Real Estate Financing, Development and Student Housing, with Andrew Drexler | EP76

Andrew Drexler has been a Part of the First National Financial Commercial Team for over 15 years, and has Originated more than $4 billion in Commercial Financing. In 2020 alone, his team funded over $1 billion in Commercial Mortgages, of which $822 million represented transactions in Ontario and $236 million Represented Transactions in Quebec In this episode we talked about: Andrew’s Bio & Background The Real Estate Market Liquidity Debt Markets and Financing of Projects The Retail Real Estate Outlook Remote VS Onsite Work Real Estate Risks and Opportunities Underwriting Apartment Buildings Condo Development The Student Rental Market Canadian and US Real Estate Mentorship, Resources and Lessons Learned Useful links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewdrexler/?originalSubdomain=ca https://www.firstnational.ca/contact-us Transcription: Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time, or at least an in gentlemen, my name Jessica galley, and you're listening to working capital the real estate podcast. Our special guest today is Andrew Drexler. Andrew has been part of the first national financial commercial team for over 20 years.   Now, for those of you that don't know first national is one of Canada's largest non-bank mortgage lenders offering both commercial mortgages and resident residential mortgage solutions. And correct me if I'm wrong, Andrew, I believe you said that we're over 10 billion in, in mortgage originations.   Andrew (50s): It's going to be pretty close to 10 billion for this year. Yes, we're on the commercial side. It's going to be a very exciting year.   Jesse (56s): Well, first of all, thank you so much for coming on. It's it's great that you're being generous with your time. How you doing today?   Andrew (1m 2s): My pleasure. Good. Thank you. It's a beautiful fall day in Toronto right now. I love fall. It's my favorite season. So it's a beautiful day   Jesse (1m 9s): Transience of that fall season. We get it for such a small amount of time. That makes it so good. Well, it is a, it is false. Yeah, no, absolutely. I appreciate that. It is fall. It's a leaves home opener today. So at least versus Canadians for the hockey fans out there. What we do with, with guests that we have on first and foremost, Andrews, we like listeners to get a little bit of a background into, you know, how you got into the, the real estate space, maybe a little bit of, of your background and how you ended up where you are today.