't suspect it's too much different in the US.
23:52
There's a lot of fear right now is, Oh my God, this is you know
23:56
what's happening. However, if you are constructing
23:59
over the next 18 months when that project is ready for
24:04
occupancy, we're going to be in a completely different economic
24:07
scenario and I suspect a very, very, very +1 in the next 1824
24:11
months. So that's kind of what we're
24:13
telling our clients and it's starting to resonate because
24:16
they, you know, Warren Buffett made billions and billions of
24:19
dollars doing that very same thing.
24:21
Yeah, definitely. Great point to point out there
24:24
that, you know, things have been a little bit tumultuous and and
24:27
up and down and yeah, capital has been very strained.
24:31
It feels like things are starting to take a shift to bid
24:33
and people are bit more optimistic, but but we'll see
24:36
how long that takes. We've essentially it's the
24:38
pendulum swing and you know, it's goes down and it, and it's,
24:41
it's going to bounce back. And if you can invest, you know,
24:45
while everyone else is maybe a little hesitant, you'll, you'll
24:47
reap the rewards for sure when they start to to rock it up
24:50
again in the future. And appreciate you sharing
24:53
about, you know, capital's been a constraint for you.
24:55
You know, there's always seems there's always something right.
24:57
It's you know, these are the people or the project or, or, or
25:00
capital, you know, cash flow, money investment or whatever.
25:03
And getting all those leveled off is usually not, is a rare
25:07
occurrence and everything's operating at peak efficiency.
25:10
But a good thing that you mentioned with having that
25:12
capital or keeping a constant eye on, on having that, those
25:16
type of, you know, capital available, you know, for when
25:19
you know, the right project comes along or things clear up
25:21
and stuff like that. And for me, from a business
25:24
sense, I think that as, as marketing where, you know, you
25:26
always want to keep that strong. And no matter where, if you're
25:30
busy or not busy, you always want to have that steady flow of
25:33
whether it's, you know, leads or capital of, of, of you know,
25:36
for, to keep the, the business moving.
25:38
Can you share with us how it's, let's say I've got a lot of
25:43
clients and you know, our audience, a lot of general
25:45
contractors out there, maybe the building for years, they want to
25:48
start building their own houses or get their own small
25:51
development, maybe subdivide some land or something like
25:53
that. How would how?
25:54
What would be your advice for someone wanting to maybe make
25:56
that transition? The transition, so obviously
25:59
people would be coming in with a tremendous amount of experience
26:02
and it's the hardest part is some I'll talk like it's a car.
26:08
Some people understand that, you know, 1st and 2nd gear of their
26:12
car incredibly well, but going to that third gear takes
26:15
different skill sets than what got you through 1st and 2nd
26:18
gear. So if you're a single family
26:20
home builder and you do, you know, it does in a year, which
26:23
is an incredible systemization because think about how it would
26:28
how much it takes to get 12A year up and running, running
26:31
your crews, running your systems, your suppliers,
26:33
sequencing. If you then start to say, OK,
26:36
I'm going to do, you know, 30-40 unit multifamily development,
26:40
you could think it automatically, I can go and do
26:43
that, but it takes a different mindset.
26:45
And we've had experience where we, we actually were supporting
26:49
a single family home builder transition to multi family and
26:53
they couldn't do it because they were still trying to do
26:56
everything themselves. So you know, I need to be on
27:00
site to hammer nails. No, you need to be on site to
27:03
coordinate trades. Figure out the timeline, not
27:06
just focus on today, focus on next week and four weeks out
27:10
because again, you need to look over your shoulder and know that
27:13
today is being done or have somebody to support you there.
27:16
But you're now sequencing, understanding, providing that
27:20
adjust in the budget and the timeline.
27:22
So it's really what I, when I say all that, there's a couple
27:25
things. First off, get a mentor, get a
27:27
mentor that knows to the next level and take him out for a
27:30
coffee. You, you know, guys that have
27:32
been in the industry for for a number of years, they can look
27:36
around and go, yeah, you know what I know, I know a couple
27:39
guys take them over a coffee or beer, sit down and say this is
27:42
what I'm looking to do. What do you think?
27:44
And then just just listen, Don't just listen to one.
27:47
Listen to a whole bunch. And then, you know, if you have
27:49
partners, what are the new skill sets we need?
27:51
Just think through the problem. It's almost like you were
27:54
looking to build a house at the very first time a contractor or
27:57
a builder can walk on site. And I used to do this all the
28:00
time in the military. You can walk on site, look left
28:02
and right and if 5 seconds know if fits it going perfectly
28:06
according to plan or it's an absolute gong show like and
28:10
every person that's listening right now goes, yeah, I know
28:13
exactly what you're talking about.
28:15
So what you need to do is get that mentorship to say, how do I
28:18
go to the next level? Am I prepared?
28:20
What are the things? What are the skills I need?
28:22
And can I actually achieve that? So can I actually pull myself
28:26
away from Cameron and every every damn nail.
28:29
That's what I've done is hammer and nails.
28:31
It's it's like again, changing gears on your car.
28:34
But once you can get to it and get into that next gear, you can
28:37
accelerate so much faster forward.
28:39
So as it pertains to, you know, subdivisions, I don't know about
28:43
that. That's that's, that's pretty
28:44
dynamic. But ultimately, you know, if
28:47
you're a single family, you know, what about a duplex?
28:49
What about a fourplex? What about an aplex?
28:52
Understanding how to sequence at that next level.
28:54
And then and then kind of getting that mentorship to to
28:57
go. So again, I apologize, I
28:59
probably didn't do a good job with that Derek, because I was
29:01
scrambling to think about all the things.
29:03
But you know, talk to some people, really the people that
29:07
you respect in your industry and then maybe go to the highest
29:09
level and say, I'm a single family home builder and I'm
29:12
going to go talk to the largest developer in the in in my
29:16
region. They love to sit down because
29:17
they love talking about this stuff and just ask them some
29:20
great questions. Worst case scenario, they say no
29:22
and you have to have coffee with somebody else.
29:24
So. Yeah, definitely most, you know,
29:27
business owners, professionals are very happy to to meet with
29:30
people interested in learning and and support, you know
29:33
people. And like you said, some may not,
29:35
maybe they're too busy or whatever, but, but typically you
29:38
find the people, if you look for it, who will be more than happy
29:41
to give you their, you know, insights or background and some
29:44
advice and things like that. And it reminds me of The Who,
29:48
not how as you know, builders, guys, whatever, you know, like
29:52
there's a problem. How do, how do we solve it?
29:54
How do we fix it? How do, how do we learn this new
29:56
thing? But often it's, it's more of a
29:57
hoop problem of like, who do I need to talk to?
30:00
Who do I need to learn from? Who do I need to get around me?
30:03
What, what's the team that I need to bring in?
30:04
I think with typically any new venture or or leveling up, you
30:09
know, company doing new things, you know, before you, maybe
30:12
you're dealing a lot with clients and maybe you missed
30:14
earlier or whatever, but now it's going to be, you know,
30:17
Realtors and maybe investors and there's gonna be like new levels
30:22
of leadership essentially too. If even just scaling up a
30:25
business, going from being on the tools, you know, hammering
30:27
all the nails to managing maybe your your crew, your site guys
30:31
to managing managers. If you got project manager.
30:33
So you're kind of leveling up your leadership ability.
30:37
And that's often the kind of a ceiling to breakthrough to to
30:40
get to that next level as well. That can be expected with any
30:42
anything new. But fantastic advice, definitely
30:45
reach out to the people around you, especially if you, if you
30:47
know other businesses that you look up to or respect, you know,
30:50
reach out to them, ask them for a coffee and see where it goes.
30:53
So, yeah, right on. Well, thanks so much Chris,
30:56
really appreciate, you know, your service and defence and
30:59
security of the country and your military background there, as
31:01
well as coming on here sharing all your insights, as you know,
31:04
with the great Crown Development services.
31:07
What's the best way for people to get in touch with your
31:09
development company or yourself? Yeah, thanks very much for that.
31:12
So the easiest way to get ahold of me is via LinkedIn, Chris
31:15
Lunny. And the last name is LUNEY and
31:18
my phone number is I'll probably be in the show notes.
31:21
So we can we can put that down there for you.
31:23
Definitely, yeah, we will put some some links and things in
31:25
the description of, you know, the video audio, wherever you're
31:28
listening or watching to this. So go click through there, learn
31:30
some more about Greyhound developments and reach out to
31:33
Chris on LinkedIn there if you've got any questions or want
31:36
to connect with them. Thanks so much for coming on
31:38
today, Chris. It's it's been a real pleasure
31:40
and honor. Any any last words of wisdom or
31:43
thoughts that you wanted to share?
31:44
No, I'm, I'm really excited too. Added a little bit of value to
31:47
your your network and I hope if anybody's interested in looking
31:49
forward to having a virtual coffee with them in the future
31:52
if they want to check.