Baker Real Estate has launched a new residential purpose-built rental division, aiming to help developers achieve faster stabilization and full occupancy in multi-family projects.

The new division builds on Baker’s experience in real estate sales and marketing, offering services tailored to the growing demand for purpose-built rentals.

“Baker has been a leader in pre-construction condo sales for over 30 years,” said Baker President Harley Nakelsky in a news release. “Now, it makes sense to leverage that expertise in growing our purpose-built rental business. We are launching a dedicated rental division to ensure that we offer the same high level of client service to developers in that market segment.”

Todd Nishimura has been appointed vice-president of the new division. Nishimura joined Baker from Toronto-based GWL Realty Advisors, where he was the senior director of leasing, marketing, and communication. While at GWLRA, Nishimura led leasing across a Canada-wide portfolio of 10,000 multi-residential units.

At Baker, he will support clients in optimizing occupancy rates by leveraging Baker’s knowledge of tenant preferences and lead-conversion techniques.

“We are looking forward to working with developers to ensure their units are rented faster and more efficiently,” Nishimura said. “We see enormous potential and we are well positioned to lead this robust market.”

The new division is already collaborating on initial projects with Tricon Residential, a developer of purpose-built rental buildings, on two properties in downtown Toronto.

Baker also brings a broad network of brokers to the rental side of its business, with the ability to list units on the Multiple Listing Service, where realtors represent more than 50% of the rental market.

Based in Toronto, Baker also has offices in Montreal and Vancouver.