Adam Gant

Adam Gant is a Canadian real estate investor, author and businessperson who is passionate about improving access and affordability in North American housing markets. He is consulted on topics ranging from residential real estate to retail, office, industrial, hospitality, land development and senior care.

Adam Gant has broad experience with both privately held real estate funds and public real estate investment vehicles. He is an advisor with various real estate groups through REAfe Advisory, which provides practical solutions to real estate businesses seeking new ways to streamline operations, increase revenues and manage acquisition, finance, capital structuring and sourcing funding.

After years of research and world travel, Adam Gant co-developed a unique housing financing model termed “shared equity.” He believes the concept is one way to begin removing obstacles to homeownership for millions of families. He advanced the idea in the popular book he co-authored, A House Shared.

His passion for making housing affordable and available extends to his philanthropic work with charities focused on providing shelter to people in need, in developed countries and in developing ones.

What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?

On most days I’m working out of my office in either Victoria or downtown Vancouver as I split my time between both cities. I certainly prescribe to Sir Richard Branson’s comment that the single most important tip to being productive with our time is to “work out”. Lately, it’s been either running or on the rowing machine but I get the heart rate up at least once a day usually in the mornings before getting started with the work day. In addition to the usual emails and texts that are part of every professional’s life these days, I still spend a lot of time on the phone, which is a combination of coordinating efforts, discussing issues and solutions, and keeping everyone’s energy up while tackling obstacles. Travelling seems to come in waves, where I will travel a lot in one month and then stay closer to home the next. When the idea first began to take shape and the concept of “shared equity housing,” was being researched, as I was travelling to major cities, such as Singapore, in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. It’s always an educational experience, and an adventure, to find out about other countries’ ways of doing business.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I suppose it depends on the idea. Some ideas take months and years to develop, and others just seem to appear. I’m reminded of some of the great musicians who talk about how they awoke to compose a classic song that they had just dreamed about. In other cases, it’s a steady process of elimination similar to the Thomas Edison approach where you keep trying things until all you are left with is the one way of doing it that works.

In the case of “shared equity,” it’s a concept that has been tried in the past in different forms but without a free market “Nash-equilibrium” approach being taken. It is based on housing financial models from around the world — my observations of what was working in various countries and markets, and what wasn’t. It was a protracted process, and it continues to this day: I am always rethinking premises, revising assumptions and refining the idea.

What’s one trend that excites you?

This may seem like an unexpected answer, but one trend that excites me is also one that I see as essentially a negative development in the housing market over the past decade or so. And the only reason it excites me is that I see it as opening up opportunities for reform, and actually opening the eyes of many who believe our current housing finance model is working well in North America.

The trend I’m talking about is the entrance of large institutional investors into the housing market. Some of these investors are based overseas, and others are the marquee investment houses that we recognize from New York and Toronto. Many of these giant players now look at the foundation of the Canadian Dream or American Dream — home ownership — as an investment opportunity. They are buying up millions of houses, renting them out, and generally struggling to deal with the logistical management issues of scale.

Families living in these homes will always worry about the next rent increase or their home being sold to another distant investor or missing a rent payment and being evicted and have that on their permanent records. There have to be better alternatives made available for the millions of gainfully employed deserving families out there.

What is one habit that helps you be productive?

One “habit” that I find helps me get the right things done is to keep something physical in my space as a visual cue to spur on the action to complete the project/task. I am a big fan of the thinking described in “Atomic Habits” and have found the tip of using visual reminders to be very useful.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I would love to go back and give my younger self very specific advice that would change certain decisions but the idea of being able to do that almost feels like cheating somehow. Our current selves know everything that our younger selves didn’t so in theory we now have every opportunity to take advantage of that wisdom. Maybe a more interesting question is what advice would I ask of my younger self, and would I be willing to listen to it?

Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you on?

I wouldn’t say “almost nobody,” but at the upper levels of finance, there are few — fewer than one would hope — who agree that we have fallen miserably behind what Singapore has achieved with homeownership, and somehow, we have all managed to convince ourselves that we are doing well?!

What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?

Read, read, read. Broaden your understanding, open your mind; and read from a wide array of sources. Don’t just sample the publications or books that reinforce your existing views. Challenge your own beliefs and assumptions. That’s the way great ideas emerge and are tested. It’s a challenge to allocate the time but worth it.

When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?

There are a few simple tips for this. One is a 10-minute deep breathing meditation. There are lots of YouTube videos for this, just find one that is preferred and save it for repeat use. The second is making a list of all the critical things that must be done and then most importantly, ranking them in order of priority. Then start with the first thing on the list and continue until it is complete. The last tip is to start the day with the most difficult task where possible and proceed through progressively easier tasks and by the end of the day, a satisfying amount of to-dos will be complete.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?

Curiosity has led me into new areas of interest, in both my real estate and writing career. When I was studying at the University of British Columbia, I decided to go for engineering physics out of a curiosity to understand propulsion systems. Now I’m wholly focused on real estate investing and innovating, finding opportunities and devising solutions to housing finance challenges. It was curiosity that moved me forward and into these new areas of interest. Curiosity is an open-ended exploration of new ways of doing things, and sometimes it takes far longer to find solutions than we might have imagined when we set out. Curiosity can be nurtured in many ways, but reading, travelling and an attitude of constant questioning are important ways to foster curiosity.

What is one failure in your career,  how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?

I can look back on a number of times that things did not go as planned, but that always was cause for learning new things. My original course of study in college, engineering physics, just wasn’t the right path for me. One lesson I learned from that is to move forward in your career and to set the stage for a successful career, you’ve first got to take a personal inventory of your own skills and preferences — to understand what your talents are and what you will enjoy doing the rest of your life.

What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?

This is simple but powerful and it comes in two parts.

First, is that people who combine their time and expertise with financial capital can generally make more than those who only try to get paid for their time or expertise alone.

The second part is that many of us don’t start with enough financial capital to do everything on our own, so the real solution is to become good at being a partner. That way, no matter what resources are needed, there is always a way of partnering productively to achieve greater results than operating solo.

What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?

The calendar, but instead of just working from a to-do list, I schedule the to-do’s into actual time blocks in the calendar for about how long I think the task will take.

Do you have a favorite book or podcast you’ve gotten a ton of value from and why?

Recently my reading has been focused on general interest magazines, trade publications and newspapers. But there are some books that I’ve read more than once over the years, and I enjoy revisiting them. One of those which I plan to read again is Human Kind. It doesn’t have much to do with solutions to the housing markets, of course — or does it? It tells a very different view of human nature than the one we find grabs our attention most often in the mainstream media. It’s a eye-opening account of the true, human nature.

What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?

The Newsroom with Jeff Daniels is a rarely talked about show that was so thought-provoking and controversial that it was cancelled early, but the passion and debate were similar to the West Wing, and Aaron Sorkin’s pacing and dialogue is in a league of its own.

Key learnings

• In the words of Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School, look for business solutions to social problems that can scale, as they will generate resources and be able to access the broader capital markets to fund the solution rather than seeking donations or government funding that will ultimately limit the application of the solution.
• Focus on the habits that will lead to an eventual successful outcome rather than the goal itself as good habits will achieve the right outcome despite having a specific target.
• There is a little bit of luck in all successful outcomes, so focus on the purpose that will keep us committed to persisting so that we give luck enough of a chance to show up in our favour once and a while.