The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

Victor Menasce

Welcome to The Real Estate Espresso Podcast, your morning shot of what's new in the world of real estate investing. Join investor, syndicator, developer, and author Victor J. Menasce as he shares his daily real estate investment outlook. Our weekday episodes deliver 5 minutes of high-energy, high-impact content to fuel your success. Plus, don't miss our weekend editions featuring exclusive interviews with renowned guests such as Robert Kiyosaki, Robert Helms, Peter Schiff, and more.

  1. 1d ago

    Should Foreign Buyers Be Banned?

    Canada has a housing shortage. But at the same time, parts of the country have too many condominiums for sale. Those two statements sound contradictory. They’re not. Toronto has experienced a historic collapse in new condominium sales. In 2025, only about 1,600 new condos were sold across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. That was down roughly 60 percent from the previous year and approximately 95 percent from the peak recorded in 2021. This is more than a slow market. It represents the failure of the financial machinery that produced much of Canada’s new urban housing. A condominium project is usually financed in stages. Before a lender advances construction financing, the developer must demonstrate that a significant percentage of the building has been sold. Purchasers sign agreements and provide deposits. Those presales give the lender confidence that the completed units will generate enough revenue to repay the construction loan. The foreign-buyer ban was politically simple. Foreign buyers were portrayed as part of the affordability problem, so excluding them appeared to protect Canadians. The emerging condominium crisis reveals that capital performs more than one role. It can inflate the price of existing assets, but it can also finance the production of new ones. Canada may now be forced to decide whether it wants less foreign ownership or more housing badly enough to accept the capital required to build it. That is the tension. The country did not eliminate the need for investor capital. It merely reduced the number of investors allowed to provide it. ------------ **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  2. 2d ago

    Can ICE Impact Your Construction Project?

    On today's show we're talking about a construction risk that may not be in your pro forma. You might say, "Victor, I only hire legally authorized workers. Why should immigration enforcement affect my project?" That's a perfectly reasonable question. But it misunderstands how a construction labor market works. Construction pricing is not determined solely by who works on your job site. It's determined by the depth of the entire labor pool competing for the same work. Over the past several months, immigration enforcement in the United States has accelerated considerably. ICE arrests increased from 32,545 in May to 43,021 in June, and then to 49,571 in July. Nearly 40 percent of the July arrests occurred in Texas and Florida. Now, those numbers by themselves don't tell us much about construction. But when you look at what is happening in individual markets, the picture becomes more interesting. In Austin, Texas, one large homebuilder reported that framing labor costs increased between 25 and 50 percent in a matter of weeks. ----------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  3. 4d ago

    Which Auto Plants Will Close Next?

    On Sept 10 at 8PM EDT, 5PM PDT, I'm hosting a live conversation with Jacob Blackett, CEO of Sponsorcloud. We are going to be talking about how software can improve the investor relationship for private investments. If you can't attend, register anyway and we will send you the recording. CLICK HERE to register. ------------- For generations, automobile manufacturing has been one of the great economic anchors of North American cities. Think about Detroit, Windsor, Oshawa, Toledo, Louisville, Georgetown, Kentucky, or countless smaller communities throughout Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. The automobile plant was never just a factory. Thousands of people worked inside the plant. Thousands more worked for suppliers making seats, dashboards, transmissions, brakes, electronics and stamped metal components. Then there were trucking companies, warehouses, restaurants, hotels and service businesses. Those paychecks eventually found their way into houses, apartments and shopping centers. But something fundamental is changing. China has become the world's dominant electric-vehicle manufacturing center. In 2025, nearly 22 million electric cars were produced globally. China manufactured about 16 million of them. That's nearly three quarters of global EV production. More importantly, China produced about 20 percent more electric vehicles than its domestic market consumed. VW just laid of 50,000 people and announced another 50,000 workforce reductions. Nissan is in trouble. Honda is in trouble. Stellantis has excess capacity. We will see major changes in the auto industry globally. Are your real estate investments reliant on auto manufacturing or some portion of the supply chain as the employment base? ------------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  4. 5d ago

    The Recreation Segment is Bleeding

    On today's show, we're looking at what boats, recreational vehicles, and cottages can tell us about the economic cycle. The pattern is familiar. Demand exceeds supply. Prices rise. Producers expand. Buyers accelerate purchases because waiting appears expensive. Lenders become comfortable financing assets whose prices keep climbing. But supply takes time to arrive. By the time factories expand, subdivisions get built, or boats leave the shipyard, demand may have changed. Yesterday's shortage becomes tomorrow's inventory problem. We've seen this in many segments of the economy like real estate, semiconductors, and oil. High prices encourage the investment that eventually undermines those prices. The pandemic added another ingredient. We pulled future demand into the present. Families bought the cottage, boat, or RV several years earlier than they otherwise might have. Suppliers could mistake that temporary rush for permanently higher demand. Once you've bought a boat, you don't need another one next year. Tomorrow's customer already bought yesterday. Consider the catamaran market. One market commentary puts used inventory at 1,161 boats, against estimated annual sales of approximately 290. Those figures imply that only about 25 percent of today's inventory would sell in a year at that pace. Roughly 871 boats, or 75 percent, would remain, before accounting for new listings or withdrawals. That's approximately four years of inventory. Many of these boats are structurally upside down. They depreciated faster in the first five years than the principal paydown on a 20 year amortized loan. So if you have real estate that is linked to the recreation business cycle, you want to pay close attention to what is happening in this segment. -------------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:**  Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)    iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)    Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)    LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)    YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)    Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)    Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)   **Y Street Capital:**  Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)    Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)    Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

  5. 6d ago

    Tour The World of Interest Rates

    On today’s show we’re going to take a trip around the world through one very specific lens: the yield on the 10-year government bond. This is not just a tour of interest rates. The 10-year bond is one of the clearest places where investors collectively put a price on inflation, fiscal policy, monetary policy, currency risk, and increasingly, geopolitics. As we record this, the U.S. 10-year Treasury is around 4.8 percent. Germany is around 3.35 percent. The United Kingdom is above 5.1 percent. France is around 4.2 percent. Italy is also around 4.2 percent. Japan has crossed 3 percent, and South Korea is around 4.4 percent. Those numbers are interesting individually. But the comparison between them is where the story starts to emerge. And there’s another dimension to these numbers that I think makes the story even more interesting. Ask yourself: When was the last time these countries were paying this much for 10-year money? Some of these date back 20 years, and in some cases 30 years. What does that mean for the global demand for US Treasuries, independent of geopolitics? Why take currency risk if you can get decent yield at home? If there are fewer buyers for US bonds in Germany or Japan, those bond prices fall and you will pay more for a loan in the US. That's the link. --------------- **Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)

4.9
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About

Welcome to The Real Estate Espresso Podcast, your morning shot of what's new in the world of real estate investing. Join investor, syndicator, developer, and author Victor J. Menasce as he shares his daily real estate investment outlook. Our weekday episodes deliver 5 minutes of high-energy, high-impact content to fuel your success. Plus, don't miss our weekend editions featuring exclusive interviews with renowned guests such as Robert Kiyosaki, Robert Helms, Peter Schiff, and more.

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