October 11, 2025 • 11 mins
Hugh O'Reilly is based in Toronto where he has a background in law and as the head of a major pension fund. Today he advises technology startups in the property tech space. On today's show we are talking about Landlogic.ai and what is possible using these advanced tools.
To connect with Hugh, visit https://www.landlogic.ai/ or email him directly at hmboreilly@gmail.com
------------
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Real Estate Espresso podcast.
Good morning. Shout out what's new in the
world of real estate investing. I'm your host, Victor Minash.
This is the WEEKEND edition where we interview notable
people from the world of real estate investing.
Today is no exception. We have a great guest all the
way from Toronto, Canada. Welcome to the show, Hugh
O'Reilly. Thanks very much, Victor.
I appreciate getting the opportunity to chat with you.
(00:22):
Well, great to have you here. Now, Hugh, you've been at this
game for a while. I'm excited to have this
conversation, but maybe before we dive into the details,
perhaps give a little bit of your back story and how you got
to this point in your journey. Well, I I practiced law for many
years. After practicing law, I became
the CEO of a major Canadian pension plan, OP Trust, which
(00:44):
has a significant real estate portfolio and led by a very
sophisticated team and it's managed internally.
So and then I left Opie Trust inMarch of 2019 and got into
consulting and working with people who had interesting
ideas, interesting projects. And from there I got active in
(01:07):
some investing in the real estate innovation space, as well
as trying to offer some advice to developers around projects
they were working on from a riskmanagement and strategy point of
view. Love it.
Well, there has been a lot of innovation in particular in the
realm of big data that this is the large unstructured data that
(01:29):
doesn't reside in a nice tidy database that you can search.
And in particular, with the addition of AI now, well, I
think we need to separate Canadaand the US because those worlds
are very different in terms of how they operate, how much
information is publicly available.
But I know that even for ourselves, especially in the US,
we're seeing a lot of new tools that are available that really
(01:53):
streamline the process. And I wish they were available
in Canada. They're not quite yet.
What's your perspective? I, I agree with that.
I, it, it's interesting to me that the real estate, the real
estate world has some of the most particularly the Canadian
real estate world has a lot of really sophisticated players in
(02:13):
it that are doing interesting things that invest in
technology. But what what we're lacking in
my opinion in Canada is the appropriate infrastructure to
apply the the tools you're describing from the US to, I
know in Ontario, for example, the state of digitization in the
municipal world is not where it should be.
(02:33):
So I'm active with a company, it's called Land Logic.
It's doing it, it's applying it.It's first of all solving the
digitization issue. And secondly, applying AI in
ways so that the broad unstructured data that you're
describing can be used and used commercially in a way to speed
up the development process, but also just to make it easier for
(02:56):
people to know where to locate their businesses, move forward
from that perspective. One of the tools that we're
making use of in the US, and again, I wish it existed in
Canada, if you're familiar, mostpeople are familiar with the
technology that they may not know how it works, but they're
familiar with the technology that shows you that you have a
traffic jam on the freeway. So what it's doing is it's
(03:19):
tracking anonymous moving speed estimation data from your cell
phone and saying, well, if this cell phone is moving it 20 miles
an hour on the freeway and it really should be going 60, there
must be a traffic jam and decides to mark that section of
the freeway red. So that same technology can also
be used with the with geofencingto determine what are traffic
(03:41):
counts may be going in and out of a gas station or going in and
out of Walmart. Now you can't tell how much
people spent when they went there, but you know how many
people came in through the frontdoor.
And that technology is a, is a company called Placer dot AI
that is doing that in the US. We don't seem to have the analog
for that in Canada. And unless you're aware of
(04:03):
something that I'm not, but for commercial that that's a game
changer because those traffic studies take a long time and
they're expensive. And if you can get it out of a
tool, that's huge. Yeah, I I agree with you.
I think I'm of the view that Landlogic has the technology
that addresses that issue. But I think even more important,
(04:23):
it provides technology that helps real estate investors and
businesses and indeed even insurers better make better use
of their resources. So for example, in the Landlogic
database, it has zoning information so you can look at a
piece of property and you can see what it's zoned for.
(04:45):
Two, it also has information around whether it's the
properties at a flood risk or orcan also input data around
wildfire risk. Those matter also includes data
on demographics. Because now the way the world
works is if I'm looking to locate a fast food franchise or
(05:06):
Bobby Flay's coming to Canada ina big way and he's trying to
decide where to put his restaurant, Well, the Landlogic
database would help him identifythe the proper zone into parcel
of land. But as well, what are the best
demographics? So we are developing those
platforms. We really need for investments
to happen to broaden this out sothat we can make the kinds of
(05:29):
things you're describing a reality.
Absolutely. What are some of the innovations
that you're tracking? I mean, anyone in the world of
software development has what exists today, but there's also a
pipeline of features. What's coming in the next two
months, six months, 12 months. What are you seeing coming down
the pipeline that you believe isgoing to be impactful for both
(05:49):
investors and developers? Well, there's AI solutions that
are that exist with respect to and it's, it's quite an
interesting AI product because it, because it, it's interactive
and you can ask it questions. So you can not only ask it, what
is this zone for, but it can tell you what government grants
(06:10):
are available or if you're, for example, wanting to do a
Multiplex. So on a, on a piece of land
that's happening. So I think that that development
is exciting. I think that there.
So to me, that's one of the mostexciting developments that
that's occurring. But I think as we apply AI to
(06:30):
this industry, we can also look at speeding up the development
process. Because right now the analogy
I'd love to make is if someone retired who was involved in
development approvals municipally in 1970 and was dead
and we brought that person back to life, it wouldn't take them
long to integrate with. It's still even got the file
(06:52):
folders with, you know, Hugh looked at this, Victor looked at
this. And I think there's work that
needs to be done and technology exists to figure out what what's
causing the delays to put all ofthe players, whether it's
conservation authorities, government ministries or others,
to hold them digitally accountable so that we can
improve the processes. So I think those technologies
(07:15):
are very exciting as well. One of the areas that has been
long talked about is having potential, but yet in my view
hasn't really been realized is the whole question of land
records. So for example, if there is an
easement, these are typically recorded in sequential order,
(07:36):
but there can also be a subordination agreement that
says, well, now these things arereordered based on that
subordination agreement. So it's not just a matter of
looking at dates, actually have to read through the text of all
of these documents in order to make sense out of it.
Are you seeing moves in that direction that are actually
going to take what is an intensely manual process out of
(07:56):
title company or lawyer's officeand and streamlining that
process? Well, 100% if you think about
where AI is at at the moment, it's ideally suited for that
role and to help sort through the, the, the title search and
the, you know, at the risk of talking, well, I'm very familiar
(08:17):
with the Landlogic product. The Landlogic product has that
capability. And and I'll also from a, from
the point of view of dealing with lenders, having all that
data at hand, making it easy forthem allows their risk
management function to operate alot more smoothly.
The historic land records use this very archaic method of
(08:39):
meats and bounds where, you know, you go to the old oak tree
and then you count 50 paces northwest and so on to find the
property boundary. The more modern way of doing
things is not that. Are the AI tools able to bring
those two worlds together? Yes.
You're, you're bringing back memories of law school and and
bar ads now, Victor. But what 100% it's got that
(09:03):
capability. And of course in Western Canada,
it's a different system all together with the torrents title
system, which is a lot cleaner than than than the Ontario
system. But Terranet's done a lot of
work on that and Landlogic is actually working with Terranet
at the moment. So I think there's a lot of room
to grow here. Fantastic.
(09:24):
Now, one of the things that we often see is that properties are
zoned with multiple approved potential land uses, but that
doesn't necessarily mean that you what you're hoping to build
is really feasible. Do the tools have the ability
to? For example, if you're looking
(09:44):
for a certain minimum density and you require a certain
minimum lot area in order to achieve that density, is it able
to decipher that or does that require offline analysis?
It is able to decipher that and does do that.
Wow, it's very cool. Yeah, this is the whole, you
know, it's funny, I got active with these guys.
(10:05):
They were very active in the not-for-profit sector looking at
how to accelerate the development approval process.
And because they just, it's hardto find a market for that
because municipal governments have very difficult jobs and
they only have so much bandwidth.
So they went from there to developing this other product.
(10:25):
But we have the capability rightnow right in the house on the
development approval process andwe have developed the capability
around zoning and density and assisting with design all of
those issues. Fascinating.
Well, Hugh, if folks want to connect, if they want to learn
more, what's the best way? Best best way is go to the
(10:46):
Landlogic website. So if you just type into doctor
Google Landlogic you'll find it.It gives you all sorts of
information. They can also reach out directly
to me. Do you mind me giving you an
e-mail address? Yeah, go for it.
So my e-mail, probably the best e-mail address for me is so HMB
O'Reilly OREILL y@gmail.com loveit.
(11:10):
And I'll connect you with my colleagues who are both PhDs in
engineering and top of the game when it comes to AI.
Fantastic. Well, Hugh, great to connect and
for the listeners at home, definitely reach out to Hugh
O'Reilly at landlogic dot AI. The links, including the e-mail
link will be in the show notes. And in the meantime, have an
(11:31):
awesome rest of your weekend. Go make some great things happen
and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.
Welcome to the Real Estate Espresso podcast.
Good morning. Shout out what's new in the
world of real estate investing. I'm your host, Victor Minash.
This is the WEEKEND edition where we interview notable
people from the world of real estate investing.
Today is no exception. We have a great guest all the
way from Toronto, Canada. Welcome to the show, Hugh
O'Reilly. Thanks very much, Victor.
I appreciate getting the opportunity to chat with you.
(00:22):
Well, great to have you here. Now, Hugh, you've been at this
game for a while. I'm excited to have this
conversation, but maybe before we dive into the details,
perhaps give a little bit of your back story and how you got
to this point in your journey. Well, I I practiced law for many
years. After practicing law, I became
the CEO of a major Canadian pension plan, OP Trust, which
(00:44):
has a significant real estate portfolio and led by a very
sophisticated team and it's managed internally.
So and then I left Opie Trust inMarch of 2019 and got into
consulting and working with people who had interesting
ideas, interesting projects. And from there I got active in
(01:07):
some investing in the real estate innovation space, as well
as trying to offer some advice to developers around projects
they were working on from a riskmanagement and strategy point of
view. Love it.
Well, there has been a lot of innovation in particular in the
realm of big data that this is the large unstructured data that
(01:29):
doesn't reside in a nice tidy database that you can search.
And in particular, with the addition of AI now, well, I
think we need to separate Canadaand the US because those worlds
are very different in terms of how they operate, how much
information is publicly available.
But I know that even for ourselves, especially in the US,
we're seeing a lot of new tools that are available that really
(01:53):
streamline the process. And I wish they were available
in Canada. They're not quite yet.
What's your perspective? I, I agree with that.
I, it, it's interesting to me that the real estate, the real
estate world has some of the most particularly the Canadian
real estate world has a lot of really sophisticated players in
(02:13):
it that are doing interesting things that invest in
technology. But what what we're lacking in
my opinion in Canada is the appropriate infrastructure to
apply the the tools you're describing from the US to, I
know in Ontario, for example, the state of digitization in the
municipal world is not where it should be.
(02:33):
So I'm active with a company, it's called Land Logic.
It's doing it, it's applying it.It's first of all solving the
digitization issue. And secondly, applying AI in
ways so that the broad unstructured data that you're
describing can be used and used commercially in a way to speed
up the development process, but also just to make it easier for
(02:56):
people to know where to locate their businesses, move forward
from that perspective. One of the tools that we're
making use of in the US, and again, I wish it existed in
Canada, if you're familiar, mostpeople are familiar with the
technology that they may not know how it works, but they're
familiar with the technology that shows you that you have a
traffic jam on the freeway. So what it's doing is it's
(03:19):
tracking anonymous moving speed estimation data from your cell
phone and saying, well, if this cell phone is moving it 20 miles
an hour on the freeway and it really should be going 60, there
must be a traffic jam and decides to mark that section of
the freeway red. So that same technology can also
be used with the with geofencingto determine what are traffic
(03:41):
counts may be going in and out of a gas station or going in and
out of Walmart. Now you can't tell how much
people spent when they went there, but you know how many
people came in through the frontdoor.
And that technology is a, is a company called Placer dot AI
that is doing that in the US. We don't seem to have the analog
for that in Canada. And unless you're aware of
(04:03):
something that I'm not, but for commercial that that's a game
changer because those traffic studies take a long time and
they're expensive. And if you can get it out of a
tool, that's huge. Yeah, I I agree with you.
I think I'm of the view that Landlogic has the technology
that addresses that issue. But I think even more important,
(04:23):
it provides technology that helps real estate investors and
businesses and indeed even insurers better make better use
of their resources. So for example, in the Landlogic
database, it has zoning information so you can look at a
piece of property and you can see what it's zoned for.
(04:45):
Two, it also has information around whether it's the
properties at a flood risk or orcan also input data around
wildfire risk. Those matter also includes data
on demographics. Because now the way the world
works is if I'm looking to locate a fast food franchise or
(05:06):
Bobby Flay's coming to Canada ina big way and he's trying to
decide where to put his restaurant, Well, the Landlogic
database would help him identifythe the proper zone into parcel
of land. But as well, what are the best
demographics? So we are developing those
platforms. We really need for investments
to happen to broaden this out sothat we can make the kinds of
(05:29):
things you're describing a reality.
Absolutely. What are some of the innovations
that you're tracking? I mean, anyone in the world of
software development has what exists today, but there's also a
pipeline of features. What's coming in the next two
months, six months, 12 months. What are you seeing coming down
the pipeline that you believe isgoing to be impactful for both
(05:49):
investors and developers? Well, there's AI solutions that
are that exist with respect to and it's, it's quite an
interesting AI product because it, because it, it's interactive
and you can ask it questions. So you can not only ask it, what
is this zone for, but it can tell you what government grants
(06:10):
are available or if you're, for example, wanting to do a
Multiplex. So on a, on a piece of land
that's happening. So I think that that development
is exciting. I think that there.
So to me, that's one of the mostexciting developments that
that's occurring. But I think as we apply AI to
(06:30):
this industry, we can also look at speeding up the development
process. Because right now the analogy
I'd love to make is if someone retired who was involved in
development approvals municipally in 1970 and was dead
and we brought that person back to life, it wouldn't take them
long to integrate with. It's still even got the file
(06:52):
folders with, you know, Hugh looked at this, Victor looked at
this. And I think there's work that
needs to be done and technology exists to figure out what what's
causing the delays to put all ofthe players, whether it's
conservation authorities, government ministries or others,
to hold them digitally accountable so that we can
improve the processes. So I think those technologies
(07:15):
are very exciting as well. One of the areas that has been
long talked about is having potential, but yet in my view
hasn't really been realized is the whole question of land
records. So for example, if there is an
easement, these are typically recorded in sequential order,
(07:36):
but there can also be a subordination agreement that
says, well, now these things arereordered based on that
subordination agreement. So it's not just a matter of
looking at dates, actually have to read through the text of all
of these documents in order to make sense out of it.
Are you seeing moves in that direction that are actually
going to take what is an intensely manual process out of
(07:56):
title company or lawyer's officeand and streamlining that
process? Well, 100% if you think about
where AI is at at the moment, it's ideally suited for that
role and to help sort through the, the, the title search and
the, you know, at the risk of talking, well, I'm very familiar
(08:17):
with the Landlogic product. The Landlogic product has that
capability. And and I'll also from a, from
the point of view of dealing with lenders, having all that
data at hand, making it easy forthem allows their risk
management function to operate alot more smoothly.
The historic land records use this very archaic method of
(08:39):
meats and bounds where, you know, you go to the old oak tree
and then you count 50 paces northwest and so on to find the
property boundary. The more modern way of doing
things is not that. Are the AI tools able to bring
those two worlds together? Yes.
You're, you're bringing back memories of law school and and
bar ads now, Victor. But what 100% it's got that
(09:03):
capability. And of course in Western Canada,
it's a different system all together with the torrents title
system, which is a lot cleaner than than than the Ontario
system. But Terranet's done a lot of
work on that and Landlogic is actually working with Terranet
at the moment. So I think there's a lot of room
to grow here. Fantastic.
(09:24):
Now, one of the things that we often see is that properties are
zoned with multiple approved potential land uses, but that
doesn't necessarily mean that you what you're hoping to build
is really feasible. Do the tools have the ability
to? For example, if you're looking
(09:44):
for a certain minimum density and you require a certain
minimum lot area in order to achieve that density, is it able
to decipher that or does that require offline analysis?
It is able to decipher that and does do that.
Wow, it's very cool. Yeah, this is the whole, you
know, it's funny, I got active with these guys.
(10:05):
They were very active in the not-for-profit sector looking at
how to accelerate the development approval process.
And because they just, it's hardto find a market for that
because municipal governments have very difficult jobs and
they only have so much bandwidth.
So they went from there to developing this other product.
(10:25):
But we have the capability rightnow right in the house on the
development approval process andwe have developed the capability
around zoning and density and assisting with design all of
those issues. Fascinating.
Well, Hugh, if folks want to connect, if they want to learn
more, what's the best way? Best best way is go to the
(10:46):
Landlogic website. So if you just type into doctor
Google Landlogic you'll find it.It gives you all sorts of
information. They can also reach out directly
to me. Do you mind me giving you an
e-mail address? Yeah, go for it.
So my e-mail, probably the best e-mail address for me is so HMB
O'Reilly OREILL y@gmail.com loveit.
(11:10):
And I'll connect you with my colleagues who are both PhDs in
engineering and top of the game when it comes to AI.
Fantastic. Well, Hugh, great to connect and
for the listeners at home, definitely reach out to Hugh
O'Reilly at landlogic dot AI. The links, including the e-mail
link will be in the show notes. And in the meantime, have an
(11:31):
awesome rest of your weekend. Go make some great things happen
and we'll talk to you again tomorrow.
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