Matt Fraleigh
Matt Fraleigh in a navy jacket, arms folded

The story

The Long Way Around

I started my real estate career in Los Cabos in 1998. Some of the lots I sold for $75,000 to $150,000 are worth several million dollars today. I should have been buying them.

I spent the next two decades in commercial real estate across Western Canada, then came back to Latin America as a principal. I am not a fund manager. I am not a promoter. I am a principal who has learned how to read a market, how to operate in one, and when to walk away.

The path

1998 · Los CabosStarted in real estate selling beach lots on the peninsula.
CBRE52 transactions in one of my early years, and CBRE Rookie of the Year, Alberta.
First Capital RealtyLeasing Manager for nearly a million square feet of retail across southern Alberta: eleven grocery- and pharmacy-anchored shopping centres.
PC Urban PropertiesGreenfield retail development and asset repositioning, including a 205,000 sq ft centre in the BC interior: NOI up 15% in 18 months, then sold to a national REIT.
Colliers InternationalRetail leasing, investment sales and advisory across Western Canada, alongside some of the largest landlords and investors in the country.
2021 · Los CabosBack in Baja as a principal. A value-add home on the East Cape under contract before I left Canada: my first repositioning project in Mexico.
Quito, EcuadorSix months originating and co-structuring beachfront deals on the Pacific coast: lot subdivision, pre-construction sales, and a spec home built and delivered.
2025 · Mexico CityPermanent resident. Evaluating markets, originating deals, and building the structures that make them work.

Every deal goes through the same process: the discipline of Canadian commercial real estate, expanded for what Latin America brings. Title structures that need specialist legal review. A dependence on foreign capital. Security questions. Permitting and regulatory frameworks where local expertise is not optional.

The proof

What This Is Built On

Principal first

My own capital is in every project on this site, on most as co-principal with a partner, and on one alongside outside co-investors. In each case I was on the ground structuring and running the deal.

Five years on the ground

In Mexico and Ecuador since 2021. I know how to work with the lawyers, notaries and regulatory process in each market, and which questions to ask to find where the real risks hide.

Twenty years of Canadian commercial real estate

Inside brokerages and development companies, with major landlords, developers and investors. Greenfield retail, investment sales, repositioning, leasing at scale.

A structured evaluation process

Four questions, in order: is the demand real, what does it cost to deliver, does the return justify the risk, and who buys at the end. Expanded for Latin America: title status and repatriation risk. I run it as a structured screening system, so every deal gets the full check before a decision is made.

Professional infrastructure

Legal counsel in Ecuador for transaction and structural matters. Due diligence and closing counsel in Los Cabos. Corporate and fiscal counsel and accountants in Mexico City. Cross-border tax compliance coordinated separately.

Mentoring

The other question people ask

People ask me how I did it: stepping away from a long career that no longer fit, moving countries, and starting over in midlife after a major change. I do not have a formula, though I do have a process. It has taken shape over the better part of a decade, and it is the same discipline I bring to a deal.

I mentor a small number of people at a time, usually established professionals and business owners going through one of these changes. If that is where you are, get in touch.

Matt Fraleigh, smiling, in a navy jacket against a dark background

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