“A new vision in real estate marketing.” Those are the words that spill across the screen in a coral-coloured font when you load the website of mandi Brand, a boutique agency that offers market research, art direction, and event planning and coordination (and much more). Scroll down further, and you’ll meet the firm’s President, Mandy Gareh, who's worked with some big names in Canadian real estate (Rhapsody, Minto, and Menkes, just to name a few).
These days, she’s helping her clients navigate a real estate landscape that’s shifting, making her “new vision” tagline pretty on-the-nose). For instance, there's lesser emphasis on condo, and more on purpose-built rental, and for many developers, there’s no longer a clear-cut path to success. Gareh is happy to be a vanguard at this critical juncture, but it’s a tall order, even for someone with 20 years of experience in real estate marketing.
Gareh started mandi Brand in the summer of 2024 in partnership with The Brand Factory, where she also spent eight years as Account Director. Before that, she held marketing positions with Altus Group and Colliers. However, she credits Montana Steele Strategic Marketing, where she was Senior Account Executive and worked on projects like The Residences at The Ritz-Carlton from Graywood, as the launchpad of her career.
After two decades in the biz, she’s no stranger to being “the only female at the table,” but Gareh tells STOREYS that times are shifting in that sense as well.
STOREYS: The real estate market has become challenging for developers, and condo developers in particular. How has that affected your strategy as a marketer?
Mandy Gareh: You're no longer hitting sales targets in a weekend. So our marketing and sales runway is much, much longer, and therefore the marketing campaigns need to last much, much longer. However, marketing budgets haven't grown, so campaigns need to last longer as sales cycles stretch, and this really requires thoughtful content strategies and storytelling that resonates over time. So it's different. When it was an investor-driven market and our content was used up quickly, and now we need it to last a lot longer, and budgets to last a lot longer.
S: And how are you navigating those needs for condo developers?
MG: Right now, it’s all around incentives, and what I’m seeing is that a lot of the incentives being offered right now are the same. So how do you break through the competition? For me, it’s about creative storytelling, maybe doing a different type of incentive, like a lifestyle-type of incentive. A bigger idea to drive people to want to learn more. Could it be an incentive relating to travel, like travel gift cards, just to bring them in? Is it a five-star trip around the world, if it’s high-end real estate? And what's interesting about these incentives is that, from a marketing perspective, it's just an idea to create excitement and intrigue with the end user, to bring them in to learn more. It's about cutting through the noise.
S: There’s been an increased emphasis on purpose-built rental amongst policymakers, and also consumers. What has been your experience with that?
MG: I would say the shift and the conversation gained traction over the past 12 to 18 months, with 2024 being the year of significant discussion. The primary driver is the frozen condo market. And it's all about time. Condo developers want to keep projects moving rather than wait for market conditions to improve, making rental a more immediate option. It's an opportunity to go now, versus wait [...] From a marketing perspective, it's a little different. From a condo perspective, you want that developer to have that solid reputation and delivery, but from a purpose-built rental perspective, it's that trust and confidence with the property management [...] Because everything with purpose-built rental is about who’s on the ground, and building those relationships with the tenants is critical. The building that has a lot of change in their property management, that's the building that has lots of movement in terms of a lot of people leaving.
S: Give us an idea of how often you're working with developers on pivoting to purpose-built rental?
MG: What I'm seeing now is that most condo developers are looking at purpose-built rentals as an option instead of condos, but when they do the analysis, the numbers and business model just don't end up working for them. So I feel that the developers who are pivoting have joint ventures with partners who are already in the purpose-built rental space, because it's more seamless to make that transition. Everyone kind of wants to do it, but I don't think we're gonna see as many people doing it.
S: For those that can make the pivot, what advice can you offer from a marketing perspective?
MG: Like I said, it's all about who's on the ground. One crucial aspect of closing a rental deal is how you deliver the tour path experience. Because by the time the prospect books a tour, they've already done their research online, so this tour will be a deciding factor in whether they choose to sign the lease or not. So it's essential to have a strong leasing agent lead the tour with the goal of building a relationship with the prospect. It's interesting, many companies hire from the hospitality industry, such as Four Seasons or Disney, or train their staff with similar principles to ensure that exceptional experience, because it's key.
S: The real estate world in general, especially the development sector, has such a small proportion of women. Is that something you’ve felt acutely over the years, and how do you navigate it?
MG: I recall when I started my career 20 years ago, very early on, I had to become very comfortable with being the only female at the table, and so I've gotten quite comfortable with that. To this day, like I'd say that most decision makers still tend to be male, but it is shifting, especially in sales and marketing, where I do spend most of my time. So I see the shift, but it's still not a significant shift. I’m still often in the room just with men, and when I’m reaching out to the ‘top guy’ to introduce mandi Brand, it’s a male. That’s just the nature of real estate [...] But I think, as a female, there's opportunity in this industry to shine and stand out. And I'm fortunate to have a strong and powerful network of intelligent females in our industry who I share insights with and bounce ideas off of. Like Mimi Ng from Menkes and Kalliopi Karkas from RioCan — just two really powerful, intelligent females that I'm so fortunate to have as friends and colleagues.
Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
