Golfing during a housing crisis - Kerry Gold - Globe and Mail June 2025

In late June I had a call from Globe and Mail journalist Kerry Gold. She wanted to know if I wished to comment on the number of major real estate firms laying off staff. I told her I wasn't surprised this was happening given the poor state of the housing market. In my case, so many of my projects had stalled, due in part by excessive government fees, I had played golf five days in a row. 

Ms. Gold asked if she could quote me and while I wondered whether anyone would care, I told her I didn't mind if she did. I was wrong. After references to the article were posted on Facebook, several people were astounded that I would be playing golf while there was a housing crisis. Others misconstrued the article and assumed I was playing golf in an effort to force governments to reduce development fees! 

Below are excerpts from Ms. Gold's story. 

Vancouver’s real estate industry had a great run at the height of the pandemic, but three years on, major marketers and developers are laying off staff and selling off assets.

The most recent is Wesgroup Properties – developer of the master-planned community River District – which announced the layoff of 12 per cent of its staff last week. Prior to that, condo marketing company Rennie Group announced the layoff of 25 per cent of its staff.

Developer, architect and consultant Michael Geller said that he’s playing more golf these days because of the downturn. It’s not that developers are asking for a “bail out” of sorts from government, but more of a return to the way things were, so that housing continues to get built, he said.

“I do think that we are in a situation that could take years to sort out,” he said.

To get housing starts going again, the industry would like to see reduced municipal fees and a lift on the federal foreign buyer ban on real estate, he said.

“There is generally a movement developing to ask the federal government to lift that,” said Mr. Geller. “It will have some ramifications, because foreign buyers were part of the market, especially the presale market.

“Foreign buyers really impacted my projects, not because they bought units in my developments … but because the foreign buyers were buying the homes of the people who were buying into my project. So, to that extent, it really was a factor.”

The Vancouver region saw historically high housing starts in 2023 – an increase of 33,000 units from the year before, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Mr. Geller points out that there are tens of thousands more units that have been approved since then that have stalled.

Andy Yan, associate professor of professional practice in urban studies at Simon Fraser University, said the layoffs appear to be more periodic than disastrous.

“Is this an end of sunny days or a prolonged period of climate change for the market residential industry?” said Prof. Yan.