4 Lessons a Billion Dollars in Sales Taught Us

By Sandy MacKay

Sandy MacKay is a real estate strategist, investor, entrepreneur, and founder of Found Spaces Realty Group and Found Spaces Property Management. With more than 15 years of experience in Ontario real estate, he has built and operated multiple real estate companies while helping clients use real estate as a long-term wealth-building strategy.

Over a billion dollars in real estate has a way of teaching you what actually matters, and it’s rarely what people expect walking in.

After 15 years and thousands of transactions across Burlington, Hamilton, and Niagara, the lessons that stuck with us have almost nothing to do with square footage or list prices. They came from the people on the other side of the table, and here are four of them we wish every buyer and seller knew before they made their move.

Early on, we thought this business was about houses. It turns out the house is maybe half of it. The rest is people, relationships, and everything happening in someone’s life that led them to buy or sell in the first place. That’s where all of this comes from.

1. The house isn’t always the most important part of the sale. More often than not, there’s a life event driving the move: a new baby, a first place out of a parent’s home, a downsize, a hard breakup. That situation is the real centre of the decision, and the house is just one piece of it. What matters most to us is understanding what you’re actually going through, so we can help you get where you’re trying to go rather than just moving a property.

2. People fall for the exact house they swore they didn’t want. This one still surprises us. We’ll sit down with someone, build out their list of needs and wants, and then watch them walk into a place that checks maybe half of it, and you can see it on their face instantly. It’s the one. We still run through the list, but we pay far more attention to how a house makes someone feel, because that feeling tells you whether it’s right for you and your family.

3. The hardest part usually isn’t selling the house. It’s letting go of it. A home is where years of memories were made, the highs and the lows, and separating from that can be far more difficult than any part of the transaction itself. Recognizing that someone is grieving a chapter, not just listing a property, and helping them move through it, is often the real work.

4. Experience changes how you see the market. When you’re new, everything feels urgent, and every market shift feels like a roller coaster. Years in, you learn to stay calm and steady when a tough decision lands. That’s what we bring you: guidance through the harder moments, without fear or emotion clouding it, so you make a thoughtful choice instead of a fearful one, because we’ve been through these cycles many times before.

After all these years, the biggest lesson underneath it all is simple. No two moves are ever the same, and it’s far more about the people in the transaction than the houses themselves. That’s the whole idea behind our team, serving the person first.

If you’re thinking about a move across Burlington, Hamilton, or Niagara, we’d love to sit down, hear your situation, and offer some honest guidance. Call or text us at 289-816-3015, email us at sandy@foundspacesrealty.ca, or visit blog.foundspacesrealty.ca. Whatever’s driving your move, we’ll help you work through it one thoughtful step at a time.