Broch Builders Inc.

We actually lost a full week during the framing stage, but watch how we completely made up for lost time by overlapping trades across all 8 units. Plus, we brought in a special “next-gen” site assistant for today’s walkthrough! 👶📋

Hit play to see how the site is looking and see how we’re keeping this build on track for 120 days.

Starting out as a site laborer under my dad meant no special treatment—if anything, he pushed me harder than anyone else. We definitely bumped heads along the way, but learning how to manage budgets, deal with clients, and take pride in quality work straight from him set me up for everything that came next.

What’s the toughest lesson you learned early in your career?

No risk, no reward. But it’s not about blind leaps—it’s about calculated moves.

Playing it “safe” by sticking to the status quo is often the biggest risk of all.

Why is switching from single-family to multi-family construction a completely different beast?

It isn’t just the building process—it’s the hidden zoning rules, permit surprises, and managing the people you trust to get it done. Here’s a raw look at the real challenges behind multi-family developments.

They say don’t do business with family… but honestly, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

When you’re building, having your brother as your business partner means non-stop phone calls, knowing each other’s strengths, and picking your battles over paint colors.

At the end of the day, it just means you get double the work ethic and the exact same high standards.

Your team. Planner, architect, lawyer, geotech engineer, building envelope engineer, designer. All required. All paid.

The unknowns. Environmental site assessment. Appraisal. Construction mortgage. Construction contract. Each one is a process you’ve never run before.

The number: budget 25% more for soft costs than you think you need.

Because on your first build, you don’t know what you don’t know.

📍 Broch Builders | Calgary

One driver taps the brakes, and ten kilometres back, everyone’s stopped.

Miss a date early in a build and it follows you the whole way through. A week here turns into a week at the end. Sometimes you catch it up. Usually you don’t.

And it’s not just the timeline. Every trade after that has to be rescheduled. Every date renegotiated. Hours on the phone just to protect the finish line.

Don’t slam the brakes at the start.

📍 Broch Builders | Calgary

Same lot. Two suites or twelve units?

That’s the question we put to every investor who walks in. A single-family lot traditionally gets you an upstairs and a downstairs suite. We turn that exact lot into 8, 10, even 12 homes. We’re building all three right now.

Straight talk on the money: these aren’t get-rich-quick. Early on they sit near break-even with modest cash flow. Year five to eight is where the income really shows up.

And not everyone loves them. Some communities embrace it. Some fight it. Most of that comes down to design — build something that fits the street, and neighbours come around.

But Calgary needs rentals. Long-term, stable ones. And there’s no way to get there without putting more homes on the land we’ve already got.

Would you take two suites or twelve? 👇

📍 Broch Builders | Calgary

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Building a fourplex isn’t the right move for every investor. For some, stocks might make more sense.

The comparison comes down to this: real estate has proven stable with gradual increases over time and reasonable returns. Stocks carry higher volatility, and the current market feels inflated.

For a 30-year-old with $200,000, here’s one path: buy an existing fourplex. Older ones in some Calgary communities run around $800–900K. Live in one of the units, and you only need 5% down. That leaves three rental units generating income, plus ownership of the real estate itself.

📍 Broch Builders | Calgary

I generally love being a builder. It’s awesome.

You get to create. You get to feed families. You get to watch something grow out of the ground. The income is reasonable, and since we keep about half our projects in-house as rentals, we’re building something for our own future too.

But here’s the part nobody talks about: the people.

I don’t have a ton of friends I see daily outside of work. My friends are an extension of the trades. I see them all the time, talk to them constantly, and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Some trades you work with so often you build a real bond. One of ours — the owner of one of our trade companies — I actually go flying with him now. Learning to fly is my newest hobby, and it started on a job site.

I built in this community before Broch, with one of the larger builders. Those trades are still here. So it’s a constant wave or a nod as they drive by.

Great bonds, built over a long time. That’s the part of this business that doesn’t show up in the pro forma.

📍 Broch Builders | Calgary

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