My passion for real estate began when I was very young. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs who were also in the real estate business. My parents were quick to teach me about the subject, but also passed on their passions for houses, architecture and open spaces.
I remember my parents taking my brother and I on long weekend drives to the Laurentians to look at cottages and lots in order to find a place to live. Through this experience, I had the opportunity to visit properties, talk with the owners and even participate in the design of the construction plans for our family cottage.
I have always been fascinated by nature and architecture, looking for inspirations to find ways to marry the two, to make them places where one feels good. As I grew up, this passion only grew, so I started to get seriously interested in the subject, in different forms. At the time, I consulted magazines that advertised properties for sale, and then I continued on the internet a few years later. I also subscribed to architectural magazines, and when I was old enough to drive, I started to drive around on weekends to explore places that I found inspiring, and environments that I felt comfortable in. I often wondered who might own the properties I saw along the way and how I could buy them.
Doing business by letting emerge what vibrates inside
I realized that I had big plans that made me excited, so I started reading about real estate investing and then took courses to learn about the technical side of it. Shortly thereafter, while I was in university, I made my first purchase, with my partner Maxime, of the residential property of a client of our landscaping company. This house had never been renovated in forty years, so we refurbished it. We learned a lot about the home buying, financing, design and renovation process from that first experience. We did our own work, but also hired professionals to do the work we couldn’t do ourselves. We eventually experimented with selling this property.
This first experience served as a springboard for us to move forward in the various acquisition projects that followed. We made about fifteen purchases of buildings that we renovated and then resold. Then we got into multi-residential real estate, and we bought several buildings that we also renovated. We sold some of them, but for most of the others, we still manage them today.
Over time, my passion for architecture, nature and open spaces never left me. Quietly, I returned to projects that inspired me during my first car rides… When I had the opportunity to buy Camp Bruchési, in St-Hippolyte, I was thrilled, so I dove in. Recently, I also bought the Lac Bleu camp, also located in St-Hippolyte, as well as woodlands, also in the Laurentians.
Real estate is for me an investment vehicle, of course, but also and mainly an activity that allows me to create and bring beauty and love in the spaces where people live. Here are some of my projects. Enjoy your visit!