Avenue Living recently brought together leading voices in real estate, investment, and the advisor community for our National Investor Series events in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Members of our executive team were joined by guest speakers to discuss emerging market trends, exchange ideas, and the role alternatives may play in a diversified portfolio.
Featured Speakers:
Together, we shared perspectives on how Avenue Living is balancing resilience with opportunity. Here are four key takeaways from these conversations.
1. A Diversified, Defensible Strategy
Avenue Living’s focus on essential real estate — workforce housing, self-storage, and farmland — combined with a buy-and-hold approach and vertically integrated operational platform, provides a strong foundation for stability.
“We’ve built a business around stable demographics in regions that are often overlooked. We buy assets with the intention of holding and operating them for the long term, with a focus on sustainability and resilience,” says Millard.
We believe that diversification across sectors and geographies with similar fundamentals creates a portfolio that is resilient to market shifts, defensible, and consistently delivers value to investors.
2. Deep Understanding of Customers
Avenue Living’s success starts with listening to and learning from the people we serve. Across every business line, one message resonated clearly throughout the day: a steadfast commitment to reliability and doing right by the customer.
- Multi-Family: Regular property assessments and resident feedback help guide capital investment and community improvements.
- Self-Storage: Usage patterns and local drivers — from National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) campuses to military bases — inform demand forecasting.
- Farmland: Long-term tenant relationships and stewardship practices ensure land quality is preserved for future generations.
“Our reputation forms the foundation of our success. At Tract, we have never experienced a vacancy and have consistently achieved 100% rent collection. That track record of reliability gives our partners confidence and allows us to grow with intention, discipline, and strength,” says Snethun.
This reliability is more than operational — it’s personal. During the wind-down of the Avenue Living Agricultural Land Trust, Tract offered tenants the first right of refusal to purchase the land they had been leasing. In one case, the team partnered with a long-term tenant to help him secure ownership of land close to home.
A customer-first mindset ensures our actions remain aligned with the needs of those who rely on us.
3. Operational Excellence as a Competitive Advantage
Managing assets with our in-house teams ensures accountability and consistency across the life cycle of each property. Data-driven insights, disciplined processes, and a service-first culture reinforce defensibility and performance.
Facca shared how this approach comes to life within our self-storage platform:
“Service excellence is truly a continuous commitment, and I always think about the experience we’re delivering for my own family,” says Facca. “Every time I visit a store, I ask myself, ‘Would my wife feel safe and comfortable visiting one of our sites at 10 p.m. to grab skates for our child?’ If not, we still have work to do. That personal benchmark keeps us focused on what matters.”
Throughout the event, a consistent theme emerged: operational excellence grounded in personal accountability. This mindset was reflected across all presentations, highlighting how attention to everyday procedures leads to meaningful improvements for residents and customers. Peters echoed this theme:
“Responsiveness is embedded in our approach across every fund in our firm. For example, we recognized how difficult it can be to secure a rental during work hours — so we extended our leasing window to evenings and weekends. If it serves the customer, we pursue it.”
Feedback loops, benchmarking, and our Centre of Excellence training facility ensure teams remain proactive and aligned. By ensuring we provide operational excellence at every level, we are creating stability and resilience in an evolving market.
4. Future-Ready Positioning
With a strong capital base, disciplined deployment, and transparent communication, Avenue Living is positioned to grow sustainably across Canada and the U.S.
“We continue to build on the strength of what we’ve created through our proven foundation,” says Peters. “As we expand across North America, our goal remains to build lasting value and create communities where people can thrive.”
The conversations throughout the series highlighted both the opportunities and outlook shaping the future of real estate investment. We look forward to welcoming our advisor community to the final stop of the series in Calgary on Thursday, October 30.
This commentary and the information contained herein are strictly private and confidential and are not to be distributed, reproduced, or communicated in any form to any third-party without the express written consent of Avenue Living. This commentary and the information contained herein are for informational purposes only and do not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities in any jurisdiction, and do not and are not intended to constitute financial, investment or legal advice. None of Avenue Living, Avenue Living Real Estate Core Trust, Mini Mall Storage Properties Trust, Tract Farmland Partners LP, or any of their respective affiliates, make any representations or warranties, express or implied, regarding the information contained herein. This article may contain forward-looking information, and past results may not be indicative of future results so undue reliance should not be placed on them. Forward looking statements are based on a number of assumptions and, although management believes such assumptions are reasonable, there can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove accurate, as actual results and future events may differ materially. Management undertakes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements if circumstances or management’s estimates or opinions should change, except as required by applicable securities laws.
