15 years at CBRE Montreal. 3 years inside NYC's Economic Development Corporation. $150M deployed across the Tristate region in 4 years.
When I asked Brian Ker where a 25-year-old should start a career today, Montreal or New York, his answer was Montreal.
And the reasoning he gave is the kind of thing the people who actually built this industry know but never say out loud.
This is a conversation with someone who has sat on every side of the table. Sales broker. Investment salesperson. Public servant. General partner. He has been the broker losing the mandate, the city stakeholder writing the 150-page development agreement, and the sponsor raising emergency equity the night before closing. Across two countries, two cities, and three completely different seats, Brian came back with a thesis I have not heard anywhere else.
If you build, broker, lend, or invest in commercial real estate, this is the conversation worth your hour and a half.
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Opening: the REIT debate and why office-heavy REITs are the "sad dogs"
03:53 Vancouver to Montreal in 1997: the post-referendum playground
04:46 15 years at CBRE Montreal: the formative training ground0
7:25 Why the truth-telling broker rarely wins the mandate
11:11 The IOU rug-pull and the million-dollar commission that walked
15:48 Columbia MSRED and the four NYC government real estate groups
18:41 Day one at NYC EDC: working on Amazon HQ2
21:42 Why HQ2 fell apart and what NYC learned about subsidies
24:17 Quitting EDC in three weeks: COVID, fatherhood, the industrial thesis
27:26 Why "Snowball" and the multi-tenant industrial bet
30:33 The public servant edge at community boards