How a Vancouver Investor Scaled to $100 Million Using Multifamily Power Plays
Investor Benoit Sorel reveals how he scaled to $100M using multifamily value-add strategies, CMHC financing, and smart capital optimization in this powerful interview.
Real Estate Investing BC
✍️ By Debbie Balfour | WBN News | November 20, 2025 | Click HERE for your FREE Subscription to WBN News and/or to be a Contributor.
When someone can scale from zero to $100 million in real estate in just two years, people pay attention. In this week’s riveting episode of Let’s Talk Real Estate Investing, I sit down with Benoit Sorel, a financial risk and project management expert whose background spans banking, mining, and multi-billion-dollar infrastructure.
Benoit’s story reads like a masterclass in high-level problem-solving and precision execution. Once the CEO of the $2B Vancouver Canada Line, he carried his deep expertise in financial engineering and strategic risk modeling into the world of real estate. Today, he’s a full-time multifamily investor specializing in value-add repositioning, CMHC financing, and capital-stack optimization.
🎧 Listen to the full interview here:
From flipping condo units in Montreal to producing award-winning renovations and scaling large multifamily portfolios across BC, Alberta, and Atlantic Canada, Benoit reveals exactly how he cracked the code to sustainable exponential growth. Instead of selling improved buildings, he mastered the skill of flipping to himself, creating forced appreciation, refinancing, pulling capital out, and repeating the cycle without losing the asset.
In our conversation, Benoit breaks down the misunderstood world of CMHC financing, why it can be a game-changing tool for new and experienced investors, and how he’s achieved loan-to-value ratios as high as 95%; even 99% in one case. He explains how to structure deals to reduce equity requirements, optimize debt, and unlock true infinite returns.
What makes this episode especially valuable is Benoit’s candor about pitfalls. He outlines the biggest risks investors overlook, how CMHC guidelines are interpreted differently depending on the underwriter, and why having the wrong mortgage broker, consultant, or underwriting assumptions can cost you the entire deal at the eleventh hour. His advice on team-building, deal evaluation, due diligence, and capital-raising is worth its weight in gold.
We also explore his two major development projects, 70 units in Port Alberni and a 53-unit townhouse community in Langford plus who these opportunities are best suited for and what accredited investors should realistically expect.
If you’re serious about scaling using multifamily assets, funding larger deals, or understanding the sophisticated side of value-add investing, this episode is a must-listen. Benoit delivers clarity, transparency, and actionable wisdom that can save investors years of trial and error.
Debbie Balfour | Real Estate Investing Success Coach + Podcast Host
📍 Website: www.DebbieBalfour.com
📧 Email: Debbie@DebbieBalfour.com
🔗 LinkedIn: Debbie Balfour
▶️ YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@DebbieBalfour
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