That is Benjamin Tal at CIBC speaking to the Canadian Apartment Investment Conference last week. His follow up line matters more: this transition period will lead to better things. Fifth industry voice in six weeks calling the same setup. Here is why "not good" is exactly the reason to move now, not later.
PV, Mit & Jeff
Fifth independent industry voice in six weeks calling the same thesis. This one comes from one of the most trusted economists in the country speaking directly to an apartment investment audience. If "not good" plus "transition to better" sounds like a setup, that is because it is.
Benjamin Tal is the deputy chief economist at CIBC. Anyone who has read a Canadian macro note in the last decade knows the name. When Tal speaks to a specific audience, the framing he chooses tells you as much as the numbers he cites. Last week he addressed the Canadian Apartment Investment Conference, and the two lines RENX pulled from that address are worth reading against each other.
Line one: "The situation is not good." Line two: "This transition period will lead to better things."
Together those are not a doom call. They are the classic transition setup. Something has to be uncomfortable now for something better to be on the other side. In a specific corner of Canadian real estate we have been arguing for a month that this is exactly the moment where private operators and their LPs get to build cheaply and hold into an exit that reprices the whole asset class. Tal just said the same thing at a podium in front of the specific audience that needs to hear it.
Before we get into what "not good" and "better things" actually mean in dollars, quick pre-read for anyone new here. Mit's Sunday universe webinar remains the best on ramp for the entire Foundation Capital picture. If any of what follows lands, the replay is where all of the pieces get walked through end to end.
FCPRET, all three development funds, and the affordable housing side in one sitting. Best single source of context before the call.
Purpose built rental starts fell off a cliff over the last 18 months. Construction financing tightened. Land vendors are still holding out for last-cycle prices in some markets. Immigration policy pulled back demand faster than supply could react. Renewals at higher mortgage rates are stretching household budgets. Every one of those pressures sits inside Tal's "not good" line, and every one of them is real.
The important part: none of those pressures are terminal. They are cycle pressures. And each one is exactly the reason the operator who builds now instead of waiting ends up owning the supply that the market pays a premium for in 24 to 36 months, when Tal's "better things" arrive.
Rent growth resumes as the new supply pipeline runs out. Vacancy compresses from the current mid-single-digit reading back toward the tight 1 to 2 percent range that defined 2022 and 2023 in Southern Ontario. Cap rates normalize downward as rates fall and institutional capital rotates back in. Trades close at the premium prices that a repriced asset class carries.
This is not a forecast, it is a pattern. It ran this way in 2010 to 2013 after the GFC. It ran this way in 2016 to 2019 after the mortgage stress test bit. It is running this way now. Tal's audience at the apartment conference is being told: the money to be made is on the other side of the transition, not after it fully lands.
FCPRET is the compounding income engine that pays you a 7 percent monthly cash distribution while the "not good" is priced in and holds the workforce multi-family exposure into the "better things" reprice. Registered account eligible, $10K minimum, targeted 15 percent annualized total return. If Tal is right about the transition, FCPRET's mark ticks the same direction the conference audience is pricing into their own trades.
Foundation Development Fund III is the operational leverage on the same call. We are building 600 units of purpose built rental on the Wellington Bus Rapid Transit corridor in London, financed through CMHC MLI Select, at land pricing and construction margins that reflect exactly the "not good" moment Tal described. When the file completes in roughly four years, the exit is into the market Tal calls "better things." The targeted 20 percent compounded annualized return on Fund III Tranche 1 is the entry premium for private LPs who move now rather than after the transition has already happened.
Wellington file to council in 15 days. September 29. The staff recommendation report typically posts one week before the vote, so watch for it to land inside the next 7 to 10 days as the planning committee agenda drops. Every FC letter this month will track the file as the signposts arrive.
600 Units · Wellington BRT Corridor · Workforce Rent
Targeted: 20% compounded annually (4 year hold)
The entry into Tal's "transition to better things" at land pricing that reflects "not good." Wellington vote in 15 days. $100K minimum. Accredited, existing FC investors, or FF&BA exemption.
Five independent voices in six weeks:
Colliers Q1 2026 GTA multi-family print: $569M across 20 trades, +228% year over year (Aug 12 letter)
GO REIT / H&R REIT $6.7 billion residential trade: institutional consolidation at the biggest scale we have seen this decade (Aug 13 letter)
RENX / First National on Southwestern Ontario tilting to multi-family: KW +106%, Guelph +67%, Windsor +45%, London strongest starts in a decade (Aug 24 letter)
Altus H1 2026 GTA CRE print: $10.2B total, +35% overall, multi-family alone +244% (Aug 31 letter)
Benjamin Tal at CIBC to the Apartment Investment Conference: not good now, better things next (today).
Five sources. Four different types (broker desk, transaction print, industry column, chief economist). One conclusion. This is what a trend line looks like when it is actually definitive.
$10K Minimum · RRSP / TFSA / RESP / LIRA Eligible · Also Cash
Targeted: 15% Annualized (7% cash monthly + 8% appreciation)
The compounding half of the portfolio. Cash monthly while "not good" plays out and Tal's "better things" arrive.
Talk soon,
PV, Mit & Jeff
P.S. Search "benjamin tal" plus "apartment investment conference" on renx.ca for the full report. Then read it against the last four Monday and Tuesday letters. Same trend, one more voice.
