Dave McGahan joined CLV Group 28 years ago, working his way up to his current position of managing director and principal of acquisitions.
A former hockey player in European professional leagues, McGahan began his career as a residential sales agent at Royal LePage and Coldwell Banker Real Estate. That attuned him to the finer points of buy-and-hold investments, mostly in the form of multiplexes.
“But that wasn’t enough, because the business side was intriguing, and it led me to commercial real estate,” McGahan, winner of a 2025 CoStar Power Broker Award, told CoStar News. “I saw commercial as a challenge, so while commercial can be intimidating to some in residential, I wanted to try my hand.”
CLV Group is a firm founded by his older brother, Mike McGahan. The Ottawa-based property firm specializes in acquisitions, development, construction and project management, property management and real estate and mortgage brokerage.
CLV recently brokered a major off-market apartment sale of 1126-1154 Adelaide in London, Ontario. In that deal, Old Oak Properties sold the 558-unit Royal Oak Terrace complex to Pier4 Real Estate Investment Trust for $102.5 million. The deal was weightier than its nine-figure price tag might suggest, McGahan said.
“It’s important to understand how our team functions to understand the significance of the deal we brokered, and that’s despite Pier4 being a longtime client of ours," he said. "Transactions like these don’t just happen overnight. Our team invests substantial time, strategy and patience to achieve the best possible deal for our clients. This deal’s incentive, which required all hands on deck, was rewarded with a trip to the Bahamas."
During that getaway, the CLV team "got to relax together for days — and not just us together, but with family members who joined and mingled together.”
CoStar News caught up with McGahan to discuss the importance of teamwork. The following has been edited for clarity and length.
You played hockey, where teamwork is essential. Have you applied the same philosophy to your team at CLV?
We’re a close team who trust each other and have a strong sense of camaraderie, pulling together during challenging times and collectively celebrating our wins. We focus on off-market deals, and these require patience, and trust in each other. At the end of the day when we do deals together, we split things — both the effort and the wins. I received the Power Broker Award from CoStar, but that wouldn’t have been possible without Joanna Zikos, Thomas Meletis, Karolina Craig and Jomana Nayed.
Joanna, Thomas and Karolina are acquisition directors who prospect off-market opportunities, whether those opportunities are immediate or years down the line. But they frequently visit prospective sites and keep owners honestly apprised of their assets, even if that means telling them, "Now’s not the time."
How was the Royal Oak Terrace deal a team effort?
We have a long-standing relationship with Pier4 as we have sold them a number of properties, including one I owned in Kitchener. We had approached the seller, Old Oak Properties Inc., about this property in the past, and for one reason or another, the timing wasn’t right. This time, however, we knew that it was. We’ve been helping Pier4 achieve its objective of growing its portfolio of purpose-built rental buildings, but strategically. We have helped them identify markets and potential properties where the numbers make sense today and throughout the duration of a long-term hold — in other words, rental income relative to purchase price and financing, which has become harder in Southern Ontario. Pier4 has known every one of us on this team for years, and we were all involved in this transaction from attending inspections to helping them with financing. It’s important for us to provide a service from start to finish.
What can others learn from your approach?
As a team, we work so well together because our culture isn’t forced. We’ve spent so much time together that there’s trust, so my advice to other companies is to invest genuine time into your team. On the client-facing side, my advice is the same: Invest time into your clients, whether buyers or sellers. Don’t expect everything to happen right away, because if the time isn’t right, you shouldn’t force it.
This approach landed us an off-market deal for 952 units in Hamilton, which InterRent REIT purchased from a private seller. A large and complex deal consisting of two separate transactions, we embodied our spirit of teamwork and have continued a strong relationship with the buyer and the seller, recently selling 150 units for the same family.
How does an incentive trip to the Bahamas help a team beyond escaping an especially brutal Canadian winter?
Camaraderie. CLV Group has closed huge deals, and rather than only focusing on the next major deal, we like to periodically celebrate accomplishments and take the time to reflect on what got us there and enjoying it together.