Pre-Construction & Off Market
Most buyers compete for the same visible inventory, already marketed and often already priced to draw several offers. A meaningful share of what is worth owning never reaches that stage. This is where I spend most of my time: pre-construction projects that pass a financial test before anything else, and off-market properties that move through relationships rather than listings.
The same lens, every time.
Whatever the service, the assessment is the same. What this is likely to be worth later. What it does to the equity you are building. What it does to everything else you own.
Buying, pre-construction, selling, and tenancy are different work, and none of them is recommended until those three are settled.
The numbers first. Then the builder, the product, and the location.
Pre-construction is sold on renderings and on the word exclusive. Neither one pays a deposit back. A project earns a place in front of my clients only when it makes sense financially first, and then only if the builder, the product, and the location each hold up on their own. If any one of those is missing, it is not a project I will help anyone buy into, however good the launch event was.
That filter is why the list is short. It is also why the projects on it tend to be the ones people wish they had heard about earlier.
Investors, mostly. And anyone buying a home they intend to keep.
Who This Is For
Investors are the natural fit. A project that passes the financial test is bought at today's price for delivery in three or four years, with a deposit structure that spreads the entry and a completion that, chosen well, lands into a market that has moved. The same assessment as any other purchase applies, with completion risk, occupancy costs, and assignment options weighted more heavily.
Principal residence buyers are the group most often steered away from pre-construction, and often wrongly. A project that holds up as an investment holds up as a home for the same reasons: a builder who delivers what was drawn, a layout that will still be wanted in a decade, and a location the surrounding blocks are catching up to. The difference is the timeline, and I will tell you plainly whether yours suits it.
Before a project is recommended. Four tests, and it has to pass all of them.
The numbers. Purchase price against what comparable completed product is actually selling and renting for now, not what the marketing deck projects. Deposit schedule, occupancy costs, closing adjustments, and the realistic exit. If the arithmetic only works on the builder's assumptions, it does not work.
The builder. Delivery history, not brand. Whether previous projects completed close to schedule, whether what was delivered matched what was drawn, and how the builder behaved when something went wrong. A great rendering from a builder with a poor record is a poor project.
The product. The layouts and exposures that hold value in this kind of building, and the ones that are discounted the moment the resale market has supply. Ceiling heights, outdoor space, parking and lockers, and the floor plans that will still make sense to a buyer or tenant in year eight.
The location. Not the neighbourhood name, but the specific pocket: what the surrounding blocks have done over a decade, what is planned, what transit and employment are doing, and whether the price today already assumes all of it.
Off-market. The properties that never reach the MLS.
Some property never goes to market in the ordinary way. Builder inventory released quietly. Units an original purchaser can no longer close on. Owners who will sell to the right buyer but have no interest in showings, staging, or a public listing. Some people call these pocket listings. I call them the quieter tier of the market, and they reach me through builders, other agents, and a network built over years rather than through any channel you can subscribe to.
This runs in both directions. Buyers on my list hear about these properties as they surface, and only when the property fits what they have told me they want. Sellers who would rather sell privately reach a list of qualified, prepared buyers without their property ever appearing online.
For Buyers
Tell me what you are looking for: type, area, range, timeline. You hear from me when something genuinely fits, and not otherwise.
For Sellers
If you would rather sell without a public listing, the conversation starts privately and stays that way.
How it runs
Six stages, and the window is usually open for the third one only.
01 · Position. Before any project is mentioned: what the purchase has to do, the deposit you can carry over the build period, the timeline, and whether you can hold through completion if the plan changes. Pre-construction rewards preparation and punishes improvisation, and this is where the preparation happens.
02 · Filter. Every project I see runs through the four tests above. Most do not pass. You hear about the ones that do, with the case for them and the case against them in writing.
03 · Access. Allocations, early releases, and off-market opportunities as they surface. These windows are narrow, sometimes days. A client who has done the first two stages can decide inside one. A client who has not will watch it close. That is the honest reason the list exists.
04 · Review. The agreement of purchase and sale, the deposit structure, the occupancy and closing costs, the assignment terms, the HST treatment, and what happens if completion slips. All of it reviewed with you and your lawyer inside the cooling-off period, before anything becomes firm.
05 · Hold. Deposit milestones tracked, builder correspondence read so you do not have to, and a clear picture at each stage of what the project is worth against what you paid. If circumstances change and an assignment makes sense, that conversation happens early, not at occupancy.
06 · After. Completion is a beginning. Final closing, the interim occupancy period handled properly, and if the unit is an investment, the tenant search starts before the keys do. See landlord and tenant services. If it is your home, the after-sale support is the same one every client gets.
What this costs you.
Nothing.
On a pre-construction purchase the builder pays the commission. On an off-market resale, the seller does, as with any other purchase. As a buyer you do not pay me, and access to the list costs nothing beyond telling me what you are looking for.
If you are selling privately, the fee is agreed with you in writing before a single buyer is approached, and nothing is added to it later.
When the answer is no.
Most projects do not pass.
The industry runs on launches. Every project is the one not to miss, every release is nearly sold out, and the pressure is built into the room before you have read a floor plan.
Most of what I am shown does not make it to my clients, and when a project you are excited about fails one of the four tests you will hear that from me, in full, with the reasoning attached. I have told clients to walk away from launches I was invited to.
It costs me the transaction. It is still the right call.