ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866's blog https://thereiteclub.com/en en Survey Trends For Small Landlords https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/survey-trends-small-landlords <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Survey Trends For Small Landlords</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Fri, 06/30/2023 - 06:53</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> REITE Club nation. Welcome back to another special episode of The REITE Club Podcast. I'm here today. My name is Sarah Larbi and I'm here with Alfonso Salemi. </p> <p>I'm super pumped for today's episode and I know the REITE Club Nation knows and loves our guests today. And he's known as Mr. Ottawa. He's been on the podcast before. He has been on your podcast, Sarah, and he's just a wealth of information. If you don't follow this guy. Seriously you're doing something wrong, really, but I'm super pumped. Why don't we bring Tony right in.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely welcome, Tony, how are you?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Hey, Sarah. Hey, Alfonso. How's it going, dude?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Very good. Yeah. So good to have you on. I know, we've met a bunch of times and the REITE Club Nation, you've been on our sustaining build series, our webinars, and giving so much information from, Eastern Ontario perspective and from a really, from a real estate investor perspective. A quick background for those of first time hearing or seeing. Tony, why don't you give us just a quick little background of who you are. We can get right into it.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Sure. I'm a lifer in Ottawa for those who don't know, so I was born and raised in Ottawa and I don't think I have any plans on leaving unless 6.9 or something like that really kicks in. Then it might hightail it out here to Newfoundland. But really born, raised in Ottawa. Worked in the federal public service communication, security establishment for 24 years, almost 25 years. Perfect storm type of thing where you're in the government and things are going well.</p> <p>You get paid well. You have a lot of benefits, there's a lot of security. But man, you know what you're exchanging for that. It's your soul. It's your soul, Alfonso, because you're really, you're like after a little bit in, there's really not much you can do, right? You can't go along and make things happen quickly, and you're stuck if you wanna put it that way, right?</p> <p>There comes a point after a while in the government where if you're in there for too long, Then you have to keep going because of your pension, right? You wanna keep going for your pension. And I got to the point where, okay, I have to make a decision. What do I wanna do? And I said it's time to go. My mindset, the way everybody grows as time goes on, thing.</p> <p>I just said, I'm ready to go. And the organization changed. I changed, heck, my wife and our kids were just entering my school at the time. So it was a good time to just make a change. And I'll do that again. There's no I'm not hesitant at all in doing something else. Right now I'm Ottawa's realtor and service provider for key fire in the Ottawa area. Longtime brand member investing since about 2008. More into private money lending out, just sold the property last week. We have an out east and also we're winding some stuff down. And yeah, that's some former Ottawa fund real estate investing writer. There's a bunch of other stuff. But yeah, that's it in a nutshell.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Awesome. And guys we had Tony on before and we went through a lot more background and a lot more details, but that's not what we wanna do today. We just wanna, actually talk and share what's happening in real time and have more of a conversation.</p> <p>Cause I think a lot of people get some great value from just having a conversation about what's happening in real estate, what's happening with tenants, what's happening in the market as three investors that have, a fairly good grasp on the market, whether it's, Ottawa, Brantford, GTA and Alfonso, you're all over the place with your 200 plus properties, I feel like. So Tony, what have you been up to in the midst of this whole I guess since March? Now we're recording this in July, but what have you been up to from a real estate perspective amidst covid and all the chaos?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> I think first of all, first and foremost, I've been involved in doing, I've been fortunate enough to be on the REITE club. The monthly one I forget the name, I'm sorry, but that one is Sarah's podcast. So I've been really out there trying to educate real estate investors. What's happening out there. In terms of covid, because there's so many things going on in terms of mortgage deferrals, property tax, deferrals, rent strikers, what the elected officials are saying and how that's impacting real estate masters.</p> <p>I've been really paying close attention to those types of things, and I've been sharing them with investors and landlords. So that's been it. Primarily Bill 184 is something else that I've been watching quite a bit and more while I was telling Sarah before we hopped on that, I'm not really.<br /> I haven't dove into the realtor stuff that much the last couple of months, just since Covid started. Not because there's not enough business or anything like that, it's just, I don't know I've been drawn or focusing on some other things and so I'm really focusing on trying to educate the investors that are out there on to what's going on in the city, provincially, nationally.</p> <p>It's been cool from a personal perspective. We sold places out east and so that's really cool. And I think I mentioned it before, I'm getting more into private money lending and just RRSP loans and that type of thing. So I'm super happy with that. And you can't, I can't tell you, man, like how happy I am to have that property gone to the east Coast.</p> <p>I'm just, I'm thrilled. Like it's like something off my shoulders, right? Something else ends, and so it makes me happy. But Sarah, I wanted to ask you, you mentioned you have a cottage, right? So where's the cottage at? Are you seeing a higher, more people actually interested in going to your cottage this year compared to last year? Are you scared about covid? Are you worried about any of that stuff?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I will tell you, it's crazy. So since Ford removed the ban , my cottage has been like this for a week and a half. Was completely booked until mid-September. And I actually just had an inquiry from the end of September to October and everything in between, cause we always save the weekends that we want first before we release it.</p> <p>It's crazy and it just flew by and then, because you're asking about the cottage piece, I'll tell you, there's a lot of demand still, like people asking me where else they can find cottages. And Alfonso, you, I know you've got a couple cottages as well, and I'll tell you, I wish I had a couple more cottages.</p> <p>And ironically, as we've had a few friends over here and there within the limit and everyone that's come up. Has now decided that they want a cottage. So they started looking for cottages. And I'm telling you, it is the best thing I've ever done personally from a sanity perspective, because I've been able to be here since March and I decided to stay until, until it's rented essentially in July where I'll be making about five 50 a night.<br /> I think if I had kept on some dates, I would've been able to rent it for more than the five 50 a night. Just because so many people are desperately trying to get out of their small spaces and the downtown core and where they're living just to get some fresh air.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Have you seen property increases cottage wise?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>There's barely anything for sale. Barely anything for sale, but I'll tell you, we did well on the cottage, I saw one a year ago, and it's listed for 7 89 right now, and it is not that nice. So I'm thinking ours is probably worse. It's a little bit bigger, but I'm thinking we're probably at that price and we bought it for 485, like three years ago. Probably one of the best investments that I've done where I've enjoyed it the most. But what about you Alfonso? What are you seeing in the cottage industry?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Definitely. Tony brings it up. Like the prices. I think it was maybe a general overall theme with supply and demand in the market in general. With whether it's rental property, single family homes, and I guess, definitely in the cottages. With the cottages. Port Stanley cottages, it's just south of London, Ontario, or right near St. Thomas. There's now 10 beach cottages out there that we have and yeah, like really booking up quickly.</p> <p>The times are pressed, like I'm even looking at the week I booked for myself, I'm like that's revenue. Now I'm giving away cause I'm going up. But again, back to the sanity point, right? I think there's a real supply and demand as we're forced to stay within our boundaries, within our borders here in Canada, the staycations or the short drives that are an hour or two hour away, but feel like.</p> <p>You're on a different planet because you have a beautiful beach view. Or like I said, I'm trying to go to all these different beaches. I think that's directly impacted by Covid. You can't go anywhere. The people that are, they're buying paddle boards now instead of going on vacations to go to their closest lake.</p> <p>I know Ottawa has a lot of beautiful spots and locations. What's a good little cottage community or beach town community like around in and around the Ottawa, greater Ottawa area?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Before I answer that, Sarah, can you just tell me in your cottages you offer free wine and coffee? Is that included?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I offer coffee, but you know what, I don't actually advertise it because if there is no coffee, I don't wanna be responsible. So I do stock it. And there's free coffee, there's free tea. I used to do like a bottle of wine for the first few guests that came and then we kinda got away from that.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> What do you think people would want as a gift? Do you think they'd rather have all you can drink coffee or all you can drink wine when you're in the cottage?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Probably all you can drink is wine.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>All You can drink wine. You're gonna get definitely a lot more value out of it. But I know, we had a few different presenters talking about vacation properties and wifi is probably the top amenity. Like people I think put wifi over, like running water in some cases, in cottage rentals. But yeah, just little gifts thinking like I know Sarah does a really good job.<br /> She's got her. Her book and in all of our cottages we have it posted like rules and like garbage days and all the different things that you need to know, but even a little local treat and something up there it's always nice to, it's like a welcome, like the old school mint on the pillow, right at the nice hotels.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Do any of your cottages have an outhouse?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> It has a sauna.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Have all the plumbing.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I have plumbing, air conditioning, wifi. It feels a little bit like a home on the lake. And we just got the new dock as well. Which is awesome. But I would live if it wasn't so desolate in the winter, which, I like to have some action and people visiting me. I would love to live here all year, but our winters are just too long.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>My grandmother had a cottage on the Ottawa River. Our parents used to take us out there, and it was awesome. I remember as a kid it was just terrific. There was no plumbing or there was electricity, but no plumbing. So we had to go to that type of thing and some really solid memories there.</p> <p>My parents at one point said, okay guys, listen, we're five kids. They go, listen, we can keep the cottage. Or we can build a pool in the backyard. And so we decided to go to the pool. So they sold the cottage. But now I wish we had it. Hey, it's different times and everything, but Alfonso, if you're asking like the cottage country sort of thing in the Ottawa area, definitely we have the big RTO Lakes area west of Perth is really good.<br /> Even a little bit north of Ottawa going towards Pembroke. There's so much, there's so many waterways and so many lakes. The Brito Canal people head over on the Quebec side also, and within an hour you can be out there, in nature, isolated whatever you want to do. And it's such a great location.</p> <p>It's fantastic. I don't know if I would want to take on a cottage right now, like at least, even owning one and just going up. My wife is old. Speed up the trailer thing that she's trying to work up, fix. So once that's done, we'll probably go on trips and hang. But yeah, there's definitely a lot of locations in Ottawa that are campgrounds and cottages and things like that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You know what the other thing is too, cause I just, so I finished that Burlington BRRRR and then I'm like, what do I wanna do with this? We had it on the market and I'm like, the prices that I was getting, I'm like, I could, I might as well just keep it. And so I'm getting it refinanced and I'm like, do I want to rent it long term or do I wanna rent it on Airbnb? And even after the acquisition of buying all the furniture, I don't wanna deal with the RTA anymore at this point.</p> <p>Like for a little while longer. Until we figure out what the delay might be like and what that looks like. But I'll tell you, when you look at the pros and cons, Airbnb and once this is all over, cause it will be at some point Airbnb just seems like the easiest solution in Ontario where we are so handcuffed to what the RTA says and the LTB is just a disaster.</p> <p>Let's talk about that for a minute because you've been looking at what's been happening and all that. And you mentioned Bill 180 4 a while ago, and can I just take a step back and say for those of those people wondering what that even means, can you talk on what Bill 184 is and what that means for investors and landlords?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Sure I can speak to it at a high level. I even forgot the name of the bill. I forget what it's called. I'll have to Google it or some, I'll check it out. But it's a bill that, of course, the government is saying that they're trying to benefit both landlords and tenants. And we were hoping that Bill 184 was actually going to concentrate on some of the things that are in need of fixing. We're talking about the N four L one process. There are so many things that need to be done. Heck just come up to, move into, come out of the dark ages LTB and allow emails to be sent and video conferences for hearings and stuff like that.</p> <p>It really didn't touch on that. It really focuses on penalties to landlords for compensation. If you're selling a property, let's say Alfonso, and you're selling your own property and you're asking your tenant to vacate because you want vacant possession, or the buyer wants vacant possession, you would have to pay the tenant one month's rent.</p> <p>That's not there today. So that's something new that's coming along. It's interesting because when I was looking at it and I noticed that tenant organizations like Acorn and I guess Parkdale and Toronto, lieutenant groups, they're up in arms, right? They're freaking out.<br /> They're saying, oh my gosh, this is the eviction bill. Everyone's gonna be on the street bringing this on during Covid. At the same time, the Ontario landlord watched me and other people were up in arms, saying, what the hell do you do? And you didn't listen to us when you talked to us. This is not what we wanted.</p> <p>It's interesting that both sides are saying hey this isn't right. So that sort of tells me that maybe the government actually wrote something balanced here. It's something that's actually working. I haven't gone through all of my stuff. You guys can't see it. I'm picking up a piece of paper.<br /> It's bill 184. It has four parts to it overall. Part four has to do with the RTA Residential Dependencies Act. So over the weekend, and I'll be finishing it tonight, I'll be going to compare the bill, what's in the bill to what's existing in the RTA and see what those changes are. I'm doing a I guess a Zoom thing with Kayla tomorrow night.</p> <p>We'll go over, some of the changes and Kayla knows, probably knows it inside out already. I'll have to study it tomorrow before I hop on the line with her. So that's pretty much what Bill 184 is. There's obviously a lot more to it, but it's going to be interesting to see what happens.<br /> It's not going to change much. They did some hearings. The committee was in committee and it's being sent back to the house now. So the legislature for Royal Assent or Fold or whatever, and it's gonna pass.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Not to steal the headline, I'm just googling it here. It's the Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act. So all of our landlords see that protecting tenants. Like how can it go further? Further when, obviously we all have that general sense that Ontario is such a tenant friendly or tenant skewed, in the landlord tenant, right?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> Like for how long, like what the liberals were in power for how long, and man, they just, it just skewed everything. Everything went towards the tenants. I won't say everything. That's an exaggeration. Many things went to the tenants, right? And they did updates and changes and Okay. But now all of a sudden we're, this bill comes along and, there might be a couple of good things for landlords.</p> <p>Like the people, like the tenant organizations and tenant advocates, they're really on the upward. You should see the spin and the misinformation that they're spreading on social media. So it's good to see the needle Maybe change a little bit and I'm gonna make a prediction right now. Go bold statement Bill 184 initially I was like, oh my gosh, this is terrible. The arms flailing, the guy was in the air, you know the rubber band guy on the side road?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> The used car salesman.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Yeah. You guys, I keep forgetting that we're not on video, so people who are listening can't see me flailing my arms around. Sarah's looking at me like I'm nuts.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> No, that's fine. If you guys wanna see his arms flailing around, check it out on YouTube. Otherwise, you're gonna keep listening to it.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> I'm gonna say that it is, based on what I've seen right now and what I'm hearing it's really not that bad. But I'm gonna make that bold prediction. I haven't finished going through all of the reports and all the changes, but Okay. It's nothing that I'm going to walk away feeling all upset about or anything.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>You know what it's timely that, through the midst of this pandemic, a lot of people worried about their current renters, their current acquisitions, when they're bringing on properties that they're either gonna BRRRR hold and they're gonna put new renters in there.<br /> It's it now, not just because this new bill is coming out, but I think it. Anytime. If you're gonna have any rental portfolio, or sorry, any rental properties in your portfolio, you should be aware of these acts and be with those professional landlords or that professional housing provider that you know what you can and can't do, or have the team members that are gonna do that for you.</p> <p>You work with primarily investors, mostly investors if not exclusively, and in, what have you seen that have these, the rentals these days that they're currently clients. Are they still paying? Are there more delays? Has it like, because of the serve payments, have people been able to collect that?</p> <p>I know with your surveys you've been sending out throughout the covid that you've been polling landlords from small, medium, large size landlords. What's the general sense out there? Is it like, you know what, I'm gonna hold through, I'm gonna keep getting the rents on. I'm scared to fill my units because what's your general sense out there from all the people that you work with?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>It's a bit of everything. And I think initially when all of this started, when I started doing the surveys for the first one, for April, and we were all surprised at Wow, okay, everybody, I forget what the percentage was, but it was pretty high where people were getting a hundred percent of their rent and orders were being paid their rent.</p> <p>Yes, there were some who defaulted. Mind you, that was at the beginning of Covid. So things hadn't really kicked in yet. And now I guess for the second month when we did it, so that would've been May. There was definitely a little bit more what's the word I say? Not fear, but just, okay.<br /> Cautiousness maybe is the right word. A little bit of caution. And I find that now for this month, there seems to be a little bit of apathy. Just in general. And we'll get into that when we start going through the survey, but it was, it's interesting to see the waves and the emotions and how things have changed drastically a few times within a three, four month period.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. Every week it seems like there's something new and new headline. But it is interesting. And just Tony, with your personal investments and we'll go through your survey in a minute. But what about you? Has everybody paid you as a landlord?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> I've been really fortunate, even some tenants who, you may not. Really, they're not your favorite tenants. Good people.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Everybody has some of those.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Yeah but they're paying. And a couple of people were late. We had some people move in over the weekend, did some move-ins and some miscommunication perhaps within the first month. Apart from that, no I've been really fortunate. Everybody's been able to pay. How about you guys? That good?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I've been good. There's one person that needed like three extra days this month to pay, and he paid within those three extra days, and that was like his first time that he had to be delayed a little bit. But everyone's been good. And I was able to do a rent increase while the tenant was fine. So it goes back to screening every time I've been able to screen my own tenants and pick my own, those tenants are great.</p> <p>Sometimes you just acquire them, right? And you don't really have a whole lot of say in it, and also sometimes some slip through the cracks. Luckily all of mine realize that just as important as buying food and buying other things. That rent is just up there with what they need to make sure that they cover. What about you, Alfonso?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> At the point of that April 1st date, I remember, cause everybody remembers April 1st, April Fool's Day. So everybody was like, oh no, this is not gonna be a joking day. On April 1st. There's gonna be no humor when nobody gets sent in their rent. And surprisingly, yeah, like it was in the probably upper eighties that everybody had paid in full and that's with, let's call it about 110 rent to own under management.<br /> At any point at the beginning of the rent to own the first or second or third year. And now we were again, we're back up into the high nineties of, there's only a few, maybe less than a handful that are on like a payment plan making up for. Missed rent. And that's including the higher down payment savings as well too.</p> <p>Now that was through see through unemployment all the government programs that were offered and now obviously with people getting back to work or working from home kind of becoming a little bit more of a normal thing. I think that just reinforces the strength of investing in real estate.<br /> Sarah said, the screening process we're like I have other normal rentals in my portfolio and the way that we screen them versus our rental. And I'm almost like we're not doing enough. But then in comparison to other rentals and other rental properties that people come with a handful of cash, Hey, I can move in tomorrow.</p> <p>You're like, oh, okay. So with the rent to own screening process, you're getting to know a little bit more. About their motivation, their long-term goal, because they're gonna eventually own this house. So the screening process is so important, like Sarah said and even now I guess I'll ask both you guys this question.</p> <p>If you did have it, and this is a situation where I have a duplex in East Hamilton. I've rented out one of the units, done the background check. The screening really looks good. So I have one more unit looking to rent out. I have it advertised. I have it up on there and I'm like, oh, let's get somebody really good in there.</p> <p>What do you say to those investors that have that fear? I'm like, oh, if they, okay, they gimme their first and last and then if they stop paying, but everybody's fearing. It's like a year and a half maybe before we get in front of adjudicators or meetings. What's the approach? I know there's not one perfect approach, but what are you guiding your investors with Tony and then Sarah, how are you managing it with, I know you have tons of students and clients that have rentals as well too.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I think with screening they just have five steps and it's very thorough. And some of it is actually inspecting what's currently happening with our current landlord since March. And asking for proof of funds having been sent to them. And sometimes if it doesn't check off, I would suggest that they just leave it empty for a month or two until they find the right tenant. But this is not the time to take chances. First and last, I've filled the unit in May.</p> <p>There was somebody that was getting divorced and sold their house. So they checked all the other boxes, and went through all the other steps. And I would just say don't trust your gut. Don't take a chance just because you need to fill your unit. I would say leave a vacant seat until you find that right person.</p> <p>Cause yeah, it can take many months if you have the wrong one. Absolutely not. That would just be, that's just what I tell them. And I've started helping them with screening tenants and they send me some examples of certain ones, all of the stuff that worked and then the red flags. And to be honest, if there's red flags, you're passing. That's my advice. Because at the end of the day, this in Ontario prior, it was not a time to take a chance. And in Ontario especially now, it is not time to take a chance. So that's my stance.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>It's interesting that before Covid here in Ottawa with the super low vacancy rates, we had the pick, right? We could afford to say, yeah, sorry, we don't want you, even though it was really good. We're gonna wait it out and pick somebody even better job wise or, personality, whatever it was. Now it's changed a little bit, I guess to say now with Covid. Just have to be a little bit more careful.</p> <p>Here in Ottawa, I always go back to the tenant profile that you're looking for. Many times it's students. Many times I'm filling a place here in Orleans and I asked the property manager, okay, I want government workers, I want federal government workers. They're gonna get paid.<br /> They're not losing their paychecks. Pretty secure. We haven't heard of anybody being laid off because of covid at the federal level. No talks of wage freezes or anything yet. That may come, but it's really, it's pretty simple. I just say government worker, go find me some of those,</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Those safe, secure jobs that are gonna go back to the restaurants. And again, that was a big part of a clientele for rent to own, right? Those people that weren't claiming their full income, that were service workers or making a lot of money in tips, right? And now those types of industries, not to say one more than another, they've all been impacted. But, the service industries and where group large gatherings and things like that, if that was your job, that's gonna be tough. And I still think we're a far cry away from a normal and second wave and all that kinda stuff.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Alfonso, the other thing I would just say is you guys just have to be careful if you're listening to this, not to discriminate because they've lost their job on their own, whatever your criteria is fine.<br /> Just don't give them a reason why you are not choosing or moving forward with them, cause you guys can get in a lot of trouble. You can't discriminate on how they bring in their income. Serve included. So have your preferences. Keep them to yourself. Don't let them be known and do not give that as a reason. Just cover your butts.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>You don't have to give a reason.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>That's great advice, right? And as all housing providers and small to medium, large landlords and those types of people, we all run our individual businesses in parallel and sometimes it intersects with each other, but we all have to make those decisions for ourselves.<br /> Whether it's your investment if you wanna be passive active, right? You have to make those choices for yourself. And that's why, conversations like, the three of us sitting around here talking, getting different opinions, and you take the best of making it your own, right? It's never gonna be exactly the same.</p> <p>You can do it exactly like Sarah, but you're gonna have different apprehensions. Sarah has a different comfort level now at a certain point, same with Tony, right? You're gonna have to get up to that level and feel comfortable before you just go ahead and say, okay, yeah, I feel your gut. What does that mean?</p> <p>I've never interviewed somebody. So yes, work with those people that have walked through those steps that have blazed the trail and now make it your own and put your own spin on it. Where now this is my little niche.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> For sure. And Sarah's got a kick butt. Type of programming. So yeah, any questions?<br /> Contact Sarah, she'll walk you through.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. Tenant screening, pre covid, but also enhanced with Covid so Tony, you've put together. Really great results, PowerPoint presentation of what's been happening with tenants during Covid and specifically in June. So can you walk us through, and I know a lot of people are, I would say 95% of people, maybe 90%, listen to this.<br /> Out of everybody that does tune in, a big majority is still in Ontario and they're still investing in Ontario, or they're from Ontario. So it's gonna be really relevant. So if you guys are curious to see who's paid, who hasn't paid, why Tony's gonna be able to share the survey results that he did. So take it away.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Sure. Alfonso, would you be able to bring up the shared screen? I'm sorry, I should ask Sarah to tell you what to do again.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Hey, Google. Pull up the survey or Hey, Alfonso, pull up the survey.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> If we can go to the first page there. That'd be great. There we go. Awesome. Okay. Yeah, so the background with the surveys is really been, I really wanted to find out what was happening out there Because of Covid, there was a lot of uncertainty and I wanted to get some certainty. I wanted to grab onto something firm and find out what's going on, so why am I doing the surveys or is it really just to find out what's happening during, I wanted to help. Educate or at least inform other investors and groups like what's happening, or at least what we're seeing based on surveys.</p> <p>Cause there's been some interesting trends. And the last thing is that I wanted to share with local or provincial officials. And, I'm not a lobbyist. I advocate for landlords, but at least share the results with them. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I might influence them in some decision down the road. Who knows? But that's what I've been doing here in the city to share with a few counselors. And I've been sharing it on social media as well. I guess the first thing I want to touch on is when we talk about the, how many different waves we've seen since covid started in terms of changes, right?</p> <p>There's been so many changes. And so April, 2020 is when we did the first survey. I had 173 responses In May, it jumped up to 226, and I'm like, Woohoo, this is awesome. Great. It's picking up steam. Let's go, let's make it happen. And then all of a sudden June hits, we get 108. What's that? What's going on?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Why do you think that is?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I know, Tony, I think you have your reasons. I'm, maybe I give you my best guess. When this first everybody called, it was like the novel. Coronavirus, like it was a novel, it was something new, something going on. All this information. And I think in human nature, we're always adapting, changing, getting used to our surroundings, whatever they are. And I think more people are taking a step back. Oh, okay. Not all Corona. This, oh, Corona. Oh yeah. It's normal, right? You don't hear about toilet paper anymore. Anyways, right? I dunno, what are your thoughts? That's what I thought. Maybe you could just take a little bit more of a step back to it.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> I think it's more I think that you're that's a really good point. I think that's super true. I think people over time have become maybe immune to information overload about Covid and maybe the survey and the groups that I've been targeting, maybe they just got tired of it.<br /> That's possible. Like it's maybe they still wanna take it. Overall though, what I've seen or. Last two, three years, I believe that small landlords just aren't as passionate, just aren't passionate enough to get involved in big issues many times. We'll get on Facebook and Twitter and we'll tweet and we'll post and we'll bitch and complain.</p> <p>When you really need to hit the pavement and when you really need to make a statement and get involved, most won't, it won't get involved. Honestly, I really do believe that Ottawa, for example, we had the short term rental regulations and long-term rental regulations thing going last year for several months.</p> <p>I was shaking my head like, where the heck was everybody? What we'd go to, I go to meetings like public consultations for the paper, and there might be two or three of us. The rest were all homeowners and maybe a couple city staff, a couple of 'em, a couple of other ones, had a lot more investors.</p> <p>Overall it was really disappointing. So I just think that overall, I think I don't think that we're hurting as small landlords, right? I don't like the RTA any more than anybody else, and I totally agree with Sarah that's lousy. But take away the RTA and the LTV . It's really, we're in it for a reason and we're profitable. So I just don't think that small landlords are hurting enough to actually jump out and start making their voices heard. Anyways, that's just my bold statement for today.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> It's interesting, and I agree and I also think that in April there was more worry about what was gonna happen. And even in May, and now there's been a big bit more of a trend and summers happening and the weather is out there.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> People are at cottages, Sarah, they keep going to cottages all the time.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I know, right? I've been at the cottage myself, but I'll tell you that, it's one of those things because you're right, we're not, most of us are not in a situation of, I'm gonna lose my property because of this tenant. Maybe you can actually. Go through the survey results. Cause I think part of it will show how much, how many have paid versus how many have not paid. But I do agree and maybe there's something smaller that we can see. Okay, what can landlords do? That's not necessarily how, like going out to a meeting cause maybe that is good for some people and maybe it's an uphill battle to get more people out there, but what's something small that we can say, okay, like this is a little, a step in the right direction or a small step in a direction of trying to unite us.</p> <p>When there's always gonna be people, Tony, and we know this, that are gonna be more active in anything and there's other people that are gonna be, accepting, but they don't wanna add more workload to what they have already.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Yes, a hundred percent. So speaking of small I asked, I did the survey for small landlords. That was the focus really. And so I asked How many doors in Ontario do you own? That was the second question. And 68%. I didn't ask that. In April, by the way, so we'll jump right to May, 68% landlords had between one and five doors. 66% had between one and five doors in June 16% had between six and 10 doors in May, 21% between six and 10 doors.</p> <p>There was only roughly 5% who had 20 plus stores at the end. So you know the great majority of at least going by the survey, a lot of small landlords own fewer than six doors. I don't know how you guys define it, but in general, like my definition of small landlords is anybody who owns rental properties and has 19 or fewer doors. That's generally been my definition. And maybe that's too high. Maybe that's too much. Maybe it should be something like less than 14 or something.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I don't think there's an actual, by the book definition, just like when you say like A, B or C property or A,B,C,D area, it's all defined a little differently. We all speak a similar language. That's right. But it's not like in stone, black and white.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> I wish this was on a video because this is a very, are you a Toronto Nap Leaf fan alfonso? Okay. Anyways, I, the question is in which Ontario cities or towns do you own investment properties? And of course number one on the list is Ottawa Carlton. Because that's my hood. That's where I was born and raised. So a lot of my network is here in Ottawa. So anywhere between 31% and 37% responded to the survey and they're from Ottawa. And then the GTA came in second at about 20% 21%, 17% Eastern Ontario had good representation.<br /> Other areas in the province included, like Northern Ontario, Windsor central Ontario, that type of thing. But fire and Away Ottawa was the winner.</p> <p>And that's why you can't see it on the screen. But, there's, on my slide, it has the Ottawa RedBlacks hoisting the Gray Cup, right? Because they won and Ottawa's first here on the list. So do you see what I'm trying to do there, Alfonso?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I love it. I can't say I'm a Red Blacks fan. I bleed gold and black with the Thai cats here.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I was gonna say, Tony, you're smart cause you know not to ask me. Cause I unfortunately, and I hate to admit this, but it is the truth. I know nothing about sports especially.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Again, even leading up to, before the pandemic hit and in the last, don't know, maybe year and a half, two years, Ottawa was red hot. It was such a strong market where you said we had our pick of the litter. Of the type of clientele, the type of renters that you wanted in your properties. And I think that still rings true and maybe even more as, like you said, the jobs probably are gonna be coming more back into Ottawa and supporting the government.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> It's interesting. They just released the stats today and did a quick review and there's 52% less listings year over year for residential properties. 52, that's insane. For condos, it's 42% year over year. So there's absolutely nothing out there. And the ones that do come up and at their well priced they sell very quickly. You're absolutely right. It's pretty crazy.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I know everybody, we talked about it and Sarah mentioned a couple different cities across Ontario that a bunch that we work in 25 million in Ottawa, Sarah in the Brantford, and, Peterborough as well market. That doesn't matter what that market is, know what your fundamentals are, know what those research or why you wanna be in that area. And it's not just because Tony told you to or Sarah told you to. That's your only reason. Dig deeper guys. There's sometimes I look at a city or a little township outside, I'm like, I've never even heard of this place.</p> <p>Okay, let's find out, let's get to the fundamentals. What's there? Why do the clients wanna be there? What's gonna happen in the worst case if we need to, refill this vacancy, put somebody else in long term Doesn't make sense.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>A hundred percent. Don't take my advice for anything other than Ottawa. I dunno. It's hard enough to keep track of Ottawa. I don't know anything else outside of Ottawa, even across the river in Quebec. And Alfonso like I don't. I have no clue what's going on there and it's just, short stroll across the Bridget. My advice for anywhere else.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> All markets are so different. Even this is why there is no such thing as an Ontario or a Quebec or an Alberta market. And then even in Ontario, there is no such thing as even a GTA market. Like every small pocket and even Branford, you can divide it. And so just be that specialist. Pick one or two markets as you're getting started and just learn it. Over And over, get really comfortable in it. Run all the fundamentals. I have a free fundamentals checklist on my website. You guys can go and download it for free. And it has all the stuff that I look for before I pick a city. Do that before you. And it's the wrong one.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Becoming a neighborhood specialist right? Before you make that leap, pick the city, pick the neighborhood and the property type, all that stuff. But you really need to know in your specific area what you're doing. And that gives you an advantage over everybody else because you know what type of properties are sold in that area, what they sell for what the issues are, what the bylaws are in that area. You know who the city polls.</p> <p>Politicians are gentrification, upcoming projects, jobs, all that type of stuff. It's critical. And sometimes I don't know about you guys. Sometimes I say that to people I'm working with and it's hard. They don't really always take it to heart. Like they just say, go find me a property in Ottawa. And I go, don't you want to focus over here. Ottawa has a million people for crying out loud? It's a big city.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>And strategy will differ too, right? Depending, if you want, if you're doing a basement conversion or you need multifamily or single family it all depends on where you're gonna go guys.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>A lot of the people listening to this, we always talk, oh, real estate, it's passive income and work on your retirement. But it's any, I don't know, the people that are doing it and grinding it, I don't know. It's everything but Right. Like you really need to dig deeper and pull more information than just grabbing the headlines. There's so much news, there's so much info. You could be reading stuff 24 hours a day, seven days a week, nonstop, and bleeding from your eyes.</p> <p>Reading all the information, watching all the videos and everybody's hot take on what's going on, but you have to turn it back onto what you wanna do and how it's gonna, in fact affect your strategy, your area. And like Sarah and Tony said the specific markets that you want to be in and why.</p> <p>Now we got this slide up here of the tenants that have paid rent in full or paid rent in part or in full. So I want you to walk us through how Yeah, I see those red arrows pointing down for those that are watching, but I'll let you kinda, I'll let you go through the April news for sure.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>We asked what percentage of tenants paid rent in part or in full? That was the question to landlords out there. And the first answer choice was a hundred percent. And that's of course what we're aiming for across the board. And in terms of April, May, and June, we started at 74% for April, it dropped to 71% in May, and then it went to 67% in June. Now that's not good. At the same time, I think the, in Ontario, Sarah, you might remember the average is something like 84% in Ontario.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I think it was 80, 85 from CMHC.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Was it 85 overall, you compare that's a big drop, man. That's a big I don't like that red arrow there, but what's interesting is that, even between 90% and 99%, they're single digit numbers, so they're not terrible.<br /> Hey, it's not that bad. But really what concerns me is the number of tenants. That is not paying in part in full, that number is dropping. And at the same time, the number of tenants that have paid 59% or less than 60% of their rent in part are full. That's also dropping, and to me those are the two extremes that are most worrisome. Right 18% of tenants didn't pay rent in part or full in June.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>That's actually increasing from April cause April was 10% of people that didn't pay less or they, so it's actually it's increasing, which is actually a bad thing cause now we're at 18% of people that are reporting that their attendance paid 59% or less.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Yes, at a hundred percent we want those numbers to go up. But when you're in the 59 60, you want those numbers to go down, but they're going up. I know it's hard to talk about this, I find when on a podcast.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Basically to summarize it is people are paying rents less and less as the months are going on. It started at 74% of people paying a hundred percent. Now it's at 60%. That's bad, that's unfortunate. It's not good. It's not trending in the right direction. Less tenants are able to afford rents than they used to the months prior.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>At the same time though we'll get to the slide where the number of, I think it's in this survey where, there the number of tenants who are receiving financial assistance has gone up. So how can those numbers be contradictory? If the number of tenants who are receiving financial assistance is going up, then the number of tenants who are paying rent in part are full, should also go up.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>And that's the part, like you have a few different reasons why tenants aren't paying the rent. And I really wanna encourage people that are listening to this. Maybe we can, we're gonna put this up on the forums on thereiteclub.com. We want more people to do these surveys. Tony's gone through the effort, the time to put these questions in and to pull all of us landlords all together, right?<br /> The more data, the more people, let's get that number up guys. 105 people, that's not enough. We need more information, we need more data. So this next time we'll probably maybe have 20 back in a month or so or if not earlier, and we'll talk about results in July and make sure.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Alfonso, we should put the poll on the REITE club online site now that it's up.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>That's right. Absolutely. We're gonna do that. If you're listening to this, we're gonna have it as a separate forum page on there. We're gonna call the Tony Miller survey. And we're gonna get this information out there because I honestly think that this is important guys. And the more information that we have, the better that we are gonna be able, prepared to, to combat that or to, to at least find solutions as we work together.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Amen. It's in the slide that we're looking at here, why didn't the tenants pay is really important. To know as well. And you know for sure there are, COVID sucks. You know it's strip businesses are closed, people lost jobs, lost income. And so those are legit reasons, right? You can't, if a tenant comes to you, Sarah, and says, I can't pay rent right now because my job hours have been cut in half, you can't, okay, I'm sorry.<br /> You can't be angry about that. You can be, you can be upset or whatever, but you can't. It's covid and what are you gonna do? So you have to work with those tenants because it's a legit excuse, they're not someone who's trying to rip you off.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Payment plan and try to work it through. And at some point, hopefully, you get paid back.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>There we go. And the, so those are legit reasons why people can't pay. Then we get into the reasons where, you know I group them all as rent strikers. That's what I do here. There are, I just group them all together, even though there are different reasons why they may not be paying.</p> <p>I just group 'em all together as rent strikers because they're all in a position to pay part or full of their rent. But they're choosing not to for different reasons. And some of those reasons are they're rent strikers. Like you see you've heard like the Parkdale reference I made earlier.<br /> Ottawa has its own rent strike chapter that's going on, and those are people who just believe we're not it's a cause, right? It's their belief system. And they're using Covid as a way to further their cause and not pay rent at a time when the government is giving everybody, Thousands of dollars to help survive and giving us cash flow to keep moving forward and pay bills and everything.</p> <p>These yahoos come along and say, oh no. We got government money, but we're not passing it on to the landlords. Cause well, we're anarchists and far left leaning anarchy anarchists. Sorry I went off on a tangent there for the rent strikers.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>They seem like they're increasing as well. So basically 10% of tenants that cannot pay rents are for legit reasons. And the rest, yeah. Of those, that percentage is for they just know they can't get evicted and they're utilizing the system, unfortunately.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>That's right. The biggest reason for June is because the tenants know that the landlord tenant board is closed and they can't be evicted during the emergency. That's 22.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Pick your tenants very carefully. And I know sometimes you guys just buy something and you can't always get rid of everybody in the building or everybody in the units, but this goes to show you in the good times and bad, you wanna know who your tenants are, and you wanna make sure that they're gonna be, in the 10% of the legit reasons as much as possible.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>That's why, at the REITE club, we always remind everybody you have to, yes, this is real estate investing and you're investing and you're buying real estate. However, we have to treat this like a business who is your customer, guys, if I had this great idea to go start a VCR company today, right?<br /> I'm not sure how many people would jump on borrowed and invest in that. Not a huge market for VCRs. Maybe there's some collectors, there's some really unique ones out there. But guys, you have to know who your clients are, who you're selling to, who's buying your product, who's renting your units, right?</p> <p>And really be, like Tony said, be picky. Don't settle, screen them through and really understand that. And getting to the point where if one for two months, you have to build in that vacancy. I know vacancy levels were at an all time low in Ottawa. Tony mentioned like 2% in the Ottawa region.<br /> Other areas were really great where you can do rent increases and people are flipping over. But what's that long-term? Stop looking at those little blips and look at that long-term. Who's the client? Who's the clientele that's gonna be in your rental? Is it young professionals?</p> <p>Is it per, is it students? Is it young families? What is it close by? You have to know that in your business, if you're selling burgers and you don't know what kind of meat in your burger guys, your burger place is gonna close up pretty soon. So be aware of that. That's a huge part of that. Who your customer is, for sure.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>All right, so the next question that we had on the surveys, are any of your tenants receiving financial assistance that is being offered by governments? And in June, 39% said yes. 26% said no. And 35% of landlords responded by not sure. 39% I really don't know what the stats are out there in the general public world. I don't know. I didn't check that out. Do you guys know roughly if that's on par, or is it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I don't know. What I would be interested in knowing is of the 39% of the tenants receiving financial assistance, are those the tenants that are not paying rents versus are those part of the tenants that are paying? And I think that is gonna be interesting to figure out as well.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Yes. So I don't watch the news a lot and I had it in the background as I was working. And I think the big thing that I grabbed from that was that there's so much uncertainty. Like even the government announcing their financial plan, what their outlook looks like in the next six months years, when governments are usually putting out those economic forecasts. But between the serve and the wage subsidy, approximately 40% to 50% of the workforce was on either one of those. And that doesn't include government support for government workers, like federal and provincial support as well too. So when we're talking about those numbers that are in some type of support, almost half the population, right?</p> <p>This, and 35% the number that I grabbed, 35%. People don't know. Why don't you know? No, you gotta ask your tenants, you gotta be in contact with them or talk to whoever's managing your properties. That's the big number that I drew.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> That goes back to what you were saying before about, knowing what your tenants are, who they are speaking with. Communication has been key during covid, right? The government has been hammering us as landlords to go and work out details, pain and plans with tenants, find out what's going on and work with them and to see. Yeah, it's a great point. Alfonso, like bringing, how come 35% of you, you don't know? It's crazy.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> You're gonna have to be like, I don't know, returning beer cans for rent. We have to understand, right? Why? What they're doing. And that's, again, guys I can't stress it enough. Let's get more people taking these surveys and getting more information out there and going and really self-reflecting and looking back on who your clients are and why you're doing this. It's a big part of our business guys.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Tony, where can people go and take the survey? Like where can they go for the July survey results?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> I'll be sending them out. I'll send you the link for the results. The Survey Monkey that I'm using. And I'll send you the link. And what would be great too is that anybody in the REITE Club Nation who has an idea of what kind of questions they want to ask or find out, what kind of information are they looking for that they're interested in. I'm asking a set of questions, but maybe, I know there's a lot of other questions. Just let Sarah and Alfonso know.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Actually, you know what would be really cool if you can do, here's my delegation task for you. So if you can go to thereiteclub.com and now that we have this whole online platform, go to the forum and start and post it there and ask the question and guys listening to this answer Tony's question at the forums on thereiteclub.com.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Cool. I'll be happy to do that. Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>This is just, yeah, another example of why your network, the people that you associate with, that you worked to, that you spend the most time with, talk the most time listening to. That's why it's so important. Let's get together because of one question as we get back to this survey and you mentioned it a couple times and people are a little bit less apathetic.</p> <p>The last sat there, 35% of people don't even know why. Maybe they're not paying on time. I think what can we do? How can more people get involved taking the surveys, the first step, getting involved, getting onto the REITE club website, interacting with other small landlords and other investors. But what else can they do to get Tony to really control their businesses?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>I think one that, that comes down to a really desire that, I think that's what it really comes down to. Some people, whether they get into real estate investing and some people will get into it because they love the idea of it and not because they really, and then once they're actually in it, they realize, Ooh, what did I do?</p> <p>It's really not for me. But I think it's, if people have a strong desire and you guys know exactly what I'm, what I mean when I say this is that there are people who will get into the business, who we work with, who are new. And they're just gung ho and they listen to stuff and they go and they take the bull by the horns and they're going, those are the people who will remain active, right?</p> <p>They'll get involved in different clubs and they'll actually participate in different things. Then there's other ones who are just more no I'm good. I'll get a few properties and know a little bit of the slower going type of thing. But I really think it's just a personality trait.</p> <p>It really, again, what will really get people involved is if they're starting to feel the pain. That's just my opinion. Like you nowadays there's. No reason why people shouldn't be involved in real estate clubs, and especially with the internet. Now, there are clubs, all REITE clubs are, first and foremost of course, but there are clubs out there in Ottawa, across the province.<br /> People are always interested in talking about real estate and so there's lots of opportunities to get involved and there's really no reason why they shouldn't. But I guess it comes down to. Do they want to, do they care enough? That type of thing. That's just my take, Personality.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Especially now that everything has the ability to be online and virtual and webinars, so you could do it from your home. So I'm just thinking people that are fairly remote that would have to drive 4, 5, 6 hours to go to the club that they would want, they can do it virtually too.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>A hundred percent.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Just be careful cause there's two types of clubs. There's the ones that will try to upsell you and they have things that they want you to buy versus the educational ones. So try to really find those educational ones that don't upsell you, but they wanna help you.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> Yeah. Stick to Canadian cleaning content.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>We touched on the list a little bit about how they handle vacancies, but Tony, I'll let you re-reference this slide and a little bit of the results from the questions that you asked about vacancies.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Sure. So how are you handling vacancies right now? That was the question. And the answer choices. Choices are I'm filling or attempting to fill vacancies. And for the month of June, that was at 39%. The next answer was, I'm leaving some or all units as they become, I'm leaving some or all units vacant as they become vacant.</p> <p>Did I write that right? Anyways they're leaving them vacant 14% and the units are not ready to be occupied or under renovations, therefore, they can't be tenanted. That's at 6% for June. There were a bunch of other reasons that we'll get into the next slide. That was at 6%, but if you remember the first.</p> <p>Time I asked that question was in April and it was more just a yes and no. And we had something like 70. No, how many, how much was it? 30 some percent of landlords were leaving their units vacant. But I think it was just a poorly worded question and I didn't give the options and that's why it was so skewed for that month. So 39%, they're attempting to fill vacancies but 14% are leaving them vacant. What do you think of that, Sarah?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I'm not really surprised. I think if you are not wanting to take a chance, I would not take a chance unless you can find that perfect tenant with no red flags. Just keep it empty if you can carry it, because it's going to be less headaches in the long run.<br /> And the other thing is, In there, how many Airbnbs are short term, right? And so there might be a little piece there as well where maybe people are, and I know there was a ban on Airbnb for a while, but now that it's back up, I still think that there's a great opportunity for, some investors to say, okay, I can take, and careful cause they're hard to finance and there's pros and cons to them.</p> <p>I can take some of the units that fits in an area where you could do well in Airbnb and I'm gonna go do that because I don't wanna deal with exactly what we're talking about. And that is, in my opinion, a possibility for many people.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>For sure. In Ottawa they're writing the regulations now for Airbnb, right? They're banned. Banned Airbnb. But the bylaws aren't written. They're not in place yet. So if you're worried about finding the wrong tenants, like Sarah says, right? If you're not comfortable doing the long term rental thing. There is a demand here for midterm rentals, especially like 30 days plus, there is some demand.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I'm gonna make a prediction and I usually don't, but I think that is where the next big trend is going to be.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Is it? Yeah. Why?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Because I think so, because there's a lot of bans from Airbnb into the short term thing, and there's a lot of people that don't wanna have long term tenants, but they might wanna accommodate people that are renovating their properties, that people that are waiting for their property to be finished being built.</p> <p>People that are going through divorces and don't want a permanent solution, but they're in transition. And those people, yes, may be less at risk and they will create more cash for many. Granted, you might have more vacancies than usual because you've got people coming in and out, but, I think that could be a good niche market for a select amount of people.</p> <p>And I would just be careful to talk to your mortgage broker because there's some rules and regulations. If you wanna refinance, it's gonna be hard. But I think there's some upside, and I think, so for me personally, that's what I've decided to do with my Burlington property. And it's short term, but I will gladly accept somebody that wants to stay, that has good reviews.</p> <p>That is one criteria I've rejected somebody that wants to come for like September and I said, sorry, no, you don't have any prior reviews. That is, a big important piece. But I'll tell you that there's some good positive aspects to that.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Yeah. You know what? I don't know if it's just me or even human nature. I think people are much more transient. I don't know Tony, like back in the day people would say, okay I'm gonna live here. Even if you rented, you were there for years and you set your roots now with tech. Technology and Covid bring that to light, that you can work remotely, you can work from here, you can work from there If you have an internet connection, right?</p> <p>Sarah's a great example of the cottage. I've been able to work remotely from my own home or other places outside of the office, right? So people want that constant change. We need to be stimulated, we need to be, so when people don't see themselves, like even signing a one year commitment to a rental, like people are like, Ooh, one year. Wow. Okay. So those mid, those short to midterm rentals where you can change things up and have a different decor, like changing your shirt, changing where you live, right?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> For sure. And even you take it to a next level higher level and that back in the day. We used to get a job and we'd be there for five years. You wouldn't choose positions or you'd stay in an organization and maybe move a little bit, but you'd be in there for your career. Nowadays, you might be in a job, but I forget what the stats are. I don't know what they're, but people nowadays are gonna be changing jobs much more frequently than what we've done before.</p> <p>There's gonna be a lot more movement and change, and that's where midterm, even short term comes into play, especially here in Ottawa where we've got the military staff moving in and out, right? Talking about people who are changing jobs and the frequency of that and the industry that supports the government. There's a lot of change over there. CVSA, the diplomats, all of that type of stuff. Yeah, there's definitely a lot more movement in terms of jobs too, which of course impacts.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Real estate lot more changes. As we kinda round out the survey here, so the last couple or second last question is why are you not filling vacancies? And there's a few different reasons here, but the biggest one, I guess first place is I'm concerned the tenants won't pay because the landlord tenant port is closed. And I know we've talked about that and that's people's biggest scare.</p> <p>Maybe some tips or takeaways of in the midst of all this, yes, we do one day see it opening back up and there's gonna be a backlog and we're hoping and wishing, but what's realistically that to, to address that concern and say, Hey, I'm not, they're not gonna pay, what's, should you just never fill the vacancy?</p> <p>Like you can't, at some point you have to, right? You can't be holding on to empty vacancies for months and years. That's not why we're in this business, but maybe what are some things that can calm people down, or you're recommending? I'm gonna defer to Sarah on that one.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>She's the expert when it comes to tenant screening.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Get a coach, find a program. I know I hate selling stuff, but I will tell you that I have a really good process and my students really enjoy it, and they find good tenants. But aside from that, if you have to leave it vacant for two months, I would prefer to leave it vacant for two months at some point.</p> <p>And I hate to say this, but tenants are still a dime a dozen. There is still a lot of demand and there's still low vacancies, and that'll probably keep going even if our borders are shut. And even if immigration stops for a little while, until covid resumes the covid, ban and everything like that goes away.</p> <p>Things resume back to normal, but I don't see it happening for a year. Put your ads up, do it correctly so that you're still anonymous. So you don't have to respond to them and you're not hounded, but at some point you'll fill them. But I don't think it's a matter of months and months. I think it's a matter of a month or two. And you'll find somebody. Yeah. If you keep doing the right steps and you keep advertising, you'll find the right tenant at some point.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>What you just described there is exactly what we've experienced here, at least me personally here for the last couple of agencies. Exactly. That, it's taken a little bit longer and we actually received a lot of interest from people who may not have been able to pay, just because, we're talking about the loss, lost jobs and things like that. But yeah, they're definitely out there. There's definitely still the high demand. Ottawa, that sounds like your place too.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Oh, that's great advice. And yeah. How's living, like what is it like running water and housing? It's not gonna go outta style, right? This isn't something that's a fad. And providing housing and rental units are definitely a long term.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>This is a good one too. I like this one.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Who is this? Do you know this person in this picture?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>No. I dunno. I don't think so. I don't know what kind, I don't know. Like she's holding for people who are listening, she's holding maybe a cleaner sanitizer. She's got some wipes. She's wearing a mask. She's about to enter a property. And the question is how have you made the decision to sell? Or are you currently selling any of your investment properties as a result of. And more than 70% said no, heck no. We're holding on. And I'm gonna say about 27% of the respondents based on that chart said, yes, they are.</p> <p>They either are selling or they will be selling. And I believe that just really, I know a lot of landlords out there are pissed off, frustrated, angry without, because we haven't had a lot of support from the government. And boy, the media is just ripping us apart. If you go ahead and Google Bill 184 right?</p> <p>Just check the first two, three pages and find out how many pro landlord articles there are for Bill 184. And it gives you an idea that we're really it's, we're David and Goliath type of thing. So yeah it's difficult and I can see why people would wanna sell.<br /> We don't want people to sell out of fear, out of, making knee jerk reactions sort of thing. I want you to hold onto your properties. I think we talked about that before. Sarah. Don't sell. There's ways you can hold onto it. Let's work it out. I'd rather see you hold onto it, make more money, build some wealth instead of selling. Because. Things are changing because of Covid for sure. And you might find it tough right now, but brighter days are ahead.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Can I play devil's advocate because I do agree with you, Tony and at the end of the day, it's better to hold that property, but how about the people out there that, oh, there's a lack of inventory out there.<br /> I'm gonna sell it now because there's less competition, I can get top dollar for it. So I'm just playing devil's advocate. But what's your kind of take or your response to something that would say I'm gonna sell it now. I can get top dollar for it. Everybody's looking for property, looking to buy.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> Yeah. If it meets. When you get into real estate investing, we always have our goals and our objectives. And if selling the property today helps you reach your objective or bring your goal, Then, okay, maybe it's something to consider. It's it, no one piece of the puzzle doesn't make sense, you shouldn't make that decision based on one piece of the puzzle.</p> <p>There's a whole bunch of things you have to consider. So when somebody, when I'm talking to somebody, it's okay, you do really wanna sell. Does it help you get to where you want to go? Here's the expected sale price. Here's what we expect profit-wise. You got capital gains, selling costs and what are you gonna do with the money once you get it? Can you make more money in your next investment? If that's the step than what you're currently getting today. That's really the big question.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I agree. So here's my take on it. If you're gonna sell in the next 12 months, I would probably try to sell now, be strategic. Don't sell in a panic. And I will say, Tony, you're a good real estate investor because, Thank you. This shows how greedy you are because some of the time, the industry can be a little bit greedy, but the fact that you're telling people to hang on, I think I would say the same thing. But as a realtor, thank you for doing that.</p> <p>Again, don't sell. If you're in a panic sell, if it's strategic and you're doing it for a specific reason and sell if you think that the market is going to be more volatile come fall in winter, which is potentially what's gonna happen and you think that you wanna get top dollar because you wanna sell within the next 12 months, probably now is a good time.</p> <p>If you're not gonna sell and you're gonna keep it for five years, why are you selling it right now? Just because all of a sudden there's covid, this will pass, it'll take time probably a little bit longer than the prior, who knows and whatnot. But it will come back to some type of normal and things will move on at some point.</p> <p>So don't sell just cuz you're panicking. Worst time to sell. And I will tell you, hopefully we go back to the fundamentals. If you buy, the fundamentals will help you carry yourself through the good and the bad and the cashflow where you're not gonna make your riches off the cashflow.</p> <p>You're not gonna become wealthy on the cashflow. But the cash flow is what helps you in the bad times. Continue and keep on that property so that you can make the profits in the better times. But you can handle bad times.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>And that's an important point cause so many people say what do you mean buy for cash flow? You know I hear that a lot and I go, I tell them the exact two reasons that Sarah just described. One is one, you know you need that cause the market will change, it's cyclical and it's gonna go up and down and that's going to happen. So when the market goes down, you can want to have that cash flow there.</p> <p>Number two is the cashflow myth where people are able to just. Okay, I'm gonna buy 10 properties. They're all gonna cashflow. I'm gonna retire. I'm gonna live off the properties. After I stop giggling, I say, listen, all that money that you're saving cashflow wise, or that you're getting will eventually be put back into the property.</p> <p>At some point in time. You're gonna have capital cost, capital repairs, you're gonna have a flood, you're gonna have a fire. If you're in the business long enough, it's going to happen. I'm not trying to scare people, but that's just the reality of the business. And you wanna make sure you use that money to save up on your reserves.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You know the other, so this is the other thing, and I don't know why more people don't talk about this. But the true cash flow. So there's really two strategies that I think everybody needs to have. And this is probably a whole other podcast that can last another hour. But you've gotta have your nest egg strategy.</p> <p>Those are the properties you're gonna hang onto that you're gonna wanna pay off. And that's where your cash flow is gonna come when you're really pay them off. And then there is your accelerator properties, the ones that you're accumulating, that you're gonna have a shorter timeframe on, that you're gonna then liquidate at some point to pay off your nest egg properties that will generate the cash flow, cause 2, 3, 4, 5, $600 a month, per property is not gonna create your wealth.</p> <p>When you can pay six properties that are generating $3,000 each and they're paid in full. That is amazing. So what is your nest egg strategy? And this is what I get a lot of my students to do. What is your nest egg strategy and what is your accelerator strategy? And it could be two different things that are gonna help you get to that goal, what's your timeframe? And then you work it down backwards to figure out how long it's gonna take you and how many properties you actually need to get.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>And it's also those, the rapid cash type of strategies or tactics like Alfonso's involved in with rent to own and I imagine that some people use that to whatever profits they make while they put that aside, or they're saving up to buy a property or to pay down a property, or what do they tell you?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. Yeah. It's absolutely being additional revenue or putting that aside so that they can buy the next property for some, their goals. As simple as, I wanna save up enough, make enough on this property to have, saved for school, for children or an extra vacation.<br /> Not thinking about scaling, but just having additional income. Because they have, they want to be more of a passive investor, where they have that additional income flow that's, but RSPs are still cool too. Yeah. But you know what this is, it reminds me of a saying, it makes me laugh that</p> <p>I'm gonna say this, but my grandfather always used to say this to me in Italian and he says, if you want tomatoes, Don't plant potatoes.<br /> That means you have to know your strategy. If it's the BRRRR, like you said, if that's your accelerator, if it's your nest egg, if it's the BRRRR strategies, if it's the flip, if it's renos, really stick to that and then have your exit strategies ready. That inner worst case. But really work through that plan and follow that through.</p> <p>Because if you start shifting year one, and then year two is another strategy, year three, you're never gonna, you're gonna get really wide, but not really deep. Yeah. And you're gonna get distracted with the shiny penny or the squirrel syndrome and you get really distracted and you're not gonna build anything long term. You're gonna be chasing your tail.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> And I think the one word that, or two words that you said were exit strategy. And I think, new investors, intermediate ones and even advanced ones, man, some people just bypass it, they don't think about it. That's something you need to have thought of when you're buying the property. And because that's a huge piece. If you're buying it and you don't have your exit strategy and there may be heck, there may not even be one or, one that's suitable sort of thing then you could be planning yourself in a whole lot of trouble.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. Hey, you know what, Tony, I know, like we said, like this podcast was gonna be 30 minutes and I think it ended up being like an hour in 30 minutes. So we gotta, we will have to have you back cause like literally we can just keep talking and it's awesome to have you on.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Guys. You look all you know, Sarah looks all brown and tanned and relaxed and Alfonso, you look awesome too.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Tony, we're gonna do a quick lightning round with you. Here's what I think we'll do cause you've already been on once. I'm just gonna make up my two questions.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> Okay? I have to tell you, I'm already married, okay? So don't pop the question.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Sorry. Alright, here we go. Question number one, what is the one best thing that real estate has done for you?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> Without real estate, I wouldn't have done it, I wouldn't have had the ability to do so many different things. But I'm, there's so many, I'm going to pick one that when I started out, I wouldn't be doing this podcast.</p> <p>I wouldn't be able to, I'd be too nervous, I'd be drenched in sweat. I'd be stuttering, I'd be nervous, scared. So definitely by getting out there and networking and little by little, just growing, reading, getting up on stage a little bit at a time, and growing that way it's gotten much easier.<br /> I think I'm most thankful for that, that I'm able to actually do that. And, I'm not gonna dazzle anybody with my verbal gymnastics. I'm not gonna blow some professional speakers off the stage, but at least I'm able To adequate, adequately get up and function right and to do what I have to do, jobwise. So I'm really thankful for that.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> We're lucky and the REITE Club Nation is very lucky and fortunate that you're part of our community. You've been so kind with your time and being on many webinars with us and coast to coast panels and giving your expertise. So we're fortunate that what the public and government sector have lost the real estate community has gained in the REITE club community.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Thanks, man.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>The question I got for you that I Sarah put me on the spot too for my questions, but who or what has had the biggest impact on you, if they weren't if it was, if it's a person or if it was an event or a thing, had the biggest impact on you that, made you even more convinced to leave the government, private sector or public sector to come into real estate investing.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Don Campbell number one, probably I'd say Don, just overall for everything. We could talk about his books and everything, but just what he represents and what he does and how he does things and his knowledge and I definitely look up to him and yeah he's definitely the number one when it comes to real estate stuff.</p> <p>I think, I'm just gonna guess I'm gonna, I'm gonna go out on a big line here and say a lot of people probably think the same thing. Same. And it seems like an easy choice, but it's true. And I know Don, I don't, we're not I'm not saying that we're close buddies or anything like that, but throughout the years, we've talked. And seen him and and just, yeah I really dig the guy and what he stands for and how he does things.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Awesome. All right, here's the next question. I'm literally making off the top of my head. And I've got regular questions here. But I'm just curious if you can download somebody's information, not necessarily real estate, but what they know. What do you not know today? It could be about any subject that you'd like. You'd be like, I wanna know all about this particular topic, and who would be the person teaching them?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>I would, does it have to be real estate?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>No, not real estate necessarily.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Okay. It would be Philip Rivers, who used to be the quarterback of the Los Angeles Chargers, San Diego Chargers. I'd like to download his brain information because he's a fast talker. He talks smack, but he's always clean. He never swears, it's, gosh darn it, he's getting pounded by 400 pound lineman and he just doesn't swear.</p> <p>He talks a lot. But most of all, it's his thinking process because when you're playing football, like he's reading defenses and he's doing everything. He's the quarter and the colonel, the sergeant to general and how you process all that. So I would like to download all of that stuff so that I could have a sense of what it's like being an NFL quarterback.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Cool. Love that answer. Love that. That's pretty cool. All right, so the last question here, we'll end off the lightning round. This impromptu lightning round. What's the thing that you're most proud of? When you're, I don't want the standard athlete. Oh, when, I don't look at the stats or I don't look at the standings. I'll look at it that way.</p> <p>When you're leaning back and you're like, 150 years old, because modern medicine and technology has allowed us to live that long, and you're on your rocking chair and you're looking back currently, what's the one thing that you're most proud of? Whether it's personal, whether it's professional, what's the investing career that you're most proud of?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>There's a few things that are pretty personal. So I'm not gonna touch on those, but I'll touch on probably Leaving the government and becoming investor focused realtor in Ottawa and what I would call success, for myself.<br /> It may not be a success for other people, but that's what I wanted to do. And I've been able to accomplish a lot of those things that I wanted to do when I started out. And after a couple years, I wanted to own and dominate the market, not only as a realtor, and by dominating, I don't mean by, Hey, look at me.</p> <p>I've won the gold a lot. Whatever the gold award for most sales this month and everything like that. Cause I've never been like that. That's not me. It's not what we've done. We're very boutique-ish and holding people by the hand and saying, okay, here, this is how we do it. So I don't give a crap about how many sales that we do, how many people we can help, build wealth, get out of a nasty situation, that type of thing.</p> <p>But making that conversion from the government corporate mindset over into real estate. It didn't happen overnight of course, but obviously, okay I'm gonna take your advice off on, so I'm not gonna talk about other stuff, but just being able to make that move and be what I call have some success I'm pretty proud of.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>That's really great. Tony, where can the REITE Club Nation our listeners, reach out to know more about you?</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>Hit me up on Facebook. Just Tony Miller. Yeah, hit me up on Facebook. I hang out there, sometimes I'm on Instagram and I think I've seen Alfonso hanging out on TikTok quite a bit. And but I'll. I don't think I'm on Twitter once in a while, but usually just Facebook's. I don't know from a business perspective that's where I get a lot of interest and reactions. So I'll hang out there.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Tony's page is one of my favorites. He's got some really hard hitting, interesting facts, but then he just got some lighthearted observations and opinions in his everyday life. And more and more you're gonna see him on the REITE club community as well in our forums reaching out through there as well as we continue to get more people on there and talk about the facts and the, and the matters that are important to all of us investors and business owners out there.</p> <p>Tony, thank you so much for your time Sarah, amazing interview with Tony here as well too, and amazing facts and information to share with everybody and we look forward to doing it again, Tony.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller:</strong> Thanks guys.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Thanks Tony. Awesome. I'll have you back again for a fourth time.</p> <p><strong>Tony Miller: </strong>See you guys.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Wow. What a conversation with Tony. That was a great chat. We talked, we covered a lot of things. He's a great survey, polling a lot of the REITE club nation, a lot of his network of people and getting some good information. I made tons of notes and I think guys the biggest takeaway, and I'm gonna ask Sarah for hers and in just a second, but let's get more involved.</p> <p>Let's work together here, become that professional landlord, that housing provider and really get involved guys is we're no one's out there giving us help, right? No one's feeling sorry for all the big bad landlords, the rich landlords guys. We know all of us, the REITE club nation. We're not sitting above anybody else.</p> <p>We're hardworking investors just like everybody else out there. So let's bond together and get involved and help each other out. And I wanted to throw it over to you, Sarah, to see what your biggest takeaway is.</p> <p>Sarah Larbi: For me, Tony's amazing. He's been on my podcast, he's been out on our podcast. He's sharing his insight. I think the biggest takeaway is we all need to step up a little bit if we can and create that stronger community. And so he's a perfect example. Like he's pulling the audience. And I'm not saying that we should all be pulling audiences and sharing that information, how can we get a little bit stronger together?<br /> I would say if you guys can take two minutes and just go to Tony Miller on Facebook, do his survey for the month, and I think it would just be able to get some, like better data so that we can all share and figure out what's happening in our markets. Cause unfortunately the government's not gonna do this for us.</p> <p>Some of the stuff we've gotta learn on our own. But, I think Tony is super humble. He's super fun, he's just absolutely awesome. Another story of how real estate has successfully helped somebody create that freedom for themselves. And, I'd love to have him back again, who can keep talking about real estate over and over. But the biggest thing I would just say is, how can we unite and how can we do a better job of just supporting one another? And so it was like really one big takeaway, but I think it's just like an overall theme.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. And it's what we've been talking about and what we've been discussing now for months, our online community up and running, it's ready to go at your fingertips. Guys, I know we have such amazing loyal listeners. You guys support us and help us so much our show up on the webinars. Listen to the podcast, give us the feedback. Now we have something that's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Put on your opinions. We wanna know what's going out there.</p> <p>I know sometimes I even get caught in that oh, I'm not gonna, who wants to know that? But guys, this is the thing. These are the people that are actually doing it. We're out there every single day. We're not watching the news in some town that nobody's ever heard of. And there's one news story that gives that this is, or everybody's got this, a voice.</p> <p>Everybody's got an opportunity to share their information, ask questions, and see what's going out. They're getting the best opinions, asking the best of the best, what's going on out there. And again, making it your own. Putting those strategies, putting those systems, putting those things in place makes this whole real estate investing better experience for everybody involved.</p> <p>Get onto thereiteclub.com, check it out. We have amazing pro add-on features as well too, that we have the professionals that build up your power team, people that are actually doing it, conversations that are going through. Reach out to me and Sarah there, as well as Daniel and Laurel and the amazing REITE Club Nation that is all on there.</p> <p>As the numbers continue to grow and share that info, we have so many different topics, so many different varieties of things where you can go there and get that real estate fixed or even a business mindset. Everything that you need to do and run your business is all on there. And Sarah and I are constantly messaging back and forth. Another way for us to stay in touch and get in contact with.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Listen, send us a message thereiteclubcom. Find me, find Alfonso and let us know how this podcast has either helped you or given you some insights, or if you just wanna share some stories. We definitely love to connect with our REITE Club Nation. On that note, Alfonso, what do we say?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Next time REITE Club Nation, "come grow with us".</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Awesome. Until next time, guys. </p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Fri, 30 Jun 2023 10:53:12 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7932 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/survey-trends-small-landlords#comments Value Investing Secrets From Bamboo and Streetlight Analogies https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/value-investing-secrets-bamboo-and-streetlight-analogies <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Value Investing Secrets From Bamboo and Streetlight Analogies</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Thu, 06/29/2023 - 04:50</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> REITE club nation, welcome back to another episode of the REITE Club podcast. My name is Sarah Larbie, and I am here with my wonderful co-host, Alfonso Salemi. How are you doing buddy?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Very good. Sarah. I'm super excited for today's podcast with Harry James. Over 40 years of experience in real estate doing different things, buildings, commercial stuff, single family homes, all different types of plethora of experience. If you don't have at least two pages of notes after this podcast, you might wanna rewind and listen to it again. And really great inspiration. Really great knowledge. I'm really looking forward to today's podcast.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Me too. I think Harry is probably one of the smartest real estate investors that I've had the pleasure of speaking with. And I'm actually continuing some communication with him just because I just, I learn so much every time I talk to him. Super awesome. Guys, if you haven't heard of Harry James, please listen to this. You are going to get so much and feel free to reach out to him as well. You'll have some ways to do that, guys and I also wanna say we are now online. We live with thereiteclub.com. Whole new platform. You have to check it out. It's gonna be amazing. And please rate and review our podcast if you enjoy this.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. Let's get to the podcast.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Let's do it. I'm super excited. I have Alfonso with me, and I also have the one and only Harry James. How are you? Welcome to the show.</p> <p><strong>Harry James:</strong> I'm doing great, Sarah, thank you so much. As we just chatted a moment ago, it's awesome to be at the lake and when you're out on the boat and the sun is shining and you're reflecting on the stuff that matters most life is it's a lot brighter through those glasses than some of the stuff that's been going on in the media, that's for sure.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely. So for those of you that may not have met you or heard you speak prior, whether it was one of our webinars or my podcast, can you tell us a little bit of maybe how long you've been in real estate for and roughly what your portfolio looks like?</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>Sure. So I did my first real estate deal when I was 22 years old. I bought a condo in Scarborough Lebo for a thousand dollars down, and that was the beginning of my real estate journey. I tried to back out cause I was scared to death. It took 98.3% point income. I got trapped in it and decided to rent it out cause I couldn't sell it cause I would've got hammered.</p> <p>My wife and I went into a little 300 a month basement apartment in Scarborough and rented the condo for, I think it was about 1500 or 1200 a month. And then while I was in that basement apartment, I bought a town home in Unionville with a nine month closing date. And I don't know why I did that. I had no money, but I guess I just figured what was the worst that was going to happen.</p> <p>The funniest thing happened when I bought that townhouse. The market took off and all my friends thought I was a real estate genius and I was just purely lucky. But I had two pieces of real estate in my name that I couldn't afford and the market went crazy. But that really turned on the light for me about the potential and the opportunity in real estate.</p> <p>That was that somebody else would. Rent something from you and not buy it on their own. That was fascinating to me. And then that you could actually get involved in putting assets in your name with very little money that would go up in value. So that was the beginning of my journey. And over the years my career was in finance, banking, financial planning, and so on.</p> <p>I always built, I made my living from that. My wife and I decided to make our wealth through accumulating and doing real estate deals, and we didn't really know what we were doing. But I know I'm answering your question in a very long-winded way. But here's the key point. The philosophy for me with real estate was not commercial or duplexes or this or that.</p> <p>I think I probably tripped on being a value investor. In other words, if I found something for a dollar, I knew it was worth a dollar, but because of circumstances or market or interest rates or whatever, I could buy it for 50 cents. Then I would buy it and I would figure out how to pay for it later. So if that meant, having to somehow have a long closing date and put together the money or bring in partners or get creative financing, whatever it may be.</p> <p>I just knew that if I was buying something for a significant discount, there wasn't a huge downside. Even if I couldn't hang onto it, if I had to bail, I was probably gonna make some money. So I think over time I just developed this philosophy of becoming a value investor. And the other thing that happened is I did a deal in my twenties that scared me to death because it was all new and it was a commercial deal. Cause I had an office and I always tell this to anybody that will listen to me. If you're running a business, buy the building that you are running your business from. Always, even if you overpay for it, my goodness, buy it. The time's gonna go by 10, 15, 20 years. And if nothing else, you're gonna get all your rent back, even if it doesn't go up in value.</p> <p>Most importantly, if you don't own that building, that you're running your business out of. The person that owns it decides to sell it. Your whole business can be displaced. And I have that going on with a client of mine right now. He has a very established, successful restaurant and the building is being shut down and basically he's taken his 30 year journey and it's gonna go up in a puff of smoke cause he doesn't own the building.</p> <p>I've answered your question in a very long-winded way, but basically I look for value and when I find value, whether it's commercial, residential development, and I've found that I've expanded, you get scared. And you do something and you think, holy cow. But then you look back five years later and say, it wasn't that big a deal we're always growing that way and I'm still hopefully at this stage of my life still growing and expanding and looking at different things.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely, and you're such a charismatic person as well too, that you can tell that there's definitely a level of passion to what you do and you actually enjoy doing what you do as well too. And I think that's so important for people to remember whether you get into real estate just as a hobby to, like you said, to create that wealth on the side or if it's something that you wanna leave your full-time job. That was something for me that I was so excited about when I was able to leave my full-time work to do real estate full-time.</p> <p>I think a lot of the things that you're seeing are value investing. And bringing value, right? So you see you, when you look at a property, you see something that most people don't, where maybe some people will turn it down and say, no, that's too expensive, or, no, that's not gonna work. You're bringing that. Maybe give some examples of some projects where maybe some people walked away from it and you walked in with your group or your partnership and said, Hey I can bring some more value to this and increase. And provide some value to the people that are living in the building, your partners, that see things that others don't.</p> <p><strong>Harry James:</strong> Sure. I think probably the best example I could give you and it's a project that scared me to death. I set up a shingle on Main Street Markham in 1993. Bought a financial franchise called Ross Dixon. And I was running my business outta there. It was 800 square feet and my lease was coming up and I was taking my own advice of buying the building.</p> <p>I went up and down Main Street. I probably put offers in on six or seven different properties. I didn't have any money, so I was looking for vendor take backs or leases with an option to buy. Like I was, again, I was groping around the dark. I can't, didn't have a clue what I was doing. But I just knew that, one way or another I could figure it out.</p> <p>There was a building that was for sale. It was very scary and imposing. It's called the Old Town Hall, 96 Main Street in Markham. It was listed for 8999. It was 10,000 square feet. It had a restaurant in the bottom that was still operating, but the rest of the building was pretty dilapidated. I don't say dilapidated, but rundown.</p> <p>There was no main floor entrance. Getting to the building was quite cumbersome and for some reason, I don't know why, I thought you know what, I'll take a run at this baby for half a million bucks. And I put an offer in. And I won't bore you with the details, a year later, somehow it was a power of sale.</p> <p>Somebody spent two and a half million dollars renovating it in the eighties when they walked away. Laurentian Bank owned it. And so it was a file sitting on some dude's desk. He's got 700 files, he's working nine to five, what does he care about? The old town hall. So I thought maybe that's the circumstances that are gonna go in my favor.</p> <p>It's not an emotional sale. The guy probably wants to get rid of a file and shut it down. They're writing off a bunch of money anyway. Believe it or not I got it for half a million bucks when I signed the offer. I had no money. I literally did not have the down payment. I had three kids at home at that time.</p> <p>I just started a brand new business from scratch. I was operating on my line of credit. I needed a certain amount of money to live. And you might say why did you do that? And here's the key point I had to spend at that time, $3,500 a month in rent anyway. So I would rather rent the money than rent the property cause if I rent the money, I get to stay, if I rent the money, I can maybe cut it up and rent it out to other people.</p> <p>If I rent the money, eventually I'm gonna get the money back when I sell the old town hall. So I had to break it down, bite-sized pieces because I was scared because each floor was 3,300 square feet. I needed 800. So what I did, and I remember my manager at the time saying, here, you're nuts. But we went into the main floor and I said, just let's just make a little place for us to run our business here and forget about the other two floors.</p> <p>Let's pretend we don't even own them. That's how I broke it down into bite-sized pieces because even at that time I was told by a heating and air conditioning guy that each unit on the top needed to be replaced. And they were $20,000 each. If I even started thinking about that, I would've been sweating bullets.</p> <p>We just used duct tape and band-aids and with zero pride beg somebody to somehow keep it going from there a couple of years before I had to replace it. Anyways, that's the story of the old town hall and here we are. What is it, 25 years, 28 years later it's probably one of the gems in our portfolio.</p> <p>Arguably it's a seven or $8 million building. It's 10,000 square feet. We've renovated it. One of the things that we did to make it commercially viable is we put in a ground floor entrance with an elevator, cost us 120 grand at the time, probably added a million dollars of value to the building. And again, great people around me just ask lots of questions.</p> <p>I got zero ego, I've got zero pride When I'm negotiating, my pride is gone. I'll do anything I can ethically to try to bring something together. So I brought an architect and lawyers and financing. And as a matter of fact, the Lawrence and Bank took a big vendor Take Back at the time. Long story short, actually, probably too late for that. It became a beautiful deal and probably one of the best deals that I ever did in my real estate journey. But what it did do, and this is what I really wanted your viewers to listen to, I was scared. I thought that deal was beyond me.</p> <p>I thought that was for shooters and big shots and developers. I thought that was for people with money. I thought that was for people with big fancy degrees and fancy cars. No, that opportunity was there for Harry James the same way it is for anybody. And that's what I love about the real estate journey is, you know what, if you've got a philosophy and you've got the intestinal fortitude and you can recognize that time and perseverance will be your friend, you can make it happen. And so break through those fears. Cause at the end of the day, the worst case scenario is you have to sell or you have to bail or you have to bring in partners. It's just a game.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely. Right now I'm hearing a lot of people being scared, right? With the unknown. This will happen again. Whether it's, in three years from now and five years from now, there'll be something else. How do you, cause there's probably, in your 30 years there's probably a lot of ups and downs and market shifts that you've experienced. How do you take that as an opportunity or not be super scared and sell everything? Like how did you maneuver through all of those ups and downs? Cause they'll keep coming.</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>As Alfonso mentioned a moment ago, thankfully for me, I am a very positive person and I do get passionate and probably one of the things I'm most passionate about is helping people enjoy the journey. Putting things in perspective, recognizing that money everything I own is temporary, but the relationships and life and health and vitality and all the things that matter the most all, like you mentioned, I think Sarah one of our most recent podcasts, you're driven by real estate for what?</p> <p>It gives you the lifestyle. Friends, relationships, connecting and making a positive contribution. And that's exactly what drives me is lifestyle. When I'm doing a real estate deal, how do you break through the fear and how would encourage your listeners to break through? The fear is this one death per lifetime per individual.</p> <p>Live your life with a deathbed mentality and that's not being negative, is recognizing that time is your most important asset. So it helps you quickly put things in perspective. I'll often say to people, look, if you're not in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, it's not a problem. Anything that's solvable is not a serious problem.</p> <p>It's just life. Every day we get up, good things happen. Bad things happen. Good day, bad day, good deal, bad deal. That's called being in the game. That's life. And if you'll accept that and know that's always gonna be part of the journey, then you can play to win. But if you focus on the most important things, which is your health, your vitality, your relationships, and your perspective, it lowers the fear and lowers the anxiety.</p> <p>Cause you're saying what's the worst that's gonna happen? Like I went out on Wednesday, Sarah, looking at four real estate deals with my partners. Beautiful day. Driving along, I felt just incredible. Like the whole virus covid thing was a thing of the past. And I'm looking at deals and</p> <p>I'm thinking about the future and one of the things that occurred to me while I was doing this drive on Wednesday is, you know what?<br /> Human nature doesn't change. It just doesn't change. So all these people pontificating that commercial real estate's gonna collapse because everybody's gonna run outta their home. Nonsense. People need to connect. They need energy. You can't build a company in a vacuum or through computer screens. You have to be connected.</p> <p>Energy is real. The vision that kind, the relationships that come out, the things that happen, nonverbal communication all happens when we're together. People love to nest. People are gonna keep buying homes. Why do they love roots? They're not often sitting back saying is the market going up? Is the market going down?</p> <p>They want roots. They want wallpaper. They want to put a little gazebo in their backyard. They want a nest. People want to hang shingles. I was 14 years old when I knew I wanted to be in my own business. I didn't say, Hey, how's the economy? I wanna, if there's gonna be a pandemic, I just knew I wanted to hang a shingle.</p> <p>What does that mean? Eventually I'm gonna have to rent or buy a property to hang that shingle and to build that business. In other words, human nature, the fundamentals don't change. And the other thing about human beings as critically important is this. We all are blessed with a discontentment gene.</p> <p>That's why we don't live in grass huts and why we don't have to chase around our food sphere. We're always trying to improve our lot in life, and that includes now we're always looking for ways to improve health, vitality in the future. That's why we don't need to survive. We adapt and we thrive. So I'm making my real estate decisions now based on 10 years, not on 10 minutes, not on what Ford says about the virus tomorrow.</p> <p>Not on all the fear and pandemonium and all the people being paralyzed with this world coming to an end mentality. I am confident that we will get through this, and when we get through this, the same spirit that drives human beings, the same fundamental principles that we all adhere to, that have nothing to do with economies or pandemics, they're gonna rise to the surface and life will continue to develop as it always has.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> I couldn't agree with you more. And the energy, like even when all those listeners that have been to a REITE club event, or maybe they attended the event where you were our keynote speaker and that energy in the room that people get off of each other, whether it's coworkers in a business, whether it's leaders, whether it's walking in and around your friends.</p> <p>It's, we get this kind of unseen energy from other people and sharing in successes sharing experiences with each other. And I do agree, once things are safer again or whatever it is this too shall pass. Just like everything else that happens in this world. There is something that you said actually at our live event that I've repeated and your ears must have been ringing constantly since that event. But you were talking about the street light analogy.</p> <p>I want you to share that street light analogy where you said everybody's waiting for all the green, all the lights to be green ahead of them. I looked at that and I said, no, you don't. You said I'll let you say what you said. Cause you said it's so great. I want for all those people that weren't there to hear this. Because this is a great analogy.</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>Thanks, Alfonso. I think it applies to pretty well every area of our lives. When a lot of people, when they're making decisions in any area of their lives they'll approach it this way, the analogy is simply that you are at a stoplight and it turns green and you don't go, it turns red again and it turns green again and again.</p> <p>You don't push the gas pedal, you don't go, the guy behind you in the car comes up, knocks on your windows, says Alfonso dude, what are you doing? The light was green. You gotta go. And you say to the guy no. I'm waiting for the lights all the way up the street to turn green before I go. I'm not going anywhere until I know for sure that I don't have to stop. I'm not going anywhere until I know for sure that I'm gonna get my maximum optimum efficiency out of this drive.</p> <p>Now, that sounds like a crazy analogy, but that's often how people make decisions in their lives, relationships, and real estate markets. They're looking for guarantees. They want their cake and eat it too. They wanna win without taking the risk. They want a higher rate of return without taking the risk.</p> <p>This sounds horrible and maybe I'll be beat up for it and I don't mean to, but anybody that sold their soul for a job that they didn't like that's in government right now are probably the first time in their lives really happy they have that job because they're one of the few people working again in paycheck, okay?</p> <p>They had to wait 30 years to feel good about that job. I would rather get beat up, get scarred, be stressed and be doing something I truly believe in or something. I'm trying to make a difference in. Then to go for the guarantee and just settle. And the reason for that is I know I'm gonna die and I don't want to be buried with that epitaph that says here Harry lies.</p> <p>Harry James, all of his potential still fully intact. I don't want that. He didn't experience things. He didn't go for it. He didn't. Again, I take my cues from our elders and I said this when I had the privilege of speaking at your event. Our elders are saying to us, if we will listen, take more risks, go for it.</p> <p>Life is short. You're gonna regret the things you didn't do, not the things you did do. Don't wait for the lights, all the web streets to turn green. Push the gas pedal, experience it cause even if you fail, you're gonna learn something. You're gonna take into the next chapter that's gonna allow you to bring your life to the next level in all areas.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> That's a great analogy. Absolutely love it. It's just like with the BRRRR strategy, a lot of people are waiting for that perfect BRRRR where they're pulling out all of their rental money, all their down payment. That's a one-off right here and there. A lot of the time you're just pulling back out and refinancing your rental, and then a portion of your down payment.</p> <p>If you look for that like hole in one or that home run, it's gonna be far and few between how obviously you've done this for many years. Obviously, you've got a great mindset, but how did you talk yourself through some of those times where it was super stressful? I know you said you're positive, but were there certain things that you did? Were there certain people that you've reached out to? Were there mentors that you had, cause I, I'm sure now your risk tolerance is probably a lot higher than many listeners that are on here listening, wondering, okay, what should I do with this downturn? I'm now on serve, I've lost my job. How did you get through all of those in addition to your positive mindset?</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>I think, and this'll sound like I'm stroking your egos, and I'm not, I don't play customer golf and I don't say things, I don't mean, you guys do a tremendous job leading by example in showing people how to do it by doing it yourself. Like you're getting in a room and saying, Hey, Here's how we've done it, and here's some of the challenges we've had. Here's some of our failures and our mistakes, and here's some of our successes. And you're opening a door, you're building a bridge for other people to follow along. Now, why will 98% of the people not cross that bridge because they don't feel worthy of success?</p> <p>It's almost like the way I felt about the old town hall that's for somebody else, not for Harry James. I'm not worthy. People won't cross that bridge because they think I'll be the one guy that does the deal and it's gonna blow up and fail, and I'll be the only loser in this path. Or I'll be the one lady that does this deal and somehow somebody will be raising chinchillas in the basement and the place will have to be torn down and be condemned.</p> <p>Like we constantly put our fears, and by you folks leading you're giving them a bridge to get over those fears. But they still have to take the step. They still have to write the check, they still have to put in the offer. And fear for most people is gonna hold them back. How I broke through that fear is exactly by listening to people like yourself back in the day.</p> <p>Back, I'm gonna show you how old I am. I just had a birthday recently. I just turned 59. But there was a guy on TV in the seventies, Tom that used to talk about real estate and how we could real estate was the great this and great that. And then there was somebody else that was again, another real estate guy that used to do workshops.</p> <p>While their methodology might have not been great, or maybe they were even just a bunch of scammers trying to get people into their seminars, the reality is that made me think, maybe I think bigger. Think maybe that was for me. And then of course like many of your listeners the most important investment you make is the person in the mirror.</p> <p>I've always been a reader of the millionaire mindset, thinking and growing rich the meaning of life. The monk has sold as Ferrari, you name it I read and reread hundreds of blocks. Why? To stretch my thinking to, to break off that barrier, to face my fears because that's the preparation that's necessary.</p> <p>In order to fulfill whatever goals your listeners have. In other words, if they don't do the preparatory work for the person in the mirror, what you guys are talking about is just noise. And I don't say that with any disrespect, but it's true. If they're not prepared mentally, if they don't know what they're trying to do, for example, Sarah, you're doing it because you want a lifestyle.</p> <p>You want to enjoy some things in life for you and your family that are important to you so you can experience things. If your listeners haven't come up with that, why they're not gonna have the fuel to overcome their fear? The problem needs to be bigger than a solution. So in other words, the problem of somebody's discontent with their life and real estate becomes the way of remedying that, and that problem needs to be magnified. So they will break through the fear and make the decisions as uncomfortable as they may be, to make real estate part of the solution for their unhappy financial journey.</p> <p>I think it's really important that you invest in the person in the mirror and the thing again that you guys do incredibly well is you've gotta rub shoulders with like-minded people. How, I'll ask you both right now. How difficult would it be for you to find some negative people right now?<br /> Maybe. What's it called? Like negativity is just now, so rubbing shoulders with like-minded people. And I love being the small fish in the big pond. I get so excited when I see people's success. I love it. I don't have any envy at all.</p> <p>It just fuels me, inspires me. So if you guys told me you had a billion dollars worth of real estate, all I wanna know is how you did it. What was your favorite deal? What was your biggest mistake? Cause that inspires me. And the more you dig, The more you are truly interested in human development and your own personal growth, the more information that people truly want to help you.</p> <p>My goodness, they're just, they're everywhere, but if you want to be with them, Hey, I hate my life. Wake up Monday, exist till Friday. Just, have some fun two days a week. And then believe that your lot in life is all you've got. And the best is behind and the worst is ahead and you just wanna roll over and decline and die. That's unfortunate, but that's not the kind of people that I want to choose to be around.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>That's why we're so lucky to have amazing people in our community, in our network, such as yourself, Harry, that have done it. And it's close to 40 years that you have been doing it in, within even your own, real estate life with your own personal life, inspiring others, being inspired by others, and having that energy around there. And I feel the same way, and I know I speak with Sarah, that when we see people in our community that they just came to their first event, a year ago or two years ago, or just got into real estate and now they got their first deal and they're excited to do that next, we're always there to say, Hey, the problems, the issues, they're always gonna come.</p> <p>I love how you said that, is building yourself strong enough to overcome those obstacles. And there's something that I always live by: you only fail once you quit. If you never quit, you never fail. You have to keep going and learning. From all those things that you're doing. So maybe for that investor, he or she, that's listening to this podcast they're on the trail.</p> <p>They've read a few books. They've drunk the Kool-Aid per se and say, yeah, this is the way I am gonna do it. I wanna go get that first deal. There's a lot of information out there. So maybe what's something tangible that an investor or that person can do, like today that they can go out there and do today.</p> <p>And whether it's to learn from somebody, or grab another book I don't know. What's something that you would advise them if I'm sitting in front of you at your office and saying, Hey I got started. I believe in this real estate. I read that book. I read that book. What can I do now? What can I do to put into play?</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>That's a great question. Alfonso. I'll answer it by saying this. I've had the privilege in some of the speaking I've done over the years and some of the businesses that I've built and some of the businesses that I've frankly failed at miserably. I've learned a lot. As a result of that, people have come to me seeking advice. And I've taken on a handful of coaching clients, and I hate the word coach cause anybody with Pulse is a coach these days. But that's the only word I can come up with. It fascinates me. I think I've said this before, somebody will hire a life coach, but they won't say to them so what have you done?</p> <p>What's your net worth? They're just kinda, Hey, you're my life coach. Okay? But I think when I've had the opportunity to coach people, I've said and they get mad at me, I'll say, there's a very good chance this is gonna be a waste of your time, and you're not gonna do what I ask you to do.<br /> What do you mean by that? I'll say, because I'm gonna ask you to do some things that are really uncomfortable. And what really matters the most is from the moment you leave my office until you come back next week at this time, it's all the stuff you do from the moment you walk outta my office that is gonna have an impact on whether you do or don't achieve.</p> <p>Either improving your financial life or your balance, or all the things that are important to you. In that context the most important thing I can tell your viewers is this, or your listeners, is this, please take the time to be mentally prepared for success.</p> <p>Whatever your definition of success is, if you do not get mentally prepared for success, if you don't feel worthy of the level of success that you are pursuing, you will sabotage it subconsciously on a regular basis, you'll revert to the average. You revert to your comfort zone. Most people wanna blend in with wallpaper.</p> <p>If you're looking to do something that's extraordinary outside the norm, outside of what you've lived your life to this point, you've gotta be prepared to be uncomfortable and do it the most when you feel like it, the least. Once you're mentally prepared, then you have to get to the work of developing a philosophy.</p> <p>As I said earlier, you need to have a philosophy and a vision and a set of criteria. Buying real estate is easy. That's non-investing. That's called a transaction. Anybody with a pulse can open the back of a real estate agent's car and buy a property. That's not investing. Investing is where do I want to go?</p> <p>What do I want my net worth to be? What do I want my future cash flow to be? And it's about developing a strategy and a plan that fits your personality. Maybe you love recreational properties. Maybe you love multi residential. Maybe you like the idea of industrialization. Maybe you've got an idea for flea markets.</p> <p>It doesn't matter what it is, the sky's the limit, but you need to take the time to figure it out. What do you want to do? What markets are exciting for you? What regions are exciting for you? You need to do the homework. Because once you do the homework, what you have is a set of criteria. The reason a lot of people can't make decisions, Alfonso, is they have no set of criteria.</p> <p>They don't have a frame of reference by which to make those decisions. When I went to look at four properties on Wednesday, I knew my criteria. I could tell you in 15 seconds a minute I pull up whether that property meets my criteria or not. It's a business. Real estate investing is a business. What I don't like about this market right now is there's no relief for landlords.</p> <p>Think they're dealing with landlords like where 300 years ago, where we've got billions of dollars and we own all the land and we have no mortgages. Today, real estate's a business. There's something called cap rates, and you have to figure out what cap rate is, if you're doing commercial work for you, what residential cashflow works for you, what you can borrow, what you can't borrow, and so on. Here's the key thing with real estate that I think is, and I've repeated this and I'll repeat it again and again, it's perseverance and time. The best analogy I can give for your listeners, and I really want them to look this up because I'm pretty sure I know it's true. I might get the facts a little wrong.</p> <p>The Chinese bamboo plant is an amazing plant. You plant the seed, Sarah, and you have to water it, and you have to fertilize it every year. Now your field is just, imagine a hundred acres of dirt next year. You go out and you've been watering and fertilizing every day. And guess what? The next year you go out and it's still a hundred acres of dirt and you've been watering and you've been fertilizing, and there's no reward for your efforts whatsoever that you can see.</p> <p>This goes on year three, year four, year five, year six, year seven, Sarah, you go out, it's a hundred acres of dirt. There is nothing there. You've been watering and fertilizing for seven years, and now all of a sudden you see a little bud. And in six months, I believe it is, These bamboo shoots go up 80 feet in the air, 80 feet in the air. But you had to persevere and believe and stay true to your criteria and your convictions for seven years. I have a question for both of you. How many people would've given up?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Many?</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>Probably that I think I'm gonna do corn.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>But you know what, it's interesting because that is exactly real estate, right? People think that they're gonna get rich quick or they want a solution like next year they can quit their jobs and they're gonna be millionaires.</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>That's exactly my point. There's a young guy, I was his first deal. And we're gonna, and he's calling me every week. Anything can happen. I'm like, what do you expect to happen? Nothing happened. The furnace went off. There's this perception, I think, in the marketplace that, yeah, real estate is great, because, and it is true, most, many billionaires have made their money in real estate.</p> <p>That is true. But they didn't do it in 15 minutes or 15 weeks. So that perseverance I think, I don't think there's any more important message for your audience. If you're looking for something quick, if you think you can cut corners, if you think you can compromise, if you think you can be unethical, if you think you can, do it quicker because there's this cheap way to do real estate.</p> <p>Do yourself a big favor and find something else, cause it's just gonna be misery. Real estate is hard. Real estate is tough. Investing in real estate's tougher than buying real estate because if you're gonna be true to a set of criteria, finding that deal is not easy. And then once you do the deal, there's always surprises.</p> <p>There's always things that come up. But when you persevere, time becomes your best friend. And just like the Chinese bamboo plan, all of a sudden you're an overnight success. Sorry, you, Sarah. After perseverance and fertilizing and watering and feeling like you're getting nowhere and all of a sudden, boom, you've got some momentum that you can build upon.</p> <p>That's what makes it real estate but you've gotta take it seriously like any other craft in any other business. And my fear with a lot of people in real estate is they're not taking it seriously enough. They're oversimplifying. And that's what's so great about your club. You're saying, Hey folks, this is a business.</p> <p>You gotta do your homework. You need relationships, you need information, you need criteria. And you gotta keep growing and investing yourself, or you're gonna go backwards, whether you're 20 or 79. You've gotta keep growing and investing yourself and coming up with better ways of doing your craft.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely. And when times get tough, this is not a time to say, oh crap, I gotta sell everything and get out of real estate cause it's gonna go down 20%. This is unfortunately where speculators are gonna not do as well as investors that looked at the fundamentals and cashflow. But, this is a time you're gonna ride the wave and you're, we're gonna come out at some point, and this is gonna be over at some point.</p> <p>There'll be something else that, in three years or five years, regardless. But, there's a lot of panic. There's a lot of panic in the media. There's a lot of exaggeration, I think, as well with certain parts of it. But ultimately, when you hold on, just like the stock market, when you hold on, you're not realizing a loss. But if you're gonna sell at a bad time, and you're gonna sell out of desperation and being scared. This is unfortunately when you may lose more, unfortunately.</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>Sarah, that goes back to the green light analogy. You just hit the nail on the head as to why people don't push the gas pedal. What if the market eventually goes down 20%? News flash. It will. Maybe it's the same thing. Real estate is cyclical, the same as anything else. But here's the nice thing about the real estate business as well, when you are prepared, okay? And by the way I've made tons of mistakes and I'm sure I'm gonna make many more.</p> <p>I am truly not professional to be some guru or expert. I'm not. This is just my personal journey. Take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. I'm out there today looking for opportunities, and I'm not an opportunist. I don't want to, I hate seeing somebody go bankrupt. I hate seeing the power of sales.</p> <p>It's not something that I take any pleasure in, none whatsoever. But I am aware of human nature and I'm out there looking for opportunities today because I know there's many people on the sidelines that maybe won't capitalize. I'm going to capitalize if I find the right opportunity.<br /> Why am I gonna do that? Cause I'm making a 10 year decision, not a 10 minute decision. So my criteria will assume rough waters for the next 12 to 15 months. And then I'll be rewarded for taking that risk, hopefully at some point in the future. But I'm not gonna do it haphazardly, but I'm certainly not gonna sit on the sidelines, suck my customer fortitude to invest at the highest degree of pessimism. Alfonso, are we at the highest degree of pessimism?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> I bet every single one of them are getting tired of this and now it's so easy to be negative, right? And like you just said you've made plenty of mistakes in your career. We all have, right? And we're gonna continue to make more. If you're scared to make a mistake, you're gonna be scared to be successful too. If you're scared to fail, you'll never succeed. And it's learning those experiences and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, that's the whole thing, right? That you're not, you're never gonna grow. People that are gonna say, no, don't do this and don't do this. Yeah, sure. They're never gonna be wrong, but they're never gonna be right either, because if you do nothing, nothing is what is it? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>Absolutely. And the other thing too I wanna be really confess about is ambiguity and anxiety. As an entrepreneur, they're my constant companions. I'm always scared. I'm always thinking, am I making the right decision? Am I always thinking, geez, have I got something wrong here? I second guess myself. I question myself. I think anybody says they don't or either their ego is so big that they're not self-aware or they're lying.</p> <p>I think, there's always uncertainties, there's always unknowns. There's absolutely no guarantees. But I'll go back to my life philosophy. So what? What's the worst that's gonna happen? If I come home and I screw up a deal? I think my wife is still gonna love me. I should check on that now.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> You know what that's perfect, right? Because if you're not scared to fail. So here's another take or another view on it. So maybe, at this almost 40 years, probably it's somewhere in your career you're like, wow this is amazing.</p> <p>This is pretty good. I've, I've achieved some certain level of success. I have a cottage now. Some cool things that I thought I was gonna get. How do you keep motivating yourself? How do you keep striving to say, not resting on your laurels because now I got this and I got that and I've got this many buildings and I have 10 properties here, or this, and I'm getting this much cash flow.</p> <p>How do you keep motivating yourself and keep striving to get better? Because some people, I see for myself that they've reached a certain level and they just plateau and say that's more than I ever thought that I was gonna achieve in my life. And regress after that. How do you keep pushing forward?</p> <p><strong>Harry James:</strong> Alfonso, that's a great question and I'm gonna try to answer it as honestly as I possibly can. First of all I've never done that. I've never thought I've got this and I've got that. I don't know if that's because of my philosophy, first of all it's perspective, right? My summer home here, which really is somebody else's guest house. It's all relative. I remember a basketball interview being a player, being interviewed, the guy saying, Hey, you're really rich. He said no. I'm wealthy. I'm okay. The guy that owns a team, he's rich.</p> <p>Depending on what your measuring stick is in life for success, my measuring stick I keep net worth goals just as a score sheet. But it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't change what I need to live, what's important to me. My family doesn't change based on my net worth. Sarah will know this too, cause our cottages are stolen through, this cottage is 15 years old. I can't sit back. It needs about $300,000 in renovations that needs a new deck. And you, I gotta do some deals. Real estate has a way of breaking down. I need to be loved on a regular basis.</p> <p>To answer your question though, I truly believe, and for your older listeners, I just turned 59 as I think I mentioned. I've just read a book called Boulder. And it's how we frame getting older in our society and what the norms would be. You decline, you want to talk about depends and your best relationships and your best.</p> <p>Everything is behind you and you just cling on and live through your lives. Cling on your kids and hopefully somebody comes and visits you in the nursing hall. Retirement is a lie. If you retire a tool, a piece of equipment, a computer, it means it's, no, it's gone beyond. It's useful. As somebody that's going into what you call the final chapter of my life, I'm viewing it hopefully as being the most exciting chapter. You, the human body, doesn't understand aging. It just understands whether it is needed or not. So you can be as healthy and vibrant in your eighties as you were in your fifties and forties.</p> <p>Deals. I've seen people write their best. There's an author out there, you'd have to look it up. He wrote his best award-winning material when he was 90. Somebody says why'd you do it at 90? He said, I didn't have enough experience at 80 to get this workout the way it's out at 90.<br /> Again, his perspective. So if you look at it, there's nothing wrong with aging, it's a decline that you wanna avoid. So motivation for me is that my best deals are ahead of me. My best opportunities are ahead. The richness of my relationships. I want to become fitter at 60 than I am at 50 than I am at 59.</p> <p>I have new net worth goals. I'm looking for different opportunities in the marketplace, the way they're going now. I want to have richer relationships, more meaningful relationships. So I've got all sorts of things that are important to me that I'm living now. But the key is this, and I said this to my son the other day, don't be so focused on the goals that you missed the present.</p> <p>I was very driven in my younger years and probably took myself a little too seriously. The difference now is I do have goals. I'm gonna build my net worth. I can't wait to do another few deals, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the moment that I'm in and what I love about what you guys are doing. And whether somebody's worth a billion or a buck, they're not any more important than anybody else. Net worth is not a reflection of character or worth. So I've never taken what maybe I've accomplished or my buildings or my net worth. It's just complete. It's just a scorecard. It means nothing. If I have the privilege through this podcast to help one or two people who inspire one or two people, that's incredibly gratifying to me.</p> <p>I've had people, Sarah, because of your podcast call me, or a couple of young guys came on a road trip with me, had the time of my life. I learned a ton of stuff. Your podcast and your events have enriched my life. And that means that Harry James is still growing and still developing new relationships, and I think that's what's important about life.</p> <p>Is to be less concerned about the age and stage you're at and more concerned about, again, looking at the person in the mirror and say, Hey, for the time you have left, what you wanna accomplish, how do you wanna make the world a better place? How can you enhance somebody's life and make their journey better as a result of interacting with you? And that's one of the things that drives me at this stage of my life.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I love that. That's amazing. So many great insights. Like you're, you're so helpful. And I really believe that the audience today got a ton of valuable information. And also the motivation to just keep going and shut out a lot of that noise.</p> <p>Because there's a lot of noise around us. I'm super inspired. Thank you. I definitely think a lot of the audience members are gonna take some great takeaways from this. So in the final, we can keep talking forever. As our final part of the podcast is our lightning round. Alfonso and I will ask you a series of four questions. Every guest on our podcast gets the same one. And then you'll just give us the first answer that comes to mind. Are you ready?</p> <p><strong>Harry James:</strong> Scary. Go ahead.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> All right, question number one, Harry, what is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?</p> <p><strong>Harry James:</strong> You have to have staying power. I had mentioned that last podcast in real estate. You need to make sure that you've got staying power. So whether that's an emergency line of credit investors access to private funds.<br /> To your point a moment ago Sarah, when you're in a tough time liquidity means lost. The last thing you want to do when you're under pressure is sell. The only regret I have in my real estate journey is the stuff that I've sold. So always try to have staying power.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Love that. Keep the dry powder, keep some dry powder around somewhere. Alright, number question number two with the lightning round, what is your favorite real estate investing resource?</p> <p><strong>Harry James:</strong> Funny enough there's, it's a little embarrassing to show how simple I am, but there's a real estate magazine I've been buying for 20 years called Crew Canadian Real Estate. Is that right? Something like that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Yes. The Real Estate Wealth magazine.</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>Yeah. So I love personal stories, so I used to buy that and a magazine called Success. I don't know if they are still successful. I haven't bought one in a while, but I used to go to chapters and buy a Crew in Success once a month.<br /> I love reading the personal stories and it's what you guys do, which I love. There's nothing like testimonials. There's nothing like real life examples to inspire people, encourage people, which you guys do an amazing job at. And the crew had these kinds of profiles of people that started out, or they hated your job and they got into real estate, or they did this or did that.<br /> I found that quite inspiring in my journey. And of course, success is all about mindset. And about being the best version of yourself and personal development is something that's really important to me, cause I truly believe that you make the world a better place when you invest in the person in the mirror and try to become the best version of yourself.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely. Have you ever written in that magazine, by the way, Harry?</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>I have not.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>All right. I will reach out. I will try to connect with you guys. All right. Number three. What is the one attribute that has made you most successful?</p> <p><strong>Harry James:</strong> Oh, I think and again, this isn't Harry James, but attitude. Attitude is everything. I was the coach of my kids when I was younger. Attitude. It's just I think there's a famous poem about a poem about attitude, but attitude can change everything. Attitude is just, it is everything. And the attitude that you bring into your marriage and to your raising your kids and to your business and to a rough situation, attitude makes all the difference in the world. And I would argue pretty strongly that's an incredibly important thing to work on.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> I love that. Great point. Because things in life are gonna happen. It's how you view it and how you deal with it is really gonna be the differentiator. Alright, last question of the lightning round. On a typical Sunday morning, not recording podcasts. Yeah. But what are you up to on a typical Sunday morning?</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>On a typical Sunday morning back in Mark and my family and I would go to church. We go to a little community church, which is very important on my journey. And then we generally have a bunch of friends back and stay in the kitchen and have a nice lunch together and just hang out and connect as family and friends. And my wife and I are very fortunate. We've got, first of all, we have four children, two grandchildren, a third on the way.</p> <p>And some very close friends, one of my friends goes back, a few of my friends go back to when I was 15, 16 years old. So we've got. Some people in our lives that really fuel us. And we have a real continued connection and we make the time. And again, there's something again, unsolicited advice I know, but one of the big regrets of people in their nineties is not putting in the effort to maintain important relationships.</p> <p>You know how people say they didn't call me, so I'm not calling them. Get over it. Life isn't about a scorecard or being right, but if you take the effort and make the effort to maintain relationships that fuel you, relationships that fuel your soul and make you better and make you feel better about who you are, that'll give you a much bigger return than any piece of real estate than that you'll ever do. I think those relationships are critical and we're very blessed to have a number of them.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. Very great advice. Harry, where can the REITE Club Nation our listeners, reach out if they wanted to speak to you or know more about you?</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>Sarah, you have brought me from two people on Instagram to 200. I'm becoming like, Instagram is Harry James, HarryJamesgroup.com is where I can be emailed. But there, I've had a number of your listeners direct message me on Instagram, and that's always been fun. I've offered to again, not as a guru or somebody that knows, pretends to know everything, but I've really had a pleasure, and again, as a result of you folks and amazing work you do speak into some people's lives that are starting out or are doing some different things.</p> <p>I encourage anybody that wants to learn from my miserable failures to reach out and be happy to share with them. One thing I said to somebody and I don't, somebody approached me a number of years ago and they came through the back door. And this is important, and I don't mean to prolong this sheet and edit this out if you want, when you want to do business with somebody or you want to, you have an agenda, don't come in the back door.</p> <p>Come in the front door, don't invite me to your house, Sarah, for dinner. And after two and a half hours, tell me that your dinner was cooked in Amway pots that you're trying to sell me. Don't do that. Because that's offensive. So I had somebody approach me and every salesperson will tell you, Hey, you wanna win somebody over?</p> <p>Ask them about themselves. Cause everybody wants to talk about themselves. It's kinda like this, whatever. So somebody called me and asked me a bunch of questions for 20 minutes, and at the end of 20 minutes is okay. Can I basically, okay, can I sell you something? My advice to anybody that's listening right now, if you wanna learn from somebody that's done it, pick up the phone and say, listen, I don't have a clue what I'm doing.</p> <p>I would love to get 15 minutes of your time. I would love to learn from you cause I wanna do my first real estate deal. Can you share with me a couple of points? If you're a wrong, young real estate agent listening to this podcast and you want to do business with developers, Or somebody that's done some development, pick up the phone and say, listen, I don't have anything to offer you right now except for incredible amount of energy, and I promise you I'll bend over backwards to give you value.</p> <p>Can I possibly earn a right to do a piece of business with you, if not now at some point in the future? But I'll tell you, if you invest in me, I'll never let you down. So the experience that I lack now, I'll make up for the enthusiasm that comes in the front door. Don't try to sneak in the back door. Human beings are very smart, very perspectives.</p> <p>If you wanna do business with somebody, if you wanna network with somebody, be up front about it. Be very candid about what you're trying to achieve, cause most people truly want to help other people regardless of what their experience may be.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> That's amazing advice and a great podcast and interview that we've had with you today, Harry, full of amazing information. And I really approach that, tell people what you're about, what you can offer and what you want to learn and surround yourself with those amazing people. And we're lucky to have you in our atmosphere and the REITE club nation. Really reach out to Harry, talk to him, and I can't thank you enough, Harry, for for an amazing podcast today with Sarah and I thank you very much and look forward to doing a whole lot more with you in the future.</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>Yeah, real honor to be a part of this today. And again, I'm very thankful for you guys reaching out because it really has been a great enhancement of my journey, and I appreciate it very much.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Thank you, Harry.</p> <p><strong>Harry James:</strong> Have an awesome day. Enjoy the sunshine.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> You too. Thanks. REITE Club Nation one, an interview with Harry James. He was great. So much info. I love the tips, I love the analogies that he uses. I love the stories, the real life stories that, from 30, 40 years ago that he was doing this and still actively doing it today, guys, if you haven't been sold on the idea of that real estate is the way to create wealth in that long term, I don't know, you guys are listening to this, you might have some idea to get off the fence.</p> <p>Take action, do what you need to do, reach out. If it's me, if it's Sarah, if it's somebody else in our REITE club community that you want to talk to, to learn more about, have a question, get in touch with us. We want to help you. How about Sarah? I dunno, what's some of your feedback? What's some of the things that you liked in that interview?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I just really enjoy how he is investing in so many different things, right? So whether it's residential, commercial, quarries, businesses, he's done it probably all, and there's not a lot of investors that have that much experience and have that much experience in different types of investing. So I'm looking forward to speaking with him further because I I look at him as a mentor and he's just absolutely amazing.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely investors, out there and REITE Club Nation out there, that if you're early on in your real estate journey, don't be scared. Don't be, I know it's daunting. Different people in the community that have done so much and oh my God, that's so many on, they're only talking like that because they have so many properties. Guys, we were all at the start line at one time. When Sarah and I first met, I loved their stories.</p> <p>She was like, googling how to make money, how to retire early, right? And the real estate thing. And for me, I was working full-time in the sales position, right? Hey, if I can sell more, I make more. But how do you create that long-term wealth and whatever strategy, whatever direction you want to go in, Harry, he does a few of them, right?</p> <p>Whatever that is for you. Whatever that is, get that experience, get that knowledge, apply some of it. Go and take action, talk to the people and reach out and let us know how we can help. We want to be part of that growth journey. We want to just push your goals one inch further than you were ahead if we want to help you guys there.</p> <p>Get onto the REITE club community website, reach out to us, listen to more podcasts. Share it with a friend. I don't know what else to say. Thank you guys so much for listening. Sarah, thank you so much for being an amazing co-host. And again, this journey that we started a little over two years ago now on, interviewing people and doing podcasts and getting out there.</p> <p>It's amazing. We want to hear from you guys. Great. Review us. Listen tell us what you want to hear, what you wanna listen more of. If there's somebody that's amazing that you're saying, Hey you guys, you need to listen to this guy, we're gonna do our best to get them in your ears and in front of your eyeballs to to learn more about that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely REITE Club Nation. Until next time, come grow with us.</p> <p><strong>Harry James: </strong>Bye guys. </p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Thu, 29 Jun 2023 08:50:36 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7928 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/value-investing-secrets-bamboo-and-streetlight-analogies#comments Understanding The Importance of Succession and Estate Planning https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/understanding-importance-succession-and-estate-planning <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Understanding The Importance of Succession and Estate Planning</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Tue, 06/27/2023 - 05:33</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Alfonso, hello and welcome REITE club nation to the REITE Club podcast. I'm Laurel Simmons, and I have Alfonso Salemi with me. How are you doing?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Very good. Laurel. It's awesome. I have you co-hosted and we have an amazing interview today. What you can control is how you plan your portfolio and how that legacy that you're leaving all the hard work and learning and podcasts that you're listening to, and thank you for listening to that and all the amount of education you take on and that you go imply and take action and build. You wanna make sure that's in good hands, right? And so when that's taken care of, you don't want taxes and probates and other people managing your assets or benefiting.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>It's not about thinking about when you're not here as in after you've died. It's way more than that. It's about, and I think it's about being a responsible business owner. It's about understanding how your personal life and your business life mesh. We're all human beings, right? And we own businesses, we own properties. We are, everything is integrated. So Ryan has really good tips about how you can.</p> <p>I don't wanna say separate them, but deal with them separately so that it makes it easier for your estate, for your family, for your what, whoever it is. And you know what? I think it just makes it easier for you. You can go to bed at night and realize that, you know what I've done the right thing. I've taken care of things, and that's worth a lot.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>That's right. That peace of mind. And you know what Ryan said was the investment that you make into the team, right? That's what's gonna be that long-term or that structure or that really, even beyond structure, the foundation, right?<br /> The foundation that you're gonna build upon and checking in, what are the short, long, short, medium, and long-term goals that you have? And those are constantly changing as well too. We get into that as well. Really great convo. </p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>You know what, Alfonso, I think we should go right to the interview.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Let's do it. All right. Welcome to the podcast. Once again, Mr. Ryan Carson. I think you got the lead right now for most podcast appearances. And it's amazing because the service that you provide, from a legal standpoint, from an investor standpoint, the mindset that you got we're super excited to to have you on today.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> Thanks a lot, Alfonso. Thanks a lot for having me on again.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Thank you. So Ryan, we're gonna talk about a topic that's really, they're so interrelated. We're talking about succession planning and what that means for success in real estate investing. Because a lot of people don't really think about how succession planning can lead to success. For their real estate investing business. So tell us a little bit about why I think a lot of people don't know exactly what succession planning is, so why don't we start there.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Succession planning is a fancier way of basically saying wills estates tax planning for your immediate to short and long-term goals. And so on that point, I think if you don't have a foundation of a decent will and powers of attorney that's always layer one or foundation level one that you should have as a minimum, whether you are a real estate investor or even if you aren't a real estate investor those are the things that you'd wanna have.</p> <p>As a starting point in regards to next level steps, that's really gonna start to flow out of what you actually do for a living, what kind of assets you own, what your short, medium, and long-term goals are. And so in the real estate investor world, it could be things like having that corporate or family trust structure.</p> <p>Also accompany the wills and powers of attorney and then depending on the tax advice that you would have from your financial and accountant advisors. There could be certain, springboard effects from there for your estate planning. But definitely you wanna have a will and power of attorney just start.</p> <p>Then from there you'd want to springboard into having some discussions appropriately with your accountant about. What kind of tax planning and estate planning should I be thinking of for my short, medium and long term goals? Short being, next 12 months, 24 months medium being a five year plan, and then 10 plus for long term.</p> <p>Then maybe like the ultimate goal or plan, which is, if I was no longer an investor or if I was retiring, or if I were to suddenly die. What would I want to happen? Everything that I've been accumulating, that I've been growing, that I've been working with as a real estate investor. To do that kind of planning and have that kind of discussion with your financial advisor, with your tax accountant and your lawyer is a fairly important thing to do. And I think it's something that people can easily lose sight of because they get so affixed on the exciting part, which is the deals.</p> <p>Trying to land the deals and find the deals and go shopping for the deals and putting the deals together, and then working the deals that you forget to work in the business as opposed to just on the business. And doing that kind of work for yourself can significantly improve and positively impact your success in the real estate business. But in any business.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>You were talking about a little bit earlier, actually before we started this recording, you were talking about what you called. So there's a primary and maybe a secondary will? Is that right? But also it's not just that, it's whether it's personal or corporate, cause there's a number of variations there.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> That it builds off the point I was saying before, you'd wanna have a meeting. Hopefully it'd be a holistic meeting between your lawyer, your tax accountant, and your financial advisor so that everybody's, Driving in the same direction. Everybody's understanding what you're trying to accomplish, what you have accomplished, and where you want to go.</p> <p>As lawyers, we normally would or at least I would advise our client to say, okay. Have we sat down with a tax accountant who really understands your short, medium, and long-term goals? And hopefully the answer is yes. And if the answer is yes, then the question just becomes okay. What advice are they giving for those short, medium, long-term goals? There's likely gonna be some sort of instruction to put together for the example of real estate investors who are holding corporate structure. So whether it's a three tier system or a one tier or whatever the case is with corporations being in place to operate and hold the real estate property.</p> <p>Two, you'd want to have in place two, two types of wills. So one will, would some people call it a primary will or a non-corporate will that would deal with all your. Non-business related assets. So your personal investments in the stock market, life insurance, maybe your personal home that you own, your bank account, vehicles, that kind of thing.</p> <p>But then you'd have a corporate will, or some people call it secondary or non-personal, will they all relate to the same thing, but that corporate will, that would be holding all of your assets and shares and business inventory of your various real estate businesses would then govern all of those assets.</p> <p>You'd have the, you'd have the non-corporate or their personal will dealing with all of your personal items outside of your real estate investor businesses and then all of your real estate investor businesses that are under either a parent company or an umbrella of corporations. Those would all be listed in the corporate will.</p> <p>The benefit in doing that is, If you have a secondary will or the corporate will, and you have all of those assets listed within that will, you can bypass what used to be called probate or is now called a state administration. And the ultimate goal being you save yourself some processing and procedure on the passing of the individual.</p> <p>Then you also save the estate a one and half 5% tax, which on every million dollars of value would equate to $15,000 saved. So there's some procedural, there's some practical, and there's some monetary benefits in arranging at least primary and secondary wills.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> I think, having it in the right coordination like you said, working with other members of the power team that actually see from an all sides of the standpoint that you know, what type of structure you're setting up because the accountant has that same plan and it's all the same plan where everybody's doing their own thing.</p> <p>You're pulling the legal weight the accountants are pulling their weight, right? Their side of the deal and the financial planners as well. And from people that maybe have the standpoint like, oh, you know what, I just have one property right now. I'm, I don't need to worry about all that.<br /> From the other end of the spectrum of people wanting to scale to Skyscrapers and owning islands and cities, right? And then everyone in between, we notice in our REITE club community and then the REITE club nation, there's all those different types.</p> <p>Kinda the question, and maybe it's not an easy question, but like, how do you structure that? Like how does that look like in that growth of that? If I was just like a brand new saying, Hey, I'm gonna go and start investing in real estate, should I go with the whole. Kit and caboodle, the nine yards, the corps, the estate, the wills, all that kind of stuff. Go one shot or how does that tickle in throughout the growth? And over that period of time of an investor's life cycle.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>It's a great question. And it's one that there really isn't obviously a set answer on because everybody everybody's personally different. Everybody deals with business decisions differently, everybody places different priorities on business or aspects of business. I think at the end of the day it comes down to practicality. A lot of people who are getting into real estate investment, it starts out as a secondary source of income or revenue for them. Most people have that primary career still there to give them comfort.</p> <p>Then as the real estate potentially grows, which it hopefully does it sometimes turns into the primary vehicle of revenue. And or the primary vocation, right? Sometimes people end up saying, oh, I don't wanna do this anymore. I'm just gonna be a real estate investor. And or at that point, maybe they've been wildly successful and they start being a mentor and a coach, as you guys have been able to do at the REITE club So I think it just really boils down to everybody's a little bit different, but I really, I've always liked something that I heard from George of BDO and Peter Tini, where they end, they ended up saying, don't view the lawyer and the accountant and the other members of the power team as a cost.</p> <p>View them as an investment in your business that you're trying to grow, and the steps you take at the very beginning and the out. We'll pay you huge dividends and spade down the road if you work on it, doing it right from the very beginning. And, so the example of that is, let's say, Alfonso, you were just trying to start your business today, and you're geez, I got five or 10 grand budgeted for this, and I don't want to go below five grand right away just on, the. Lawyer and the accountant together, and then now I only got five grand left.</p> <p>Like I really only wanna spend like a thousand max on that and then, have nine left over to go and do actual business stuff with. And I get that and I appreciate that because, as a small business owner, everybody's been there right at this, the startup and you're trying to balance practicality and cost and pros and cons. So it really just comes down to what everybody individually is comfortable with. But, another example is maybe this, hits home a little bit clearer here, is you get lots of people asking about corporate structure all the time. Like, when's the good time to do it? Or, corporate Tru Family Trust structures, right?</p> <p>It's okay, how many properties? And what are you retaining in revenue and so forth, right? And, you get different answers, but the whole thing all boils down back to the same point, which is if you started with zero properties and then all of a sudden in a short period of time, let's call it three to six months, you've got.</p> <p>Five properties and then all of a sudden you've got another five at a year. So now you're at 10 and just keep growing at this, fairly consistent and aggressive pace. But these are all personally owned and now in, at the end of the year two, after you're 20 properties in, you wanna put corporate structure into it.</p> <p>The cost to reverse all that back into a corporate structure or family structure is gonna far outweigh. What it would've cost to do the three year or so corporations at the outset. Cause you got land transfer tax per property, let's just say land transfer tax for each one of those 20 properties averaged. Two grand, two, that's a big coin.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>You're setting that up as that one time, and that's gonna continue to be able to pay you like setting that up, that correct way over every deal. It just escalates. If it's three, it's multiple three. If it's five, it's multiple five Every time that you're able to do that.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>I've really always loved that saying that Peter and George have used at a presentation many years ago that I heard them speak at, which is it's not a cost, it's an investment. And if you view it that way, then it starts you. I think you appreciate it a little bit more and B, you're not as afraid or as standoffish to push it to the side.</p> <p>Then when you do come around into it because you've gotten to a point where you're further along in your growth and you want to try to have those conversations it's wow, I really wish she just came and saw us at the beginning or early because. This would've been a lot less expensive.<br /> Now it's gonna be astronomically more expensive because you're talking about $2,000 times 20 deals. Whereas, if you did three incorporations at the beginning, yes, it would've cost you, three or $4,000 to put them together, but it wouldn't be, 20 times, $2,000. So you're, it's hindsight is always 2020.</p> <p>That's why these podcasts, and that's why the REITE club is so great because you get to learn from people who have hopefully made some of these mistakes or gone through some of this and benefiting already from some of this planning and they're trying to pass it along to you so that it's not you're not saying to your yourself I'll just wait, two or three years, 30, 40 properties and then I'll do the incorporation. At that point it could be a bit too late, right? Or, yeah, I'll wait two or three years down the road and then do my estate planning, but. That involves taxes and corporate structure and all this kinda stuff. And now it's never too late, but it's gonna cost you a lot more.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I have a question and I wanna get back to the personal versus the corporate wills. Like I totally understand the personals cause I have a personal will, my husband does, et cetera, et cetera, and get that. And I totally believe that everyone should have a will because as I say to people If you don't decide what you want to do with your property, then guess what the government's gonna decide.</p> <p>That's what it comes down to, right? But with a corporate will, I'm assuming that they have to go in tandem. So what happens if you have a corporate will? So you have your personal will and it comes into effect, whatever you have, your corporate will. And if there's a conflict between the will, it's like what happens then?</p> <p>Because things change, right? I'm assuming that you review it every whatever, there's major changes or on a regular basis, what if there's a conflict? Cause I'm a little bit confused about how that works and I'm probably not gonna be the only one.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>That's a good question. There, actually, if it's done properly, there won't be a conflict. Only because the primary and the secondary will, or the personal and the corporate wills, which, however you want to call it, they all, it's all the same kind of idea in the legal industry. The terminology is just, some people like different vernacular, but they have to speak to one another, so you can't have assets found in the personal.</p> <p>Will also then carried over into the corporate will. So if we take your example for your situation Laurel as an example, and you come to me and you're like, okay Ryan, I heard your podcast and I've always had a personal will, but I didn't have the corporate. And I think it's a great idea cuz I have several corporate entities and they have assets and value and I'd love to save as much as I can from the government's taxes.</p> <p>What do I do? So we would sit down and we would review that together. We probably, again, have, hopefully have some discussions with your accountant as well, just to see if there's anything we should know from a tax planning perspective that they would really like to see in place. But let's say they said, no, go ahead.</p> <p>Everything's good. Just do a personal and a corporate will. We would look at your wishes for all your personal assets, and so your personal will would say, all of the assets that I own at the time of my death, save and accept for corporation A, B, and C are governed by this personal will.<br /> This is the person who's in charge. These are my beneficiaries. These are my alternate beneficiaries. If my beneficiaries die, so that's personal will. So then your corporate will would say everything that is in corporation A, B, and C is governed by this corporate will. And anything outside of my corporation, A, B, and C assets are all governed only by my personal will.</p> <p>They actually reference one another. So one will say primary personal estate, one will say corporate secondary estate. And so you can make your corporate will. Say anything you wanted, you could, it could say I wanna leave everything to Alfonso, and not to whoever your beneficiary is in your personal will.</p> <p>They don't have to be the same that way, but they do have to reference one another so that there's not that conflict in law, but they, if what you meant by conflict was, could leave assets to completely different people or some combination of one another. Then they can do that. They will separately carve out your estate into corporate assets and then everything else that's non-corporate.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Interpersonal. Wow. And yeah, to be clear, we're not advising everybody to leave their wills to Alfonso, but if you want to listen, we're not gonna argue that. But and again, Laurel made a good point, right? Because things do change, right? Once you have one property, or if you have five properties, or then your partners and your JV and then there's maybe some private lending and you have the kind of, and then you know.</p> <p>There's a variety in your portfolio, right? Even outside of real estate investing, maybe stocks, all this type of stuff is there like a rule of thumb on how, like if it is personal or it is corporate or is that again, depending on, like the tax structure of how it's already current.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> Is the question more like how do you determine if something is a corporate versus personal asset?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> If I'm saying I'm buying a building, is it on the owner of the building now that can be corporate? Or is it because now like a holding company that I'm a shareholder and owns part of that company? Like it I know it gets sometimes a little bit tricky, but how is it determined that it's. Like the corporate and non-corporate wills, like what, are there some assets that can or can't be in one or the other?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Yeah, it's a good question. My experience has always been that the only assets that would arise from being able to be in the corporate will or the secondary or non-personal will, whatever you want to call it, would be assets that are owned by actual corporations.<br /> You couldn't have you couldn't be doing stuff in a partnership, like a true partnership or a non incorporated business, like a sole proprietorship. You need to actually be incorporated. So that's number one. And then number two the corporation and the assets held by that corporation, whether it's through a partnership agreement or a joint venture agreement, or just usually owning the assets of the corporation. Like everything that particular or group of corporations owns. It would be able to go into your secondary will.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Like we've talked about this with our team now, we've talked to our accountants, we've talked to our financial planners. We've met with you and your team. And so once that corporate, like people sometimes say I don't know. Should I buy it? In the corporation or should I buy and it is their own personal, again, depending on what they have, but what are maybe some of the, from the legal standpoint of why I would or why I wouldn't? Like again, if understanding you're not the account you're not the financial planner, but like why you would say, hey, like I would or wouldn't do this, or the pros and cons.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>I think the main reason and maybe one of the only reasons you do the two sets of wills is saving tax. You're talking about Tax savings. Every million dollars, like I said, is about $15,000. For some people, they would say that's absolutely worth it. For other people, they might say 15,000 on a million bucks. Really? It's only 1%, so it's a personal decision. But you're saving tax. So that's one main reason to do the primary and secondary wills. Sometimes another main reason would be just ease of processing. So if you put your corporate assets into this corporate will, it doesn't have to go through the process of probate.</p> <p>The process of probate or state administration as it's called now will take anywhere from a month to the filing and approval with the court could take up to six to nine months. Like Toronto it takes six months. Easy peel region, six months, probably easy. Holton, Hamilton region, maybe some of the other areas like in, in Niagara. You might, you probably could see two, two to four months. Processing time. So that's a period of at least 30 to 60 days up to, potentially, 180 plus where assets are more or less stuck in limbo.</p> <p>Like the person who was able to deal with them and move them along in the fact that the person died, you're stuck in limbo until you get a probate certificate from the court saying you're the executor, you're appointed by the courts and this will to now deal with these assets, and deal with them as per the will. Whereas if you have all your corporate assets of which all your real estate holdings are under now, you don't have to wait that period of time.</p> <p>It's all there in the secondary, you just see what the secondary will say so you can get it all dealt with in at least a review of it and set a path of a course of action in 30 days or less. Whereas probate, you're looking at probably at the quickest, at least two to three months.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> That wanna be clear though, Ryan, cause all those places you mentioned were Ontario and we're talking about Canada wide. Is that correct? It doesn't matter where you are?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> Yeah, I would only be able to comment on Ontario because of our licensing, as lawyers we're licensed by provinces. So I can only really probably speak intelligently on Ontario and how the Ontario process would work. The will though, to your point Yes. Could govern your assets. Not only just coast to coast in Canada, but in continental North America and in the world really. Your will, you only theoretically need to have one will. I don't wanna put us down a path of Getting distracted here, but I mean there is some thought about having potential additional wills for assets held in other countries, right?</p> <p>If you had a whole bunch of properties all owned in, say, Florida, for example, it might be a good idea to make sure you have a will that governs only assets in Florida, right? Or if you were dealing with property, say, in the Middle East, because you had that kind of international investment portfolio.</p> <p>The Middle East doesn't really go by a traditional English, common law system of law. So it would be, again, a good idea to make sure you have. The appropriate legal documents in place that would be like a will in Canada, but specifically in the Middle East for your Middle Eastern properties, for example.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> It sounds like if you have properties and investments of any kind internationally it would be a really good idea to talk to your accountant, who hopefully if they don't have the experience to work. In the international venue at least you can put you in touch with accountants who have experience in those countries or jurisdictions' jurisdictional boundaries.</p> <p>Then on top of that you want to have lawyers. Who are familiar with the rules and regulations and laws within that country. And if we're talking about, I don't know, a $30,000 little shock in Tennessee, maybe it is not worth it. I don't know. I'm not making any judgments. However, it doesn't take long for properties to add up. And the last thing you wanna do, I would think, is get caught up, especially in a foreign court. Or maybe you don't even know the language.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Absolutely. Again it all boils down to, I think the main thing we're trying to get across here too, which is taking the time to plan for your ultimate successes, right? And there's stages of success, but then there's also you, going back to your point of what is succession planning? Succession is dealing with that actual event where we're not gonna live forever. We're still trying to figure that one out. But being a success in business means making sure that you can leave a legacy of hopefully good value and good wealth and good prosperity to whoever you want to leave that to, right?</p> <p>Whether it's business partners, whether it's family, whether it's community at large or a combination of all those things. Succession is just one chapter of being successful at business. A lot of the real estate investors that are either at the very beginning stage, one of, their journey, or, stage five being like a really experienced and high volume slash /high property individual, somebody who's coaching and mentoring and running a very successful business.</p> <p>Then you've got levels two, three, and four, all kinda all in between there. This idea of succession planning and sitting down as early in the process as you can. With your lawyer, with your tax accountant, with your financial advisor to say, okay, these are my short, medium, long-term goals I wanna accomplish.</p> <p>I heard the podcast, they talked about tax structuring and having corporate versus personal wills. So what do I do? So how do I get started and why is it important to me? I think. You wanna ask yourself those kinds of questions as early in the process as you can so that you can take advantage of as many opportunities that are available.</p> <p>Doing it, as early as stage one is obviously ideal, but it doesn't always work that way. And so you have to try to learn from your mistakes and from others' mistakes and lessons. And then hopefully they bring about as much prosperity free as possible.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> In different stages you're gonna need different things. And for those listeners out there, I don't know, Ryan's a pretty nifty hockey player and he's got some dangles he can skate. But the other thing is you don't need like the $400 hockey stick if you don't even, okay. If you can't even get on the ice and skate yet.</p> <p>Like you gotta work on those fundamentals. And I try to use that analogy cause I know he's a big hockey fan and I'm missing hockey, right about now. So it's almost playoff time. But you need those things in different stages. You don't want to kill a mosquito with a sledgehammer.</p> <p>Hopefully that mosquito gets bigger into something and you're gonna need a sledgehammer for that protection, right? And that's why always checking in, making sure that you're adapting along with your business, like Ryan said, working on that, seeing what the short, medium, and long-term plans are and reassessing those because the short-term plan is always the short-term plan.<br /> Until it leads into the medium and then the long, and then you gotta restart again. What's the next short, medium, and long and constantly evolving. So it's good to check in and have a frame of reference to do that.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>I would just add to that point, Alfonso, which is excellent. Because that's the only constant in life is change. So something's always changing for us. Even if you set really good goals and really good targets and really good processes, things always change. But so one thing I always say to my clients, cause they always say so I put this all in place.</p> <p>How often do I review it or how often do I check it or when should I be reviewing and checking it? And there's a list of enumerated events that we would give our clients in a reporting letter. Whether it's, somebody got very sick or you got very sick, or there was a very massive, positive gain in your portfolio.</p> <p>Or conversely a large contraction in it. Those are obviously some triggering events that potentially would require a review. But even if, let's say everything was status quo and it was business as usual and it you were, trucking along on your business plan really well. I always say at your year end when you're filing your taxes, cause you always do that probably the same time every year. Do a review of your will and your succession plan and say, what did I put into place last year and is it still true now? And has anything maybe changed? Oh, we thought we were only gonna buy one or two properties this year and bought 10, and they're not all with the same business partners.</p> <p>Oh, maybe I should, they're structured differently. They're not all corporate structures, some of them have joint venture agreements tied into them, even though they're with the same corporation. Group of companies they're not, it's not me owning everything through the corporation, like a hundred percent.</p> <p>There's some JV splits there and things. So it's just stuff like that. Every year, sit down, do a review, have a refresher of a discussion with your lawyer and your accountant. And I think you'd find that you'd be pleasantly surprised by that. You should get out in front of things more often than re reacting to them.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Okay. That's really great advice, Orion. And wow, you've really given us a lot to think about, but now you know what time it is. It's time for the lightning round.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Ryan, you've been on the podcast a bunch of times, so we don't wanna ask you the same lightning round questions. We're gonna change it up a little bit. So are you okay with that?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Sure.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Awesome. All right, so my question for you, the first one is, what's one daily routine that you do that helps for success or helps your day or that just makes, clears your mind or helps you get your task done more efficiently?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> It's not really a business tool, but one thing I try to do is have as much habit in my daily grind as I can. So I always typically get up at the same time every day. I'm an early riser just because the most fresh, early in the morning, like it is energetic to get jobs accomplished. And so the most important jobs, the ones that I want to get done no matter what that day, particular day, I always try to do as early in the day as possible.</p> <p>I try to block off a set period of time early in the day. Typically I try to get it done, between five and seven in the morning. That way I know that it gets done. Nobody's gonna be up at that time, or very few people, nobody in my office will be, nobody's gonna be distracting me, and I know that I have a good chunk of time and I can get it done.</p> <p>That works for me, but it won't work for everybody. The whole point is whenever you find you're the freshest and the most engaged to get work done. Make the tasks that are the most important to you, the ones that you do at that time, and do it. And don't let it be just a once in a while thing. Make it something you do every day.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Okay? That's a great answer. Now, number two. Now this is totally left turn or right turn, depending what you want. Tomorrow morning you wake up and you could be anywhere in the world you wanted to be. Where would it be?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>On a beach.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Where?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>It doesn't matter at this point, anywhere on a beach that's gonna be peaceful and relaxing. And I can hear the waves, see nature and have a nice Adult beverage and feel that warm sun on my pale skin. That's what I would want.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> That's awesome. And for those of you listening to the podcast, not watching on YouTube, Ryan's got the virtual background of the palm tree and the waves in the back, and it's just, I keep looking.</p> <p>I'm like, oh, it's so peaceful. But Yeah to brighter days when we're actually on those beaches, like you said, sipping some sipping some. But alright. So my second and last question for me of the lightning round, who is, so I got kinda like a double-edged question, but what's one business book or one maybe business thought leader that you recommend for somebody to look into or that's maybe made an impact on your thought process about business?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> I've been involved for the last I think it's a little over a year now, and I got referred to this by a client and colleague and friend who's several years into it. He's three or four years, I think, into the program. It's called Strategic Coach and it's an overall like business growth and development group and association. It's got similar ideas as the REITE Club but on a much broader scale. It's not just about real estate, it's about just business and just professional attitude about trying to 10x your business. I'm right in the middle of that and they give you a tremendous amount of literature.</p> <p>I would say any literature coming out of them is fantastic. I think it was actually brought up in one of the REITE club events. I think last year somebody talked about, reading up on Colby Index and what the Colby Index means and what it says about you. So I think that would be a great association or group to check out a little bit if you're interested in a 10x type of program that's broader than just say real estate, but it's just more being a professional and professional growth and so forth. Strategic coach and the good part about It has main offices only in Chicago and Toronto.</p> <p>The fact that Toronto actually gets people flown in from literally all over the world, like Australia, London, middle East, USA , like they come in from everywhere to go to these conferences and the fact that we have 30 minutes from us, if you live in Burlington or Holton region, to go to Toronto that's great.</p> <p>Anything by them I think is pretty, pretty strong. And worth the look or investment. And then specifically reading up on and learning more about yourself through your Colby Index. It's very interesting and well worth that analysis of yourself as well.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>That's great. Now I have one again totally from left field. Get ready. If you could speak to any world leader existing right now in the world, who would that be?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Oh boy. That's funny. The first thing that popped in my head would be Donald Trump only So I can tell him what I think.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I knew, okay, let's take Donald off the table.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Hopefully there's not too many Republicans listening. But anyways, that being said, world leader, interesting. And did you say political or Could be anything?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>It could be anybody.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Past and present?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Obviously Donald Trump. Yeah. I might just like you.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>That's just so I can tell him.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> He wouldn't listen anyway.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> Don't wanna ask him anything. I would really like to talk to somebody like Warren Buffet or like Bill Gates, guys who especially like a guy like Bill Gates. He's literally, he literally started from a garage, with nothing like, with relatively nothing. And has become one of the, and you could say wealth, wealthy wealth is measured by, money or assets worth and that kind of thing.</p> <p>I think it's more than that. I love all his philanthropy and all his charitable endeavors. I love the challenge that he's given out to the top 10 wealthiest people in the world too. Divest 90% of their wealth, upon death, to like charitable endeavors. I just think that kind of person, whether it would be him or any of those top 10 like individuals like Jeff Bezos or it'd just be interesting to talk to them and be like, How did you get here?</p> <p>Like how did you do this? Like from such humble beginnings, right? Like that to me is mind boggling that people were able to go from one extreme to this other extreme in a lifetime. Like me, that's amazing. It's incredible. And I think the reason I would specifically personally wanna talk to them would be like, the hardest part about being a business owner, an entrepreneur is getting over the fear factor, right?</p> <p>The factor of oh, if I don't do well at this, I'm gonna fail and I'm gonna lose everything. Or I'm comfortable, I've grown to this point. But to get to this next level I can't be afraid of the fact that it might not work out. Like the jump to the next level might not work out and then I lose whatever I've got at this level, right?</p> <p>Like it's, that would be really an interesting conversation. And I would love to talk to somebody who was successful, who went from such humble beginnings to such an empire of not just wealth, but philanthropy and just global impact. I think talking to somebody like that would be awesome.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Wow. Good answer. You did come up with a really good answer. That was great.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>I was just gonna throw out like a hockey guy or something. The hockey metaphor.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Great one. Talk to the great one. Talk to Wayner. See what he's up to. Number four above your, yeah. Right on. Ryan, I know a lot of the REITE Club Nation already knows you, works with you and loves working with you. But for those of you that for those of the REITE Club Nation that to get ahold of you, what, how, where, how can they find you?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Best spot to start would be looking at our website Carsonlaw.ca, <a href="http://www.carson">www.carson</a> law.ca. All my contact information is online and we're constantly trying to build and put as much. Content on our site and on our different social media. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn.<br /> The law firm has pages on all those different mediums as well. But the website we try to always present that as our foundation and our springboard for how to find us. And like I said, all my contact information there, email, cell phone number, I'd be happy to take your call or email anytime.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> That's great. Thank you so much, Ryan. We really appreciate your time and Wow, you've given us all a lot to think about, I think Alfonso?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. Thank you so much for being amazing with your time and sharing so many pieces of expertise and besties and seeing you on the beach. Ryan, looking forward to it.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>You bet. Have that adult drink for me.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Take care. Bye.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Alfonso. Wow. Ryan really had some good advice, didn't he?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. I can't. I have a whole full page of notes here and like I just really r my conversations. Ryan's been on the podcast several times, and every time that he appears and he comes on and graces us with his time, he's giving us so much information. What was your takeaway, Laura? What was the one thing that you're like, oh, wow, that was great.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> You know what, the one thing was it, and he didn't actually say it, but it was he inferred it and it was simply that. Just pick up the phone. And talk get the process going. You're not committing to spending thousands and thousands of dollars. It's a very small price, very small investment, but you're not gonna go anywhere unless you pick up the phone, pick up the phone, call your accountant and pick up the phone and call your lawyer. Whether it's Ryan or somebody else, do it. All it is a phone call.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> That's right. And you know what, a lot of us, we always talk about taking the action, taking the steps, and don't be paralyzed by fear. And, Ryan mentioned that as well too, is that's what a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs fear. So if you pick up the phone and you call and you get an answer, there's this old Chinese proverb and he or she who asks a question is a fool for a minute.</p> <p>He or she who does not ask the question, is a fool forever. So you need to get over the fear of not being, no one knows everything, whether it's the lawyer, the accountant, whoever that person is, the doctor, the whatever. They're not gonna have every single answer for you.</p> <p>It is critical to you. And if you wanna take the advice of people that are just telling you what they're doing, that's gonna work for them, right? You have to understand what's gonna work for you, what your situation's about. And again, working on the, for me was the short, medium, and long term goals and how they're constantly evolving and the short turns into the medium and the medium long and then kinda replaces and replenishes and keeps that journey going.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> It's all about setting that foundation because as you said, if you set up your corporate will or your dawn personal will, however, it's whatever the vernacular was that you used is the foundation. And then once you've got it set up, If you can add it or change it, but it's set up so if something does happen, you're taken care of. It's really not. When he talked about it, I went, it was like, oh my God. That's a no brainer, right?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. Yeah again Ryan Carson from Carson Law. He's in Burlington, Ontario, but he gave out the website, get in touch with him, reached out, and he's there to help. He's an amazing, trusted partner and amazing contributor to the REITE club. So thank you, Ryan, for being on the podcast and thank you to the REITE Club nation. The listeners, the many followers that we have and the people that are encouraging us to keep it going, keep growing and and bring on more challenging questions and people that we want to grow together through all those different things. Laurel, what do we want everybody to do?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I think it's four words. It is "come grow with us". Yes. Bye everybody.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Bye. See you next time.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Tue, 27 Jun 2023 09:33:23 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7927 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/understanding-importance-succession-and-estate-planning#comments Creative Approach to Marketing, Content Creation & Podcasting https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/creative-approach-marketing-content-creation-podcasting <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Creative Approach to Marketing, Content Creation &amp; Podcasting</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Mon, 06/26/2023 - 05:44</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>REITE Club Nation. Welcome back to another episode of the REITE Club podcast. I am Sarah Larbie, and I'm here today with my co-host Laurel Simmons. How are you doing Laurel?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I'm doing great, Sarah. And we should tell people that this is not just real estate investing. This is a mind estate segment, so we're really talking about it. He's more on the business side of real estate or anything else for that matter. It really doesn't matter. But it's been a fun interview with Bruce.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. So Bruce, for that, you guys that may not know, Bruce is our videographer, but he is so much more than a videographer. So some of you guys might have come to the REITE club and seen this event being recorded.</p> <p>Bruce is absolutely amazing. He's got two of his own podcasts. He's got a really successful YouTube show. He's written books. He's all about content creation. Not necessarily in real estate, but I'll tell you, this is gonna be very important because at the end of the day, we have to have more.</p> <p>Then two sources of income, right? So some of us might have our jobs, we might have the real estate. But really to become millionaires, you're gonna wanna have more than just your job income. Of course, your real estate will make you a millionaire, but it is really cool if you can create it by other means, whether it's a podcast, a YouTube show, and you have more than just the real estate and just the job world for income, but you've got something else that comes passively.</p> <p>We talk about how he goes away for two months and he's able to keep doing his podcasts, from Barbados, which is awesome. If it's something that you're interested in creating content, starting a show, starting something like that, this is gonna be the podcast for you. Laurel, anything that you wanna add?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I think that it's really clear, first of all, that Bruce loves what he does. For heaven's sakes. He just adores it and he uses that to his joy of life and his joy of doing what he does and the podcasts and even he has a live television show on the local cable company.</p> <p>He uses that to really attract people to him so that he can do what he wants to do. It brings in, as you said, different revenue, but it also supports what he's doing with his current businesses because he does many things. So it's a really good way to if you do podcasts and or YouTube or whatever it is, you want to support and augment your business. And that marketing and content piece is so hard for people sometimes. I think people often overcomplicate things.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. And in a time where things are becoming more and more virtual every single year, this is important to, if you're not creating some type of content and you're potentially looking for a joint venture partner or a money partner, and you wanna get your name out there, look at it from more than just attending networking events. Of course, attend networking events, but maybe do in conjunction with really posting content or producing content. And then over time, that consistent effort. We'll produce results.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> It is that credibility piece. The more you do of that, the more credibility you are creating for yourself. And the joy of it really is that yes, you are taking part in creating that credibility, but you're, because you're interviewing someone, you're actually, that other person that you're interviewing is helping to create credibility for you. So it's a really interesting dynamic, right? It goes back and forth.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. So what do you say? Should we play the episode?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I think so.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>All right. Let's do it.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Hey Bruce, welcome to the REITE Club podcast in our mind estate segment. And we know that you're gonna be talking about content and podcasts and YouTube stuff and all those things that we wow, like a lot of people wanna do and they don't do very well.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>You know what? It's nice to be on this side of the camera. I'm normally on the other side of the camera with you guys. I'm usually working behind the scenes helping film your events. So it's neat to be on this side. For sure. This time. Thanks for having me on.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely. I think it was really cool when we realized that you have so much amazing content that you're producing and we didn't know. We like, oh, our camera guy, Bruce, he's awesome. He comes with a right, the camera guy. But really, give us a little bit of a 30,000 foot view of who you are and what you do.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>How long did you say the show was? Okay, I started in childhood, so at 17 I dropped out of high school, went trucking for 25 years. That's gonna mess up all the listeners right now. Right Now all your real estate people are leaving because they're going to a trucking show.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> It's business regardless.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>Then I stopped trucking, but I've always been in the industry and started a consulting business, started an art business. So I'm a caricature artist, the kind that you see at theme parks. That's what I do for weddings and corporate events. So I'm usually at a wedding every weekend.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Thank God they're not all mine. And then I started a podcast because I have all this knowledge of the trucking industry and I've become a kind of an entrepreneur, especially for creatives in the trucking industry. And now next week I'll be at 500 episodes on this one show alone. So I have the two podcasts.</p> <p>I have a television show here in the Burlington area for youth. I showcase youth in the community, partners they work with, and I have a lot of fun, and my wife and I love to travel. And that's it. That's the 32nd. I've got five books out. You guys can go on.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Wow. Okay. So I had the first question that popped into mind. The first of about 300 is 500 podcasts. Wow. We are starting, we'll be hitting a hundred soon, but how do you keep going? Like where do you get your ideas from people, like people say, oh, I wanna start, I wanna do a podcast. And they don't understand that. Yeah. The first one's fun. The second one's cool. The fifth one is, yeah, that's okay. And by the chance I don't wanna do this anymore.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge:</strong> The problem was that I listened to the wrong people. So I listened to all the gurus in the space that said, you must start a daily show, and the only way you can grow is to have multiple shows going. So I started as a, I started right outta the gate.</p> <p>Seven days a week was the show that I had going, and then I couldn't keep up with it. I didn't, it was brand new. I didn't even know what I was doing. So I went back to a weekly show and then I've grown it. So now as I get sponsor spots filled, I add another episode. So now we're got content coming out every day.</p> <p>I've got three outta the week. There's three main episodes and then what I call sponsor highlights, which are just about the sponsors themselves. So that's the one show, and it's, I do a lot of events. I get a lot of my work from going to events and covering events and talking to people and coming up with ideas and just repurposing content. And, it's fun. You just gotta keep an eye out on the industry and what's going on, and I go to everything that helps.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. I think one of the best things that I've done prior to even the REITE Club, cause the REITE club is the other awesome thing that I've done was start a podcast because it opens so many doors and it really helps with branding and like creating that person to, so my goal was to help others originally. And that branding piece, that's huge. They say like everything else, like even YouTube you look for like at it for a couple minutes or I don't know what the listening rate is. But podcasts are the one thing where people usually start to finish, listen to the entire episode.</p> <p>I think that's why we wanna have you on today just to, because you have so much experience with branding and contents and that marketing and you've done so many different types of marketing, whether it's a podcast or the show, or whatnot. As things are becoming more and more, virtual is becoming more and more important that we differentiate ourselves if we wanna create that brand. So what can you tell us about that?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>The one thing I do is don't follow people in your industry. So I actually had an artist call me the other day who's on my podcast, and he says he is phoning other artists to find out how they're building their business, which is fine. He's doing some research.</p> <p>He's already a very good artist. But what happens when you do that is you copy what other people are doing. So what I do with my podcast, and I speak of YouTube, I actually wanted it to be a video channel. That's how I was gonna start. And then I realized that truck drivers aren't hopefully watching video while they drive 13 hours a day.</p> <p>I said a pod, and I didn't know what podcasts were, so I said that makes way more sense. And so that's where I started. But I look at my podcast and I try to recreate it like a radio show. So I look at what the radio networks are doing. How can they keep somebody interested for 24 hours a day?</p> <p>How can they mix music? What makes a good dj? What does all of that kinda stuff? That's who I look to, and I try to model my show after that. I have a tune in every one of my songs, so for my shows, I have one song that I play. At the end of the show, both podcasts are the same. Both podcasts have the same bands because they're all local bands.</p> <p>They're musician friends of mine. So I love music. I love to promote music. And when truck drivers download my shows, a lot of them will save the downloads. Download multiple shows as they drive for a whole day. It starts to sound like a radio show. You've got a music clip and then you go into another content.</p> <p>Then you go into another interview and you got another music clip, and so it's if they were to like, look at this channel, it's the same as a radio, and that's how I do my branding. I look at what radio stations are doing, and you go, how can I model that in the podcast world?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>That's actually a really good tip because I listen to the radio a lot. Yes, I listen to podcasts, but I like the radio because you can, Like you said, don't follow people in your own industry. Cause you will just end up copying. I like to listen to really diverse stuff. And but one of the things I notice that I do is I go, oh, I see how they did that. Oh, they never say this.</p> <p>They say that. And I almost, actually, I do have a little tip sheet. I should maybe share that, but it's yeah, that makes sense. Don't follow the industry. It's just like when you want to get ideas for even growing your business, whatever it is, don't go to an industry event.</p> <p>Go to something that's unrelated. Cause I don't know, maybe we should go to dentist conferences because we're gonna get, it's not that I wanna be a dentist and I'm sure Sarah doesn't either. It's just we're gonna get so many different ideas about how they present and it's gonna trigger something too, I think.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>I've just, for our trucking podcast, we are actually about to go out on tour because I started a fan club for the podcast and I said, okay, what would a band do? What does Garth Brooks do when he goes on tour? I dunno if you guys are country fans, but what does Garth Brooks do when he goes?</p> <p>I modeled a fan club, and now we're gonna go on tour talking to the trucking industry about what's good, featuring their trucks, talking to them about what's cool about their job, and going between here and Quebec. And we're going to, our sponsors, we're gonna be stopping at their locations to do this.</p> <p>It's like a road tour for a band where we've, I've looked at what, I didn't look at what other podcasts are doing, cuz nobody's doing that. So I went to a band and I said, what are bands doing? How do they promote an album when something comes out? How do they promote a fan club? What do they offer?</p> <p>We're having t-shirts made, we're having hats made. All that kinda stuff. It's gonna be. Cool. It's not about me, it's about the fan club, but at the same time, I'm promoting the industry while I'm doing it, and that's hopefully gonna be a big thing for everybody.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>That's really cool. I don't know Laurel, if you were thinking the same thing as me, but I'm like, it's like a, definitely like an idea that we could consider and go and, as we expand our whole online thing, just do a little road trip and fun tour.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>I've been even looking at the guy I follow on boom 97, 1 of the radio stations on Facebook, and one of the DJs every morning. He does this 15 second q and a with. Listeners, and they win, I don't know, 50 bucks or a million bucks. I'm thinking, how can I do that on the podcast? I know it's not live, so I can't do it that day, but maybe that's something we can incorporate into a live event.</p> <p>I'm starting to do more live and more stuff on Facebook and stuff, and how can I do that and make it fun? Like I said, I don't know any other podcasters doing that. So I'm looking to listen to the radio because that's what they're doing already.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Thinking outside the box, that's how you set yourself apart. So for those people, listening to investors, business owners, people that wanna get started, let's just go through some of the basic things that they might wanna do. Thinking outside the box in terms of branding themselves. What are some tips or insights that you can provide?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge:</strong> For your community a lot of them are in real estate investing. I would probably start, if they were starting a podcast and you guys have found this out. Why are you starting the podcast? The why is probably the most important question you can ask, right? It's really easy to get into, buy a mic, plug it into your computer, and boom, you can start podcasting tomorrow.</p> <p>To make it past 20 episodes to make it past 50 episodes to make it to 500, you better have a kind of a plan of what you're gonna do. And I find a lot of people don't do that plan. So maybe someone's real estate, I'm gonna use Alfonso because I know he's in the rent to own market. He could start a podcast answering all those questions.</p> <p>He probably gets all the time about how you start a rent to own. He may do that for his channel. There's so many ways, the REITE club, you guys already have that. You talk to a lot of the people you have about real estate investing and you show them. So if someone's doing that, what kind of clients do they have?</p> <p>What are the questions that their clients are asking? I know for myself, I use my websites to answer all my customers' questions. Whenever they say, Bruce, how do you do this? Or What do you. I could explain it to them on the phone or I could send them a link to a video and webpage that I've already done.</p> <p>Say, listen, here's where you start and if you still have questions, let me know. And that kind of gets your brand out there and answers their question at the same time, offering value. So I think something like that. I'm not sure what else you're gonna have to help me with the real estate part cause I'm not in that. I'm not sure what kind of questions you guys have.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I think what you said though about the why, like the why is always the most important thing of any business. I don't care what you're doing or any business venture, it's if your why isn't really clear, then it is just gonna. Eventually disappear because it's too much hard work if you're not. You don't have very clear motivation. And it's persistent, consistent action over time. And if you, if your why isn't clear, then guess what? Not gonna happen. So I think that's the most important thing.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>I had a friend and I was gonna do it. We did a little workshop on podcasting and we were gonna do an all day seminar and he wanted to do it on a Saturday, and I said, Okay, so why are we doing the seminar? Because it's fun. It says, let's put on a seminar. And then we all got excited and we had a beer and we decided how we're gonna put on the seminar.</p> <p>Then I said to him, why are we doing that? Because for me, because I do weddings, a Saturday is a thousand dollars day. If I'm not making a thousand dollars that day, I shouldn't be doing anything else other than making it so for me to turn down a wedding, because I'm holding a seminar, Unless you're gonna pay me that kind of money or whatever.</p> <p>When we thought about it, we go, yeah, why are we putting it on? We're actually not gonna make the money based on what we were thinking. We were doing it to help the community, but nobody was asking for it, so why were we putting it on? And we actually ended up not putting it on because we thought, actually we don't know why we're putting it on, other than it seemed like a good idea over a beer. And we were all excited about it. That was the only reason we're gonna put it on, but we know how much work it is. So that's a silly reason to put anything on.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. So I wanna just give you this idea, and then maybe you can run with it and I'll tie it into Sure, real estate to some extent, but as an investor, at some point you're gonna run out of money. You're gonna need to find joint venture partners or private money. And I tell this often to many people, start posting what you're doing on social media or start talking to people about it. Because ultimately you're, they're gonna say, okay wow, you've done one, you've done two, you've done three, you've done four.</p> <p>It gets a lot easier to find people that wanna do business with you because they see you, whether it's on Instagram or Facebook or having a podcast, right? They feel like they know you and that they've seen your work over time. It's just so much easier to go out and look for money if that's what you're looking for.</p> <p>I'll tell you, the podcast brings tons of opportunity. It's not just about the podcast. Cause I'll tell you, if you're just doing the podcast to make money on the podcast, here's the thing. We cover our costs on the podcast, but you're not gonna get rich off. Making a podcast, the stuff around it. Can you talk about that?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>About making money on the podcast?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> About the different types of ways that you can make money from a podcast.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>There's a traditional advertising model. I use those in mind. There's a course, if you're the kind of person that builds courses, if you're selling a book, you can do podcasts are great for that. There's all kinds of ways to make money. The traditional way is that for every thousand people you have. It's worth $25. All right, so this is the normal podcasting model for advertising that I have. Let's say I have a hundred listeners. I have a thousand listeners. I get paid $25 for a spot on my podcast to advertise whoever the client is.</p> <p>You're not gonna get rich doing that. Unless you have 20 million listeners and yeah, you're gonna make big money. For most people, that's not where they go, and that's not where they are, I did this podcast for two years before I made one dime. I actually. I tell people the way to make money on a podcast is to go buy a car because that's what happened.</p> <p>My wife had to turn in her car. I said, I'm gonna go save you cause she had gotten a lease before. And I said, these guys are gonna take, I'm gonna come and help you. We ended up buying two cars that day. That was not my plan, but if my car was 10 years old and they gave us a really good deal, I'm glad I saved her from that.</p> <p>Maybe she saved me. But anyway we came home and I'm looking at my calendar. There's nothing in the calendar. I'm going, we just bought two cars. That's really smart. We're in business for yourself. What are we thinking here? And I said, okay, I've been doing this for two years. How can I make money? And I phoned 27 people that I knew and I said I'm giving you spots for a hundred bucks a month.</p> <p>Who wants in? They all took, almost all of them took it. So it was like, and they've been with me for years and over the years we've multiplied and we've made different packages. And now we're anywhere from 25900 for a monthly package. But, It didn't start that way, but I had to prove for two years I was willing to put in the grant.</p> <p>This is where people need to know that, you've gotta keep going, you've gotta be willing to do it. What I like is that people learn about you and you actually don't have to explain as long as you're being authentic. So you, as long as you're being the same as you are in the podcast. You will get work out of an opportunity out of that because people will like, if they like you if you're trying to be fake and then that's not the person you are in real, it may not work as well.</p> <p>People know me. I, there's no surprise here. I am the exact same on the podcast as I am speaking to you, which always surprises me when I become a guest. So I don't even know if I answered your question. I probably did.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I guess the whole point is, you're gonna get podcast sponsors, but the opportunities around it, right? Whether you are trying to also, I don't know, let's just say have a course or get business partners or make connections. It's the best way to network in my opinion, because you get all these awesome emails with people being like, I built my fourth house, thanks to you. I've just binged all of your podcasts or all the REITE club podcasts for the past 30 episodes like that. That's the best too. And as we're growing even our online club, the podcast has been a huge part of that, helping us with that as well.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>It's a great way of putting people into that funnel of your club and of your courses that you're doing. It's a great way to get people interested there without selling hard. I'm very bad at sales. Let's just go for a cup of coffee. If you don't like me, I'll buy it. I can't even sell you a cup of coffee. That's how bad I am, and I'm really bad on the podcast too. I very rarely go looking for guests. I have guests coming to me all the time.</p> <p>I get them all, and a lot of people go they're trying to sell something. Everybody's trying to sell something. If it fits with my show and I do the questions for the guests, I don't let a guest come in. And that's why when you guys ask me, what do you wanna talk about? I don't know, you guys make it your show.</p> <p>I direct the show the way I want it to go. So if this person's in finance and they're in trucking, I'm going, I'm gonna take this towards owner operators because that's who's interested in that. So the questions are gonna lead in that direction. And that's why I don't care what they're selling, what their business is.</p> <p>If it's interesting to the drivers, my audience, it's gonna make sense for me. And I'm gonna say yes. And I say yes to some, and I've done multiple shows with some people I don't even know. I've got sponsors from people I don't even know because I was willing to take a chance on an interview and say yes to someone.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I think what you said about the podcast, like showing who you are and really short it's the attraction model, right? Like I used to do a lot of training on stage and ugh, speaking and all the rest of it, and that kind of activity really does draw people to you because you are basically proving who you are and even what you do by what you say and how you present yourself. There's very little difference between doing that and a podcast because as you say, if you're really authentic, then that's what people hear. That's what they feel. So you don't have to sell.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge:</strong> I got a listener out of your group. I was recording one of your sessions for the REITE club, and there's a guy there who lives in Guelph and I think his name is Dave. Dave, if you're listening, I hope I got this right. But Dave came up to me and I was doing one of those testimonial interviews that I do for you guys. And I found out that he loves an AC DC tribute band guy. We talked about music. I told him about my other podcast, which is all for Great, and he's subscribed to that show.</p> <p>I wasn't trying, I was just, we just had a connection. And that's how I am when I'm with you guys and at your events. I can go up to people. I just, man, I feel like I know all of your sponsors and all of your audience because I love talking to them when I'm there. And that's all you have to do is just enjoy people. That's the secret to a lot of this. And if you do that, people will come on your show because they like you and they like your energy and that kind of thing.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. Very true. So I wanna talk about content a little bit. As you're doing your podcasts and your shows, how do you do? Ensure that you don't run out of ideas. And I'm gonna relate it to maybe somebody that wants to start blogging or wants to start putting content out a little bit more on an ongoing basis, whether it's on social media or whatnot. Like how do you come up with the content, how do you create the content, and what kind of advice could you give somebody else that's struggling maybe in that area?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>When I started, I used to try and figure out the shows in here. I'm gonna, I've got a book here. I've got two books for each show. You guys, I don't know if you'll be able to see this, but this is my notebook. You won't be able to see it because of the glare, but this is a book, this is for one podcast for two since 2017.</p> <p>I know exactly what I'm doing with each show, but I don't look for it. So when I started, I used to look for the show and I would go, I would map out my shows for a month and I go, okay, I need to find an artist that does this, or I need to find a truck driver. I need to talk about owner operators.</p> <p>I would find those shows. I stopped doing that after two years. Now I just go everywhere and I, if I meet somebody I like, I go, Hey, would you love to be on my show? And they usually say yes. Or if they're talking about something and I go, man, that's a fascinating subject. I would love to have that on my show.</p> <p>I stopped looking. So now I just interview anybody. I could interview somebody on the corner at Max Milk or in front of Max Milk. Am I showing my age? My Sarah doesn't even know what Max Milk is anyway. It's a convenience store, Sarah. So I can't believe I said Max Milk. I meant to say Tim Hortons. Okay, so let's go with Max Milk. So it's like Becker's, I lost her again.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I actually, knew long ago there was one where I lived.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>If you meet wherever you meet people, you can just, and especially if I already have my equipment, maybe I'm covering an event or something, I will just start talking to people. And even if they're a little nervous, I'll say, I'll just talk about something else. And then you move into that. So I get my interviews whenever I see some, it doesn't matter what it is.</p> <p>Then what I do is I move them around. So this is why I was saying the other night, I do things in pieces like I'll do just the interview. And I'll say it's gonna come out next month. I don't tell 'em what week. I don't tell 'em what day. When I get home, I go, okay, what do I have for next month? Oh, I have two interviews on technology.</p> <p>I have two interviews on owner operators, and then I start moving them in and I could do all the intros so that they're seamless. But so I look at ways to use my content. I just put out an interview this morning about trucking in Australia. Now, I didn't interview anybody. New for trucking in Australia.</p> <p>I had a husband and wife team in 2016. I had another guy in 2017. I had another guy in 2018. Those are all separate interviews that are on my podcast, but I wanted a new one. So what I did is I took out a piece of each of those interviews that were talking specifically about trucking in Australia, and I put them together in one show, and that was the show that came out this morning.</p> <p>I've had people, oh yeah, we wanna talk about that, they're three and four years old already, those interviews, but that's how you repurpose it. You never throw out your old material. Keep all of your old content videos, whatever it is. And every once in a while you may have to look at, especially when I go to Barbados, I go, I need two months of content. It's a slow period. So when I'm going to events, if I have interviews that I don't use for a show, I save them. And then maybe I use them somehow.</p> <p>In another way when I'm there and I look everywhere. I've done trucking shows in Barbados. I've interviewed artists in Barbados. Like when we go there for two months, I take a mic with me, I take my recorder with me, Hey, you wanna do a show? I don't care. You're a photographer. Let's do it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You just said something super important. This is why we wanna do this kind of stuff, because you can do it from anywhere. I'll tell you, I've been living at my cottage right now since March, and we're recording this in July. I've been back a couple times just to check on, mail and etc, but, If I wasn't doing the podcast and I wasn't already set up, it would be very difficult.</p> <p>You're just talking about how you're going to Barbados so clearly content and branding oneself and creating that ongoing, whether it's a podcast, is obviously helping because then you get people that will reach out to you. Maybe they'll say, you know what, can you coach me on something? Or, what kind of course can I learn about trucking or come and speak and you get a speaking opportunity.<br /> It's all of those things that are around the podcast that's right. Where you could do really well. And right now everything is virtual anyways, but it allows you in the sense to potentially go away for two months.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>We built the business from day one to be a lifestyle business. I've turned down more jobs than I can count. I've turned down opportunities because I had to go somewhere every day. We built a lifestyle business that can be done from anywhere. We go to Barbados for a couple months at a time around the end of December until February. I do my podcasting from there.</p> <p>I try to record as much as I can before I leave and I do a lot of editing down there so that it comes out every week. I've never missed a day of social media. People don't even know we're gone half the time unless they know us and they see pictures of palm trees. Cause you'll see a lot of pictures of palm trees on my Facebook.</p> <p>We planned it that way, so I don't. Need to stop working. I don't need to figure out how I'm gonna have enough for retirement. I need to keep doing what I like to do, but be able to do it from anywhere. I could take this show tomorrow and do it from Kentucky if I wanted to. Just like you're doing from the cottage.</p> <p>It doesn't matter where I am as long as I can do it. And then you start looking for content. So one of the tips for content that's best is the content for your show. The actual content you create, act, doesn't matter if it's a blogger or for a podcast, keep it as evergreen as possible. So when I'm doing interviews, I don't let people go, oh, I'm gonna be here next Monday, cause by the time it comes out, next Monday's gone.</p> <p>No dates, no anything. Try to keep the focus of the interview to Evergreen. So if we're talking about investing, let's just talk about investing. That's, let's not talk about this new course that's coming out. That could be in the intro and the outro. But I don't want that as a piece of the interview because I may use that interview somewhere else for something else.</p> <p>Keep it as evergreen as possible. Your social media is where you tie it into. Whatever's going on today. Today is camera day. How come we're not figuring this out? That we're talking about cameras on Zoom because it's camera day today and nobody, but we, you wouldn't know that.<br /> If I'm putting out a post this morning, I might put out a post about cameras and tie it into an interview I did for a photographer. So I'm not, the photography interview is not the one that's the evergreen material which sits there and that's how you can reshare it and reuse it as much as you want.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> You've been talking about podcasts. The other side to that is YouTube, right? The video, the actual videos. Because with Zoom you can also like, just like we're doing now Yeah. We can record audio and video. I think a lot of people are in love with the romance of YouTube. Ooh, I've got my own little youTube channel.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge:</strong> I'm not a fan. I do have a YouTube, I have three YouTube channels, so I have, I am a fan of YouTube. YouTube is awesome for sell, so as far as people finding you, you should be on YouTube. YouTube's owned by Google. If you're not on Google, you're not. That's why they call Google it.<br /> You have to be on Google. I use youTube as an SEO way, like to help me get found if you search for lead pedal podcasts or catching on Craig. I'm gonna come up and I'll probably, one of my YouTube videos will probably come up cause I post every week. But it depends on your audience. My audience's, truck drivers, they're not, hopefully not sitting in front of a video screen while they're driving. For me, podcasts make more sense. I have a friend in the industry, he has a podcast on safety and his audience are all the safety managers.</p> <p>They're probably all on YouTube. He focuses on YouTube first, podcast second. I'm the other way around because of my audience. So doesn't mean you shouldn't use it, is that where your audience is? Is that who's watching, putting out a 55 minute interview? Of the three of us, are people gonna watch it? Maybe they will, but I probably like to do it. I listen to three podcasts every day. Usually when I'm at the gym or walking or doing something else because I can do something else. That's the whole power of a podcast.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Can't you take, for example take a segment or just a clip, a snippet, right? Put it on YouTube. Tag it, whatever you do, and then use that to drive people to your podcast or to your website.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge:</strong> I do that. I do that for every episode. So what I do is I'll take a, if we're doing a Zoom call like this, cause it's how I do a lot of my interviews and in editing. This is the cool thing, you, if you're, and I don't know if you guys do your own editing, but if you're doing your own editing, you can see where it switches to another person speaking.</p> <p>I will not even look, so picture a 50 minute interview. I'm not gonna go through that whole thing and go, okay, this is where Sarah said this. You know what I do is I just look at the screen and I take out five minutes and it's got Sarah in there, and then I listen to it and Sarah says, I'm at the cottage podcasting and I go, Awesome.</p> <p>My title is How to Podcast From the Cottage with Sarah Larbie. We're done. That's how I do it. And then in that five minute episode, five minute video, I will have to listen to the whole interview, listen to podcast episode 483 or whatever.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You know what we are, so originally when I first started, I used to edit my own podcast. And especially when you listen to your own voice. Maybe it's more weird in the beginning. You hate everything, right? You say too many ums. You say too many, you know. I know. I did that, and it took me like four to five hours to edit, 45 minutes of an episode, and then we just started hiring virtual assistants. I could tell you I love delegating as much as I can. Virtual assistants for podcast editing. Best thing ever.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>Yeah, I, you know what? It depends how you edit. I can actually edit my podcast in 15 minutes. It doesn't take me long. You know why? Is because anything that you're doing when you're creating content, the more importance you put up front, the more attention you put into when you're recording it, the less you will have to do on the other end.</p> <p>For me, I don't mind, I've had people where their camera has fallen off their desk, like they had a little. Phone and it fell off like this. It looks like they fell out of their chair drunk. It's the most hilarious thing you've ever seen. So I sometimes leave that in unless somebody swears I take that out.</p> <p>Cause that does affect your Apple rating. If somebody really messed up, like they said something they shouldn't have said. Other than that, I leave it in because I want it to be a real podcast if it's totally perfect, that actually can make your podcast feel not real to some people because we all say it's funny what you were saying is what yours.</p> <p>Mine was breathing. And you can, so when I started listening to mine, it was like, and I'm going, oh man, how many times did I do that? Like 200 times an episode. And then I started noticing other announcers doing it. I'd watch TV and the guy I go to, he does it too. And he's been doing this for 30 years.</p> <p>I thought, what am I doing? So I found out, how do you take that out? There's a way to take that out in one shot in editing, so you can take it out in two minutes flat. So now I figured out how to take that out. That's the first thing that comes out in noise reduction. But if I hadn't listened to my podcast, I wouldn't have known that's a problem, because it's not something you necessarily hear until you're editing.</p> <p>You don't necessarily hear it when you talk. We all do it though, and it is something that we all do. Why take them out? If somebody doesn't know their stuff, if you're prepared as an interviewer, if you're prepared, you know what questions you're gonna ask, you know where you're gonna take the interview.</p> <p>You won't be saying because you're prepared. The only, and you guys are both speakers, so I know you know this, but the only time you start saying a lot of ums is when you don't know what you're saying. So I tell people, listen, if you don't know what to say, stop. And I tell 'em this when I'm interviewing 'em alive too.</p> <p>Look, if you mess up, Don't throw the paper in the air and go off to the side and go, oh man, I messed up because now I gotta start again. Just stop. I can cut the film there and start again. We'll just start taking two. But if you are going all crazy, that makes it even harder. So I tell people, you only get one shot. Ain't it a good one? Cause I'm not doing this twice. And that's how I do it. I tape, I edit very quickly in my mind. Maybe it's not, The best way to edit it but the way I edit it.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>It really comes back to what you said before, it's that you know yourself, right? Just know yourself and be authentic. If you've got those two things under your belt, you really don't have to worry about it. So what if there's a couple of you knows, and ums and in there that's just, like I said, everybody does it. Even as I am saying this now, I'm going, am I saying, you know.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>I tell people I want the show to be just like if we're having a cup of coffee. That's how I want it to be. And I gotta tell you, some of the worst interviews I've had are with the top people, the CEOs who are trying to sound corporate. And you know what? They sound like fools. They really actually don't know what they're talking about.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Cause you have to relate to the audience. That's the thing. And you've gotta figure out who the audience is and be able to relate. But I will say though, because it took me so long, I don't even listen to my podcasts anymore. Like I record them and then they get sent to the VAs and then, Essentially it's gone. But I was always very critical of myself.</p> <p>I will tell you that the more that we do this, the more that I started doing this, the less I actually cared over time because I'm like, people seem to be enjoying it. People are reaching out to us saying, thanks for providing the content. And at the end of the day, I do agree with what you're saying. It's authentic and you're probably more relatable if you're not perfect, cause nobody's perfect and I am definitely not perfect.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>I don't listen to me, I don't listen to mine, to hear how good I speak or anything, but I do listen to the flow. So I listen to it, I've got some music that goes in, right when an ad starts and when I come back and those kinds of things. And I just wanna make sure it flows. I'm looking at things like levels. Do I have to keep turning the sound up and down or have I normalized it? Is it too long? Am I rambling too much? Did I not ask the right question? Do I talk? And you guys know you're doing an interview and half the time you don't even know what you said until you listen to it. Later on you go, oh man, I really say that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You're right. Or months later, and I'm like, I don't remember anything that we talked about at all. And I have to do the intro for it.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>When I'm listening to my show, I'm now listening. Like a listener, enjoying the conversation, enjoying the banter. But when I'm interviewing, I'm trying to make sure the technology doesn't fail.</p> <p>I'm trying to make sure I ask the next question. I'm trying to relate to them and look like them, so there's a lot of things going on. So you do actually don't get a chance to enjoy your guests. So I always listen to it afterwards. I only subscribe to my two shows. The rest, I just pick and choose as I want to.</p> <p>I listen to every episode and I have 500 episodes. I've listened to every episode. Of this show and 200 of the other ones, I still try to improve it. Maybe that's why I should stop listening, but I keep going.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I think that's really good advice. If you wanna make it something better, you just focus on it, right? It's like anything else where the, what was it? What's the saying where the focus goes, the money flows and the ideas come and the what? Everything just works.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>Yeah. And I've got sponsors. You guys have sponsors. There's a lot of people starting sp podcasts now because of the pandemic. Everybody thinks they can just start on Zoom and they've got a podcast and so you I think you need to keep, I owe it to my sponsors and to my audience to keep getting better. I just invested $1,500 in a mixer and everything here. I have more mics. I could lend people mics. I have that many mics that I've got around.</p> <p>I bought the one you're using. Sarah, I bought that about three months ago and I used it for a month. My wife's like, why are we going to Best Buy? Because I was having problems with U S B. I go, I need, my old mixer wasn't doing it. And I said, I need something in between. And now I bought the new mixer, so I've stopped using it.</p> <p>Now I'll take that to Barbados, so it's not a waste of money. You know what, I'm always, I don't worry about mixing, spending money on technology if it will make it better. It's either quality or, time or money. So this mixer that I bought now allows me to put intros and the music and everything right into the, so now I don't have to piece it together in editing. I can actually do the whole show. One straight thing on one take if I want to on this mixer. So now that's saving me time and editing. It's worth the money over time.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely. Here's some. That's behind the scenes, right? Yeah. We have a podcast. You have a podcast. There's a lot more to it, but I will tell you it is not that difficult. If I can figure it out. Press me. You guys can figure it out.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>Like I said, anybody can do it. This is not rocket science. But why, if they don't have that figured out for sure. It's not gonna keep going, there's a lot.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>What's your reason for it?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>I started my consulting business in 2009 and I was doing training for truck drivers. So I've always felt I have something to say, whether anybody wants to listen. I have something to say. Even when I was trucking, I wanted to be out of the truck by the time I was 45.<br /> I don't know why. I just felt like I had more to do. I just finished my book, it's called, you're Not Done yet. I still feel I have more to do. Don't ask me what I'm gonna do. I don't even have that figured out, but I thought I could help people by having a podcast. I knew I could make money down the road because I already had the networking connections there.</p> <p>It was a matter of, how do you start one? I'd never started one before. I'm, I don't have a radio background. I had to figure all this out. So once I figured it all out, then I will. Get better, but my reason is to help other people. It allows me to do something I love from home. I told my son started a hockey podcast and I said finally he found something for us loud mouth people that we can actually do and we're good at because we both like to talk, right?</p> <p>This is fun for me. I have a blast. This is not, My wife says, what are you doing tomorrow? I said, podcast editing. She knows the answer already. But I love doing this. Like I love being on shows. I love talking to other people. I love meeting other people. That's one of the passions. If I can help a driver have a good career, like I had made some good money, it still keeps me connected with the trucking community.</p> <p>I go to the shows. I love the chrome trucks, all of that stuff. So it's a winner for me and I make enough money. Like I say I've got enough money. That I make with it, that it's worth it for me to do. I'm paid for my time, so it's not like I'm losing anything. It pays for the time, the equipment, so it's worth doing. I just need to keep that audience growing. And that's, and by doing that, it's making good. Good podcast.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I think you just touched on something there though. I think a lot of people are, They're nervous or they're scared, or whatever you, however you wanna phrase it. They feel that they're introverts, so they're afraid to be in front of a mic. And I think it's just a shift in thinking. It's not you're interviewing someone.</p> <p>It is, as the interviewer, it's your job to pull something out of someone else. Yeah. And then there will be that natural interaction: the fear about the nerve or the nervousness about I'm on a camera or mic or whatever it is will disappear because it's, in a way, it's kind of a fake fear.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>The more you do it the easier it gets. And, I do a lot of work. We are a media sponsor for the Special Olympics, so I do a lot of work with the Special Olympics. I interview a lot of people and a lot of the athletes who are not comfortable on camera. So for me, It's like we're just gonna go have fun with people.</p> <p>I don't even, if you look at my show notes, half the time I'm saying so-and-so has a chat with Bruce. Or I look at it as a chat, a coffee shop. I don't look at it as an interview. We're not, I'm not looking at your resume. I could care less about that. I just want to have fun. And if you have something good, let's do it and let's laugh.</p> <p>I love to laugh, as you can tell. I just enjoy people and I think that's the secret too. Good podcast is just enjoying the people you are. And if the people stop, they don't have much to say. They got those one word answers. Are you able to fill in? Can you come up with something? Maybe you share one of your stories. Keep the conversation going. As they say on the radio, dead air is bad air, so you never wanna have it where nobody knows what to say, right? So I always have something I can add in there.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. That's awesome. We could keep talking for hours and hours, but we told us where we told you that it's only gonna be 30 to 40 minutes and like we're waiting past that.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>I'm okay with that if you want to keep going.</p> <p>Sarah Larbi: The next part of our podcast is our lightning rounds. So Laurel and I will take turns asking you a series of questions and I'll get started. Give us the first answer that comes to mind. You ready? All right. What do you do typically on a Sunday morning?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>Watch Sunday morning the show and just usually just have coffee and talk with my wife about the only day she gets or sleep, depending on which.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Okay. Question two, what is the one thing you can't leave the house without or without doing? And we're gonna exclude your cell phone? Cause everybody says cell phone.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>Going to the bathroom. Does that count? I'm a trucker. I always go to the bathroom. That's the first rule, come on, kids. Okay. So if we're not counting cell phones, we're not counting bathrooms. Your wallet. I need to take a wallet. I usually forget that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Nice. So you know what, as you were saying that for real, I was thinking, I'm like, okay with everything being shut down, are there even washrooms for truck drivers in times like these?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>Yeah. The truck stops have the washrooms open and stuff. They don't have the restaurants open, but they have the washrooms open. We solved that problem on air waiting.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>There you go. All right, question number three. What is your favorite non-fiction or business book?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge:</strong> One, it's an old one. I don't know how many people would know it, but it's called, Taking yourself from Failure to Success by Frank Berger, I think I don't have it in front of me anyway, it's a book about an insurance agent that goes around and he's trying to learn how to sell.</p> <p>He's having a tough time. It's an older book, but what I liked about it is that the whole book shows you that. Really, it's about relationships with people. So he starts off, he can't, he's cold calling. He can't sell any insurance, and by the end of it, he is not even talking about insurance. He's talking about the hockey game.</p> <p>At the end he says, so should we sign the deal now? And if you think about how a lot of us get business, a lot of times. We'll go to a restaurant, we'll have a meal. We're talking about our kids or family, whatever. And at the end of the day, oh yeah, we came here to talk about the thing. So you wanna do the deal or not?</p> <p>Before you know it, we leave and we're going, that's done. And it's the same thing, but I, that book taught a lot that you just have fun with people and just enjoy the people the business will follow. Like I've never had to struggle for business. I do a lot of things and we have a lot, but people will follow you if they enjoy working with you. And then of course you gotta do a good job. But hopefully I'm doing that part right.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Okay. The last question, who do you go to for advice on your business and why? I</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>go to Paul Cop Cut. Do you guys know him? That little all, I've known Paul for years and we actually have a monthly lunch date where we talk business. We talk about it, we just meet and it's informal, but over the years he's probably one of the guys. My dad was one that I talked business to. He passed away a couple years ago, but he was one that I talked business with about, and I have friends I guess I talk with. But like I said, I'm big.</p> <p>I'm really big at looking at what other people are doing. I don't necessarily go ask a lot of questions unless I'm stuck and then I have somebody like Paul. What do you think? So Paul is in my area, so I know I can trust the information that he gives us, and he's good at what he does.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. And if somebody is listening and wondering who Paul is, cause not everyone might know, a lot of people do, but Paul is our branding and managing all our marketing stuff. So he is really the one that's putting a lot of the marketing stuff that you guys see, a lot of the content going out to your emails.</p> <p>Like he basically does all of our marketing and all of our branding for the REITE club and then also for me personally. So he's a huge asset. Asset.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>He's great. He's really good.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Bruce, where can the REITE Club Nation, the listeners, reach out, know more about you? Give us where we can go?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge:</strong> I have seven websites, but I don't think you guys have that kind of time. So let's just start with Bruceoutwards.com. If they go there they can find the podcast, the television show, my books, all the stuff that they do, Bruceoutwardsproductions.com is where my art stuff is. If you wanna see caricatures and cartoons.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Very cool. And your podcast, what are they called?</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>One's called the Cashing in On Creativity podcast. That one's for creative entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, anybody trying to start a business based on their talent. That's what that shows for. The other one's, the Lead Pedal podcast that's for truck drivers and then Inspiring Youth is this television show for youth in Burlington.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Amazing. Thank you Bruce for being on our show. Thanks for your insights. And guys, if you need questions answered about starting a podcast or a show or creating content, Bruce is doing it, has done it for many years and is continuing to do it even today. Today. So thank you so much, Bruce.</p> <p><strong>Bruce Outridge: </strong>You're welcome. Thanks for having me on. You guys are always a lot of fun. I enjoy your events. I'm learning so much about real estate investing and I don't even know anything about real estate investing, but I feel I know about JV partners and I know that there's the BRRRR. I don't even know what the, what's the one you do, Sarah? I don't even know what that does, but I've heard it so much. I like it, can name it off and I know people there. It's just, but you guys are a really fun group to keep up the good work for sure.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Amazing. Thanks so much.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Thanks, Bruce. Sarah, what'd you think of that interview? That was pretty cool, wasn't it?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. We can keep talking to him. He's so fun. He's so entertaining. He's got tons of great energy and I was listening to his podcast actually before we started recording him and having him on ours and he's got some really cool music guy, so if you are into music and he was talking on the podcast about how he's got that as well, and some episodes have this awesome music.</p> <p>It's pretty awesome. I think it gives you guys, I think it's really cool to also share some of the behind the scenes of what happens, because a lot of it is what we're doing, right? A lot, like you're probably looking at it and you're listening to it, but how does it all unfold?</p> <p>Of course there's many pieces to how to create a podcast, but you know what it's not that difficult. And if I can do it, you guys can do it. Trust me. Cause I am like, so not technology savvy, but I figured it out at some point. It was really choppy and it really was not the greatest, but over time you get better and we're still getting better. I'm still getting better every day. But, it's something that I'm so happy that I did and Bruce is really well versed in how to do all that.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I think for me what the most important thing, the single most important thing that Bruce said. And Sarah, that I really believe in this.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I think it's three letters. Yeah. Got it.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>It's the why, because it's like anything else, if you're not committed and if you don't have a really strong reason for doing it, you can get all excited and start it and all the rest of it, and it's not gonna last. So I think Bruce's advice and my advice, and I know Sarah's advice is. If you're not committed and if you don't have a really clear why, really clear purpose, then don't do it. Do something else. Don't waste your time and energy and money, cause it does cost some money. Maybe not much, but it does cost some. But time, energy, money, effort. Don't bother. If you're clear and why, then great, go for it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely, and I don't remember what the stats are. I'd have to ask Paul, but the amount of podcasts that stop after five episodes or 10 episodes, like there is an Astronomy astronomical number in comparison of the ones that are actually ongoing and repeatedly, released on a consistent basis, whether it's weekly or biweekly.</p> <p>There are not that many, but there's a ton of podcasts in comparison. But just some of them maybe haven't had anything new for a year, or some of them more like five episodes and that was it. But the ones that are continuous, if you can get there, if you can do enough, cause it'll probably take. In my opinion from my experience, it took about a year and a half to two years, or maybe 50 to 70 episodes for things to really start moving and flowing the way that I was hoping you're gonna do five, you know what you gotta just keep doing more podcasts and more podcasts.</p> <p>Yes, it's time, but it's not gonna happen overnight. But I'll tell you that like the podcast, even with the REITE club, we're starting to see people trickling in and realizing, oh wow, there's a whole club. Now that we're online, wow, there's all these forums. There's all of these things I could do at the REITE club online, but they wouldn't have known or found us otherwise if it wasn't for the podcast.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Exactly, and it's, again, it's just that constant repetition of doing the same thing over and over and over again. You're not having the same guess over and over. But is that again, persistent and consistent action over time? That's what gets re results, that's what gets results in anything.</p> <p>And that's the hardest thing for people to do, is to just keep on doing it even when you don't feel like doing it. Cause I know with the REITE club, we've been doing it now for, oh gosh. Months and months and months and months. And it's true. There is a flow to it, right? You do get into that flow and you go, oh yeah, this is the way that works and that's the way that goal works.</p> <p>It's not that we're we don't wanna get better, it's just that you start to get that rhythm and it starts to feel a little more comfortable. And now once you get there, you can start improving. I wanna change this, we wanna do that. And that's just a natural growth progression.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely. When we first started the REITE club, it was calledREITES, but the concept and the vision changed completely even in three years. And I'm sure it'll keep changing and your business will keep changing as well. The really cool thing about the podcast is you can keep changing with it and then people have the new information in real time.</p> <p>I think it is really important that we listen to this cause we want, we wanna do real estate investing or we're already investors or we're already landlords and that's great and most of us that are doing it are probably, at least at a million plus in terms of net worth.</p> <p>You could still do something different that creates different types of income. Will tell you a lot about my podcasts. I've batched records for four or five months, some of them in advance, so that I can take my summers off right. Or at least two months in advance. And that allows us to have that freedom lifestyle of being able to travel or being able to have other sources of income in addition to real estate.</p> <p>You don't have to do it, but I'll tell you the sources of income that I get. Separate from the REITE Club, but like for me, with my podcast and the opportunities that I get, that probably makes me not as much as the investments, but it's up there. Like it, Hey, you know what, it was all worth it, but it's also super worth it because there's not a whole lot of Canadian content.</p> <p>Real estate content. When I first started, I'm like, I'm listening to all of these podcasts and they're really awesome, but they're all American. This half of this stuff doesn't apply. And I really wanted to create something for people to be able to say, okay, in Canada things are different and here is information.</p> <p>Rather than trying to decipher through, okay, what's the US what's Canada, what doesn't apply, what applies? And that was originally why I wanted to start the podcast. Same thing with the REITE Club, right? The more Canadian content that we can offer to Canadians. The better informed that they're gonna be.</p> <p>The really cool thing for me, if I can be a little selfish, I get to interview these awesome people that have tons of great information and ask them questions that I want. I'll tell you like, some people, some of 'em charge two, three, $400 an hour. I'm like, sweet, come on my podcast. And you can ask them a bunch of questions and they, I don't think I've actually had somebody say, no, I don't wanna be on your podcast.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>You're right. The, you can, we get people that on our podcast who they'll charge, they, some of 'em charge between five and $10,000 a day. We get to talk to them and you're creating that relationship with them, so now I know that I can pick up the phone and say, Hey, it's Laurel from the REITE Club, and they're gonna return the phone call.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Those connections are huge for sure. So if you guys are listening to this at Home REITE Club Nation, it doesn't mean that you have to start a podcast, but start creating some content. Start posting what you're doing, start getting out there, get outta your comfort zone, get a little bit more virtual, because a lot of it is going that route. And if you can, even if it's a batch post your. Facebook, so your Instagram or start doing a little bit of video clips on your properties, it's gonna bring in investors, if that's what you're looking for.</p> <p>It's gonna bring in JV investors if that's what you're looking for, or, it might bring in something else that you're looking for. And I think the more content that we can put out there, you build trust. People like you, if they don't like you, they're not gonna listen to you. It's pretty easy. But then you build the trust that you know, and then you feel, they feel like they know you.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Exactly. So before we close out, let's tell people what to go to our website because there's lots of cool stuff there. So go on, register at <a href="http://www.thereiteclub.com">www.thereiteclub.com</a> and just go in and see what's happening. And go register. It's free. There's lots of cool stuff on there.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. REITE Club Nation, thank you for tuning in, and until next week, come grow with us. </p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Mon, 26 Jun 2023 09:44:23 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7926 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/creative-approach-marketing-content-creation-podcasting#comments Losing It All as a Teenage Actor To Building a Real Estate Empire https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/losing-it-all-teenage-actor-building-real-estate-empire <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Losing It All as a Teenage Actor To Building a Real Estate Empire</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Mon, 06/19/2023 - 05:01</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Hello, REITE club nation. It's another episode of The REITE club podcast. I'm Alfonso Salemi and I am here with my amazing co-host, Sarah Larbi. </p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Let's bring in Robby Clark. Absolutely amazing. Has 200 plus doors, has done amazing. He's got a great story. Made it. Lost everything. Made it again. He's got businesses super awesome, determined, and has so much perseverance.<br /> I'm excited about this one. This is super motivational and what do you say? Shall we play the recording?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Let's do it. You guys are gonna love this one.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I am excited. Robby, welcome to the show. How are you?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> I'm doing very well. How about yourself?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Good. So I've actually wanted to have you on the podcast for a while. You are super successful. You've really built a great business from the ground up. For those listeners, the REITE club nation that doesn't know who you are or what you do, gives us a 30,000 foot view.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>Okay, cool. I actually grew up in the entertainment business. When I was younger, I had nothing to do with business and didn't really have a formal education because of that Had about six or seven credits in high school and the first two were gym and art.</p> <p>I had a late start into business in just the education side of it in general. So I had to go up and be a moderately successful Canadian actor and make a bunch of money and then spend all my money and lose everything in order to come out the other side, right?</p> <p>At about 21, 22 I had lost everything and then really started my education and learning. In real estate and business in general at about 23, 24 years old. And then started out slowly, bought my first house at 25 or 26. It was a $127,000 property in St. Catharines. It was a duplex. And we went in there and kind of learned the ropes I'd learned from Rich Dad Port at, that's where I first got my start in and really having the passion for real estate.</p> <p>That was about eight years ago now. And basically since then I've just been improving the craft of find, finding undervalued homes, renovating them, and then trying to recoup the value in the end and it's an imperfect science as anybody who invests, knows. And the first one worked out pretty good for us, which means the second one was obviously terrible, which is where we got most of our lessons from. You want to try to lose early because then you respect it a little bit more and then you treat it like a business or you quit.</p> <p>Like most people do, if they have a really busy life outside of that, and then they get into real estate thinking it's gonna be easy. And it's not, some, sometimes friction can break some people, but if you go through that, you're gonna improve.</p> <p>Then basically the past seven years has been improving on that initial model, which was always to try to find undervalued properties, renovate them and recoup some of the capital from increasing the value in that area.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Very unique to our REITE Club Nation and probably. One of maybe the only people on the podcast that maybe had a background in entertainment and acting and those kinds of things, and, not having formal education and all that kind of stuff. And then you made it sound really natural that you gravitated towards real estate.</p> <p>What was the draw? What made you get started in real estate? Like you said, you had made money, you lost money, and then you had like a fork in the road to make that decision. So what was it that made you get started in real estate?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> I think mentally I was really spoiled as a kid. And what I mean by that is it's not even Like I had done well as a teenage actor in Canada and made seven figures, obviously taxed and all that fun jazz. But that working with crazy people like you, Woody Harrelson, Emilio Vez, Charlie Sheen, Olson twins, just a whole array of people who at that time were, nineties, early two thousands were just like, Everybody knew them.<br /> You meet these people and then you realize that they're just people themselves, right? So even in entertainment, when I was younger, cause I wasn't really in high school, I went for a few semesters, but when I was there, it was just to, to show off. And, I thought I was, I definitely thought I was too cool for school.</p> <p>What that did though has also changed my reality. I had always thought by the time I was 21, 22, and it was more of a conceited side of me at the time, was like, ah, I'll get a private chat. I'll be on this feature film, I'll do whatever. And I was always confident in myself, although I knew nothing about business or money or anything at the time.</p> <p>I always had these high expectations for myself. So when, when I lost the passion for acting and lost my money with it and then had to go to serving tables, which was a huge pride hit to me. Even though I did it because most people still looked at me. You were in my school and were like, you were on tv.</p> <p>What are you doing while you're serving tables now? And for me, although I was willing to do that, just like I was willing to put out door hangers, for years on doors and to try and promote my business and all that, I was willing to sacrifice and take that pride hit. I always knew where I wanted to get back to. And, I've started a few companies. I had a healthy vending company. I had a landscaping company, which is still running. I've got a meal prep company. But once I started getting into real estate, I realized if you build a scalable model, there's no market like it.</p> <p>In Canada alone, real estate is a seven 8 trillion market. It's literally the dictator of wealth across the civilized world everywhere. It determines whether a city is middle class poor, upper middle class, everything is real estate, even though people don't always realize that, and it's very tough to get.</p> <p>A lot of cash flow from real estate as well too, right? So long term, if you're looking at it, growing into a medium or large scale business, right? So anything I get into, I'm always setting the bar much higher than I even know how to get to. And I think not knowing those problems sometimes beforehand is what allows me to think that way.</p> <p>Then, being ferocious about figuring out the problems when they are there, right? Because you can set boundaries and you don't have anything to stop you. I have a lot of smart friends who work with us and stuff who went to MIT t or worked at Goldman and did all these things.</p> <p>One of the things I noticed with them is even if they're successful when they went to university and they're the smart guys in their class, they're still at the top 20%. Of people that they're around. So even though they're very smart, if they're getting an 80 and there's 15 people ahead of them and they're in a class of 200 people, they still feel normal.</p> <p>They don't feel special. And at the end of the day, everybody's special if they just realize it, anybody can do anything. And I think that's a key factor that everybody misses in any part of life. No matter what I did when I changed away from acting and started training heavily in mixed martial arts, I know you can't tell now, but there was a period of my life where I wanted to be a UFC fighter.</p> <p>That was my only goal. And I went to LA , I trained with Joe Rogan, I trained with UFC fighters, and I was like, I'm gonna be a fighter. And, my agents and managers at the time were like, no, obviously not. And there wasn't a lot of money in it. And I just loved the sport, but I always set a really high expectation for myself.</p> <p>I thought that real estate was the vehicle. If you do it right, where if you really scale it, there's nothing to stop you. So even in my meal, I actually had this conversation with Sarah through Instagram like a couple weeks ago. I love the company, but for us to even approach a medium size business, we need to be in every province in Canada.</p> <p>Like it's, the mark is just not big enough. So you're dealing with something where it's okay, I see a 200 million annual market, and then how many people are in it, this, that, this is nothing. What is the manufacturing industry worldwide, I think is 12 or 13 trillion. Canada's a tiny country, but we have 33 million people and just the real estate alone is over half the manufacturing industry in the entire world.</p> <p>It's so huge. It's the vehicle for the middle class in general. This is what governments and societies and the people running this have decided. This is a wealth creator. A hundred and it's not designed to do it the way. It's designed for everybody to get in there, but if you understand the games, cause that's what you're playing markets, everything, it's a game. I think it's just an incredible way to grow passive income or if you wanna do it as an active investor, it's a great way to do that as well.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. So you've said a lot of stuff, we've gotta dissect some of it, but I will say it does take drive and it takes determination and it takes the ability to get back up and pick yourself back up because you've got business. And just as an idea, just so people understand, like what does your portfolio, like your real estate portfolio consist of, you're not like a small, you're not a small fish. At this point.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> We're about 250, 260 doors right now. But we're always renovating as well too, and I work with a few partners, so I'm basically the operating managing partner. So I'd done this by myself for years and was like, you know what? I don't need partners, or I don't, just bald headed to it. I ran my construction company a little loosely and a lot of projects did really well, but because we were doing well overall, I wasn't looking at the things that weren't working and that's started to build and build.</p> <p>Then it came a time where you buy homes and then you have to sell them, to pay for your staff. Cause I always treated it like a business. Like I brought on a full-time property manager when I had six properties. Cause I'm like, I'm not dealing with tenants.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I wanna take a step back though and because you've got a lot of businesses, you've got a lot of property. You're doing some great things like. And somebody that's listening to this right now, a REITE club nation is like, how does this guy do all of this? And it's pretty impressive that you essentially made it, then you lost everything, then you waited on tables. That's very humbling as well.</p> <p>Then you got back up and you started again, and you've built it bigger, but how are you overseeing everything too, and I know there's gonna be some ups and downs, but are you delegating a lot? Are you, like you mentioned, hiring a property manager. Like what, how do you manage all that?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> We've got a really good team now. That's something I've learned a lot over the past year and a half, cause I almost lost everything again a couple years ago. Just with friction and then a legal battle from let's just say an unloyal employee, right? That happens when you're not paying attention, right?</p> <p>It's not, you can give. It's nothing about that. It's just if you're not paying attention and dotting your cues and eyes, things are gonna happen. Yeah, delegation is key. And that's the one thing I've always been good at, maybe because I didn't go to school. I don't pretend that I'm good at anything.</p> <p>I know what I'm good at, I know what I'm not good at and I don't do what I'm not good at. Like I said, when hiring a property manager, like we definitely, we have two now. We definitely need full-time property management, but, You don't need it at five homes, but I knew I didn't want to do it. And so we have, property managers, site supervisors, site coordinator, project manager, and recruiter. There's about 10 to 12 management staff, including a full-time lawyer who helps with everything we're doing.</p> <p>Then we're always trying to hire more when we need to. Cause we've got about like 30 32 active sites right now, and we operate more like a management company than we do anything else. So I used to have 14 people in my construction company and then we'd realize, you get to the final two weeks and then they're there for eight weeks and now you're losing money on the project.</p> <p>We found working with a good network of sub trades is much better. We do have in-house skies. But whatever our in-house guys do, we want them to do it cheaper than what a sub trade would do it for. And then it really just helps us with maintenance too, for ongoing tenants. If there's any issues we can call our guys to go do it, as opposed to, waiting on quotes for sub trades.</p> <p>It truly is just working with a good team even on the engineers side. I don't pretend to do things that I'm not good at, and I will tell you I know you do a great job. And I've made jokes about it before without even knowing Sarah. I'm like, I guarantee you she's more organized than me to start.</p> <p>I guarantee you a lot of people are in that. And that's a good thing. I make a lot of mistakes that I'm very honest about and I put so much trust into people that I work with. So I'll go all in. If I make a decision, I'm all in on that person, and then it takes them something really bad happening in order.</p> <p>For typically for me to realize that it's not working right. But I just put a lot of trust and faith in people because that's the only way I can get to the next stage. And when I find that I'm doing too much of something that I don't want to be doing, it's always limiting. And then when I free up that time and get a little daydreaming time in I'm able to think about the much bigger picture as cliche as it is.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I love how you said that. And I think, that's something to make a point for the REITE Club Nation is that you're gonna go out and try something and you said, I don't need to know all the answers, or I don't need to have all of it figured out is that I have that big goal at the end, and I'm gonna find that path where you're gonna go up and down on the way there and learn along the way.</p> <p>Not being afraid to make a mistake. Some people never achieve those great successes because they're scared of failure. Whereas versus your mindset is, Hey, I'm gonna go and try it. I know I'm gonna fail. I don't know this. I don't know that, but I'm gonna bring the best people in those particular areas that I need.</p> <p>Like you said, property managers, lawyers, the different people that are on your team that you can go to put in the trust. Obviously you have to vet them and look at other people and interview and all that kind of stuff, but once you've given 'em that trust, it's here you go. Let's go and let's tinker along the way.</p> <p>I think that's a big point for the REITE club nation to take back is don't be afraid to make that mistake because you think you're gonna fail. You're never gonna succeed if you don't try. And yeah that's awesome advice.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> You're absolutely gonna make the mistakes and that's the thing, right? It's don't change the goal, change the plan to get to the goal. Read any book. Read Shoe Dog, from Nike. Read one of Elon Musk's books. Read any of Richard Francis's books, and you're gonna see these guys have nothing but problems. And if you're going through a hard time, Read one of their books cause you're gonna feel like your problems are nothing. You're not dealing with anything wrong.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Then here you get the bigger your problems become.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>A hundred percent right. And it's what have you done where you didn't make it when you rode a bike? Were you on a two-wheeler to start? Like you're gonna make a mistake in literally everything that you do and you're gonna get better if you keep doing it and that's it. It's just people and even the testing system in school, I'm sure you guys, understand this. That kind of deflects away from being able to make mistakes cause you're like, oh, I have to be perfect. It's no, you don't need to be perfect. If you try to be perfect, you're not gonna do well.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Don't get me started on the school system. I think it's just so backwards. This is, but you are the perfect example. We probably all are like, I was not a student. Granted in university, I stepped up my game. But in high school I'm like, What is the point of all of this?<br /> Where are you getting taught? How to properly not have to work for 30 years? Like they're teaching you how to be employees and how to abide by this little tiny square box. And it doesn't work for people that have bigger ideas and bigger dreams and bigger goals. If you just wanna coast and be comfortable in life.</p> <p>Go to school and get a JOB. Like at this point, I've actually let, I've given my notice to my job. And it's because of real estate. It's because of the fact that I can thank you. But it's because of the fact that real estate came into my life that like I have that opportunity and you decide to step outta the box.</p> <p>But those people like us that may not have had the best grades are probably ahead of people that had the best grades back in high school, because what are you gonna do with a plus in math? Sorry, not much.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I just thought of a question because you're very specific to your background too, because, you hear that, oh I'm gonna go be an actor in Hollywood, right? Or, Hey, I want to be a big real estate investor. I'm sure you've had A long list of the naysayers or the quote unquote, the haters. Why are you doing that, Robby? That's not how you're supposed to do it.</p> <p>You're supposed to do it like this, right? So maybe for those people that are just trying to get started, or, they've found the REITE club or they found some real estate investing books and they want to get going, and their friends, their family, the people that are their circle of influence right now. Are saying, no, that's not for you. You can't do that. I'm sure you never heard that before Robbie?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> I don't really listen to what any, I have my own version of reality that I live in, which is, More of a simulation theory. And I think that helps me cope with my ideas. But I think anybody is just, don't listen to them. And again, people like to take advice from people who aren't doing it right because they don't understand, and those are the people closest to them. I've always had a really supportive family growing up. So that was one thing that was good for me.</p> <p>My mom grew up in entertainment. My dad was in the Chicago Opera, so they like the artistic side, which is typically more supportive because it's, About creativity that was always there for me. So I was never shy of confidence because of that, which is good. But you can do that yourself. I think, when I first started learning I've always had a good group of friends. When I first started my education, my friends were, my audio books, my friends were literally, that's it.</p> <p>I would plow through books, paperbacks or audiobooks all the time. Audiobooks were good because when you could drive, you could go there and that. That sheltered me. Those were my friends. So my friends were telling me to buy homes, build large businesses and try to see what the government can offer for large industries, whether it be renewables, anything.</p> <p>That was what I surrounded myself with. Ultimately, you need to surround yourself with that because you will get that. Most people will think it's risky when, really the real risk is waiting for alternative effects or the economy to shut down like this, to really see what kind of situation you're in.<br /> We always shelter ourselves from reality. We get two, three takes at this life and we don't, right? Yeah. And so I think that's the biggest thing is, if you have that decision, don't let other people. Tell you otherwise, and then surround yourself with books.</p> <p>That's the best thing you can do. If you have a great group of people around you who are already doing this, great, but you probably don't if you haven't done it yet, in which case, be religious to your reading, your books, your education, and surround yourself with those same people and you're gonna feel like them as well too.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Hundred percent agree. That's how I got started into real estate investing. I literally started Googling how people get wealthy real estate, coming back over, and I started listening to podcasts and reading books. And that's because originally, I didn't even know other investors. So you gotta learn somehow.</p> <p>If you don't have, if the people around you then step out of that box and just like you said, audio, books, podcasts, all that stuff. Right now, like you mentioned as well, like the economy, there's ups and downs. Like how, cuz you've got a lot, right? You've got businesses, you've got the properties. How are you?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> We just got a golf course too.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> The downside as well, like how are you doing that and what does that look like? Because we never know, right? Tomorrow. Things can happen. We can all get all locked down again. Who knows?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> How are you? Yeah. Yeah. So I keep it simple. As I buy pretty still, we have some commercial buildings, but a lot of small properties and do work on them. So my investment philosophy is the same I had when starting out, which I think is great for any investor starting out if I like to invest in flat markets.</p> <p>You'll see what my philanthropy approach to investing is. But really, I like going into cities where the middle class is not there, where the markets have been flattened. It's been depressing for a long time because you're basically buying an undervalued asset, especially in a place like Canada where vacancy is low everywhere.</p> <p>It's not a demand issue. We have incredible demand, and this is gonna increase it because a lot of people have been unable to build during this time. In Canada, you have this anomaly, which is, low vacancy, high cap rate cities, which doesn't exist in the states unless, you know you want to be collecting your rent with a gun or you're dealing with higher vacancy.</p> <p>We have a beautiful city or country to invest in these small cities where you can actually make money. And you're protected from the upside, you're protected from the downside. I look at capital appreciation as the third form of wealth in real estate. Number one being equity pay down's always gonna be your biggest, but number one being your net cash flows.</p> <p>What are you doing there? Then your equity pays down. I. And then the third is capital appreciation, because that's the gambling one. That's the risk. And if you look at the GTAE, like the difference between major metropolitan cities and the outskirts is they'll always go up to a spec price. It goes beyond the price of labor in lumber, now we're like, you know what?</p> <p>This land is worth a million dollars because a lot of people wanna move here. And that is, A total disconnect from where the actual price of build is. Whereas if you go to the outskirts, you can't even get a new, the builders can't even afford to go out there yet. Because my take right now in Canada, if a duplex %2000 square foot duplex isn't $600,000 or more.</p> <p>The city's not quite at a middle class state yet, because that means a developer couldn't go in there and sell it for a profit, which means the homes have less money, there's less equity flowing in the economy. There's less money going to the small businesses and that's just how it is. So I think going out to these outskirts areas where your cap rate is gonna be a little bit higher, where you know you're below the price of Bill.</p> <p>If there's a recession in a flat market, what happens to the market? Probably nothing. It was a flat market, but the GTA in the upper middle class areas always went down first. The wealthy areas always go down first. In fact, in 2018, I think you guys remember when there was. Little stagnant, the competition rose up drastically in St.</p> <p>Catherine's all of a sudden because people realized they weren't getting capital appreciation and they needed to rush for cash flow. So what was bad in the upper middle class areas where most people were like, this is a safe investment. We actually got a 10, 11% increase in the outskirts areas.</p> <p>Again, if there was a recession right now, which you know, people are debating. What could happen? St. Catherine's has gone up in, in the outskirt areas still during this time. And even if it were to go down, I know it's not gonna go down as far as. Toronto and ultimately you shouldn't care because your goal is to be cash flowing on these properties so you can ride out those waves even and when they happen.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. And I, and that's why we are like, we always emphasize cash flow first, and it doesn't have to be an astronomical amount, but just make sure that your rents cover all of your expenses so that you can take that up and down. And this is why I'm a big proponent in those B markets as well.</p> <p>You don't have to be. Five, six hours necessarily away. But like you said, St. Catherine's, there's Branford, there's Peterborough, there's a lot of areas that still are granted. There's a lot of investors and there's a lot of people looking at them at this point in time. But there's still a lot of areas even within a somewhat close proximity to big City that still make sense.</p> <p>Cash flow first, mortgage, paydown, and then ride the way. But I'll tell you that a lot of those small markets have done better, in my opinion. When you look at the ups and downs, then. Like the Toronto's or the Markhams or the Vons or all of those highly priced places already. People will always need a place to live.</p> <p>People will always need a place to rent. And I think the more that we have immigration coming in, we've got, population increases. People just need to move further and further out. So those areas, they're definitely gonna see that wave come through. And some of them are already there.<br /> Some of them are probably a couple years away, five years away, 10 years away. But, get in there. Before it happens. And this is why when I was in Braford I'm laughing right now. I'm still writing it and it's still got room to grow. Some properties I was buying at two hundred, high ones.</p> <p>They're not that price anymore. And granted, like you could still find some decent stuff regardless. Today's dollar or price in 10 years from now, even if it's four or 500,000, In 10 years from now, it'll be a lot higher. Start planning now and just get a little bit of cash flow. It doesn't have to be thousands of dollars of cash flow, but a little bit. It'll accumulate over time.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> If you start it's a funny part. Once you start, you're good. Like you don't have to, I talk to people all the time about how to passively invest. The first thing I recommend is if you're getting a property, find a really good property management company if you're not gonna do it in-house.</p> <p>Cause that's important, but it just builds, it's like an automatic savings account with equity, if you do get the appreciation, you can borrow against tax. Re there's just so many advantages to that. But you're absolutely right. Like what Canada needs is a hundred, 200, 300 million people. We are a hundred, 200 years away from being able to do that. We're the second largest land mass. We are the most sparse developed country in the world. So the most underdeveloped developed country in the entire world, period. There's, can't argue with it. So we know what the government wants and that's more people here.</p> <p>We're immigrating not during these past few months, but immigrating more than we're building. And you know how long it takes to build something. So if we got 250, 200,000 units scheduled to be built and we got. 270,000 legal immigrants coming in, not to mention probably 50, 75,000 illegal immigrants at the same time, and we're already under 2% vacancy. We have supply and demand issues. That's it. And we will for a long time.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. And you guys mentioned like the secondary markets and with our rent to own programs, we work in those markets as well too, and see the growth in those and the number of people that want to own their own home.<br /> I think even before the pandemic and all that kinda started, it's more self-employed. The people in the population are becoming more self-employed, not reliant on an income or doing their own jobs. And now the other factor that's adding to that is, like you said, Robbie the land mass, we have so much, people don't necessarily wanna be on top of each other anymore.</p> <p>They want their own little space. They want to, they're willing to go further out because maybe now they are gonna be able to work from home or one or two days a week only, that they'll have to go into a certain office or location. Yeah, a lot of attractive features. So when you go into a market, like you guys were talking about, what are some of the things are you looking for?</p> <p>What's the closest big city? What are the economic drivers? What are maybe the top three things that if I said, Hey Robbie, I'm looking at this city, and you would look at it right away and say yes or no. What are some of the determining factors that you would look at for a specific area?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> I would as a beginning investor, I'd say yes to any of the cities that Sarah just mentioned. But mine, honestly, I was in St. Catherine's cause that's all I could afford at the time. I knew the gist of it. I knew that. Robert Kiasaki says if you buy a home and you can rent and make money in cash flow, you can do well. So I was actually looking in Hamilton initially, but I saw a lot of the lead piping and things that I wasn't familiar with there, and I was like, this looks like he's gonna be too expensive to renovate.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Again, if I came to you, if I'm a new investor and I'm going and looking for a market, right? And now you're presented with the things that you would say. Would give you the thumbs up or would say, no, you know what, maybe let's look for another city because it doesn't have these features or factors.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>In Canada, you're pretty fortunate. If you want to be super simplistic about it and just look at the cash flow, right? Because the rest of the factors you can go, okay, is there crime here? What part of the city am I buying in whatever. If you can manage to at least pull about $600, Per a hundred thousand dollars in property, and this is not the metric I use for all, because Subbury should be much higher. St. Catherine's areas will be, but $600 per a hundred thousand dollars in property. Meaning if you have a million dollars in property, you're gonna bring in $6,000 a month. You know that comfortably, as long as you're not on huge privates and whatnot, that you're gonna cash flow relatively well.</p> <p>It's a generic guideline. It's not something I use, but for beginners going in, look at that number cause I get approached by so many people being like, I can buy this. In Oakville. It's a new build, it's 1.2 and I think I could rent it for 3,800 a month. And you're like, Okay, we'll run your numbers cause you're losing money.</p> <p>I don't know what to tell you. And so even just looking at that first, because in Canada you're pretty safe. Like Branford, Oshawa, you can sometimes, if you have a good agent, again, maybe stay away from certain areas. We go everywhere just because you're playing with the numbers in that area.</p> <p>Make sure you're cash flow first, because in Canada you have a pretty safe environment for investing. You really do. And the further away you go, if you're focusing on cash flow the less increase you've had, but the less fluctuations you've had. You're already buying into something you couldn't possibly build it for.</p> <p>Make sure that the cashflow is there and that'll already mean that you're outside of the GTA. If that's the case. And then from there, you gotta do your research on where you're buying. Try to find a good agent in the city if you don't have one that you really trust. And do your research and get after it. And don't be afraid to make a mistake. Get that first one done, and you're gonna learn a lot from there.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. And that was a quick rule of thumb, but I wanna go back to the 600 for every hundred thousand dollars a property is worth. So in the US you hear about the 1% rule a lot. I'll tell you, it's very hard to get the 1% rule in the GTA or within Ontario, unless you're doing student rentals or you are doing some conversions and you're setting your own rents and you're putting in your own tenants. Yeah.<br /> You're essentially saying you're looking at least a 0.6 above, and then you're, there's other calculations and stuff like that to do, but as a very minimum, you just take, say something is worth 200 grand, you'd expect 1200 as the rents minimum, as an example or more, is that what you're saying?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> Correct. So listen, if I go to Sudbury I'm looking at 1%, right? And, but a lot of people don't wanna go that far and I don't want to discourage people who are looking and being like, oh, I went to Branford. It's a prime example. Branford is not gonna be $10,000 for a million in property. You might do seven. It really depends on what you could be less.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Like between seven and eight, like the 0.7 to 0.8 is, And again, there's still other things that you wanna factor in, right? If you're paying utilities, not paying utilities. There's a lot of things we just as a basic rule of thumb you're probably not getting the 1% in Branford anymore unless it's something that you are creating.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>St. Catherine, seven, eight years ago. Definitely not now. So I'm only saying that to not discourage people because they're gonna be looking like, they'll have to look at something in between Windsor and wherever. Like I want the people, cause St. Catherine's is still a St. Patrick's, an amazing market. I don't want anyone buying there, but I would still recommend it if I'm not biased. Niagara's great. Wellens great. Branford is great. These are all great areas and if we do the 1%, they're gonna be venturing out further.</p> <p>I don't wanna discourage people from investing because these markets, even at that rate, typically there's more factors to it, but still under the price it costs to build. How much would it cost me to buy this land, pay the development fees and build this property and then resell it for a profit after I'm paying taxes on it? That's a true cost of what it should be on the market and those markets. Branford and them still aren't there.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Great points. And I think that's the thing. I think the key that we're trying to underscore here for everyone is that we need to treat it like a business. If we were selling coffees, okay. And there's certain companies that sell coffees every day and if you're sell, buying your coffee for a dollar and you're selling it for 50 cents, how long can you be in business? How long can you do it? How long can it sustain it? I know, in real estate we're lucky cause we have equity, paydown, appreciation.</p> <p>Those are the things that we can't control. Appreciation is something we can't control. We can indicate, okay, there's more population coming, we can predict that it's gonna come, that no one has that crystal ball. But if you're cash flowing and you have a property that even if you're making a hundred bucks, 300 bucks, 600 bucks, whatever that is, that's a profitable business.</p> <p>Over time, that's going to duplicate and repeat. And I think that's where you are able to be successful is that you said, Hey, I did the first one. It went really great. We tried a second one, then go as well. We learned a lot. And then as you get that knowledge base, now you're gonna be a little bit more lean in moving forward and being more confident in what the type of projects or deals that you're working on.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> One quick note I wanted to add there. That's why I do tell people this all the time. I can teach somebody how to become a millionaire and wealthy in real estate much easier than I could try to teach 'em what I'm doing. I've tried to create a business out of it because I wanna have over a billion in holdings I want to create, and it's not even for.</p> <p>I want a billion in holding because of money. It really isn't about the money because I've overspent on staff my whole way through. I've always been tight, even when trying to grow. It's about growing something large. So it's not Hey, I want this figure because I want x amount of money. I don't have a target of money that I want in my bank account.</p> <p>In fact, less is better. I would feel more anxious having a few hundred grand cash just sitting there for a long period of time than I would a few hundred thousand in gold and silver or artwork or other things. Cause that's just my philosophy on cash in general.</p> <p>I think that if you can, anybody can be passively very successful in real estate, much easier than trying to even, you don't need three, four companies and 30 people to do it. You don't, Hey, a good partner like Sarah, she could do it all for you and you'll be successful, or you could try to do it on your own and you'll still have success.</p> <p>You'll have some roadblocks. You might want some coaching to get your way through it so you can understand, because that's really what you're doing, whether you have a partner or coaching or anything, if you're paying to get past those roadblocks that you would not have. We're working a deal right now where we're looking to go with a VC who's very familiar in the industry and just worked with companies that have done 10x,20x what we've done. And it's what's the value in it for us? All those roadblocks that he had we're not gonna have to go through.</p> <p>That's huge in itself. You could passively do it through hiring a good property management team, whether you're taking coaching on the side or reading yourself. You could be an active investor if you wanna have a business around it. But there's many ways to get in and it doesn't have to be as complex and so I don't want people to think, ah, this is how you need to set them up. Cause you don't, it's just the way I choose to run it.</p> <p>I've got a buddy who has on roughly, I don't know what he has, but he does very well and he's the opposite of me, where I work with a lot of people and he likes to automate everything and he is, A marketing guy, and he is online, he's super analytical and that's amazing. And it works for him. It doesn't work for me, but all roads lead to Oz, right? So just find out what's in your comfort level and you can make it work.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I would say too, it is just not an overnight thing, right? So if somebody's listening and thinking, oh my God, I wanna be, like Robby or Alfonso or Sarah and be millionaires. Like it took time, right? That first property, that second property, you're not gonna get there overnight and it's just one day you're gonna look back and you're like, you're gonna have spent 3, 4, 5, 6 years.</p> <p>There's different strategies and stuff like that. And then you'll look back and be like okay, now that wheel is getting bigger, that snowball is getting bigger. You're gonna start to feel it, but it's not gonna happen the second you close onto your first property. There's definitely gonna be some things to do to get to that point.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> On that point, like that's a really big factor that people don't understand. That was one of the things where I say I was spoiled as a youth because I had the feeling of being rich and being able to go to bottle service and do whatever I wanted so that I know what it feels like to have a bunch of money and that doesn't do it all right. And I know what it feels like to have, certain levels of success and everyone's oh my God, you did all this.</p> <p>When you look from your vantage point, you're like, yeah, but there's still a lot to be done, and it's not all sunshine and roses. You know what I mean? We have cash flow issues just as much as anybody else. And That's one of the things I say. We do set our goals higher, so I think ultimately that changes our brain to think about problems that solve different problems. But at the same time, just not putting those mental barriers up for yourself is gonna be A huge push forward. If that makes sense. I don't know if I got everything in there.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Exactly. And I think whether it's our own life journey, whether it's our real estate investing journey, our business journeys, our family journeys, we all individually have our own goals that we want to accomplish and set them. I think that's where really the start is what does it want to accomplish? Whether you're doing the birth strategy rent to own commercial investing, all the different. Aspects of this or, starting your own business, like you mentioned, landscaping, all these different things, right? What is that goal?</p> <p>What does that ultimately, what does a day look like for you? That's gonna say, Hey, I'm happy I can look in the mirror. I did goodbye to people, people are happy with me, I'm working with people. And then work it backwards from there. Because, going and buying one property or five properties, or, 250 doors, that's not the goal.</p> <p>That's not gonna be like, Hey, I got 250 doors. That's not gonna fulfill you. It's what all that does that's gonna allow you to say, Hey, I feel great. I've helped people. I've provided homes. I've returned and I've provided a good return for investors. We've created a good business, provided income and jobs for your staff and the people that are helping you grow.</p> <p>I think that's the goal. People sometimes forget, and it's just about acquiring the next one and the next one, and oh, I got wrapped up in that. It was just about more, and now we got 50, now we want a hundred, and now we want 500. But it's like, what is it all gonna accomplish? What's at the bottom line doesn't show up on a balance sheet.</p> <p>It's that feeling of, Hey, I've helped people, I've done good, and I'm able to do the things that I enjoy. And everybody's different. Everybody has different things of enjoyment, whether it's travel, whether it's charitable work, all different things that they can help other people. It's part of that human experiment, right?</p> <p>This is exactly why we do this podcast, to talk to amazing people like you, to share those experiences so that you're not only getting it from your own perspective, but everybody else that has had it along those journeys. And if we can help people advance even just one inch forward from where they are today.</p> <p>That's the whole goal of this, and we really enjoyed the conversation, but I think it's time that we get to our lightning round. What do you say? Are you ready for the lightning round, Robby?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> I am. Let's do it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>All right. Awesome. Robby, first thing that comes to mind, question number one, what is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>Reading audio books. That's first and foremost. Coming to your guys' events are great. You just said helping people. You guys help a ton of people. I was there I think a year or two, a couple years a while back, and I remember the growth that I saw in one year was ridiculous. And all of these people are just venturing in, but it's like setting off a bomb.</p> <p>It's like crowdfunding, like you might be a guy doing your own thing, but setting off 10 people to do one or two who talk to somebody else to do one and one, you don't even know the impact you're having, right? It's incredible and even going to these areas, they're helping it.<br /> I'll quickly trail on, I had this one area facer in St. Catharines. We once bought seven properties. Just to give you guys a quick example of how much help. What do you do when they invest here? The homes were averaging about 180. We wound up, getting a gross profit of say, a hundred thousand on resale.</p> <p>Because at the time I was selling to pay for staff, we wound up almost doubling the area and had one of the neighbors come up to us who had been living there for 15 years. And it's Rob I knew you guys did seven homes on a few roads. Sold a few homes. Our home increased 150,000 in value. We just sold it.</p> <p>We're retiring, we're moving to Florida, and I didn't do math. There's 500 homes in that area. I'm like, if each one raised by a hundred grand because of a couple home sales, a few home sales. Look at how much capital we just unlocked for everybody. So you guys don't even, I'm sure you're aware, but the intrinsic value you guys are doing by sharing this with people in the cities that need it most, because it's not Toronto that needs it. There's enough money there, right? In these cities that's unlocking capital that was never there before is really the most philanthropy thing that you guys can do.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> That's really cool. I actually have never thought about it that way, but thank you that is a really great way to put it.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>Yep. You're a philanthropist.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Awesome. Alright, so question number two of the lightning round. What is your favorite real estate investing resource?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>You know what it's like to skip realtor.ca. I know that's generic, but I'm there quite a bit . And it shades zillow.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>And Zillow. Okay, cool. Number three, what is the one attribute that has made you most successful?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> Perseverance. Yes. I won't quit.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Persevere. It's not, you know what? I just read it, I read a quote this morning. It's not the strength of the water that cuts through the rock. It's the persistence of it. The continual going at it, and not giving up. And you're a great example of that.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>So that's everything. That's all it is. Don't quit digging in China. You know what I mean? It's, that's it, that's everything. If you have the goal and you don't quit, you're gonna get it.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>That's awesome. Last question of the lightning round. You're sitting in your backyard, you've got a nice sunny day. But, on a typical Sunday morning, what's, what are you doing to on a typical Sunday morning, what's Robby up to?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> On a typical Sunday morning, I am probably going to, in the summertime, going to Starbucks for a cold brew. And listening to an audiobook for an hour and doing some daydreaming, and then research and planning. My days are not very structured the way that most people would think. I need time to thank and do things and be open for appointments when I need them.</p> <p>That's what works for me. So yeah, mine's pretty open. If you want to go to a barbecue on Sunday, I'd probably be there. But a lot of my morning routine is typically having coffee, getting my audiobook time in, even if it's a book I've already read coming up with some crazy ideas and then trying to implement from there.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely, The wisest people say planning and thinking is the most important thing that you can do.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> I would think so. Yeah. It comes more and more true when you think about it, like I realize that more every year, I think.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Awesome. Robby, where can the REITE Club Nation reach out if they want to find out more or contact you directly?</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>I'm somewhat active on Instagram, so at Roby w Clark I do post some tips on videos and whatnot. A lot of people reach out to me there just for real estate advice. And so I connect through there. I've got a few different companies, but siddevelopments.Ca is our hub. We're starting to upload stuff onto, which gives a little breakdown of some of the managing companies involved in what we do. And those are probably, yeah the best ways.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Awesome. Robby, it's been a great conversation and thank you so much for being such an amazing supporter of the REITE club. Are there any last words of advice or anything that you want to share that maybe you didn't cover today with the REITE Club Nation? Because again, you are very successful. An amazing guy. Just a good all around person. Anything that you'd like to share with the</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark:</strong> REITE club?<br /> I appreciate that. First off, I think you guys do an awesome job and you are great hosts here too. You guys did a great job. But then I would say again, for the people who are struggling right now, persevere for the people who haven't started, and for the people limiting themselves, put your goals higher because that's all it is.</p> <p>You're gonna work just as hard to make a hundred K as if you want. You set the goal to a hundred million. That's just the truth. You're gonna get stressed. Your emotion levels only go to certain boundaries no matter what you're thinking about. So get after it. Don't quit. And raise your goals.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Amazing. Great advice. Robbie, thank you for being on the show. It was a pleasure having you on. And thank you for sharing your knowledge and insights.</p> <p><strong>Robby Clark: </strong>Thank you so much guys. Have a great day.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Robby is great. He's just super determined, super just driven. And you can see that, he is going, he's already doing big things, but like this is going to be somebody that I can see on the Forbes list at some point. He is going to make big things happen and he already has. But super motivational.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Yes, absolutely. And for those of you that are listening and you have some excuses or reasons why you think that this is not gonna work, or some hurdles that you've come up to and say, okay, this is hard now this is difficult guys. That's when the work starts. It's never easy. Everybody talks about overnight successes and yeah, overnight successes take 20 years, 30 years, even longer, right? And this is the real estate business. There is no getting rich quick. There is no instant money, fast money. This is work.</p> <p>Then your passive income and real estate and all that kind of stuff. It takes the work, the systems, the knowledge to get into there. So we hope this podcast really inspired you to get to your goals and get to the dreams that you want to accomplish, and whether that's through. Whatever strategy, whether in hopefully real estate, is one of them because it has helped so many people. Really enjoyed that conversation.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>It's like that iceberg, when you think of the iceberg and then there's like successes and money and wealth at the top, and then the bottom of the iceberg, which is like way more stuff has all the problems, the uphill battles the, all the stuff, the time that it, you took the sacrifices.<br /> People don't make it overnight. They will make it eventually in real estate. You hang on for long enough, you'll do okay. On the fundamentals of course, and buy on the cash flow. Just make sure your stuff covers itself. But at the end of the day, to me, this is the best type of investment in vehicles in order to create the most amount of millionaires, the most amount of wealth.</p> <p>We're in a great position in Canada. It's a great country to be able to do that, so hopefully you guys enjoyed the podcast. Alfonso, thank you so much for being an amazing co-host. Again, week in and week out, REITE Club Nation. Thanks for tuning in. And don't forget, we are now online, thereiteclub.com. Check it out, add us, send us messages. Let's communicate there. Find me, I'm Sarah Larbi, and you can also reach out to Alfonso Salemi. Thanks so much, Alfonso. What do we say?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely, you can see you till next time and come grow with us.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Mon, 19 Jun 2023 09:01:55 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7924 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/losing-it-all-teenage-actor-building-real-estate-empire#comments How Live-In Flips Led To A Successful Portfolio https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/live-flips-led-successful-portfolio <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>How Live-In Flips Led To A Successful Portfolio</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Thu, 06/15/2023 - 04:14</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>REITE club nation, welcome back to this week's podcast episode. My name is Sarah Larbi. I'm here with my co-host Laurel Simmons. Laurel, how are you doing?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I'm doing great Sarah</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Awesome. Today's guest, Francois Lanthier he's really started it from really ultimately buying something, flipping it, living in it, starting from scratch. And what he's built is just, wow. It's just amazing. I'm super excited to have the REITE club nation meet Francois and listen to his great accomplishments and how he's been able to do it.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> He's a classic example of you don't really know what you're doing. You start with one and wow, he's just grown up immensely. He and his wife moved into the house and fixed it up and sold it. And from that, they took off. You're absolutely right. There's nothing special about it. They just decided to do it. They did it. And look where they are now.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. Laurel, what do you say? Shall we play the podcast episode?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I think we should. Let's go.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Welcome, Francois, how are you?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Good. And you? Good.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I'm excited to have you, first and foremost because you work with the REITE Club and have done so many amazing things. But you are an inspiration because I look at what you've been able to do in the last couple years and wow. Just wow. So before we dive into it, can you let us know who you are and what you do when it comes to real estate?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yes, for sure. I'm also very excited, first of all to be on a podcast. Very exciting for me and to be working for the REITE club. It's a dream come true and I sound like bad advertising. But anyway so what do I do? So real estate, a lot of people get into real estate for the investments and the freedom and all that. I agree. But my wife and I studied interior design, so we actually like bricks and mortar.</p> <p>We actually go into the ugly old houses and look at potential and we don't like cleaning up the buildings, but we enjoy that part. And then, yes, the freedom to do what we want to do and teach our kids as well about solid investments. My kids are now quite a bit involved in our business, and it's only in the past few months, but now they're really into it. We walk past buildings and oh, let's run the numbers on this place. Things like that. Yeah, that's it in a nutshell.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>When you say that you were an interior designers That's one thing to look at a house and say I'd like to do it. But we know that there's a lot more to do with flipping houses. Cause I'm assuming that's what you're really talking about at that point. Just, some people understand that interior design is different from interior decorating, right? Interior design is very much very close to architecture and interior space. So what was your first deal? What made you do it and what did you do?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yes. Our very first house, that's how, that's where I started. It's about 15 years ago and we called it live and Flip. So the house had beautiful hot pink. Everything was hot pink. The trim, the doors, it had a blue tub. Everything was nasty. It was built in 1971. It was their raised ranch and it was just poorly laid out in the basement. They had cut out some of it and put it in a garage and it was just a mess. But we were a young couple buying the house and we're like, okay, we're gonna make money with this one.</p> <p>It's on a good street. It had good fundamentals. It was a nice brick exterior with two fireplaces. The bedrooms were there, but it just needed a big refresh. So we moved in there with our young kids back then we just had a baby and A three year old and not three years old back then, but anyway, very young kids. And we just looked at the potential, how much could we resell it for in two years time. And we did all that. And that's how we made a little bit of cash on that first one. And it led us to our second one. And then after three of those, we started looking at multi-family.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Did you actually live in a fix it up, sell it, and then buy another one.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> And how, so you did that for, what, three or four times?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Three times in a row. So over six years we had three houses. And then the last one we sold we lived in Eastern Ontario, then we moved to Quebec City for a few years. And out there the houses were more expensive than where we lived in Ontario, which is unbelievable. But anyway. We made, then we came back to Ontario and did another slow flip, and that left us with a gap. So the mortgage that we had to break had quite a big penalty. So that penalty, we were able to recuperate it by buying something else. And that's where we got into multi-family and bigger deals.</p> <p>My mother was actually my first tenant. So we bought a condo, which I don't recommend doing. And don't get your mother as a tenant. I love my mother, but she was very demanding as a tenant. Unbelievable. Come and plow the snow. Do this, do that, paint the walls. So it was quite a challenge, but we learned the ins and outs of tenant management and property management, and that came from the proceeds of selling all these houses. We were able to buy it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Very cool. So I have so many questions and so many directions that I wanna take this, but first and foremost I will say if you guys are buying property and you wanna sell it, work with your mortgage broker because there's a difference between open and closed mortgages as well As variable and fixed.</p> <p>If you're planning on flipping, there's different strategies so you can avoid that penalty. And what Francois you're talking about is essentially, let's just say you go with Scotia, Scotia intended to have five years of interest payments, at least from you, right? So if you sell it within six months or a year or whatnot, all of a sudden you've got a penalty.</p> <p>Again, you're paying taxes obviously on the sale of the property. However, if you're in it for more than a year and it's your primary residence, there are different differences there. However, when you are going into another property, if you can port that mortgage over, you can avoid a lot of those fees. Is that correct?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> Yes. Exactly. That's what happened. And there we knew about that. Like when we bought the houses, we did, we got a closed mortgage, but my father was actually dying, so I wanted to move back to be closer to family. And at that point I didn't care about the affordability or any of that didn't matter. But yes, absolutely. I did learn it the hard way. And it was in Quebec and that was our first time in Quebec. The laws are very different. You don't have a lawyer in Quebec. It's a notary. It's actually the seller's or the buyer's notary. So you're assigned the notary.</p> <p>You don't even choose who you work with, which is very tough. And they don't tell you what the penalty is until the day it's too late. So that's what happened to us. We're like, Hey, $10,000 short. Oh, nice. Nice surprise. But we called it with td. And they said, yeah, you have 120 days to buy something else, and if you buy enough to fill that difference, then you're able to recuperate all of it, or most of it. That's what we did, and that kind of propelled us. So I was mad at the time, but now I'm very happy here I am this morning on this podcast. Because of this penalty.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> We're happy to have you and sorry to hear about your dad, but just to fast forward then, so you went to flipping, are you still flipping today or are you holding now? Walk us through your current strategy.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>We're holding now. I really buy and hold. Long-term wealth building. That's where you really earn your money. It flips, it's good to build some equity and get some cash flow going. Especially at a live-in flip. It's a pain cuz it's always under construction.<br /> Like the house I live in right now, there's still some stuff happening, but yet now we buy Multifamilies and we just hold them. We clean them up, fix them up. We look for efficiencies. Can we add a room? Can we add a suite? Can we add parking? What can we do to make it more cash flow positive? And then we hold them for hopefully forever, and then our kids will inherit them. And that's our goal.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>When you say multifamily though tell us how many units, like what is it a duplex triplex? Are you going fourplex 6, 8, 12. What are you doing now and are you thinking about changing that in the future?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> Yes. I want to grow bigger for sure. Right now it's more duplex, triplex, and I have a fiveplex. I've tried the commercial mortgages to get larger. And that's great. But it's a lot more cash intensive than I know about using other people's money, but it depends on the market and all that.</p> <p>I have properties in New Brunswick, I have some in Ontario, and I'm looking at Quebec again, even though I had a bit of an experience, but I still have a lot of people I know out there, so it might be interesting. But yeah, I live in Ottawa, I have a duplex I just bought a few weeks ago. And it's very good.</p> <p>It's got a detached double garage in the back, which could be another unit. So that's why I purchased it. It could be a triplex and the neighbor wants to sell me their duplex that's right beside it. So I'm gonna be looking at that as well. Hopefully they'll do owner financing. That's what I'm hoping for.</p> <p>We'll see. I have properties in Cornwalls. I have two duplexes there, one with a walkout basement that could be a third unit. So that one I enjoyed quite a bit. The other one, I use it as a cash cow thanks to Dalia Barum and her team because of Sarah Larbi's podcast. So I reached out to Dalia.<br /> I'm sounding like an ad, but I reached out to her team and they helped me refinance the property and the product they got on it is insane. There's three lines of credit, so it's re advanceable. There's a secured one and an unsecured line of credit, and I got money out of it. And that property cost me initially $116,000. It's just ridiculous. But I pulled out more than what I put in and all of that, and I had used private funds to buy it. And anyways, just an insane view.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Amazing. That's awesome. Yes, guys, I work with a mortgage broker. The mortgage broker will help you maneuver through your plan. Don't go straight to the bank for many reasons. So you've got a lot of small multifamilies and you talked a little bit about working with a mortgage broker, but also about private money. How are you and your wife financing all of these properties? Are you guys doing this alone? Are you working with partners, JVs, private money? How's that all happening?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> We do a bit of both. And at first we had more private lenders just through our networking local events, local meetups. Actually hosted my own meetup in collaboration with the REITE club in Ottawa, which has been amazing. Through that meetup, I met three private lenders and three joint venture partners.</p> <p>I've just leveraged those relationships. Some people have lent me their down payments to buy the property and then I qualified for the mortgage, or we went to a more traditional joint venture and I got a partner to qualify and put down the deposit. I put zero money down in it. I was the beneficial owner of 50% of the property without putting any money in. But lots of work. I do all the work. So the working partner.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> You talked about vendors, like hoping that next year you might get a Vendor Take Back mortgage. Have you used Vendor Take Back mortgages before?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>No.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Okay. So have you thought about how you're gonna approach the vendor?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> Yes. I've actually come close to getting a vendor take back on multiple properties, but always with the financing, that's usually where it gets complicated. Again, We need someone very experienced with some creative financing. And so far for me, it hasn't worked out. The vendor takes back. We had to go a bit more traditional, borrow the money, put it in an account, sit on it for 30 days, then get the mortgage and just buy it outright.</p> <p>It's not a vendor Take Back, it's just a loan and then a second mortgage. But yeah, vendors take back. How do I approach them? So I explained them to the people, like all the benefits. Usually they own multiple properties, so there's less capital gains. They can still make more money with their property because they're selling it over a few years. All of these factors. I'll have to approach it that way with them.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. And you mentioned work with professionals, right? Get a really good lawyer. Yes. Get a really good mortgage broker. All that stuff is super important. And I will say in the markets that we've been, even just looking back and I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's been harder because a lot of people know they can put it on the market and they can usually get their price and they're gonna go into bidding words and they're gonna sell it.</p> <p>There hasn't been. A whole lot of VTBs in the smaller multis, bigger multis. It happens a little bit more often, but I think there's gonna be a really good opportunity, once this whole thing subsides a little bit and people are more motivated to sell and maybe there's a little bit less, demand and a lot of supply and that changes, that's where you might have more people looking at those alternative options.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>I think so.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I'm also wondering if too, rather than in the larger centers, there might be more opportunity in the smaller centers, like smaller cities and towns where there's not such a, like an insane frenzy on real estate right now, cuz I, right now I think it's over. It's just stupid and it's just, in the big centers, it's just ridiculous. It doesn't matter what city you're in this country, it's just insane.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Everything's insane right now. Are you finding that as well Francois? Like where are you looking and where you're looking? Are there multiple bids all the time on everything that is investor friendly or what are you seeing on your end?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yeah, no matter the market, small towns, small cities, New Brunswick, Moncton is very hot. Moncton is insane. Maybe smaller towns in New Brunswick, I think you'd have fewer multiple bids. Even though I live in eastern Ontario, Ottawa, but Cornwall is super hot. Multiple offers, like we were one of eight on one of our buildings there. So it's not Ottawa. Ottawa usually there's 84 bids. Some property just went for 250k over asking Cornwall's more like 50K over asking so, But as an investor you can't run your numbers and this is my number and I, that's it. I'll wait. I'd rather wait another year to get one. And that's, they're at the right price.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You guys, there's you have your number as an investor, right? Right now we're competing with a lot of homeowners. I was just putting it another offer in for a cottage and it went 275,000 over with no con.</p> <p>We're competing against a lot of homeowners or people that are moving for themselves, or it's just tough. But I'm glad that you mentioned you have your number, you're an investor, you stick to it, and something else will come. It's not uncommon I make 10 offers for maybe one, may, if that I probably a lot more when you look at it and it's tough, but.</p> <p>At some point, things will change, right? The market is a cycle. It goes up and it goes down, and there's more demand, and then there's more supply and vice versa, right? Whether it's a matter of two years or 10 years there's always cycles and everything. So at some point, You're gonna get something else up.</p> <p>It's gonna make sense. I'll get something else That'll make sense. And so will Laurel. So you've got a, obviously a great setup with a multi-family, and you mentioned your kids in the beginning and how you're talking to them a little bit and talk to us about how you're making it, you're involving your family and you mentioned your kids, why it's important to talk to your kids about it.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> Actually we named our company FL Homes Corp, not for Francois Lanthier, but for Fami Lanthier Homes Corporation. So we actually have meetings biweekly with the kids and they sit at our board meeting cause it's a corporation. You're supposed to have meetings and meeting minutes and all that fun stuff, which they learn.</p> <p>They actually get to vote on things. They're not directors yet cause they're 14 and 16, very soon to be 15 and 17. And Yeah they understand about the financials. We run all the numbers with them, okay, this property is gonna earn us this much cash flow and we need to charge this much rent.<br /> Our son actually helps with one of our Ottawa properties because it's walking distance from our house. So he goes and mows the lawn. He's doing property management. So that's what we tell him. And he helps, he's fixed a few things. Their kids are great at removing carpet, so child labor, think about it.</p> <p>They do get paid, so we pay them a salary. They have a time chart like where they check off their hours, what they've done and they see everything. So they know about the podcast this morning. They're like, yeah, you can do it, dad.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Like I was at your home a week ago, and I saw the chart on the wall where your kids might write down what they're doing right. Or how many hours they put in. And your oldest one wants to, his son wants to buy his own property, right? As soon as he can.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yeah. He's thinking about all this covid happening, maybe not going to university. Yeah, we'll see. Or maybe doing it and investing all at once. My wife actually has a cousin who did that.<br /> He used his student loan to invest. So anyway, that kind of planted a seed there. But anyway, we put somebody aside for him and some of their real estate is actually to help finance studies. But we'll see. I did most of my studies online, so even back. In the day, like I went to college in London, but university was Athabasca. Everything was virtual back in 2008. So there's great potential to do everything online.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Here's the thing is university is not the be all and end all anymore. There was a period of time that, like, that's what you do in order to get a job, but, in order to become wealthy, the mindset is that you don't wanna be an employee working for somebody else. Like you could do it for, a short amount of time as you're, saving your money from your salary or what you can, and then you're investing that.</p> <p>I actually don't think it's that bad of an idea. Because ultimately what you're gonna spend a hundred thousand, 50,000, and it obviously depends where they go for something that they may or may not use. I went to nursing school. I'm not doing anything with nursing. Yes, graduated, yes, I passed and but at the end of the day, I could have gone to school for anything.</p> <p>I could have done it online, and I would've likely come and had the same results at the end of the day. I don't think it's necessary anymore. And I think you guys think you're entrepreneurs, right? So you think outside the box, it's not like you're like, oh, your kids have to go to your school. They have to go to university in order to get a job and become an employee. That is, sorry to say, but that mindset is old. It is old school. It's just, it doesn't work like that anymore.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>It is, and I just listen to a lot of things I'm not sure about in English. People that predict the future, not mediums or clairvoyance or anything like that, but people that look at trends and analysis. I really forgot the word in English there. But anyway the trends with all that's happening with covid, a lot of robots and like autumn automation will happen everywhere, even in retirement homes. If you look at Japan, they use robots for retirement homes, things like that, which seems very far-fetched in Canada, but it's not.</p> <p>Give it a few years and that's gonna cut off a lot of jobs that people, university grads would've taken. So now you have to create your own job and I've been in that business, like creating my own job for years. So I see that for my kids, absolutely. But having a VA is always nice on your resume, but, No employer checks that very rarely, unless you're in a specialized field.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> If you wanna take a course, you can do it anytime, right? There's nothing that says you can't, like education is great. You learn and it opens up all kinds of doors. So if you wanna take a course online or even in person, cause eventually we'll be doing it again. Do it. That doesn't need to be all at once packed into four years, as soon as you leave secondary school. But I wanna get onto another question about how you manage your properties. Because you have a lot of properties all over the place. So how do you, like, how do you do the property management? That's a big deal for people.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yes. So actually in New Brunswick of, obviously I can't go cause you'd need 14 day isolation and just the traveling and all that. And owning the business and the family and everything. So I have property management out there and they look after the property and we just hear back from financials and they send us videos and photos of what's happening, do we need repairs, things like that.</p> <p>Locally, I do it myself, which maybe isn't the best idea for scaling. For scaling normally you want a team, but. I haven't found that team yet that I'm happy with. Same with New Brunswick. I just recently switched to a very good company. I had some very bad experiences right before that. So it's hard to delegate your properties.</p> <p>They're a little bit like my babies, so like I said, the interior designer and knee. I just see things, oh, you're not doing the right way. You don't paint, you push too hard on the paintbrush. So I'm a little bit of a control freak, which is not very good for property management.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I think, but I agree with you, right? I think if you, if it's manageable and you're not spending hours and hours on it, then I self-manage my own properties, but I'll tell you, it doesn't take a whole lot of time cause you have some good HVAC contractors, handyman.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> Just call them.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Exactly. And so because, just from one person that manages to another, like how long does it take you on an average month to manage the properties that you're managing as an example?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> Most months, zero minutes. Because what I did, and that, that's the biggest tip is get good tenants, the good tenants will take care of the place. And then you just show up and have some tenants that call me. The grass would need a little bit more fertilizer. Okay. I send them some fertilizers and they just fertilize it for me.</p> <p>That's it. Or the other person, oh, the porch needs some painting. I just called them up, Hey, would you like to paint? I'll send you some paint and some paint brushes. And they do it in the next few weeks. I drive past. Oh yeah, it's looking good. Thank you. And that's it. So good tenants that care about where they live.</p> <p>Now, obviously this is a small multi-family, so that's why we're able to do that. Like a duplex triplex, if it's a complex, I'm not gonna get someone to start painting the halls and stuff. But they each have individual entrances, so they have beautiful gardens. So yeah, it's just a lot of months is zero minutes, actually.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>There you go. So you're gonna hire a property manager for, I don't know, five or eight or 10% a month off of your gross for maybe 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes, or just fielding calls. I think it's totally fine. And at some point, so my plan is at some point I'm just gonna take my portfolio and I'm gonna be traveling a lot more, and maybe at that point I'm gonna give the whole portfolio to somebody.</p> <p>Who, when they have multiples and multiples rather than just a handful, you're gonna be much more of an important client. So they're gonna have, likely they're gonna pay a little bit more attention to it cause they don't wanna lose the entire portfolio. But if it's working for you, I love self-managing myself.</p> <p>Like you said, tenants are super important and we have to control who we give the keys to as much as possible. If you can put yourself first. Have you ever had any bad whore, tenant situations?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> I have one currently, unfortunately. So it's a separation and it's just gone very sour and anyway, we're just working through the process of eviction. This one's gonna be tough though because she doesn't fit most of the categories in the landlord and tenant board, so their rent is always paid on time. There were some noise issues. But then the tenants upstairs moved out and they were the ones complaining and the new tenant doesn't mind the noise, so I can't get a complaint.</p> <p>Then there's some damage, but then she repaired it and anyway, it's just ongoing. Everything gets fixed just as soon as I'm trying to evict the person. Then there's a new surprise. And then everybody gets one. I think it's part of the deal and anyway it's very hard. They came with good references, but I learned that.</p> <p>Previous landlords lie. So that's a big tip. Everybody who's listening to this. References from a previous landlord. You have to take it with a big grain of salt and be aware. Sometimes they're trying to get rid of a bad tenant and just saying, oh yes, they're wonderful.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Current. So current landlords live. Past landlords that are, have already got rid of them. Likely don't have a reason to lie, but I agree with you the current one that they're living in, if they're bad and they're trying to get them evicted or whatnot, they're, take that with a grain of salt. A hundred percent.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>How do you find your tenants? I know we're soon gonna be finished talking, but if you can quickly just tell us how you find your tenants and what do you look for in tenants?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> Yeah, so we advertise on, well in Ottawa it is very good. The Facebook marketplace is amazing for Cornwall in New Brunswick. It's my property management. So yeah, just free ads. Kijiji depends on the market, but I find Ottawa, zenger is the best place and. Like I said, Cornwall, Facebook marketplace. And what do I look for? I wanna see strong financials that they're able to actually pay for the rent. Like they're, it's not if their rent is a thousand dollars a month that I want them to earn $3,000 a month, like about 30% at the most.</p> <p>But if they're earning 2k and they're spending 1k to rent it, they're putting themselves in trouble. So I care about the tenants, I wanna make sure they're okay. And that they do well and maybe this is not the right place for them. That's all. It just becomes a bad situation if you don't, if it's too expensive.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. So again, it sounds like you've got a good process. You've got a lot of steps you go through just to make sure that your information is in fact correct. So what's the next step for you? Where do you wanna take real estate investing to the next level? What does that look like? And when?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> Yes. So just a few weeks ago I was bidding on a 14 unit building and it had land to double in size. So I'm looking at redeveloping, looking for bigger projects like that. Larger multi-families that have more like 20 units and up more commercial mortgages and just focusing on the markets where I have investments, I want to buy more in Ottawa.</p> <p>I want to buy more in Cornwall and more in Moncton. I like building nodes, so I have about at least three properties per area. And then you have a team around it, cause you need a lawyer, you need a mortgage broker depending on the market. New Brunswick, I can't use the same people as in Ontario. So time consuming. Great potential though, like 3% rule instead of 1% rule. So it's. It's very rewarding.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Can you explain that for those that are wondering what that means?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yeah, so like the 1% rule, let's say you buy the property for a hundred thousand, then you want a thousand dollars in rents per month. Just an easy number. So my, so far New Brunswick and Cornwell for me have been more like 3%. So if I pay a hundred thousand, I get 3000 advances. Not exactly, but somewhere around that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>The cash flow in comparison, but maybe not as much appreciation as it.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yeah. Appreciation. Forget it. That's not the GTA or Ottawa. So that's why I like Ottawa for appreciation. And the other ones are for cash flow. But believe it or not I've managed cash flow in Ottawa, which is, it's very good. It took me a year to find the right property and probably 40 offers and a hundred visits, but I found one, so I'll keep looking.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>What is the one? Is it a duplex? A triplex?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Duplex.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Did you create the duplex or did you buy it?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Bought it as is, which is crazy because normally to get that money you need to buy a single house and add a basement suite, get the zoning and things changed. But here it was ready made. It was an el elderly gentleman that was moving to a retirement home, so it was just perfect and it was on the market, with multiple bidding offers. I paid more than asking, but it was still way underpriced even after that. So it's just a great deal.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Francois, I have a question for you, and this is a little bit of a, just a little bit of a left turn for what we've been talking about but still on point and that is that why are you doing all this? What is it that you and Jennifer, your wife, eventually want to do? Because real estate, and you and I have talked about this, real estate's just the vehicle, right? It's just the vehicle. So what is it you wanna do?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> We wanna probably go back to what we enjoy is the interior design. So probably we will get more properties, more houses that we enjoy and have fun with the design, like being able to afford changing the floor, oh, it's going one way and then the next year or the other way. And herringbone pattern. I just love the herringbone pattern. I want it everywhere on the walls. Drinking wine like you do Laurel. So we bought a small cottage with our, made some money from our investments in Prince Edward County.</p> <p>Just enjoying the beach of course. That's my other goal. So I'd like to be in Canada six months and probably six months of the year if I do want some winter. So I'll probably need a third property for winter somewhere. Just, yeah, have fun with that. Traveling. Financial independence, doing some silly things and for fancy furniture.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You actually got my mind thinking about that. And we're like, oh, you know what, maybe with the REITE club we just have a little headquarters there or something. But just for those people wondering, okay. Where do they go down the road for somewhere warm, cause my goal as well is to be a snowbird too. What is it about Kirasel that drew you to that country?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>It's just the financial situation, the politics and everything. My realtor in Ottawa that's her retirement plan. So in about four years time, she's retiring there and, but, actually, she's gonna be selling real estate over there cause it's very hot and it's just self-managed.<br /> There's condos and resorts. There's no hurricanes or anything like that out there. Healthcare is quite good. And it's mostly in English, so it's easy. It's not, there's no language barrier. Yeah, and it's part of the Netherlands, I think, so that's also very good politically to invest just that in the weather. It's beautiful and it's fairly affordable, so just very positive. We just need to be able to fly out there soon.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> That's awesome. All right, so we could keep talking about so many things and one day we'll have to have you back cuz you, you have tons of great insights to share. But we're gonna do our next part of the show, which is called our Lightning Round. So we're gonna ask you a series of four questions. Laurel and I will take turns and you are gonna give us the first answer that comes to mind. Are you ready?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yes.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>All right, so question number one. What is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Action precedes motivation. That's actually from a podcast. But anyway, action proceeds, motivation. It's like when you want to work out, you have to get up and get moving. You're not usually motivated, so just take action. And then you get the motivation, you get the tools and all that. So it's just something I see everywhere in my life. And I think it's the biggest thing, best advice. It's very simple.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>In other words, do it first, see some results and get motivated from the results, and then that, and then do more. So that's a really good way to do it. All right. So now question number two, what is your favorite resource for real estate investing? And that can be anything. Book training, personal event.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>One book I wrote down, it's actually in French, so it's similar to Don r Campbell's investing in Canada or something. I forget the exact name, but it's very similar. I read both books. That book what's nice about it? It's very it's 120 pages and it goes through all the real estate investing techniques. So you, they talk about JV using other people's money, vendor take backs most popular techniques in a super short format.<br /> I love reading, but usually with everything I do, I have five minutes per day to read. So that book was just perfect. And also 40 Days to Success in Real Estate Investing by Robert Shemin. I'm not sure how you say it, but great book. Again, a great summary, very short, easy to read.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Awesome. All right. Very cool. I think you're the first guest that has recommended a French book, but for those people that speak French, it sounds like a great option. All right. Question number three. What is the one attribute that has made you most successful?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Remembering my why? So that actually comes from Laurel. It's why I love working with the REITE club is Laurel always says your why has to be strong. Yes, cause some days. You wonder why am I doing all this crazy stuff? And when you have a bad tenant or complicated transaction the money's coming in like an hour before the closing, things like that. Having that strong why, so that's kept me going and very important to me.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I know. It really truly, if you don't have the strength why you're dead in the water because it can be tough sometimes. And we all know that. That's just the way it is, and you gotta pick yourself up and keep on going. And if you're wise, what gets you going? All right. Question four, what do you typically do on a Sunday morning?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>I'm Christian, so Sunday morning is for church. That's actually a big part of my life. And yeah I'm Pentecostal, so we believe in prosperity and building wealth through God's gifts. So anyway that's what we do. We go to church. Our church is very modern. Everything is filmed. It's broadcast on Facebook and YouTube. There's podcasts. It's very similar to the investment world. So I use that as an analogy. And our pastor is actually an investor himself, so we're very investor friendly. That's it. Time with the family. We review as well what we do, and sometimes we are swiping through MLS for properties.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Very nice. Awesome. Fran, where can the REITE Club Nation reach out or find out more about you?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Yes, so I love social media. I used to do that as a hobby and then a business. So I'm on Facebook, Francois Lanthier or FL Homes Corp as well on Instagram, fl_homes_corp. And on LinkedIn as well. So I'm very active on LinkedIn. I love dealing with other business people. That's actually a great place to get fellow investors and Twitter somewhat as well. And on thereiteclub.com. My goodness. Let's not forget about that. Go on thereiteclub.com. You have a wonderful LinkedIn for real estate investors, so let's use it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Awesome. Francois Any last final words of advice for the REITE Club Nation?</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier: </strong>Whatever you think is possible, and whatever you think is not possible. And that's actually so true in everything you do. So if you think you can't do it, you're not gonna do it. If you think you can, you will. Just do it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Just do it. Awesome. Thank you Francois. It's been a pleasure having you on and congratulations on all your success. It's so motivating to see.</p> <p><strong>Francois Lanthier:</strong> Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Sarah. What a story. Francois, so much experience and he started with one house that he moved into with, into, with his wife and two small kids.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. I think it's really cool how he's involving the kids in his board meetings and having the kids participate in the property management stuff. And it's actually really cool that they're both into it as well. Cause sometimes you've got kids that don't want anything to do with it and then maybe down the road they change their mind or maybe they never do. But it is really cool that he's got, this is like a family thing that they do together, they spend family time doing and educating their kids and it's actually really awesome.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>It really is. And as I said in the interview, I was actually at their house and I saw the chart on the wall. And, the kids are really interested and they were in, wanting to know why I was there. We were doing some REITE Club business and the they're really involved and they, the oldest one wants to buy a house and he's really anxious and, he wants to do more and more work so that he can, bring in the money and it's really cool because as a family, you said, like you said they're doing it together. But those kids, you think about it when they're 30 or 40, think of the wealths they're going to have because gosh, they started when they're 18. I wish I'd started when I was 18.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>It's a great thing and I'm also happy to see that like he started with flipping cause he was building the cash and then he turned into buying and holding and doing some renos, but holding for the long-term wealth creation. And I think the kids are learning from some really experienced folks.</p> <p>Yes, he's been doing it for 15 years, but I think this scale happened in the last two years where he re you know, did his strategies in his processes and procedures and it is really cool and I'm excited to see his progress as well. Because if he's done what he's done in the last, really it's been the last two years he's going to, he's gonna do really well and he's a guy of action. And the kids too. And, the kids are learning and absorbing it, which is awesome.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Sarah, what's one thing that really struck you out of that interview?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I really like the fact that he started from nothing, did it, and took action. And like he said, if you think you can, you will do it. And if you think you can't, You won't do it. And it just all goes back to just taking action, just learning enough, not having analysis paralysis, understanding what you need to do and going out there and getting it done. That's really cool.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>The other way I've heard it put is if you think you can't, you're right. And if you think you can, you're right. So it comes down to what's in the real estate in your brain, right in your head. That's what counts. One thing that really struck me, I started to laugh and I even wrote a little note about it. It was, don't rent to your mother.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>We could through a whole different way. I will say I had a similar experience where we were renting to my sister-in-law, like renting to family usually 99% of the time is not a good idea.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Don't rent a family. Really Not a good idea.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>If you've had a good experience renting to a family, though, we'd love to hear from you because you are likely one of very few.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Yes, exactly. If you'd like to reach out to us, Sarah and I, we're really easy to get hold of. It's <a href="mailto:sarah@thereitetclub.com">sarah@thereitetclub.com</a> or <a href="mailto:laurel@thereiteclub.com">laurel@thereiteclub.com</a>. We'd love to hear from people. Join us. Please join us @thereitetclub.com. Connect with us there. There's lots of information, there's lots of resources, and lots of other people too. So it's a really growing community. So please join us. We'd love to see you.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>That's it. And REITE Club Nation. Until next time, don't forget, come grow with us now online, thereiteclub.com. Have a great evening, Laurel, and we'll talk soon.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Okay, good bye everyone. </p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Thu, 15 Jun 2023 08:14:47 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7920 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/live-flips-led-successful-portfolio#comments Understanding The Intricacies of Secondary Suite Conversions https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/understanding-intricacies-secondary-suite-conversions <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Understanding The Intricacies of Secondary Suite Conversions</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Wed, 06/14/2023 - 01:36</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> REITE club nation, welcome back to another awesome episode this week. We've got a great guest. But before we get into that, I am here today. I'm Sarah Larbi and I'm here today with Laurel Simmons, my wonderful co-host, So today's guest is Ronald De Coteau from Property Pathways, and we really dig deep into how to convert a single family to duplex and some of the things to look for when it comes to zoning and flood zones and, lighting and just all the things that you wanna know as an investor if that's gonna be your strategy.</p> <p>If you wanna create a basement unit. Ronald is a great member to have on your team because I'll tell you, there's so many intricacies, there's so many things that can go wrong, and you definitely wanna have that expert to be able to do the drawings, go to the city, do the, all that stuff on your behalf for the fraction of the cost.</p> <p>It's gonna cost you to make those mistakes. So I recommend it. I recommend it to anybody that will ask me, if you're converting something and it's your first one, especially if you're just starting out, find somebody to help you that knows how to do it. That's done many of them.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I guess the bottom line is why would you do it yourself and at any time, even if you're not an expert in that field there, you could make so many mistakes and that will end up costing you time, money, and energy and who needs that, right? That's false savings if you do it yourself.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. But I will say this podcast has really good insights regardless, right? Because even if you may not do it yourself, it's still important to look at a property and do some of the basic stuff and know some of the basic things to even know if something is gonna work or not work, right?</p> <p>When you're going to view properties with your realtor and you can tell right away because of a certain set of initial criteria that it might, may work or may not work, it's gonna save you a ton of time and headache if that's gonna be your strategy. So it is important that you know the basics regardless.</p> <p>Then hire somebody. My advice to you guys, hire somebody to do the drawings and work with the city for the permitting and all that back and forth, but know the basics at least because that way you'll know if something, something makes sense.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I agree. You have to have, as Ronald will talk about in our interview, that you gotta speak the same language, so you have to have a basic understanding of what you're getting into. So that you can actually ask intelligent questions and make some decisions. If you don't know anything, it's hard to really make the right decision, isn't it?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. So a really awesome podcast. Laurel, what'd you say? Shall we play the podcast?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Let's go for it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>All right, Ronald, welcome to the show. How are you?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>I'm doing great. Fantastic. Enjoying the muggy skies, and the cooler weather coming in. Pretty awesome.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>My heart breaks when the summer is gone. It's so sad. But so we reconnected recently when we were doing a property tour up in Peterborough, and you just amaze me by how much you know about the city and permitting and drawings and guys, anybody that's listening to this, If you need help with how to duplex or triplex or convert something, Ronald is a great resource. But before we get into that, Ronald, give us a little bit of background of how you got started in doing what you're doing, but also in real estate, investing in general.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>Wow. Yeah that's actually quite, this was quite an interesting journey for me. I actually started becoming interested in real estate investing back in I would say 2010. Really it took me a long time to really get started and actually, Purchase my first property. But once I did purchase my first property from then on I really started to connect more, coming out to groups like the REITE Club, that time it was called sori. Yeah, Sori.</p> <p>Used to come out. Yeah, that's right. Used to come out there, used to meet with a lot of people. Interesting people learning quite a bit. And then what happened is, I purchased a property and while I understand I had my full-time job, I used to work in the corporate sector. I was a project manager in real estate for one of, for a bank, working with a bank.<br /> I used to come out to these real estate meetings, meeting interesting people. But when I decided to actually get into real estate investing on my own, I realized that there wasn't really a lot of people that knew about secondary suites. Now I know why, because secondary suites back in 2014, 15 was really a new idea.</p> <p>Really, right? So they had now passed these policies and put these policies in place. So with that said, I really took it upon myself to come to use my experience in education and in architecture and construction management to really just become an expert subject matter expert so that I can help others go through this process. And to some degree I think I have succeeded at that.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I think you're right in terms of and 2014, that's not that long ago, but when you're talking about secondary suites, like back in the day, I'm aging myself a little bit, but we talk about, granny suites or in-law suites or that kind of thing.</p> <p>I think the whole concept of secondary suites has really taken off because first of all, Zoning has changed, right? Cities now understand that there's no more space you can't build out and continue to gobble up our green space and our parks and all the rest of it. We need to intensify.<br /> The structures we already have, and that's a great way to do it right? Through our secondary suites, because I can't think of how many people who have these huge homes or empty nesters, for example, right? They're sitting in a four bedroom home with a fully finished basement. We'll look at it right?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>You know what, that's actually a really interesting point you brought up there. And in fact I find that to be, and I'm mirroring the thoughts of a lot of the policy makers here on this. But yeah, creating secondary suites is absolutely the most sustainable and cost effective way to identify any community, right?</p> <p>If you're looking at building a high rise, imagine how much greenhouse gasses, how much effort and energy and expenses needs to go into that. Whereas if you look at an existing community, if you just add a second apartment to every house, you're doubling the capacity. Now, of course, that has to be said with a grain of salt, because if you double the capacity of any community, you're talking about a little burden on the infrastructure, right?</p> <p>Like sewage, gas, water, roads, schools. So that stuff is really important and that's why the zoning is set up right now, and that's the province that has given municipalities the ability, they said they mandated that they must have policies that would allow secondary suites, but the municipalities now have going ahead and prepared and published these policies that would allow secondary suites.</p> <p>They can't do it in every area. That's why you'll notice in some areas it is, they'll say you can't really install one here because. If they double the capacity everywhere, then basically there won't be enough schools for people to learn. There won't be enough water pressure to service all these properties and stuff like that, yeah, it's really important. The secondary suite, everything that goes into it is really important and, This is a part of the role that I play. I'm one of the gatekeepers if you wanna say.</p> <p>Making sure people are doing this thing right and for, from an investment standpoint for an investor, making sure that they're selecting the right properties that can actually be converted. Because the last thing that you want is to purchase a property. And then you got all these goals and dreams to go convert this thing and start getting cash flow out of it. Only to find out that wow parking requirements don't match up with what is required. So that can be a real heartbreak. A lot of investors, right?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Absolutely. That can make or break your whole investment and your strategy and unfortunately, you gotta do your due diligence ahead of time. So just to get a scope of your experience, how many secondary suites or conversions have you done and roughly can you just share like the area that you do coverage in?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> I would say, in the past, like I say four to five years, we have completed over easily over about 150 designs like secondary suite design. So this is really, so I, myself I run an operator construction. And design company, construction management and design company. And basically I'm A, B, C in designer myself, so I basically understand all the parameters. So basically we have done over a hundred, 150 secondary suite conversions, and we have done it from, in every municipality.</p> <p>I like to say basically we have no geographic sensitivity because the truth is when we are working with clients, they, especially investment clients, they're special clients, right? Because they aren't basically purchased in a house one time and then next five years they're calling us back.<br /> These are people who are running businesses and they're buying properties on a frequent basis. And sometimes they may not only, like for example, they may not only purchase a property in Hamilton. They may purchase one in Hamilton. January and then in July. They're looking at a property that they're getting the best returns out of in Barrie.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>There is a radius though, right? Like it's what, two hours radius, within Toronto as an example? I don't think you wanna necessarily get sent over to Thunder Bay, or maybe you do. I don't know.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> Maybe that's actually a really good point actually. So yeah, I would say about an hour and a half to tour radius in GTA . So really we cover if you're looking we cover the Waterloo region, we cover the Halton region, Niagara region. We cover the Gjoa region.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Okay, cool. And I will add that every municipality and one of the things that I've learned over the years have different requirements and it's just so different even from One town and you go to the next, like literally the next town over, the next city over, and it's just a different set of requirements.</p> <p>So walk us through as an investor, maybe somebody that wants to get into conversions, because that sometimes makes the most sense, right? Depending on where you are and what property you're doing. So what are some things that they should be aware of before they go ahead and buy that piece of property? So let's just say they're going out to view a property. Walk us through some of that.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>I'm glad you asked because yeah, this is some of the things that actually I basically consult clients every day on these very same items. From a punch list or bullet point standpoint?</p> <p>I'll say the first thing you wanna look at is obviously the zoning, because not all municipalities will allow for the conversion or the BRRRR with conversions, I guess you can call it that, right? Bur with conversion or in some re in some areas, right? So you have to first determine, okay, is the zoning actually.</p> <p>Does zoning allow for that type of conversion? The second major, really important piece is parking. Some municipalities will allow for parking to be in tandem, right? Meaning one behind the other. Others, they will, they'll actually require that you have the parking in bay parking format, meaning they're 90 degree one beside each other, right?</p> <p>That's really important. Now, there's also a nuance there when you look at, in some municipalities they have different, if you wanna say definitions, For these things, right? So Laurel you earlier mentioned like a granny flat or something like that, right? So there's like granny flats, there's garden suites, there's secondary suites, there's accessory units, there's duplex, like all these different things.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Coach houses, glasses now as well, and tiny homes.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> And tiny homes, right? Laneway houses and all these other things. They're trying to create affordable housing for anyone, right? So yeah. So this is something that you also need to become familiar with, what is actually allowed in the various zones, and how does parking relate, like to coordinate or co collaborate with that.</p> <p>Another really important thing that you need to look for is and you won't necessarily find this in the zoning, right? So that's, this is more on a conservation side. You really need to look and see whether or not the property or the plot of land is located near a high flood plain, right? If a if your property or plot of land is located near a high flood floodplain, what happens is that you more than likely will not be able to place a secondary unit on that property without a permission from the conservation authorities.</p> <p>This floodplain is like mapping people, right? They basically will determine whether or not the risk is too high or too low. But as a general rule of time, if your property is located in, within a floodplain, like you just stay away from it because it'll just add an extra couple months. Who knows? Maybe you'll never get converted.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> As I recall from some of my studies, it's like a hundred year floodplain, right? So people will say there hasn't been a flood here in 20 or 30 years. Too bad. So sad. A hundred years ago there was a flood and there was one then there's nothing to say that there can't be one tomorrow.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>Laurel, that's a really interesting point to bring up. This is tapping back into some of my past experiences: the hundred year floodplain that is really the hundred year flood that they're talking about.<br /> When cities are designing their infrastructure, like for drainage, water runoff and stuff, that's what they look at. They look at the last hundred years, they look forward, do the hundred years from now look like? And they try to design for that. Now, if you purchase a property that is within a floodplain.</p> <p>Sometimes it doesn't mean that area floods, it just means that area has a higher risk of flooding if we experience that hundred year flood that they designed the infrastructure based on. So that's really interesting and something that you need to make note of when you are looking at the secondary unit.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Before you go on to the next thing, where can somebody go to find if their property that they're looking at isn't a flood zone?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> Oh man, you're asking me. This is what I got paid for. Okay. Fine only for the REITE club. Okay. So really honestly, Google is your friend, right? That's probably one of the things I really excelled at. I'm a research fanatic. If I need to find something, I'll find it. There's nothing that can be hidden. In fact, I actually, when I used to work in my 905, I actually researched so deeply into a company that I found such information that during the interview the guy was like, how do you know this stuff?</p> <p>Like how, there's no way you could notice. I was like, yeah, I got insiders. But really Google is my insider. And if feel, if you search long and hard enough, you'll find all the information you need. So what I typically do is really simple is just floodplain in welling, flood plain in Cambridge, flood plain, and they have a lot of interactive maps now, sometimes they're a little bit tricky to use, but honestly you can give me an address. I know within five minutes I can get you all the information you need to know if you need to buy that property or not. All the information is really online. You just need somewhat of an expert lens to just view with the information.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I bet that would be it just occurred to me that would be really cool, just you could look up your own address and see where you are. Like, forget about the conversion, just see your own address. Where you live. And then, and all of a sudden I'm thinking, okay, that has implications for insurance and all kinds of things.</p> <p>Maybe if you're not in a hundred in a floodplain, you can go back to your insurance and say, Hey, I noticed that, there's this little writer about floods and I'm not in the floodplain, so what's going on? And exactly. Let's negotiate. Everything's negotiable, right? But if you have the information and you've got the facts behind you, then hey, who knows what can happen?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> Wow. I never actually thought of it in that way, but yeah. Maybe you can save some insurance money.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I want my commission.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>You want the commission. That's a good point.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You know what you're likely not gonna be able to finish the basement and finish it nicely. Like I know a lot of my properties in Branford are in Eagle Place and there's lots, and Ronald, you probably know this, but there's like flood zones in the majority of that area. So they're great for burring singles. They're not great for burring, into conversions.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>That is so risky. A lot of people don't even know how risky floodplains are, but I guarantee you, you do not wanna purchase a property in a flood zone because even if you are allowed to put a prop a basement apartment in there, or secondary suite, whatever you choose to call it you would have to do, if they allow you, it'll come with a lot of recommendations, which would probably be waterproofing the entire thing and making this which river, which would probably bump your renovation budget from 120 to maybe a hundred to 80, 90. Who knows?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> It might not even be allowed regardless. So just to go back though, like if it isn't a floodplain and you can BRRRR a property without converting it, that could still work, but just fine. And you can't possibly duplex it, right? Or at a secondary suite.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>Now you have a second exit. That's right.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Exactly. So after you, do the flood zone and the checking and everything like that. What's the next thing that you would recommend somebody do?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> The next thing is that they signed up with me.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> You know what, in all I know, we're just joking, but I'll tell you what, as an investor, I don't wanna work. In that part of my business, I would rather delegate it out to somebody that knows the city, knows the rules, and can do it a lot more efficiently than I could.</p> <p>To be honest, like the city, some of the cities are so slow and horrible to deal with. I would rather just hire somebody to take care of that piece and work on the overall business. So a hundred percent if somebody is doing conversion, And it's your first conversion or your second conversion, or you're still, just hire the experts that have done hundreds of them so that they can help guide you, do it for you, do the drawings, get the drawings approved and walk you through each step because you're helping them throughout the whole process of the conversion as well. But keep going. I know you were just joking but it's really important. To hire the experts for this kind of stuff.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>That's great advice.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I wanna add something in there. Like in the summer we actually were considering converting a basement to a secondary suite. And we were just considering, like at the very beginning of the process and we brought somebody in who actually has something, has a lot of experience.</p> <p>Out that conversation came, it's like, Oh, I don't think so. Just because there were things we hadn't even thought of. Okay, parking is an issue. So you're gonna have to have an exit out here. And that means, oh, guess what? The fire, the gas fireplace has to be totally rerouted.<br />  The fireplace is gonna come, or the parking lot's gonna come on Exactly where. The patio is, and all of a sudden you're into not just thousands of dollars, but tens of thousands of dollars to make it work.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> Absolutely. That's a really interesting point you're making there because. In fact, I will add to what it is. Sarah mentioned earlier on about working with the experts. Now not every expert is cut from the same cloth because, you, I have actually been hired to redo drawings completed by registered. Architects and so forth.</p> <p>It's not because they're not good at what they do, but they're simply not an expert in this particular area. If you ask me to design a 50 story building that product, you'll probably be hiring the wrong person, but you ask me to do a secondary suite, there is really nothing that I don't know about that in most municipalities are intra Ontario or wouldn't be able to find out and be able to execute on that in an efficient manner.</p> <p>You really need to have the right experts on your team. So that's super important. Going back to, to, to this bullet point list, I would say this is also another thing and now this is all zoning items we're talking about, but we haven't even touched on the building code side of things, right guys?</p> <p>I don't know if you're gonna have the time to go through it, but just on the zoning side of things, we, the, this is something that is always, that's never really mentioned, but is something that is really important and it's gonna sneak by, and this is called the, like heritage Committee, heritage Buildings.</p> <p>The last thing you wanna do is purchase a building that has heritage. Like it's listed or designated man, like that would be the worst case for you because then as the whole community's fighting against you.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I've seen where we live in Niagara and the lake. There's a lot of heritage. Oh yeah and every time I walk, like in the old town and I see the plaque, the special plaque, and I know owners are so proud of this, and I look at that and I go, Oh my God. Oh this has probably cost you how much money and what you cannot do because you have this That's I do. Little plaque why did you do that?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>This is actually a big deal and what happens is and I always do this just in case, and I'll tell you what, I do all this search. So someone will just call me. They will not pay me a dollar, although I do have a paid service as well.<br /> They will just call me or just send me an address and I will say, you know what? I will go through all the due diligence simply because I. Oftentimes this business is calling me because they want me to design this property, and deliver on approved drawings for a secondary unit. Now, if I am unable to do that or make a poor suggestion or recommendation, then I do find myself responsible, right?</p> <p>I just think like I need to put, do all the due diligence possible. So I do all this stuff. I look all this up. So yes, I do look to see if the building is designated or if it is in a designated area. Like sometimes a neighborhood could be designated, so that's really important.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Look at downtown Oakville. I feel like that whole area that's walkable to downtown is all designated.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> Mind you like, so I'll tell you, I have a caveat here because I would say even though a business, a building might be designated or even listed there's a difference there. It doesn't mean that you wouldn't be able to add a secondary unit. You'll just have a few more hurdles to jump, because you gotta go through the Heritage Committee, get their approval and so forth, and you won't be able to do anything on the exterior, like adding a deck or removing some sort of tree that's been sitting there for a hundred years or some sort of, something like that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>And if you do that, you've got to do it a certain way, right?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> Meant in this style. Yes.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I have a question because you talked about listed and designated and I was doing some research at one point on the difference between that. Okay. And I don't wanna spend a whole lot of time, but I think it's still interesting because there are heritage listed and then there are heritage designated. And what's the difference?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> Listed is when someone just inquires about a building. And brings it to the attention of the committee or the city and says this building looks like Georgie and or Victoria. I know it has some specific elements, like the veranda looks some sort of special way, and they're like, listen, we want to actually put in an application so that we can protect this. Now, a lot of times what happens is this happens with the neighbors or the community. They will go to the committee and say we need to stop this developer from demolishing this building.</p> <p>What they will do is list the building, but there's still the process of verifying whether it actually meets the criteria to be a heritage building. And during that process is listed. But once that process has been verified, then it becomes a designated building and there's no way you can knock it down. Or modify it. Listing is just like neighbors doing it. Designating is really the city confirming it. I dunno if that makes sense.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> That's cool. So let's fast forward a little bit and just talk about the actual property itself. Let's just say it passed all the zoning, it passed the flood zone thing, the heritage thing, everything else. You look at a property, what are like, like maybe just a few key things to look for off the top of your head.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>30,000 foot view, headroom, clearance, major things. All right? So as soon as you walk down, if you have to bow your head to get down the last riser, that's a problem. That's something to be concerned with. Just quickly. It's supposed to be five feet, 11 inches. If you don't get that from the top of the tread. For the nosing of the tread to the headroom clearance of the stairs you're probably not, it's probably not gonna pass. The inspector's eyes as well.</p> <p>Once you get down to this, once you get down to the bottom of the stairs, the next thing you wanna look at, just make sure, take a measuring tape. You wanna measure. Of course, this is a lot of measuring guys, but these are the key things you wanna look for, right? Headroom, clearance, as well as egress are part of egress.</p> <p>You need to maintain six feet, five inches throughout underneath beams and ducks, right? Any bulkheads or anything like that, especially if it's in the part of egress, that's the direction you're gonna use to exit the building. You need to make sure that it's five feet, six inches. Now, with that said, in Hamilton, they give you a little break.</p> <p>They just keep it at six feet, one inch. So that's a real plus, and that's really helpful for a lot of people in Hamel and Only that's the only municipality that does that. The next thing you wanna look at, and this is not necessarily it's a little more challenging for the untrained eye, but you need to have natural lighting and egress requirements.</p> <p>Right now, one of the biggest misconceptions is if I were to ask you, do you need to put an egress window in the basement? And where does this window go? Most people will say, oh yeah, I was told we need to put an egress window in every bedroom. That's not the case.</p> <p>In fact, in some properties you don't even need an egress window. So what the building code states is that if you have direct access to the exterior from the floor that has a bedroom, there's no need for an egress. However, in most basements, oftentimes the part egress leads to a stairs that is above grade and is not on the same floor as bedrooms.</p> <p>You just need to include one egress window on the floor that has the bedrooms. And it doesn't need to be inside the bedrooms. It can be in the living room, kitchen, anywhere else, right? Oftentimes it just makes sense to put it inside the living room. So this is another important piece here, because living rooms require 5% natural lighting.</p> <p>When I say 5%, 5% of the window, 5% of the window needs to represent 5% of the floor area. That's the glazed area of the window, right? So in the living room, oftentimes to achieve that 5%, you oftentimes need to cut a new window out, to ensure there's no one that I know. I've done a secondary suite that is not familiar with cutting basement windows out and adding new lentils and stuff like that.</p> <p>That's really important. So that's one of the things that I think is that oftentimes gets overlooked because when you look at a property, sometimes it is just really difficult to achieve the natural light that you will need in bedrooms and living rooms and dining rooms. It's very difficult if or if around the property there's a deck.</p> <p>If the property line is so close to the building wall it is so close to the property line that you wouldn't be able to put a window well there or something. So all these are factors that when I go into a property, I look at it holistically and I really try to assess whether or not. These things are going to make me look like a liar or not. And I hate to look like a liar, right? So I, when I say yes, I w I gotta be able to deliver on this stuff. And, there's another big thing that I think is really important to mention. So there's this. There's this big move to be lifting beams and docks and stuff like that.</p> <p>Guys, this stuff is really interesting. I would say anyone can do it. I love doing it because why? It opens spaces up. You can remove columns and you have all this huge open concept in the basement. That's great. However, when you start moving ducks and beams, you get into, you open up a can of worms.</p> <p>I don't know, start stoking the fire, business and yeah, it costs a lot more money, right? To achieve the end product, right? I would say yes, keep that in mind and also really important. You know when you start moving ducks or squash squished in ducks, you'll hear a lot about that, right?<br /> Everyone is yeah, you can squish ducks. Just go slimline ducks like that is great. However, once you start. Modifying the existing duct system too much. The building department sometime will ask you for an HVAC design and a heat loss calculation because now you have basically re redesigned and the entire the existing layout, right?</p> <p>That's really important to know. And I would say the next thing that's really important is the smoke detectors. Smoke detectors do not belong in kitchens. Like guys, just drop the tort. Like you do not need a smoke alarm inside a smoke alarm inside the kitchen. So in fact, if you do that, sometimes you run the risk of.</p> <p>Having these interconnected smoke alarms throughout the properties, set off every time someone burns a toast, right? So that can become super annoying, right? So as the building crew, all we need to do is install smoke alarms inside of the bedrooms and the hallway leading two bedrooms as well as inside every floor.</p> <p>Every level of a property. So I'll tell you why that's important, but I'll begin first by speaking about the smoke alarm. So the smoke alarms, we need to have two and one in each bedroom. A two and one represents. The audible alarm and the visual lights, that's a two in one.</p> <p>The tree in one, just, we are just adding a carbon monoxide detector to that, right? So you have a tree in one in the hallway leading to bedrooms, or if you have a really open concept layout, you just need to put it close to the bedroom if there's no hallway leading to the bedrooms, right? And then we, of course, need to have one inside the furnace room, as I like to call it an in-line smoke detector, duct smoke detector.</p> <p>We need to have one on the duct supply line, and that's, you need to have that in there, especially if not, especially since that furnace is serving both units, any furnace serving two units, you need to have a smoke detector mounted on there. It's a special device. That shuts off, if you will, to the unit and then cuts off wall power to the furnace. So with all that said, I can get into a whole lot more. There, there's just a lot more, and I love talking about this stuff.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> It also strikes me that, it briefly just touched on, but when you're moving things around and you've always gotta keep in mind structural design, right? You can get into massive changes and massive expenses. If you start fooling around with the load-bearing columns or beams or whatever it is, that's a lot of money.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> It's costly. That's regular. It is costly. However, there's a cost efficient way to do things. So I will say this, that is never really my first solution. My first solution is always to design a wrong egress. So meaning, rather than having to lift a duct or a beam to create the headroom clearance is six foot five inch clearance that I'm, that we talked about early on. Rather than doing that I usually like to look at how we can move around that low headroom clearance.</p> <p>Still create an efficient design and a good flow through the space, right? So I tried, and that's the most cost effective way to do it. Now, if that is not achievable, then I try to look at how, what's the least amount of area that I need to actually lift or modify structurally to accomplish that same end.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Okay. Can I ask one? Okay. I just gotta ask this question. It's a burning question. A burning, burning question. I wanna know what is the most disastrous difficulty. Pull out your hair and everyone else's hair. Project within, like a few sentences that you've ever worked on, because I bet you've got more than one.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>They're found a few between, but when they come, whoa. They come heavy, yeah. This is a problem. I usually like to call myself a problem solver. I think that's a huge part of what I do. I solve problems and anywhere I believe I can add value, that's where I try to, that's where I think I can be most effective.</p> <p>With that said, when I somewhat sorted, started out in doing the construction management piece of things, I actually started to do a lot of takeovers. So there's a lot of projects that are going wrong throughout, like even in areas sometimes you would drive by a house and be like, whoa, that property has been under renovation for a year.</p> <p>Like, how come it's not done as yet? Those are projects that when I started out taking on construction management projects I took on quite a bit of those and I'll say it is really difficult when you take on a project and someone has left it in shambles. Because now you gotta undo what they did, and then you gotta bring it back up to the standard that it needs to be.</p> <p>To give you a specific example just recently, in fact I took over a project and worked on it, there was, it was just a finished job, right? It was just a matter of finishing the job. However, when the inspector came in on the final inspection on that day it was a project takeover. I finished a job, the inspector came and he said, oh, why did you guys close that wall up? I was like, what do you mean? Why did we close it up? It's the wall that was framed in. All we did was paint it and finish it. He said, no, that wall needs to come down. But not only that wall, the floor needs to come out, but not only the floor needs to come out.</p> <p>We need to support that new, existing structure with LVLs. Dig a footing down, put a new post in. It's to remove HVAC work, remove electrical work. So what was supposed to be just like a $5,000 job turned out to be like a $30,000 gig. And it took like about three weeks. But again, I pride myself in really I will never leave a client hanging, even if I'm coming outta pocket.</p> <p>Once I make a commitment. That's what I'm sticking to. Of course I'm not gonna be taken advantage of, but with that said, I gotta deliver on what it is I said I'm gonna deliver on. And with that said, I work with the best guys. I like to think in this field. And they also know what they're doing.<br /> When we put our heads together, there's no solution that we cannot find. So with, and the building inspectors really appreciate when someone is working. On a project and they understand what they're working on. They're not just someone who's pushing tools around, but they understand all the logistics and the paperwork and what needs to be done from a legal standpoint, building a code standpoint, zoning standpoint. That's where I gain a lot of respect in the municipalities that I work in.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> That's a really important part, one of the things that I would just say is, Like the benefit of having somebody like you at the job is you're probably seeing a lot of the same inspectors anyways. You probably know them by name, you know what they're gonna look for. You know which ones are easier to work with. You can probably ask for a certain one over a certain other person. But, and there's so many things that we haven't even talked about and we only have about half an hour to go through this podcast, but we haven't talked about parking.</p> <p>We haven't even talked about how some municipalities have a minimum and some have a maximum amount of square footage that you could do in a basement. So I will tell you, it is quite complex. For the little amount of costs, in my opinion, for the amount of headaches saved. And I think money and chaos.</p> <p>Just hire this part out, hire this part out. Especially if you're starting out and you'll have somebody that does the drawing for you, brings it to the city, works with the cities, and gets it approved. And then, but I think you said something really important. You work with the inspectors, right? So they come, then you're actually able to have the same kind of conversation, the same language.</p> <p>You know what they're looking for at each step. Because you don't just go to the city and you get. The permit, and then you're like, okay, cool. Unfortunately it's not that easy anymore. This is 2020. And of course they have to come at different stages and then they say, oh, this is good or this is not good.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>That's right. What do you say there, Sarah is so true? I like to say, when someone hires me they hire me to do three things or to speak to three audiences, right? The first audience is of course, yourself, like I'm speaking to you, right? The second is the building department. And the third is the contractor, right?</p> <p>I am the one that's really the central point that makes sure that all these conversations that nothing is getting missed or miscommunicated. Because especially when it comes to the contractor and the building inspectors some bills, some contractors will walk off the job because they're sick and tired of the inspectors because they don't speak the same language.</p> <p>What I mean is that they don't speak about buildings. Cool. That's actually like a language. I speak that language, so you know, and the thing is when I say I show up on site, Especially like in areas that I work, and we spoke about this earlier, like in St. Catherine's where everyone is oh my gosh, it's like a very champed municipality.</p> <p>I enjoy working there and I have built all the strongest relationships there. Because I've brought the most value and I've learned the respect of all the building inspectors, the plant examiners, and the front, that stuff. That's what it is you really wanna work with. And, say con, I always like to say contractors build or renovate properties, but relationships build cities.</p> <p>That's something you wanna always make sure that who you are working with, they have strong relationships and ties. Not that will somehow allow you to maneuver wrong some of the requirements. No, that is not gonna happen. This is building construction. However, that will allow you to have conversations and have everyone come together and create solutions that may not necessarily seem to exist. It's important.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Ronald, I think it's time for our lightning round. We could keep asking you questions. We're definitely gonna have to come, have you come back, whether it's a webinar with a REITE club or something else, just cause there's so much information that we could do and every single piece could be a whole hour conversation as well. It's just so valuable. So yeah, thank you for sharing all your insights. Are you ready for the lightning round though?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>Okay, sure. Let's do it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Alright, here we go. Question number one, Ronald, what is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>The best advice that I've received was just do it. Just get, just go out and get the job done. If the worst thing that you can do is hold off on a decision to buy a property or hold off on a decision to do something that will help someone or even help yourself. So just do it. That's, that was one of the biggest pieces of advice I think I received. In fact, I received a right at the REITE club. In one of those networking events there.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> All right, so now question number two. What is your favorite resource for real estate investing now? Book training versus event what? Whatever. What's your favorite resource?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>I would say networking events. My favorite resource would honestly be one of the first books that I read was Real Estate Investing in Canada. That's it's is a blue book. I don't even know what it is. Who actually wrote it, I can't recall. Anyway, but that was huge, it really helped me to understand all the aspects of investing. Who Likes all the pieces that I need to put together the financing and the getting the property, finding the property, putting the team together. That was really important. And you are very useful, but your real estate investing in Canada.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>All right, cool. Number three, what is the one attribute that has made you most successful?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> Perseverance. Yeah I really just I'm a stick, I'm a stick to it kind of guy. I really have no quit in me. Maybe I shouldn't be saying that about myself, but I dunno how humble that is. But yeah I generally don't quit on something when I set my mind to something. Generally it's gonna come to pass. It will eventually come to pass and I really don't. I don't really care what anyone else is thinking or saying. I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing somehow, some way it's gonna work.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>That's really powerful. That's why you're successful.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau:</strong> On some level I've seen a lot of successful people. I'm getting there.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> All right. And question number four. So what do you typically do on a Sunday morning?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>Oh boy. I don't know if my wife will like this, but yeah, usually when I get up, the first thing that I do after tasks for half an hour in life, I basically go to work, like I gotta check my emails so they. I like this young business, right? Like it's still in its infancy stage, like maybe moving out into moving more out into maybe a dollar cents.</p> <p>But really and truly, like when I wake in the morning, like I think about this business. I think about who does, who messaged me yesterday? Who all the things that I need to be doing. I gotta just get the job done. I have a lot of people that are counting on me. Even right now as I'm on this call, I got a lot of people that are counting on me to deliver on my promises.</p> <p>I don't wanna let them down. And then once I'm done that, I try to, Release my mind and then go back to my family and spend some time with them. In fact, on some Sundays my son, my wife, and I are on project sites. We're running project sites and looking to see what's happening. So yeah, it's a family business, like we make a family time out of it. So as I say, my wife won't be so happy about that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>All right, cool. Ronald, where can the REITE Club nation, the listeners, reach out if they want to know more about you and find out more?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>Okay, great. So if someone wants to get in contact with me, I am super active on Instagram. I only joined last year. I just got my one year anniversary on Instagram on September the 13th. So I was like, wow, that's awesome. But I actually really like it.<br /> My Instagram handle is property pathways, so just add property pathways. My Facebook is adding property pathways. My website is propertypathways.ca. And of course you can email me at Inquire with @Propertypathways.Ca. So it's all property pathways. You can't miss me. Just Google Property Pathways you'll find amazing.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Awesome. Any final last words of advice?</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>Last advice is that, secondary suites are not a walk in the park. Make sure and work with the experts. I'm definitely one of those guys. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions. I'm an open book and I'm really ready and willing to help.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Amazing, Ronald, thank you so much for being on our show.</p> <p><strong>Ronald De Coteau: </strong>Awesome. Thank you so much, Sarah. Thank you so much, Laurel.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Sarah, wow. I don't know about you, but I sure learned a lot from that interview. Wow, like my head was like, exploded with everything he knows and all the things. I don't know.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>He's definitely a wealth of knowledge and I will say that like when he's done a hundred or 150 of these and many different municipalities, it's great to be able to like just get some tidbits and some insights from him on different things that we should look out for, if that is our plan to convert into new basement suites.</p> <p>I will say, he is great. I took some students, my birth students out in Peterborough and he came along and he was showing us how to look at different properties and what to look for. And it was just so valuable to see him in action as well. And I will say, he also puts together, and he didn't say this cuz he is very humble, but he puts together a whole like file of here are the things that this property has and, here is my assessment on it.</p> <p>Like he provides that to the investors, which is really cool by property, so that they know going in before they actually firm up on something like, is it doable or is it not doable? And I think that's pretty cool.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> That's really valuable information cause it just helps you make decisions. And I think not only that, but when you make the decision, there's kinda a path, there's a path going forward for you, what's next and what's next and we all have limited time right? And limited resources. So we gotta make the most of what we've got.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. So guys, property Pathways, Ronald De Coteau, thank you for listening. REITE Club Nation, thanks for tuning in. And don't forget, register for free thereiteclub.com and check out all of the awesome information that we've got there. Thanks so much Laurel as well for being a great host. And guys, REITE Club Nation, don't forget, come grow with us.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Come grow with us. See you next time. </p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Wed, 14 Jun 2023 05:36:50 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7919 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/understanding-intricacies-secondary-suite-conversions#comments Helping You Reach Your Goals & Finding Solutions https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/helping-you-reach-your-goals-finding-solutions <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Helping You Reach Your Goals &amp; Finding Solutions</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Tue, 06/13/2023 - 04:12</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> REITE club nation, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I'm Alfonso Salemi and I'm here with my amazing co-host Sarah Larbi. We interviewed Mark French who is an executive coach, and he talks a little bit about, what, how to achieve those goals.</p> <p>Sometimes we do get scared and, I didn't mention it on the podcast, but that's what sometimes, if you would've thought four and five and six years ago, okay, hey I want to retire. That's a huge goal, but you had to take the steps to get there. It just didn't happen overnight.<br /> But I'm really pumped for this podcast today. Mark, what a great interview. He had a lot of great tips. Yeah, why don't you say, let's get right to the interview.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> All right. Let's do it. Hi, mark. Welcome to the show. How are you?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>Thank you. I am fantastic right now. Yeah, things are going well.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Awesome. So for those that may not know of you or have met you, can you give us a 30,000 foot view of who you are and what it is that you do in real estate?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>Who am I and what do I do in real estate? Yeah, that's a big question. I'll try to be succinct here. Who I am. I'm a coach, I'm an executive coach that helps people get to their goals. So there are a lot of coaches that teach systems or whatever. I'm not that coach. I'm the person who helps people get to their goals and that's how I fit into real estate.</p> <p>I originally hired a mentor. We were just actually talking about this before the podcast, but it's amazing how people get into real estate and build wealth through real estate, and I was always fascinated with that. Bought my first property when I was 19 years old, but then when I realized I needed to get more coaching myself and learn more, I hired people in my life.</p> <p>That was a fantastic investment I've made many times over and went and got my psych degree, practiced psychology for a while and went. I think I can help people really well with getting the things done that they know they already need to do. So that's a 30,000 foot view.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Right on. So when you're working with a lot of your clients or coaching and working with them to get through the things that they need to do, what's one of the most common things or the more common things that you see that you know, that maybe it's really simple for you from the outside view, but people just can't get past that? Or that it's something common that comes up with a lot of your clients?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz:</strong> I would say probably two things. One is the sales process. Sales terrify most of the people I know and they used to terrify me. This is something that I really struggled with, and sales has gone from this really complex, scary thing for me and for most of my clients to something that can, is actually not scary at all.</p> <p>It's actually not a chore. It's something fun to do. And the switch there, that simple thing that you're asking about, the switch is, Instead of manipulating people, instead of forcing people to come around to your point of view it's getting to know people and that's something that's enjoyable to get to know people, get to know their issues, get to know their problems, get to know their objection, get to know what gets in their way.</p> <p>Once we get to know that, it's a delight. To find solutions that really do fit their situation. And to me that's what good sales is. I think the other thing would probably be simply procrastination with the things, and I mentioned this before, but the things we know we need to do, we're simply not doing it. That's another thing that I consistently find that I can help people with.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Very cool. So my background is actually in sales and so I've worked in sales, in my corporate world from whether it was Cintas or Xerox or Lavasa just recently. But you're right, people are terrified of sales and it's, I think when you think of sales, you think of that used car salesman type of like persona of, wheeling and dealing and doing some shady stuff, but it definitely doesn't have to be that way.</p> <p>What are some of the things like that you do tell somebody that I want to, help people and I wanna be able to? Not only to help people, but take my life and make an income from coaching or from whatever it is, but I'm terrified of sales. What are some things that you do to work with them through that mindset piece?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz:</strong> One quick thing that I take every client through is simply teaching them that everyone is a salesperson. We're already salespeople. We already sell people. We sell our kids on eating broccoli, and we sell our spouse on which vacation to go on, and we sell everyone on everything every day, that's what we're doing every day now.</p> <p>Most of us are terrible salespeople. We're terrible at actually getting to know what people's problems are and then investing in them, and rather than focusing on ourselves, but that's the key, is simply fully focusing on another human being for a period of time. And the cool thing is we've got all these people talking about all these tricks with sales.</p> <p>People talk about, oh, build rapport or do this and do that. I found out if you listen well. So few of us have ever been listened to well in our lives. So few of us feel understood. So when we have somebody come by, actually, this is an exercise that I do with a lot of people. I say, Hey, listen, when's the last time you went to a gathering, a party, whatever it was, and you met somebody and you came away going, that is a fascinating person.</p> <p>Then you realize, Wait a second. They didn't even talk about themselves very much. We find other people fascinating if they listen to us. And so if we can become that person that listens and engages and gets to know somebody, we create a beautiful experience for somebody. We build far more rapport than we ever would in any other way.</p> <p>We make a friend, and in the end, even if it doesn't turn into a sale with them, it's gonna turn into a sale with someone down the line because we've made some connections, a deeper connection with somebody who cares about us Now.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. So I wanna shift this to the real estate investing world and, those that are in the businesses, networking is a big piece. Okay. And I, and this is just a question for you, I'm gonna put you on the spot, but networking is a big piece and there were some people that were able to sell, quote unquote by networking and like you said, listening to others and understanding them.</p> <p>Now that we are virtual, How can we get across and still be able to network from a virtual standpoint, not being in front of somebody. So I know I'm putting you on the spot, but if you have some tips and some suggestions, this is a real dilemma that we're working with right now.</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>This is a fact. If you get into the high end business world, we all know this, that when you get into the high end business world, why do people play golf? Why do people go for coffee? Why do people go for dinner? Because the, that. Person to person contact is really important. We get a read for people when we do that, and I've had a Zoom account, I'm proud to say, for four years now.</p> <p>I've used Zoom a lot and I find Zoom is actually a really unique tool. Before I started doing virtual calls, I thought, come on, like you missed so much. And it's true, it's not the exact same, but a Zoom call actually. Can substitute a lot. So any chance I get to have a Zoom call to still meet with somebody for coffee, but have a zoom call at the very least rather than a phone call makes a difference.</p> <p>But again, it comes down to the basic skills when you can look into somebody's face and you can ask a really good question or you can see, hey that's, that was uncomfortable for that person. Let me ask about that. And you get into it a little bit deeper. It's not person to person contact.<br /> It's close and again, the basic skill set is the same. All influence, whether it's networking, whether it's sales, whatever it is, all influence. Whether it's, again, broccoli with your kids, comes down to finding out what somebody's going through. What's coming up in their minds and then helping them out with it.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>It's alleviating those fears, really. Because we're born, we're neat, the environment that were raised in, the things that we experience throughout our lives impact the way that we view things, right? So the three of us could look at one thing and see it, probably even 20 different ways, but at least maybe three different ways.</p> <p>Getting onto that same track. And I love what you said about it. Focusing in and listening in, and sometimes I'm guilty of that. Maybe using my ears and mouth out of proportion. And you're supposed to, you have two ears and one mouth, but maybe what are some like constant things that people can practice every day, maybe on their own.</p> <p>I think you said we're always selling, reading, selling ourselves on what to do, whether it's working out, reading more, improving ourselves. So what are some. Like daily tips that you know somebody can go and apply right today that somebody's listening to this at the Right Club Nation can leave this podcast and go and start applying today.</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz:</strong> I'll give you some that are far on, really far on the simple end and some that are a little more complex. One thing that I would really encourage anyone to do is to practice what Brian Tracy calls Maximum achievement. He talks about developing a pleasing personality. When we have a pleasing personality, people wanna be around us. So a couple of quick tips with that one. Read how to Influence, how to Win Friends and Influence People that is a seminal book, ridiculously simple.</p> <p>But help people go, Hey, if I listen well, if I, there's so much cha, I read this to my kids all the time because they practice this at school and it's so valuable in influence when people like you, they're influenced more by you. A really even, an extremely simple tip. Practice smiling more. When we smile, more people are drawn to us and I'm gonna be completely transparent here.</p> <p>Some of my clients struggle with this, and it's gonna hurt your face for the first while if you're not used to this. But if you practice smiling, like anything, like riding a bike or whatever, you get used to it, your muscles develop more and it does take a lot of facial muscles to do this. But once you start smiling more, you will find people interact with you completely differently.</p> <p>I've lived in China, I've lived in Sweden, I've done a whole bunch of crazy things. And no matter where I am, no matter what culture I'm in, when I smile a lot, people are drawn to me. And so it's this thing that I learned accidentally that's been really useful for me. On the other end of things that we can practice, it's practicing, and I'm gonna simplify this.</p> <p>Usually I take time to teach people this, but something that people can work towards asking open-ended questions versus closed-ended questions. And the difference is real. And I know you guys know this, but for the audience, a close-ended question is anything that can be answered with one word. So what's your favorite color?</p> <p>Green, blue, yellow, whatever. What did you like about school today? Yes or no? These are horrible questions. We use these all the time and there is a purpose for them at certain times, but for the most part, if we wanna get better at getting to know people and going a little bit deeper, We ask open-ended questions, meaning we ask a question where somebody else can control it a little bit.</p> <p>For example, instead of asking an investor or potential investor, hey, What date did you get into real estate investing? Or how many homes do you own or properties, do you own those? Those are close ended questions instead saying, Hey, what drew you to real estate? That's a question where somebody can go anywhere and again, people start to feel understood when they can go on their own terms rather than dictated by the question if you ask a kid, again, coming back to kids, but when you ask a kid, what's your favorite subject at school?</p> <p>That assumes they like school. And that's why it's not a great question because now if a kid doesn't like school, they can't go anywhere with it. But if you ask them, Hey what is something? What did you enjoy most about your day? Now they can talk about the playground cause they didn't enjoy school.</p> <p>That allows people just a little more freedom to express themselves. Once people start talking, you can then go a second level deeper. We're gonna talk about this just for a second. That second level is. So if somebody says, Hey, I enjoyed this, you can ask, what did you enjoy about that. I'm scared of this.</p> <p>What are you scared of? What? What? What is terrifying you in this? When we go deeper into the emotional realm people share far more, they feel safer with us, and we will find their objections, which is key to solving problems. I hope that answers that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>That's a really great answer and I will say, imagine how boring these podcasts would be if we just ask you these close-ended questions where you give us one word answers and it would actually make our lives so much more difficult cause we would have to have a whole series of questions versus just having that conversation and asking those open-ended questions and like you said, taking the conversation in any which direction.</p> <p>It just makes it a lot more entertaining. So the next open ended question that I would like to ask you is, there's a lot of people listening that want to either get a joint venture partner or work with somebody that is bringing something to the table that they may not have. So for example,</p> <p>Somebody has the ability to hold financing, but they need a partner to bring in the money.<br /> Or if somebody has the experience and they're looking now for people to bring the money and the financing, what are some things that they could do to, bring and attract some of those potential partners to them?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>I believe that so much of the time. We get stressed because we think everything needs to happen in the next instant, and people pick up on that stress. So it actually pushes people away from us rather than drawing them in. Every situation is different, so I'm hesitant to give one size fits all approaches, but in my opinion, What we need to do is, again, get to know somebody in their stuff. So many times I've been on a call or like in person, been in a meeting with a potential investor.</p> <p>I ask them a few questions and I realize, wait a second. I've got a, I don't know, a rent to own deal that I'm working on right now. This doesn't fit them. What fits them is a long-term buy and hold property based on their answers. So instead of pushing my deal on them because I've been asking questions and listening to them, what I'll do is say, Hey, and this is a really good question, I think for everyone.</p> <p>Ask hypotheticals, Hey, so you've said this is important to you. If I were to find a property that could do this and this, would that be something that interests you? And when I provide hypotheticals like that, sometimes I've got something in my back pocket, sometimes I don't.</p> <p>But then I at least know what to work on. So much of the time when it comes to financing and those kinds of things, we're in a rush. So I would say the best thing is, and I'm sorry cause I'm not really answering your question, Sarah, but the best thing is to back up a step and say, listen, if this deal falls apart, that's okay.</p> <p>How do I get the next five deals done? And the way I'm gonna get the next five deals done is getting to know somebody well and not pushing what I have in my back pocket necessarily, but making sure I answer their questions appropriately. Hey, listen, this is what we need to be prepared for the next deal.</p> <p>When the next deal comes, sometimes they move quickly. Are you okay with moving quickly when this happens? They say, yes, we get the paperwork done. Now they're ready. Now, even if it comes in a month, two, three, whatever, when the deal is in now, we can close it quickly. So the people that I find that are excellent at this are always preparing.</p> <p>They're playing the long game. They're not simple. Pedaling their little trinkets at the side of the road. At the moment they're going, how do I really take care of this person? Because if somebody I've had investors consistently that will close 2, 3, 4, 5 deals with me that's way better than closing this one deal in front of me. So again, I don't know if I answered your question, Sarah, ask again in a different way.</p> <p>Sarah Larbi: It was really good. And I think that urgency sometimes backfires, right? And then just setting the legwork for that long game I think is really important because if you are urgent and you, maybe people will think that you're a little bit more desperate and you don't wanna ever come across as needing them versus trying to help them get to their goals.</p> <p>I think that's the big difference where I see a lot of new, newer investors and they're like, I need a JV to get started because I don't have other means. And then they come across as it's about them versus the other person, what their goals are and being able to, I call it trial, closing my sales lingo, but really understanding what the other person's needs are.</p> <p>Saying, if I come across something like this, is that something that you'd like me to present with you to you? Whether it's, a month from now, three months from now, etc. And I think setting that groundwork builds trust. It builds credibility. And they likely will feel like you've got their best interest versus just looking out for yourself and trying to get something that you don't have because you urgently need to close it. So I think it's a great answer. So thank you for that.</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>Sarah really quickly. You said something there that I think is extremely important for people to pay attention to and both Alfonso and Sarah as best. Fantastic questions. So pay attention to everyone in the interview, right? Because we can learn so much. But somebody, you said, Sarah, you talked about trial closes, but you said it's not about playing the game.</p> <p>It's not about pretending that we need them or pretending that they need us or they're gonna lose something. It's not about the game, it's about taking care of their needs. You said that very specifically, and I agree 100% with that.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> To Sarah's point, right? I think I forget it was said on one of our podcasts or one of our events, but like needy is creepy, right? If you come across as needy, it sounds oh, what? Why is that? I don't really wanna work for somebody That sounds needy. And again, when we're like, again, we've worked with over, I don't know, over 80, 90 joint venture partners that we've worked with, and it is really about, All, every single one of those people are different and have different wants and needs.</p> <p>Yes, a return on investment, like somebody might take a lower return on investment because they feel better about a certain deal or a certain area, and it's not always one, size fits all. And not to sound like cheesy or anything, to be understood is really to understand.</p> <p>Right to understand what that, where that person's coming from. We all have different life experiences, things that we've encountered that we view differently. So really great advice. So let's talk a little bit more about real estate. So what type of investing, what type of investing gets you excited or is it just helping investors?</p> <p>Did you have a portfolio yourself that you're like, Hey, I really like this type of portfolio cause we help people we can parlay a few D type types of things. What is, what does your portfolio look like? I'm being really questioned, really careful about my questions right now as well too.</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>When at the beginning I didn't know much, so it was just single family homes, wasn't even a suite of properties. I knew nothing and I wasn't very creative in my investing. I met a couple of individuals that coached me along the way. Fantastic investment for myself and I started learning creative strategies, so not simply.</p> <p>I don't know the strategy of buy and hold, fix and flip, whatever we've heard the BRRRRs strategy or whatever we've heard of. But more importantly, how do we connect with people to solve problems? So again I know that in Ontario, agreements for sale aren't as popular as they are out west, but they're absolutely doable.</p> <p>An agreement for sale is this. Magic solution for many problems where all of a sudden we can say, Hey, based on your needs, so again, oh, you don't want a bunch of money right now? Because you're gonna be taxed on it. Great. I've got a solution for that. Oh you don't want whatever. So actually for my strategy it's not actually real estate.</p> <p>I love real estate. I love the properties. For me, it's about, again, developing these relationships and finding the way we can position deals, agreements for sale are fantastic. Vendor Take Backs are fantastic vendor Take Backs, though I don't find them every day, sometimes it takes me a while between vendor Take Back finances.</p> <p>As far as actual deals, I would say I like sweet spots. So in certain markets there are sweet spots with certain types of property and certain price ranges. Right now, one sweet spot that I like across Canada are multi-units that are above. About 12 units is a magic spot for me, so that the financing is easy with banks as long as it's a good deal and under about 30 units.</p> <p>Those are, to me, the big players in real estate are not interested in them, but the small people, the people that are just starting out in real estate, don't even know about them yet. So they're like this, playing the supply and demand game and then finding those sweet spots. That's probably how I would answer that.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Very cool. Now, is your focus these days on real estate or is your focus on the sales and everything else that goes around helping other investors become successful?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>That's a good question. I would say that my focus used to be really on real estate and getting deals done and helping people. Over the last four or five years, I've actually slowed down on how much I acquire, and I've really focused on my coaching business. It is truly my earliest memory. Of things that I wanted to do were being a doctor, a vet. I've always liked helping. And then, I never became a traditional medical doctor, but I love helping people and what excites me every day right now is meeting people and finding solutions.</p> <p>Whether that's in real estate that still happens, or whether it's just with clients that I have helped them get to their goals. And so much of the time it's, they're just, there's such little tweaks that we can make to a situation. That starts to solve problems where people have a little more confidence or they feel a little bit more comfortable talking to people or having those conversations. To me, so much of the time we notice, and this is normal for human psychology we notice big things.</p> <p>We notice when somebody purchases a multi-unit and we get excited about that or starts a new REIT. We get excited about that. But the biggest changes that happen in human beings are the zero to one type changes where we're, I don't have any properties and I'm terrified of asking for money, but I did it. I'm working on my first deal. Those are super exciting for me because those are the people that can take huge steps later on. It's the start of the process that's most difficult.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. Sorry, go ahead, Alfonso.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I was gonna say just recently, Sarah and I have been talking and I asked Sarah, I said, what's new? What's exciting in your life? And the first thing that she said was, I'm so excited. One of my new students, they just went through their first BRRRR and they're going through the first steps. And I think sometimes we get lost in how many transactions, how many deals that we've done?</p> <p>Maybe it's the fifth one, the 10th one we've done, hundreds of rent to own properties. And you get in that monotonous stage. It's just normal. But then when you're seeing somebody else experience it for the first time and seeing it in a different light, it re-energizes you a little bit.</p> <p>I think a lot of the time and you alluded to it and I wrote it down here, I think we are in that instant gratification society, right? Like Jesus, it's called Instagram, right? It's instant, right? We want everything right away. So when you're working with clients, and I know Sarah works with clients as well too, what are some practical tips for practicing patience?</p> <p>Because I know myself and especially, in the midst of, pandemics and anxiety and we want all this now and we see the goals and we see people pulling up in the million dollar homes and it's probably just the set or something like that. But what are some of the things that we can practice patience to get to that point or setting that plan?</p> <p>Is it a course of action, because obviously there's a big plan. It doesn't just happen overnight. What are the key fundamentals to practice that patience, to say eventually we will get there. What are the proper steps to take?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz:</strong> I see that a lot of people fall into the trap of, so we've got like the people who love, I would say like the group of people that love the movie, the Secret. Then those people that go, I simply wanna visualize. I don't have to take any action. And again, I'm being extreme here, but I don't wanna take any action. I just wanna visualize and get everything. And they're, they live so much in the. Future that they're not taking action at the moment.</p> <p>Then we've got another group of people that, again, another good group of human beings that work hard, and just end up spinning their tires cause they're not building systems and they're not seeing the future. And I think really the secret of what you're talking about as far as I've seen with my clients is how do we bridge the gap?</p> <p>We have to think about the future. We need to visualize, we need to dream, we need to see what we want in the future, and we need to take action now. Those are both facts. Bridging the gap, in my opinion, is the key. And the way I do that with my clients is reverse engineering and just going, okay, so if this is your goal, two years, five years, 10 years, whatever it is, What is something you can do in the next year that will get you closer?</p> <p>What is the next thing you can do in the next three months that will get you there if we bridge the gap? There's a great book that talks about this, it's called The One Thing written by Gary Keller, who started Keller Williams Real Estate brokerage fantastic. Again, a person that puts together really simple ideas in a unique way, but it's bridging that gap.</p> <p>How do I see myself in the future consistently? I need to visualize that every day. And I also need to see the plan to get there because if I only focus on myself today I'll start going off in different directions and get lost. If I only focus on the future I can almost live in a dream world where I'm escaping reality and not taking action.</p> <p>To me, it's about bridging the gap by practicing the planning by always having the plan in our heads by consistently reminding ourselves every day. Hey, if I do this today, I'm getting closer to this goal. What's the next step? What's the next step? I'm always writing this out every month. I write out my plans over and over again, and sometimes they don't change at all.</p> <p>Sometimes they change significantly, but it's simply to get it in my head all the time, and this is the way I explain it to people. We need to brainwash ourselves. Because we live in a world where you talk about Instagram and instant everything. We live in a world where everyone is marketing to us.</p> <p>Everyone's trying to influence us towards seeing things their way. That if I'm hungry, I need a burger, or if I'm whatever, that I need these types of G whatever it is. And we need to brainwash ourselves more. Then outside people are brainwashing us. We need to influence ourselves more than others are influencing us, so that instead of getting distracted with the bobble in front of us and the new strategy or whatever we are influencing us ourselves so much.</p> <p>We are so on track every day where we're thinking about this nonstop. That subconsciously this just becomes who we are, that we're working towards us and nothing will distract us so many times, if you, I just watched that series on Michael Jordan I don't remember what it's called, the 10 show series or whatever.</p> <p>It was fantastic. From this standpoint, Jordan had a single focus. And you could not remove him from that focus. You couldn't distract him at all. He could not be distracted. If you talk about people who are higher achievers than anything, talk about Elon Musk or whoever else, and you will find that they don't easily get distracted.</p> <p>You can't take them off what they're thinking about. And that's the gift, that's the secret, is to get so focused on one thing, become beautifully obsessed with something. So much so that's what you're working towards. All day, every day. And that doesn't mean you don't think about others again, you think about others because other people fit into every planning goal. But we become obsessed with a certain idea and we work towards it every day. It was what my quick answer would be, that's not so quick.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You say it right? It's just that one thing to focus on and you keep that top of mind. I'm very big on the examples and the how. And you went back, just going back and you were talking about planning and writing things down. So you're saying all these great things. Somebody that's listening to this right now, What are some like specific action items that they can say, okay, listening to this podcast, here is how I can bridge this gap. Here's how I can get rid of some distractions. Here's how I can do better in planning.</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>Good. So I'm gonna give a very simple thing that I give to almost every one of my clients. So if you're listening right now, I want you to take out a piece of paper. You can do this on a computer screen, but what I want you to do is write down what is your goal?</p> <p>What is it a number of properties? Is it an amount of income? Is it what that income's gonna give you? Whatever, it's, doesn't matter what it is. But when you write out your goal, be really specific about what you want. Make sure that if you give it to somebody else, they know exactly whether you've achieved it or not.</p> <p>Give, and this is why dollar amounts are really easy, because they're really specific. Write down a date. So really what a good goal needs is very few things. Okay? It needs a date. It needs a specific thing and what you're gonna do for that, okay? How you're going to achieve it.</p> <p>You write down that goal, and then what I want you to do, let's, so let's play the example of it's five years out, so it's 2025 as of this recording and near the end of the year. And what you're gonna do now is you're gonna ask yourself, okay, so that's my five year goal. What could I do next year?</p> <p>I always go, I start my plans with just a year. I want you to write down on paper what are one to three things that I can accomplish in this next year. Take action on this next year that will bring me closer to this goal. Now, let's say it's an amount of money. It's an, it's a million dollars, or it's five properties or something like that.</p> <p>The danger that I see with most people is that instead of saying everything ramps up near the end, we always make more money near the end of our goals than in the beginning. They simply break it up into five, so they, oh five properties. One property this year, and that's not the way it works.</p> <p>What I would say is have the mindset of that long-term thinker where you say, okay, five properties. All five properties, if they came in the last month, Just before mine, I set my goal. Would that be okay? Yeah. Okay. So how do I prepare for that? So what are one to three things? Never more than three more.</p> <p>More than three things. We get distracted again, we start to get lost in our own head. So one to three things. What are one to three things I can do to help myself? Purchase these five properties and what I would suggest is think about what you need. What are things that we are lacking? For me, at the beginning of my real estate journey, I lacked an understanding of how to negotiate, how I lacked an understanding of how to find deals.</p> <p>I lacked coaching and mentorship and those kinds of things. So actually, Those would be the one things. If you haven't had coaching or experience with that before, I would say start with that. Start with learning and growth. Even if the first year was just dedicated to learning and growth and getting everything you need and starting to take action, don't get me wrong, but really learning and growing through that action, would that not be valuable?</p> <p>For example, I've got a friend in Calgary. He's worth hundreds of millions of dollars and we were just talking. He's got a new position to open up in his company. I'm trying to help him fill it a little bit. Where somebody's gonna be managing to get this 500,000 square feet of commercial real estate space.</p> <p>He was talking about this and I thought if somebody wanted to get into real estate, if somebody wanted to buy five properties, would the best thing they could do in the first year, not be, forget about all the residential stuff right now, work for this guy for a year. Make money working for him.</p> <p>You would get the education of a lifetime. You've got mentorship right there. You're working for somebody, you're helping somebody else, but you're learning and growing at a furious pace. Far better education. So make sure it's one to three things for this first year. And then ask yourself what those three things or less need to be?</p> <p>Things that I'm gonna be learning, growing, so that I can never lose this information. And then once I've got these, so let's say work for. I'm not gonna give his name, but we'll work for this guy. Okay? And if that's my one year plan, then I would step back and go, okay, in the next quarter, what do I need to do in order to hit those metrics?</p> <p>If I need to learn about types of deals and I need to work for somebody, then in the next quarter, what do I need to do? In the next quarter, maybe what I'll do is I'll start to develop my network. To find the right opportunity for somebody to work for or I'll develop my network so that I find the right coach to, to hire, or I develop my network to do something else.</p> <p>I'm simply working my way towards that year's action step. And then I'll back off again and be honest with myself next month. What are one to three things that I can do to hit my quarter goals and my quarter action steps? And then I'll go back to the week and I'll ask myself this week.<br /> What are one to three things that I can focus on in order to hit that monthly action step and this is why this process is so valuable. I'd even do it for my day. So I've got three things. I actually only have two things today, but two things today to focus on so that today is successful when it does a number of things.</p> <p>One, it keeps us focused. When we have more than three things, we get unfocused. So when we've got the three things that we need to accomplish this month, now I know what I need to do. I know what will allow me to be successful. I know what'll allow me to build momentum in my life and to feel good about myself.</p> <p>We cannot underestimate feeling good about ourselves. When we are stuck and we're not taking action and we go, where's your direction? Am I even going in? We feel lost. That is not a good place to be. But when we've gone, you know what? I don't know all that I accomplished. I know that I was distracted somewhat, but you know what?</p> <p>I got these two things done today and I know that they were important because I think about this all the time. We build forward momentum. We build confidence, we start to feel better about ourselves, and then we are more likely to take action tomorrow and next week and next month. And that's all it is, it's building momentum in a direction.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Awesome. Thank you for providing all of those examples. And as you're saying this, cause at the beginning of the podcast you were talking about procrastination as well, and I feel you're talking through it and that could easily be something that happens if you don't have those daily goals and those weekly goals and those monthly goals. And you don't take little steps towards your five year procrastination and all of a sudden you haven't moved forward in the five years.</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz:</strong> Procrastination comes from one of very few things. It's either we don't know the next step to take, we don't know how to take that next step, or, and then there, there can be other things here, but the third thing that often comes up for people is they simply lack confidence.</p> <p>They don't believe that they have what it takes. Okay. And so really growth towards our goals is simply taking care of those things. So how do I take this step? I don't know. So let's ask somebody. Let's find out that information. Oh, I don't believe in myself. Okay what is something that I can do where I start building that confidence in some way and as soon as we do it's always the emotional side that we struggle with.</p> <p>The logical side is fine, where we're fine. That way it's the emotional side and we can take care of that. What am I scared of? How can I handle that? Let's take the next step. That's it. If we're asking those questions, what can I do? What am I struggling with? What's the next step? If I'm asking those questions consistently, I'm going to start moving in the right direction.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. And I'm gonna take a quote of yours there, and you said beautifully obsessed, and I love that. I love that. And I've been listening to different podcasts and reading different books about the actual process and falling in love. With the actual process. Most of the time, I even think about sports leagues and like winning the Stanley Cup or something like that's the end result.</p> <p>The actual process, the pursuit, the actual pursuit, if you're not falling in love with the actual pursuit and doing that every day, that's, you're not gonna get beautifully obsessed if all you're worrying about is that end result. The result is not gonna give you the fulfillment that you want. It's that pursuit of continuing to get there and going along.</p> <p>Making mistakes, finding other people that are along the journey. We're all making mistakes every single day. Finding out a better way to do it right. And again, getting that confidence, I think that's what it really breaks down to. Honestly, I feel like I should lay back on the couch here.<br /> This is like a therapy session. This is awesome content. And can't thank you enough for the amazing stuff that you've provided for our REITE Club Nation and definitely reach out to Mark. But I think we've gone to the part of the podcast where we're gonna do our lighting round Sarah, why don't we start off with our first question of the lightning round?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>Do something. Take action.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong> Great answer. Take action. We hear that quite a bit. Alright, so I'm gonna change this question up just a little bit, but what is your favorite resource? So just a resource we say usually for real estate investing, but for a lot of what you're talking about is mindset. Taking that next step. So what is one resource? Is it a book? Is it some training, a specific person that you follow? What's one resource that you could share that you use in your day-to-day life?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>This is such a difficult question. I'm gonna give two and it's gonna be weird. So instead of one book or one resource, because everyone's a little bit different, I would say audiobooks to learn constantly in the vehicle and or podcasts. So exactly what you're listening to at this moment.</p> <p>Podcasts are free, audiobook books are almost free. They're such an inexpensive way to learn and grow in the ways that help us. I would suggest biographies of people who are successful. We learn ridiculous amounts from other people's stories. All right.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>That's a great answer. And that's how I learned too, is listening to those podcasts. And then I started listening to a lot of audiobooks as well. And you can accelerate, like you're learning so much tenfold by. Using these things where you're just listening and you're maybe, in your car driving, you're doing chores around the house, like it's huge to get you that boost. So I'm glad that you mentioned that. Number three, what is the one attribute that has made you most successful?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>My curiosity, I'm ridiculously curious, and because of that, it makes it really easy to engage with people and ask them questions and that really allows me to get in with people far faster than the people often that I see around me.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. And the curiosity, but I want to add is your passion. You can tell that you are passionate about what you do and you actually care about what you do. So the curiosity mixed with the passion and the actual involvement in what you do, makes you the person that you are. Last question of the lightning round. What are you doing on a typical Sunday morning?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>I'm getting up at five Sam as I get up every other day because it's consistent. And typically on a Sunday morning, I'm relaxing with my kids. I'm starting getting my mindset right. I still visualize, still do affirmations and look at my goals and then think I'm always right now, I always learn something in the morning.</p> <p>Right now it's French, and then in the morning I love that first moment when my nine and 11 year old wake up and they come and snuggle with me on the couch for a few minutes and we just relax. Cause I don't have to do anything. I don't have to run anywhere for business. I just hang out with my kids Often. We play a game in the morning. I love that. Kind of morning.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Awesome family time. That's great. Mark, where can the REITE Club Nation, the listeners, reach out if they want to know more about you?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>Probably the easiest way would probably just go to markfrentz.com and then start exploring that site. I've got lots of free resources there to help people. Really, I help people. I honestly love this. So go there and if there are some free resources that help you fantastic. The other thing that I would say could be useful for people is on Instagram, and I put these up, videos up on other places, but every morning, five days a week, I put up something called a Morning With Mark.</p> <p>It's simply, I found mornings are key to our days. And so I simply throw out a quick video, five minutes or less, that encourages somebody in some area of life and business and that's it. So if you wanna learn more about me, watch a few of those videos and you'll see the craziness of Mark Frentz and get to know whether you like it or not, and then you can decide for yourself.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Awesome, awesome stuff. Definitely check that out. Any last words of advice or things you'd like to share with the REITE Club Nation?</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz: </strong>Here's my last words of advice, because it has made such a difference for me and it makes a difference for everyone else that I know. Sarah, we were talking before Alfonso, I can tell this about you.</p> <p>We need to trust ourselves enough to invest in ourselves. And so many people think, I don't have time, I don't have energy, I don't have money. The fact is that those are the times to invest time, energy, and money in ourselves. Benjamin Franklin said, if you empty your purse into your head, That will be the best investment you make.</p> <p>In other words, and it's not all money, you don't have to be money, but invest time, energy, and money into yourself, not into Netflix, not into the next game on your phone or whatever. Invest it into yourself because no one can take that away once you understand this stuff. So many gurus have said, you can take away everything from me.</p> <p>In the end, I can have it all back in months. Why? Because I understand how it works and if you invest in yourself, you know how now you have something that nobody can take away from you. No matter what the economy does, no matter what pandemics are coming out or anything else that's going on, you have in yourself what you need to grow and have relationships and business success and real estate investment success, whatever that is. So invest in yourself.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I love it. Thank you for sharing. Thank you, Mark, for being on our show. Thank you for your insights and REITE Club Nation. Go check out Mark's website and get the resources because we are helping everybody grow. And I think Mark, you've done a great job with providing so much valuable information today. So thank you so much.</p> <p><strong>Mark Frentz:</strong> Sarah. Alfonso, thank you so much for having me here today.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>That was a wrap. I'm super excited. I'm glad that we spoke to Mark and he's provided a ton of amazing insights and investing in yourself. I have another podcast, as you guys know, and one of the questions is, if you lost everything, your assets and your money tomorrow, how would you start again?</p> <p>A lot of people will answer that my brain is still there, my knowledge is still there. I would start again the exact same way, but now I have more skills and nor more knowledge because of that experience. And so investing in yourself, those are real words. And I believe that no matter what happens in a good market, in a bad market you do, your self investing and your learning and your education and all of that, and you'll be able to, In my opinion, ride that wave up and down much more easily and efficiently. Because you've invested in yourself, what about you? What's your biggest takeaway?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I love what he was talking about, when you smile more and have a pleasing personality, and one of my favorite books of all time was winning oh. Was it how to Win Friends and Influence People. Yeah. I always forget the title of how to mix it all up, but it really is that, having that, seeking to understand everybody's got all these different experiences. If you never learn when you're talking because whatever you're saying is what you already know.</p> <p>You learn when you're listening. And again, I know sometimes I ramble on and go on too much and talk a little bit, but it's that excitement that comes through of hearing those experiences and asking those open-ended questions, and having that, and, that's the biggest skill I think that we get to practice a lot on these podcasts, is asking these open-ended questions.</p> <p>If we were just asking people. Yes and no questions on this podcast. I don't think we'd have the fellowship and the listeners that we do because it'd be pretty boring, right? Think about young kids, right? When they're two, when they're three, four, or five, six years old, they're always like, why?</p> <p>And what's this and what's that? What's this like? If you want practice and your negotiation skills, like talk to kids, they're going to ask and ask and be inquisitive and want to get to those answers. I think that's something that we both share, like, why?</p> <p>What's that? And you don't just take it for face value. And we talk about it. Selling it, selling people on our investments or joint venture partnerships and you're not, you're really helping people understand. And that's, yeah. There's a bunch of takeaways there. Like I said in the podcast, it was almost like a therapy session.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Just like you said, it goes back to what can you do to help others? And I think by helping others, It's going to come back to you tenfold, but don't make it about you as the most important thing. Make it about the others, and the more value that you give to others, the more will come back to you.</p> <p>Whether it's from whatever standpoint that you're looking at, from a financial standpoint or from, a happy lot of stuff can make you happy, but look at it. How can you give the most amount of value, and I think that will be the best. If you're thinking about getting rich quickly, it's not about you. How can you help others get to where they wanna go? How can you provide content? How can you provide value?</p> <p>I think in return it's gonna come back your way. So Mark is an awesome guy. Check him out. Also, if you haven't left a rating, Or a review for the podcast if you could. That'd be amazing. And in REITE club nation, check us out now online. Don't forget to register. It is free. Check out all of the great content at thereiteclub.com. Alfonso, what do we say?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Come grow with us and see you next time guys.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Tue, 13 Jun 2023 08:12:29 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7918 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/helping-you-reach-your-goals-finding-solutions#comments Understanding JV Agreements From A Legal Perspective https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/understanding-jv-agreements-legal-perspective <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Understanding JV Agreements From A Legal Perspective</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Wed, 06/07/2023 - 05:42</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> REITE Club nation, I'm Sarah Larbi. I'm here with my wonderful co-host. Alfonso Salemi. Alfonso, it's great to be back doing podcasts. So today's podcast episode is Ryan Carson, and if you guys are interested at home learning about joint ventures and JVs and how to put them together, this is what the episode today is about, and I'll tell you, it's really interesting and if you wanna delegate it out and just hire somebody that knows what they're doing to give you a template for a JV agreement in all the talking points that you need.</p> <p>Ryan Carson is probably the best lawyer that I know for real estate investors, right? There's lots of real estate lawyers, but investor real estates, law firms are In my opinion, there's not that many in Ontario and there's probably not that many in any, anywhere really in Canada in comparison to the ones that really understand JVs and how to lend money privately, do all those contracts. It is quite complex. So super excited. Hopefully you guys enjoy today's podcast episode. And what do you say, Alfonso? Shall we play the episode?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> Let's do it. Let's get to the podcast. Hey, and welcome back to the podcast, Ryan Carson. Thanks so much for joining again, Sarah and I, and great to have you on.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Thanks a lot guys, for having me. It's it's a couple times now as Sarah pointed out, so it's always a pleasure to be on the podcast and talk with you guys about real estate investing.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely, you're definitely one of the the REITE club community and the REITE club nation's favorite. And, probably one of the go-to, if not the go-to legal counsel, everything to do with the law around real estate, closing properties, JV, there's all new kinds of stuff. Nuances. Guys. It's so important to have the documents right now. So Ryan is one of the guys that you wanna talk about, but there is some big news for all the realtors that are part of the REITE Club community cause we want to remember.</p> <p>We have a community of very diverse people, a lot of different avenues and a lot of you guys are professional real estate agents, realtors in Ontario. And Ryan's got some news that he's been telling us about that he's gonna share. So we'll have at it, Ryan.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Thanks a lot guys, and thanks for having me. It's very timely. This has been in the works probably for quite some time, and most realtors, especially ones that are quite successful, might have their own teams of other realtors. This has been something they've been probably chomping on to get for quite some time. It's the ability to incorporate.</p> <p>A regular real estate salesperson, not a broker, but a realtor has not been able to actually do an incorporation until just recently. So October 1st, 2020, the law will officially come into effect to allow for a pre, which is a professional real estate corporation. And this is gonna provide them with lots of different benefits and opportunities.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> There's succession planning, there's business planning, there's tax planning strategies. There's just many options that this is going to provide for the realtors in the group and even just the realtors just in, in Ontario. So it's a great opportunity for the realtors to seek out from their tax advisors, tax accountants and lawyers and get opinions on whether it's worth them doing it again. I would suggest if the realtor is somewhat successful or wildly successful, it's a no-brainer. It's almost a given that you'd want to take this up and have this opportunity to incorporate.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> All right, awesome. Now you said Ontario. Is this Canada, Ontario? Like how wide does this span?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>For Ontario.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Okay. So for Ontario units now realtors out there that do well have the ability to incorporate, which, like you mentioned, brings the tax advantages. So I think that probably is the big thing, right? There are tax advantages in addition to a few other things.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> The tax planning and the potential tax savings are obviously the easy, exciting, tension grabbing details of it, but it goes beyond that. There's so much like its options. Quite honestly, it's just an option. If you don't incorporate, you really have, you have very little option.</p> <p>You can't get creative with your tax planning, your succession planning, your business planning, your business operation. Whereas if you are incorporated, there's so many layers of options that you can build on from the, whether it's just you just wanna save tax, whether that's, tax now in your operational years, or tax on potential sale of your business, or tax in your eventual passing, to your family legacy planning.</p> <p>Tax is definitely the flashy, attractive bit of why you'd want to incorporate, but there are other aspects too. So there's state planning, you can do primary and now corporate wills, which will save you on probate administration tax when you pass away. You could build in different levels of share ownership for potential licensees. So those would be other agents, that might be working on your team. But you could also build in.</p> <p>There's still some gray area that we're still trying to figure out the details on, but like a lot of other professionals, like doctors, dentists, where you can have a professional corporation, but you can have non-licensed members, so family members hold shares as well.</p> <p>They can't be voting shares of the corporation, but you can still do tax planning in your family that way as well. That's a bit of a gray area. We're still trying to figure out and see what the law's gonna settle on there. Those are again, Options that are available if you incorporate, if you don't incorporate, then you have no options.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Are there any downsides to it? Like it sounds like a lot of great things. Other than the corp taxes will cost more in general, but what are the downsides?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>The downside is that you are going to have some maintenance costs increase. You're not gonna go to h and r block and file your tax return for 200 bucks. You know you're gonna have probably at least a thousand dollars in a tax return. But keep in mind that what a well-versed tax accountant and consultant will be able to provide you in savings will far outweigh you paying them an extra 800 bucks a year.</p> <p>You will have some. Annual minute filings, with your lawyer, might be two to 300 bucks a year for that. But again what you would save is gonna far outweigh the maintenance cost. That, at least if you have the right advisors, that's what you should find. You should find there to be extreme value, which pays off in the first. Year, maybe even, first year or two for sure.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. We always talk about, obviously all the trusted partners yourself, obviously included right at the top of that list, Ryan of having those trusted partners, lawyers, realtors, mortgage brokers. Accountants, right? Inspectors, all that type of stuff where they're looking out for your best interest.</p> <p>Yes, there is a cost associated with incorporating, with transactions of closing legal estate, but you want to have the best so that you are paying those fees, that's an investment along with the actual investment of the real estate versus paying a fee or a cost, right? And I think that was one of the tough things that a lot of people and myself included, wrapped my head around, oh, it's gonna cost a thousand dollars a year to do taxes, but really, That a thousand dollars is gonna open up maybe some other savings. Again, like you said, even future planning. Yeah, really good news. And the realtors are listening to this and part of the right clip community. Yeah.</p> <p>You gotta get in touch with Ryan and he's the guy to go through. So I know one of the hot questions, one of the topics that we always talk about is JVs right?</p> <p>Sarah and I always go back and for the last couple years Sarah's been. Accumulating her portfolio primarily, with herself, her spouse, and not using JV. She had her income. I was always telling her like, every weekend it felt like we were bringing on another joint venture partner.<br /> We're coming to you, Ryan whoa, my god, I'm scared. Like maybe someone the first time using a JV partner or myself going, ah, don't worry, it's, we have to put something. What do you do? How do you protect yourself? Is there one JV contract? Probably not, but are there few things that you can share and maybe, I don't know, Sarah, anything additional?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I feel like that was a lot of questions all at once, but feel free to answer Alfonso's questions and I have lots of questions for you after.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>I think as we alluded to in our prelude to this podcast, probably other than doing the real estate transaction for the right club members, actually closing the purchase for the sale for them. Two other most common things we do is potentially incorporate a structure. And or JVs. Over 50% of the work we do for the REITE club members typically is JV agreements.</p> <p>Whether it's reviewing or drafting from scratch, the JV document, Alfonso mentioned, is there just like one set, JV agreement to use? No. But that being said, there are gonna be common elements and clauses, in any JV agreement worth using. A lot of times people will just go straight to the points, this is how much I'm gonna put in. You're gonna do this. I'm gonna do that. If we need more money, this is how we're gonna do that.<br /> If we don't like each other, then this is how we're gonna do that. And then, what are the milestones for us, either putting in more money, taking money out, and or selling or refinancing the investment. I just rhymed off a bunch there, but that's, those are basically like the key points.</p> <p>That we would be looking for or building out in our JV agreement, so we because we've been doing it for a bunch of years now with the real estate investors and the REITE club members. We have probably two or three, maybe four JVs for given situations that we like to use. One or two for sure are go-to and we will feel out the client and what they're looking for.</p> <p>Some guys want to really. Legalese type one, they want to be like 25 pages and really just be intimidating because that's what their style is and that's what they're looking for. So we are kind, we have one that's like that. And then we have one that I would say still covers the majority of all those important points in that bigger one, but is a bit more plain language compressed. It might be like five to eight pages. And then it gives the opportunity to put in some schedules to it that could extend it, 10 to 15 pages depending on how many times you're gonna use it for how many different projects.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> That second one sounds more like the agreement. I would like not too crazy legalese info, but it is easy to understand. So let's take, just take a step back cause you did name a lot of things in there that you put in there. But, so one of the things that now as you mentioned October 1st is when you know people are gonna be incorporating for realtors. I'm actually retiring on October 1st, so I am gonna be looking at JVs at that point in time.</p> <p>I don't want too many, I still wanna be very picky. Just as important as they pick me, it's important that I work with 'em cuz it's a five to seven plus year relationship in a way And there's probably a lot of people that are, Alfonso's a pro with JVs, I'm going to now be doing it too. With that said, what are some really important conversations and topics to have before we get to you? There's obviously discussions that have to be had, had conversations about, some of those things that you actually listed off, but what are taking a step back, good things for JVs to talk about before they put ink to paper.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> Have to have, whether you make it more of a formal or informal conversation between you and your other partners, y you've gotta have that discussion about, okay, who are all the parties gonna be? Like? Is it just the two of us? Is there a third? Is there a fourth? Like, how many of us are there? How long is this for? What's the term of this JV gonna be? And then who's doing what role in the JV? And what's the purpose of the JV? Are we doing a BRRRR? Are we doing, are we gonna do four projects that make up this JV two BRRRRs and RTO and conversion what are we doing right?</p> <p>Within what are we doing? You have to say, okay, JV one is doing these roles and responsibilities. JV two's doing these ones, JV three's, doing these ones and so forth. So really just coming together. Again, it's depending on your style, sitting down and having a formal or informal discussion about all of those things we just talked about.</p> <p>Then the further points to that would be, Okay, now that we know the projects, the scope, who's doing what, what are some of the key milestones, who's putting what into the project? Is it blood, sweat, and hard work for JV one? And that's what gets them their payout. And for JV two, it's, Hey, you gotta put down the hundred grand we need for the deposit and down payment and be on the mortgage.</p> <p>That's it for you? Or is it a bit of a mix? What are the inputs? Key milestones. I mentioned that there are, is it a four or five year project as you alluded to? And so each year, are there gonna be key milestones? Are there gonna be interim payouts back to the partners throughout the course of the JV because it's doing so well each year, as annual income return? Or is it all just at the very end? Are there monthly milestones?</p> <p>Then what's the final projected or possible range of rate of return? Everybody wants to know, as best you can, what that might look like. And the last one, which is typically the most uncomfortable one to talk about, and it's probably the one that's usually glossed over or forgotten about, cause everybody's pumped about doing a real estate deal. They don't, and you're in love with each other because you're obviously working together and you're pumped.</p> <p>You don't think we're, we can't possibly disagree. We can't possibly not like each other in a year's time. And have three years to go. So the discussion needs to be had of like, how would you go through a divorce? Like, how would you split from each other and make one another whole, or however you want to call it.</p> <p>How do you terminate the JV and you want to try to do that? Doing two things. Preserving as much of your positive reputation as possible. Cuz even though there's, it's a big world out there, it's a small community, we're gonna travel fast if Alfonso's not a good guy to deal with, which is not true of course, but you wanna keep your reputation even in a difficult situation, positive.</p> <p>Then number two, you want to do it as quickly and as cost effectively as possible, right? Mediation, arbitration, going to court, those are not quick, easy and cheap. If you have covid, they're not even possible, right? They don't, you can't even do those things during a covid type of environment. So having some sort of divorce mechanism or a discussion head is pretty important, I think.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Ryan? I'm not sure if it was on a previous podcast or at the live events, or. I know even it might have been Chad from your office as well too, that, so you know what? They shouldn't be called agreements. They should be called disagreements because that's the only time that you look at them is when there is a disagreement, right? Because when things are going well and the cash flow's coming in, no one's gonna be like, oh wait, my agreement said you're only supposed to gimme 500 cash flow. You gave me six.</p> <p>Oh wait. It's when those negative things happen and it's impossible to predict. Every possible outcome and have that written out. And like you said, that might be 500 pages and not even nobody had a global pandemic in any of their agreements. I am almost sure of that. Maybe you can speak to that but it's having that, I think the two conversations that I wanna unpack with that you said was really having the conversation whether you are.</p> <p>The active partner, the money partner or combination, is understanding what the goals are for each person, right? And then the agreement pretty much puts that into place, right? Because if two people really want to be passive no one's gonna be doing anything. And if both people are gonna be active, then there's gonna be always a disagreement on who's gonna be doing what and, okay, no, I'm doing this and stepping over each other's toes.</p> <p>I think those are the things that have to be clearly laid out. And then, yeah, like I love what you said is some type of mechanism that, okay, we don't agree, okay, we're going this way here to avoid arbitration, courts, all that kind of stuff. And then putting that out there. So again when you're, is there something that you like. Has to be like a certain timeline that, other, some investors want to prefer or or typically, or is it really up to the agreement, up to the type of strategy that the investor that's looking for the JV partner is planning?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>I don't think there's anything set in stone or any, like automatic go-to timeframe or timeline. I like your point that you made about a disagreement that probably was chatty's clever, like that. It is really a disagreement rather than agreement, but also, understanding each other and your goals. Of what you wanna accomplish out of a project and how you want your roles and responsibilities within that project to work are crucial.</p> <p>As you said, if you've got two people that really just want to be passive it's gonna be probably hard to make that project work as effectively as if you had a passive and active partner like true, active and passive partners. A hundred percent, that's crucial to To determine upfront.<br /> I think the sooner you can have this conversation with each other and start, banging out the informal, like to, to Sarah's point, Hey, I'm gonna be retired and now really deep into all this stuff. She was already deep, but now she's getting really deep.</p> <p>You wanna have these kinds of conversations as early on. So number one, you can feel out whether or not you feel like you got a good fit with somebody. And it's okay if you don't have a good fit, trust your gut. Some, that's your best mechanism. Sometimes just be like, you know what?</p> <p>I don't know. I just, something's not right. It's not anything against the person. It's just not, it just doesn't feel right. I gotta look again. I gotta look elsewhere, right? But then if you just, if you feel like, oh yeah, this is great, everything feels amazing about this whole scenario. You start having those, that conversation about all the turns, over coffee or a beer or whatever.</p> <p>Start writing down all your informal items and points, and then, one of you gets your lawyer to draft it up, right? And then. Def. This is crucial. Get them, if you draft it up, get them to have their lawyer review it. If they're not willing to spend a couple hundred bucks for their lawyer to review it, that tells you something right there.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. You definitely want the lawyer, the other person's lawyer to review. Okay, so now as you're talking through this, there's two ways in my mind. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's more, but there's two ways that this plays out, right? So there's many times where I'm talking to somebody and I would JV with them, they would JV with me. That's great. I don't have a deal, right? So I don't have a deal, but I like them. So that's scenario number one. So do I get a letter of intent or not? And then scenario number two is I've got a deal, but maybe I don't have a JV for that. Then I go out and JV.</p> <p>Is there a letter of intent for the ones that you're? Thinking of working with, but you don't necessarily have a deal with yet. And then, how do you proceed when you have a deal under contract? For that piece, I guess there's no, is there a letter of intent for that?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Your first example where you've got somebody that you've got great, a great vibe with and you're like, I definitely want to do a project with this person. And likewise they are you, but you just haven't found that project or opportunity yet. Yeah, you could put together a non-binding letter of intent.</p> <p>Letters of intent are by their nature only, an expression of your wishes towards each other. It's, they're not typically legally binding, right? If it makes people feel more comfortable and you know that you've got a basis to build off, to go spend time hunting for the opportunity, then absolutely you can do that LOI, but make it a condition of the LOI. By a certain date to have either found the opportunity, extend the LOI term if you haven't found the opportunity. But if you do find the opportunity that you have to enter into a jV by such a date.<br /> In the other example where y you've got the opportunity, but y you haven't, got anything in place yet.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>That is the other example.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I guess that's where probably all of Alfonso, you're doing both, right? So you're bringing in JVs, but I'm guessing you're like, as you get the deals and you're like, okay, this is a great deal, and then you shop out the JV essentially, right? To figure out who's interested in it. So I guess that's a little bit of a different scenario versus finding the JV and talking to JV and figuring it out and having that conversation prior.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Absolutely. When working with investors. And I love the idea of the letter of intent you've used as well too. But again, it's, you're gonna know the timeframe and what the intentions are of the investors as well too, if they're looking to place.</p> <p>An investment in 30, 40, 60 days, something like that. And there's no opportunity, right? Even if you sign that letter intended, they want to go find something quicker. Ryan said, it's not binding. But yeah, if we do have a project and now we don't have that investor, and I'm gonna, touch wood and knock on my head that every time we've been able to close on a project because we've had that investor.</p> <p>It's tough because of the weather. I think that goes to talking about getting the contract or sorry, getting the property under contract. If you have conditions or now how do you close? That's now if you're not able to do that. I always like to make sure that if we're going out and searching, I have somebody to pair it up with.</p> <p>That someone's ready to close on that property. It's really the timing of the oath, but there's nothing that's gonna hold an investor if it's been six months and they told me six months ago that they were interested. That I can't expect them to not go and find another opportunity to go and invest or to lose them.</p> <p>I guess that's like signing a buyer rep agreement, right? We're talking to realtors out there. If you have that buyer rep agreement, but there's no action going back and forth, like how enforceable, maybe that's actually a question I was, I thought about, I jotted down here.<br /> Let's just say we were in that joint venture agreement and the worst case scenario happens and we didn't really plan it out or there's nothing. STR in the contract, how does that go about? Is it just negotiating back and forth what the project is? Again, like you said, you have to have that balance, but how is that taken care of or determined if there is?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> You're saying you, you've got a JV agreement, but something has come up and there's no terms about it.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> That's right. One of the parties didn't fulfill their obligations or what's listed out on what we try to carefully put together, how do, how is that actually enforceable? What do you do if that's the case?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>If their agreement silent on, how something would be handled. You gotta hope. That you're gonna be very quickly able to come to a meeting of the minds between, discussion of the parties. But, if you weren't, and you got into a loggerhead and there's a lot of friction and tension there.</p> <p>That's when you know failing there being some mechanism to like, to divorce from each other. That's when you, that's when you get stuck and you compromise on their point of view. Because you don't want this to go?</p> <p>Get outta hand and be crazy and be reputation damaging, or you dig your heels right in, on both sides and you end up, sitting in a courtroom or mediation or arbitration or something. That's why, I've heard different real estate investors especially heard some that are quite successful too. Say, they've never done a JV ever, they do a handshake deal or they write it down on a napkin or something like that.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> I would say they're either one of two things wildly successful at the art of a business deal, or they are lucky. So you have to pick or choose which one you think they are. But the bottom line is like you're rolling the dice, you're rolling the dice and the agreement will at least give you, hopefully, certainty of charts, right? It's for the disagreement, right? It's not really for the agreement stuff.</p> <p>Everybody's gonna be happy as a pig and poo it. This thing as is, as accepted. As Alfonso says, it's gonna be right or even more if you have a great return, nobody's gonna be upset about that. It's only gonna be if it underperforms or you just don't start liking each other or being able to work with each other. You're gonna really be like, oh, I really wish we had something. Or I really wish we spent more time getting our lawyer to put provisions in the agreement to deal with this.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. So Ryan, what happens though, do you register the JV agreement? What happens to the JV agreement once both parties have signed it? What do you do with it or what do you recommend?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Because JV agreements have essentially an inherent trust provision in them, because you're inevitably saying, one party's gonna be registered, the title and hold title in trust for the beneficial ownership of all the other parties in the JV.</p> <p>The Land Registry Office in Ontario does not allow the registration of any sort of document, either called the trust agreement or that has any implication of a trust in it. So they'll actually review them if you tried to register them, and then they would just. Delete them. So you can't really register JVs in the Land titles registry office anymore in ontario.</p> <p>I don't know about other provinces. You might be more successful in other provinces, but for the Ontario registry office, the director of titles will not allow. So they really have a bit of an honor system for the party that isn't on title to like to do their own due diligence and. Lease the process.<br /> The thing I've found most common is the non-registered. Partner is typically the one actively working the deal. So normally the person on title with the more they don't even, they've never even seen the property in their life. Like they don't have any concept of where it's located, what it's doing, who lives there.</p> <p>Like they're not typically very hands on. They're like, here's the money. Yeah, I'll sign for the mortgage and just make sure, everything goes really well and at the end of the day, we'll all get paid and we'll all be happy. That's typically their Involvement in it, in the ones that we're seeing on an average basis.</p> <p>It's the gut person who's not on title that typically is managing it, dealing with the trades, if it's a reno flip, that sort of thing. Or a BRRRR or dealing with the rent, own tenant, buyers. They're they set up everything, they just don't happen to be the person. Registered to title.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Could the property be sold and the person that's doing all the work technically have it sold from under them?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Theoretically it's possible because again, there's nothing on title that would prevent the registered owner from pulling a little bit of a 180 and trying to sell it. But again, I would say in most cases, the non-registered person who has a beneficial ownership in it, because of the j jv they're the active managing partner. So they would probably miss something going on. I would think, if something was getting sold or what, they, and they can certainly ask a lawyer, whether it's the one that did the registration in the first place or their own independent one.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> If there was a perceived conflict for that lawyer, they could say, Hey, can you do a title search? I feel like something weird's going on here. I feel like they might have refinanced the property without me knowing about it or something. The other thing that you could do too, if you were really worried that, hey, I know, I feel like we're falling apart or this isn't a good partnership anymore, or I feel like they're, this person's, maybe gonna try to stab me in the back.</p> <p>If you feel like they're gonna try to do something, you could go to a litigator and get certain things registered against the title. So you could get like a certificate of pending litigation registered against things you could do to freeze it up for a period of time so that even if they did in engage and try to sell it or refinance it, if you had that, they call it a C P L a certificate of pending litigation registered against it, it would trigger the immediate. Stop that action because nobody's gonna buy it with a litigation proceeding.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> This is really important to talk about in these worst case scenarios. Like a great question, Sarah, cuz we operate the same way at Jag is that we are the operating partner. We're not on title, but we're again, checking in with the clients, and a provision actually that we put in all of our JV agreements is for the investor, but really it's for us as well too, as like a reporting mechanism, right?</p> <p>That we are reporting the client's wellbeing. Throughout their tracking to get on to, to qualify for the rental and the actual property as well too. So for the investors out there that are worried if the active partner is actually doing what they're saying, right? If we're, like, we're talking about burs from Sara side, progress reports the same way that you'd have your trades report to you.</p> <p>I wanna put some perspective around it, is you do a lot of business out of your office, Ryan, and on how many proceedings, let's say, getting into these worst case scenarios, is it I don't know if you could put a rough percentage, I'm not gonna ask you to put an exact amount, but how often out of 10 times are you looking at something like this that gets to the worst case?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>I don't even know if it would be one in 10.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> About 5% to 10% overall.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Yes, in every 10, it might only be like one in every 20 or 30 or 40 that actually go like the full distance of this is a complete another meltdown. So either, again, my clients are either really lucky or they have good agreements put together or maybe a bit of both. Or, as you, I think have always alluded to in some of the other podcasts here, do your due diligence, like check. Check it out, check, make sure this person is somebody that you wanna work with. Just like you interview and screen prospective tenants.</p> <p>You're screening each other, is this gonna work? The person might be a great person, but you might just, you might be great friends, but you can't, colleagues maybe. And that, and those are okay. REITE Club Nation not to give another excuse or reason not to invest because, oh, I'm not sure about the agreement and worrying about all those things.</p> <p>Yes, you have to put those proper things in place. Maybe, talk to Ryan, talk to other people that are partnering, that have partnered with others. Referrals are a great way. People that have actually worked with those people, seeing their schedules, seeing how that's all gone out. Track record is a huge thing, right?</p> <p>Making sure that you have that. And yeah, if it is like you, we said here, like the 5% chance, guys, I bet you're gonna learn something from that too. And the next agreement that you put forth, you might have another provision that's like a must have. So don't let that stop you. The listen. We've done tons of joint venture partners.</p> <p>I know The REITE club. It's full of JVs and I love that Ryan just thinks so many of them are doing those deals. That means we actually are growing together and doing more deals. So that's a great thing. And just having the right things in place and that gut feeling. I know it sounds so hokey pokey, but really having the one-on-one video calls, getting that stuff, that due diligence your gut's gonna tell you what to do. Just the paperwork is gonna back you up with me.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely, and I will say templates. It sounds like Ryan's got templates. So Carson Law, if you need the long form template or the shorter form template, reach out to Ryan and Ryan, I'm guessing those are for sales for investors in Ontario.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> Yes we'll talk to people. We'll get an understanding of what their particular terms are, and then we'll put it in, but we'll do the first one for them, and if they want to use it thereafter, then I guess they can.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Ryan, since you've been on the podcast so often, we don't want to do the same normal lightning round questions. I'm gonna propose to my amazing coach, Sarah, that we come up with some new original lightning round questions. I'll start. With the first one to give Sarah a couple seconds to think of a good question, but yeah.</p> <p>We're gonna do four questions. We always do a lightning round. I know things change, but I guess one quick question I had for you was or the first question of the lighting round. What are you currently reading? What's a good book that you're reading right now?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> I have read several times who is one of the legendary Notre Dame fighting Irish football coaches. And it's basically his autobiography and each chapter, he writes it as if it's based on a story that he dealt with his players, but then he brings all the life lessons out of it.<br /> From that football moment. So I like it because it ties in sports but then, before you know it, he's hitting you over the head with a brilliant lesson.</p> <p>That's again he's very motivational. He does a lot of motivational speaking events and stuff now in his retirement.<br /> One of those guys that speaks to you as if he's a brilliant scholar. Like you just read it in plain language, simple story, but, and then all of a sudden he just hits you in the face with this such a simple statement. But it's just a profound lesson to have. So Lou Holtz is awesome.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Very cool. Awesome. All right, Ryan question number two. The border is, now, let's just say they, they reopen. What's the first place you wanna travel to When things resume to somewhat normal and you don't have to quarantine everywhere you go?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> Alfonso knows I like the beach, probably some hot destination in the dead of winter. Overwater hut or something like that. It doesn't really matter where. But don't wear hot and quiet clothes. I don't really like the big resorts or anything like that, I don't, I'd rather just be my own island or something like that. But there is a hot beach, beautiful water reef. That would be, that'd be great.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Love it. And arms length away from a nice cool adult beverage, right?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Maybe not that far.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I love it. Alright third question of the lighting round. What's a new hobby, if any, that maybe you've picked up during the pandemic or during the last six, seven months now, during this whole covid, anything new that you've tried for the first time or never thought of or that you're so bored of.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>I wouldn't, going back to my last thing about, hot tropical destination. If I could retire and never have to worry about money ever again. I'd love to be a surfer. That's something I would love to learn to do. I'd never cut my hair. Trim the beard. It would just be just a surfer guy, right? But obviously I haven't been serving here in Burlington, Ontario. But something I have committed to which Covid is allowed for since we've been cooped up and everything is working out.</p> <p>I've got a home gym and we really added to it just before covid hit, thankfully. I've had a renewed commitment over the last six months to really try to get into shape. So that's been something that's been good. Instead of gaining 50 pounds, hopefully I'm trying to get a little bit more muscle shape in there.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> That's awesome. You won a strategic thinker as a lawyer and the guy that wants to go on the beach is getting the Beachbody. Ready in the basement, right?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>Home trying.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Very strategic. Love it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> You know what, if we get locked down again, at least you can work out. We tried. So we have a treadmill on order and it's been like two months. I don't know what's going on with it, but hopefully we don't get locked back into our homes before I get on the treadmill. But, it's good planning. All right. So on your Facebook, you've got lots of great drinks. I think my favorite I've seen so far was the Caesars that you make. If you had to pick an alcoholic drink that you would drink every day, if you could, what would that be?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>You hit the nail on the head. Caesars for sure. You can have 'em for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and you can garnish 'em up and make 'em a meal all on their own. But because I'm an avid cigar fan now. I do enjoy a Scotch and cigar or rums are always a go-to drink for me. So rum and cola, those would probably be my main drinks. You can never go wrong with an ice beer either on a hot summer day, but Caesars are the best.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Love it. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us again and being such an amazing partner to the Wright Club and to the REITE Club community. You're such a valued member. Any for those of the REITE Club that haven't heard of you or want to get ahold of you, how can they get in touch with you?</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson: </strong>They can visit our website, which is triple <a href="http://www.carsonlaw.ca">www.carsonlaw.ca</a>. And that'll have all our information there. It'll have the team of lawyers and some key staff people. All my contact details are there. Email cell phone. Feel free to gimme a call. Email's the best way to reach me though. But yeah, the website will have everything. And feel free to follow us. We've got all the social feeds too, and they're trying to get me to do more cool things like Alfonso's limo tours and, what do you call it, Alfonso? It's edutainment?</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>Edutainment. I love it.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> I'm trying, man. I just don't have the pizazz like you. So I'll get there.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> I can picture you with a three-piece suit sitting there and the nice in the office with a scotch and cigar. Talking all about JVs, incorporating and how to build yourself to wealth. So definitely check out Ryan on all the social platforms.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Ryan, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for all your insights. And guys, if you need JV agreements, recheck Carson Law. Ryan Carson. Thanks so much.</p> <p><strong>Ryan Carson:</strong> Thank you.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> What a great chat with Ryan. Such a wealth of knowledge we got into, really got into it about the joint venture contracts and especially for those investors out there looking to grow their portfolio. Either, retiring soon or, not relying on their income anymore and wanting to look and partnering with people to qualify for mortgages and deals. Great chat with Ryan. What were your takeaways? I know you were excited about this combo and talking about JVs as you're looking to expand the business. So what were some of the takeaways that you liked? Sarah.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>I think just like good, like aha moments is that the contract itself is not registered on title. So just to keep that in mind, you definitely wanna trust your joint venture partners as much as possible and really understand and have those discussions prior to all the contingencies and all of the, what ifs and what if this happens and the good and the bad, right?</p> <p>There's a lot of great things that we talk about, but there's also some downsides and it's just important to have those conversations ahead of time and to use a good lawyer to draft up your agreement of what you guys have discussed. Maybe use the template that Ryan's got and just make it as tight as possible.</p> <p>Hopefully you guys don't have, Issues down the road. And Alfonso, you've got 170 properties, you were saying at the beginning of this, and you've got JVs and you're doing it well, and everyone seems to, work itself out or I don't know, like what you, if you've had issues or not, but doing well.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi: </strong>I'd be lying and saying if there weren't any issues, but we've always, Have that clear understanding of what each partner is responsible for, and then the mechanisms, Ryan says that when there is an impasse or say a project doesn't go according to plan. Okay, what are the conversations?</p> <p>Everybody wants to walk away with the most amount of money. There can't just be one winner. Everybody has to walk away. A little bit happy and a little bit sad that they didn't get everything they wanted, but they didn't lose everything either. When the projects do not go according to plan or in some cases, luckily in a rent to own situation, if a project or essentially a client isn't successful, then you know the project.</p> <p>Can still be sold and still make profit in some cases more. That's not the first goal. And that's a lot of the conversation. Most of what I'm doing these days is having conversations with potential investors, people that are looking to place their money, getting it working harder than in a mutual fund, an RSP or something like that.</p> <p>There is always that apprehension that oh, you're out to get me. Why do you need my money? It's when you're in the Shark Tank or Dragons then it's allowing people to run and operate their business a little bit more. And obviously capital money, mortgages is just a piece of the pie. It really is.</p> <p>It's clearly defined having those conversations. You talk about all the time, whether it's about hiring your account, your lawyer, your realtor, your mortgage broker, your inspector, all the different right partners that you have and those power team members do your due diligence. Are they investors themselves? Are they thinking right? And really take a look at what your goals are. And if it's not an alignment, move on. There's lots of opportunity out there.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> The other thing is you could still do those businesses without a joint venture, right? You could still do it by borrowing private money, even if you don't have money. There's still other ways around it, and there's definitely lots of different strategies. So it's not always the answer to JV however, for some people it is in order to scale faster.</p> <p>For some people it is, right? So there's definitely pros and there's cons to joint ventures. You could talk to somebody that's got a ton of joint ventures and they may just say, if I could do it again, I would maybe change a little bit, right? So I'm not gonna say which investors said this, but there's an investor and he's got tons and tons of JV deals and he's if I could do it again, I probably would've narrowed it down to a handful of JVs and tried to do as much of it myself and see a little bit slower and that's okay, right?</p> <p>Then there's some other people that are like, you know what, it's worked really well for me and this is why I am here. Today, here in this spot, and it's from the JVs. So I would just say look at the pros and look at the cons. Every single strategy is gonna make sense in some amount of time for some people, and it might not for others.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> That's right. And, look out to that vision, right? Like Sarah, like you said, it was seven years that you get in retirement. If you said I want to do it in one year, if I wanna do it in three and really ha or five and have those goals and reverse backwards. And look and things change along the way too.</p> <p>I remember. No, there's people in the REITE club. Oh, I want a hundred doors. Why a hundred? Or, I think it was the number. He was like it needs to be 10 and then I can retire. You have to figure out what that is and those are gonna change as well too. Quality of life and, where, what you, how you want to be living it and what it allows you to do.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Alfonso, I think we continue this conversation online @thereiteclub.com in the forums. That'd be really cool. Let's try to loop it around and guys, these podcasts are awesome, but we wanna have that community feel. You guys come on thereiteclub.com. Ask questions about JVs.</p> <p>Ryan Carson's on there as well. He can answer some questions, check out the forums. I think that's, just a great way to get additional questions. If you guys are listening to this and you're like what about this? What about that? Say I wish they would've asked this. These are great questions that you can ask on the forums.</p> <p><strong>Alfonso Salemi:</strong> I know Sarah and I are there daily and we're checking out what's going on. This is our way to keep in touch with our REITE club community and see what's going on. We're talking to you. We want to hear from you guys, right? That's the place to be. Thereiteclub.com. Have your voice heard, share your thoughts, share your opinions, and let us know what you want more of. I don't know, Sarah, what do we say? Till next time.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Come grow with us. </p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Wed, 07 Jun 2023 09:42:51 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7890 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/understanding-jv-agreements-legal-perspective#comments Lessons Learned In Scaling Up To Over 200 Doors https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/lessons-learned-scaling-over-200-doors <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span>Lessons Learned In Scaling Up To Over 200 Doors</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/en/user/arnel-llemit-1637316866" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="" content="ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866">ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/user/templates/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--blog-post.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span>Tue, 06/06/2023 - 04:25</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'core/modules/node/templates/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field--item"><p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>REITE Club Nation. Welcome back to another awesome podcast. I'm Sarah Larbi. I'm here with my co-host The wonderful, the only Laurel Simmons. Hello, how are you?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Hey, Sarah. I'm having a great day. What about you?</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> It's really good. I'm excited for today's podcast with Sandy MacKay. Sandy's got two plus doors. He's been in business over the last eight years. Super awesome. He's also the host of another really popular Canadian podcast, breakthrough Real Estate Investing, and he's a realtor and just a husband and many more things. So I'm super excited about that. And Laurel, one of the things about the REITE club though, guys that Laurel and I just wanna mention is just make sure that you check us out online. What's online these days? Laurel?</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Hey go and check us out at <a href="http://www.thereiteclub.com">www.thereiteclub.com</a>. You can join for free. It's, we have forums, we have podcasts, we have all kinds of things to go in there. We have our sponsors and people who are offering services. There's all kinds of stuff. You can make connections with people and we're adding more and more all the time. So just go on to thereiteclub.com, sign up. It's totally free. We'd love to see you. We'll say hi. I guarantee if you get on there, join up Sarah and I will say hi.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Awesome. Let's listen to our podcast and guys, thank you for joining our REITE Club Nation online. Thank you Laurel as well for being a great co-host in this podcast. And thank you to Sandy for sharing his insights. Let's do it. Sandy, welcome to the show. How are you?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Thanks. So awesome. I'm excited to be here. Thanks, Sarah.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. I'm excited to have you on. I am a big fan of your podcast as well, that you have with Rob prior to this talking about your podcast and how you've had it for the longest time. But, when I first started looking at real estate investing as a Canadian investor and looking for Canadian content, your stuff came up. So thank you for your education to me early on in my real estate investing.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Perfect. Yeah, that's what we did it for. So I'm excited that you've obviously similar. I dunno. We kinda pioneered that for a little bit and then obviously awesome to see others taking over and probably surpassing us in a lot of ways. Congrats Austin to see your success.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Cool. Now, you are a very successful real estate investor. You're also a realtor, but for those that don't know who Sandy McKay is, give us a 30,000 foot view of what you do when it comes to real estate.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>We obviously have been a pretty active investor for about eight, nine years now. Before I got in as a realtor, I was in that world for a few years. I've done a whole bunch of stuff, creative wholesale type strategies to fix and flip, join ventures buy and hold, join venture multifamily.</p> <p>A lot of different stuff in the investor world. Got into the realtor world about six little over six years ago now. So I built up a team in that world. We do a lot of investment business and then kind of transitioned into more residential as well as we built up. Also have a few other businesses in that world with construction team and product management team, and then our like investor.</p> <p>Business that we do a lot of joint venture capital raising through. So yeah, over the years a lot of strategies have a lot of like partners around and so a lot of complexities, I guess some ways and somewhere around two units overall with not all owned myself, but some ways shape or form ownership me being involved there. So yeah, that's where we're at now. And really a lot of that's been the last two, three years. We've kinda scaled that up a bit on the acquisition side. We've got a wide range of products there.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Do you have a favorite strategy? Is there something that you go back to over and over again?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>For sure. The bread and butter model is the joint ventures, buying multifamily, buy, refinance, and rent strategies. So for which I'm sure you've talked about a lot on the show. We've done a lot of those strategies. Yeah, we've done a lot of those in the three and four unit range. That's kind of been the ongoing buying one to two a month of those for a couple years. And then we started adding on some bigger multi-family projects. But again, same strategy, just different scale, different size.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> In eight years you've built a portfolio of 200 plus properties. It sounds like you've got a lot of moving parts, a lot of JVs, a construction company, and now you're a realtor as well do you sleep?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay:</strong> I have a, one of the things I would say I'm pretty good at, better than most people, and I'm not, I hate bragging, but I'm pretty good at the team billing side of it in terms of gathering leverage and things like that. So I'm probably more naturally equipped to do that than most people. I don't really wanna work 24/7 by any means.</p> <p>That said, we don't have any kids, Kate, my wife and I. So we've maybe had a little extra time here and there than some people. And so we have worked really hard over that. But to be honest, right now, I'm probably, I don't work much more than, I guess I don't work. I guess I do, I think about it a lot.</p> <p>I don't really work more than 50 hours a week, I'd say. It's not too good. I spent a lot of my time on the realtor team side of it. My wife Kate runs our property management team, Adrian, who I think you've had on the show, runs a lot of our investment business day to day at least. And then I have a partner on the construction side who runs that day. So it sounds like a lot, but really I'm just pretty leveraged with it and I don't necessarily spend a lot of time on every component there.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>You build your team, you delegate it, and you find it, you find somebody to be able to do it, and you oversee. Is that roughly what you're doing? And I know Laurel has a question, but why did you choose to go from being a real estate investor to a realtor? Cause I know I have that question a lot, right? People that wanna get into investing, they're like, maybe I should get my realtor's license and do this. And there's pros and cons to both, but I'm curious what your reasoning behind it was.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay:</strong> For sure pros and cons of both. I didn't really understand until maybe a few years back where I kinda said I really gravitate more towards the side. Totally not why I stayed in it and grew with it more. Totally different reasons, really. You could, I know you've probably talked about this too, is diving a little deeper on your why in life and why, what's important to you day to day? Why do you really I kinda got a little, to be honest, a little bored on the investment side, like the acquisition side.</p> <p>It's not really my favorite thing. Obviously I see huge value in doing it and value in terms of wealth building and everything. All the things that we do that I've mentioned there. It's by far our biggest ROI on activities. I just fell in love with the realtor side a lot as I grew with it, and so as I started getting more into it, kinda more looking at it as a really overall business and getting, as we started to scale little bit, getting more involved on real PNLs and looking at margins and all the different components to it and leading people.</p> <p>It just got more exciting to see people really thrive through that side of it. And you can. You can see results really quick in this, in a sales business, it's one of the highest opportunity or opportunistic sales roles in probably the world where you can go from making not too much to pretty, quite a bit right away with the right guidance, right support.</p> <p>It was just exciting to see some people who go through that transition and obviously they can, as a realtor being in that business, you can help people invest as well, pick up properties so we can help them in that sense. But, Just exciting to see them grow and become better people and business people on the realtor side.</p> <p>I kinda got a little more excited about that. I am still honest, just building our team and stuff a lot more versus rinse and repeat. That's s over and over. As much as the money was great and is great still, it's just kinda got a bit boring to be honest.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Do you, I know when you're a realtor you're going to, if someone comes along, wants either buy or sell a property, whatever it is. Unless it's extremely far out on the other fringes of stuff that we all know about. You're probably gonna look at it, but is there a client, a particular client type that you'd like to work with or a particular type of project?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay:</strong> We do a lot of at least 50% and it used to be a higher number, but we used to, we just didn't do as much of the normal residential stuff, or at least 50% of our business is investors.</p> <p>We do quite a bit of that. And so definitely as a realtor myself, day to day, On the realtor type activities, the investor clients were always my favorite buying multis year. They're honestly the easiest in a sense with real estate in the realtor space. Cause you can rinse and repeat the same as long as you can find, which is another, that's one challenge.</p> <p>If you can find the product it's kind of the easiest business because you can just do the same thing over and over again versus meeting, husband and wife and everyone wants something different, they're a little more emotional on that part of it, so maybe that's exciting for some people.<br /> The investor business, you can really ramp up pretty quick and it's not as there's no realtors. If you know what you're doing, which is why there's not as many in there cause not as many do know enough about it. But once you niche in there, it's a piece of the business helping build wealth creates emotional transactional.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I would think that with investors you're not dealing with the like you said, the emotional side of it. Investors go in knowing the numbers, because that's why they're doing it. And if you're dealing with someone who's just buying the house that they absolutely have to live in because it's like their dream house and we've all dealt with that kind of person, you're dealing with a whole, it's just a whole rack of other issues. And it's very emotional, whereas. The investor is really, they're good investors. We go, yeah, this works. No, it doesn't. I don't like that, but it doesn't matter whether I like it. It's not for me.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay:</strong> It shouldn't be as emotional to be honest. It's still emotional. They all, not every time, but a lot of investors get emotional still. As much as we tell them, not really as much as we tell 'em not to.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>How, What do you get emotional about? Cause I'm kind of surprised. Because my husband and I, investors, we go out and I don't care if I don't like whatever. It's just yeah, it's not for me, it's for somebody else. Stuff to live in. So what, when you say they get emotional, what do you mean?</p> <p>Sandy Mackay: I would say the more the salary you get as an investor, probably you get a little less emotional. But there's still moments there where you're like, for whatever reason, that property is appealing. And there's a lot of bidding wars right now, for example, when you get in those scenarios and you know it's emotional to the sense of do we really wanna spend another month looking for something again? Or is it worth spending the extra 5, 10, 20 grand, like a marginal amount to just get it? And then you get a little competitive probably. And they get those juices running.</p> <p>A lot of investors tend to be a little bit competitive and if their friends or other people they know are picking up, they bought two properties last month and you haven't, one in a while of scenarios that maybe where its competitive and emotional.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I think it's also a lot of newer investors, there's certain things that over time you don't care as much, but in the beginning you want the place to be maybe a little bit nicer or you wanna you're not going to live in there, but you wanna, I think that just that the criteria change over time. Like it's just like numbers and it's business. And if so, do the fundamentals make sense? But it takes some time together.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>That first, the novice ones too for sure. The, getting them over that hump of you're not living there is a big one. If they haven't, if they've only bought one or never bought any investment properties. There's always this part of them I find almost always, there's a part where they're still seeing themselves there, and so getting 'em over that hump, which usually takes a, just a couple purchases maybe. And they get a little less removed.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Then they just call you, Hey, go look at this property. Let me know if I throw in an offer or not. So like at some point as an investor, you have a good realtor on your side, and I don't personally look at properties anymore. This is if I see something I'll send my realtor to go and take a look at it before. I bother doing it and most of the time I'll just put it in an offer and see what happens.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>That's the best, right? That's the best for you. And as a client and us as realtors, it's a more effective use of our time too. So it's great.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Do it on your first one though. This is something that I would recommend as you get comfortable over time and just keep in mind, you've gotta have a backup plan. And most of the time, like I'll do it like conditional inspection or something. I wanted to, I wanna pivot a bit and go back to you scaling up. To 200 plus properties. Is it properties or doors?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Doors. As much as I like to say properties, no, it's not. It's 50 to 60 properties, give or take.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> All right. But that's still incredible, right? So scaling that in, your eight or so plus years is amazing for and foremost. So congratulations on that. So what are some things that you've learned along the way? Cause I'm sure there's lots of things that go wrong. There's lots of mistakes that are made. Can you share something to the REITE Club Nation on. How somebody can go about doing what you did and some of the best insights that maybe you learned from it.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Biggest thing on the scaling side, cause we started getting, like a lot of people do, I would say on Money started to get a lot easier to find for us. At the start you're trying to scramble to find that one partner that's gonna help you, either you don't have the money or you don't have the qualifications. That's usually why you'd go start to find JVs For the most we start, we, our second property ever.</p> <p>We wouldn't have, we didn't have the plans and our first project we ever did was like, scrounging up every dollar cent and credit card money, everything here just to make it happen. And we kinda did an accident on that too and it worked out well, but there was some renovation money that was tough to come by, so we started looking for money pretty much cause we needed it.</p> <p>Also we made so much sense. And so I think one of the biggest things that we learned now at this point is just. The importance of who you're investing with and what a relationship looks like. Just that they have their qualifications. That's gotta be something. Probably a long time if you're having a buy and hold type strategy at the end of it. We have partners that have been in business for seven, eight years now, and we've had some along the way that we absolutely would never do a deal with again. And really wish I would've never done a deal with them.</p> <p>We were very way too open on who we were gonna partner with because, like we had a few years into that we started getting people coming to us. And it's just, Attractive to go down that road because they're, it's a lot of money they're giving you. And it's a lot of leverage.</p> <p>I guess we're still doing all the work, but even now at our point, we have so much leverage on that part. So we're a construction crew. They're doing the same thing over and over again. So we don't even need to have a lot of time spent on that part of it. We don't need to spend much like day to day on the property management cause we have a good team there doing that all.</p> <p>It became pretty easy to just accept money. Worst move ever is to just accept money from people, that's, meet me once and say, yeah, it sounds good, let's go. But like everyone else, we were gonna look competitive and it sounded good to just be buying deals all the time. And yeah, there was a few in there that we just totally would not wanna work with again.</p> <p>It really came down to communication styles and things like that, and boundaries and really just expectations, right? We didn't have, we didn't set clear expectations in terms of who's doing what, Dayday or longer term day does this all sort of over time, and I knew that already and I had 10 tons of people tell me that still was too tempting to not go forward. So listen to all that advice, it would probably be another good one there. And listen to people that have been there before you and take their experiences and really think about them a little further before you act on.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I guess that was gonna be my next question, although I think you already partly answered it, was who is the best or who's the best fit? In terms of someone in a joint venture with you. And so you said some, like you managing expectations. So you wanna know, I guess you wanna know what their expectations are and you have to lay your expectations out on the table. What else are you looking for? And a really good partner when you go into something like that.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay:</strong> I think that comes down to, yeah, knowing their expectations and really knowing what ours are because and our standards and everything, right? We didn't probably dive deep enough on that for ourselves. And if you go deeper on yourself, understand now. Set out there to the world. For us, our perfect partners, they're just really busy with something else. They're not staying at home doing nothing. Because often those are the people that start asking a lot more questions down the road and a lot more time to manage them from a client care type of perspective.</p> <p>Really busy people are in busy professions. Doesn't always have to be that, but they're obviously busy doing other stuff and they just wanna get a better return than they're getting elsewhere. So someone who's got less time to spend on this type of thing, sees the value in it, knows that real estate's a great thing and there's just someone that ultimately they're usually not as, one thing I found is a tough person to deal with.</p> <p>For me, this isn't necessary for everyone, but for me and us, it's kinda a really engineers and accountants type of people where they're very numbers driven, really wanna know every little detail. That doesn't mean that's not the right person for other people. I find a lot of time for us, we're, I'm not the best at giving details like in the meetings or anything, and we start going too heavy on details.</p> <p>I'm gonna lose it a little bit. So that's more just a personal one. But I think that might resonate for a lot of people because it's a little easier to manage people that maybe don't need to know every detail. Not that we're hiding stuff, it's just easier to move faster and move on.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>It makes sense, right? If you're not analytical and they're very analytical, how you communicate your thoughts into their understanding is going to clash. I can totally see that. And the other thing you mentioned, I think is important to also, first of all, I will say you don't always have to jv if you can do it by yourself, feel free to start by yourself.</p> <p>That's how I started as well. So there's JV partners that are active and then there are JV partners that are passive. The other thing that I can think of, so you're very active in the business. You're likely gonna be the active partner. You likely always work. And then you're looking for somebody to bring you the financing and the money and essentially be more passive and just get a better return on the money.</p> <p>I'll tell you, it's important to understand who is who and lay out those expectations. Because if all of a sudden you've got somebody that's supposed to be passive, Is picking out all of the Reno materials and everything like that, that can go south pretty quickly if you've got two active people, but one was not supposed to be as active.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>I'll tell you one, one other thing there that we've tweaked now over time that we were doing at the start, we're just like giving them too much information. Like we were, we give them, we'd expect, they wanted to know a lot of things and they always can if they wanna know, but we would just over communicate it in some ways too much like over communicate soft and good, but we would do it too much where they started asking so many things that it is really irrelevant.</p> <p>Does it really matter for our perfect partner at least? Does it really matter what flooring type we're using? None of that renovation stuff, it matters. What matters is getting them easy. That's really what we wanna, those expectations and those demands, and down in detail on the specific renovation things we're doing.</p> <p>We've had some people where we've had you we've told, look, you can come learn from us, shadow us. Cause maybe you wanna do it yourself down road. We're open, but we don't, or don't spend time going too deep on that stuff cause we have our systems already in play with that. And that's what they're buying into. So the question though is just kinda silly. It's kinda eliminating our values.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I'm sure you've got a long list of things that you go through. So if somebody does approach you, I'm guessing that's how it's gonna happen right now, you're pretty out there in the public, so people approach you, you are likely not having to go and find, in my opinion, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, but people to lend you money in financing cause, they likely will be approaching you. But what are some of the things that you do, okay, so now they reach out to you and they say, I'm interested in joint ventures with you. Do you meet them? Do you have a phone conversation? Do you write a letter of intent? Like how do you go about that?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Usually we have conversations now, especially 2020 years. Which has been nice in some ways, but usually they end up in our office in some way sitting down. We usually might take 'em out to see a project or two that we have ongoing, just so they get a feel for what we're doing. And then we still reach out for partners, by the way. Not as much as we would normally, but a lot of those come through referrals from other partners.</p> <p>We don't necessarily reach out cold to people like we have in the past. But yeah, we would take them in, they come into the office after maybe an initial phone call. Qualification process to see if it's a potential fit. Come meet, talk about it. Usually it's one good meeting. It might be an hour or so through details, questions you process, overview.</p> <p>A lot of times it's, why am I bringing all the money? And that still comes up quite a bit as I'm sure it does with almost everyone. What are you actually getting paid on? What parts of this are you getting paid directly? Maybe outside of this? Because we have all the different companies, they're often asking, where we're really making our money, then we property or get a for it.</p> <p>Then ultimately to engage and get the process going. We do it, it's usually as a refundable deposit that we put towards the deal, or we'll refund it back after six months. So if we don't find anything in six months, refund it back. And if we do, that's the process. Find something you 'll out. Hey got somethings, whatever questions they have. At that point, obviously then are we gonna proceed or not? And then we get into the deal. Dunno, we can go deeper.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> I mean it's interesting and I like that you mentioned too, that you take the $5,000 that's refundable, but it definitely shows that they're not just talking about it, but they're willing to commit something to it. And I think that's the important piece as well, because. You could be doing all this work and figuring out what the JVs need, and then all of a sudden you have the perfect deal for them and they're like, oh, you know what? I'm actually not interested anymore. So like, how do you keep them, maybe it's four or five, six months later. Like how do you keep them still engaged other than the, I think the $5,000 piece that's refundable, I think is really smart. Anything else that you do?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>We've had that scenario happen. That's why we've put that into place. We've had that scenario happen on a deal closing like a week from today, and they're bailing on it. And Anything to avoid those types of scenarios. Those obviously put us in a rough spot. So we wanted to avoid those, which is why we input 5,000, which is really not a big amount of money at the end of the day. A lot of our, most of our partners, like our initial qualification from a money standpoint, they need 300,000 to put into it, which is your typical triplex fourplex, and in a Hamilton area project, plus the renovation costs, or at least.</p> <p>Vast majority of rent costs depending on the deal. So we, that's part of the expectation we set now, which is that we're not gonna follow them all the time about every little deal that comes up. Usually it's, we're ready to go here. This is a good one, let's do it. So we often, that's part of the expectation there, is that, hey, we're not gonna call you about a deal.</p> <p>Don't be alarmed if you probably hear from us anyways. Hey, just don't, just let you know we're still looking, but you're probably not gonna hear from us every week. Cause five more Trips got listened to this week and that's what we're looking for. You'll probably hear us from us within a month.</p> <p>Six months is a really long time. We're always gonna find something before that, unless we're looking for bigger stuff. But for that typical bread and butter type deal we do, we're gonna find something within two months at most usually. And so in that time, they're only ex we're calling them about, Hey, this is the property we should look at.</p> <p>It's because we're buying it. Like it's not very many that we're not gonna go through unless something's totally changed on their end. We're typically finding the deal and just going at it at that point. We don't wanna waste people's time. We don't waste anyone our time or their time, so it's not really worth it a lot to us unless they really have a different expectation and they wanna learn a lot more, which is not our perfect person. So it's not very often we're doing that, but that time to time, that might be the scenario too. So a couple scenarios there, but yeah, you're not hearing from us until you get the deal really.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>You said earlier that you started really like bread and butter was the three to four, units, property, and that you're scaling up to what, 8, 10? Like what are you scaling up to and why'd you go there?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>We have, so this year, for example, we've done 11 units that just closed recently. We have 15 units. We're hopefully buying a 58 unit right now. It's in the mix. We've had it locked up for a while and now we're just renegotiating some things on it. So we'll see if that comes through or not. Those ones have a lot more things to work out there. So scaling up in terms of size, but the real main reason is it's just, it's a lot easier on the financing side of it. I find, we can qualify for those, so it's not. Another thing to expect from a partner. I find the management side is a lot easier long term.</p> <p>We have our company being in place there, especially the management part is a lot easier for that and it's so much easier. Just acquire a big chunk at once versus over time, more and more partners, maybe more and more. More and more things to manage in the long term. Whereas if the red opportunity comes up and they're harder to come by, that's why.</p> <p>We're still doing the smaller ones too. It's harder to come by the big, 58 unit. Maybe if you can find one of those a year, that's pretty good. You're probably not one of those every year coming across those deals that are tougher. So as much as we like them better. Easier from the financing side, they're less maintenance and everything. Long term, less management costs overall, one or two boilers maybe versus kinda 16 units across four properties.</p> <p>You got four different things, right? Versus maybe just one in that type building. So all those reasons we've targeted, those probably are bigger pictures, they're attractive to us, but then we still, because we have more of a, we really look at these as businesses and they're not just We're not just buying these investment properties and that's it. We have a few more things at play. We do like to have the steady flow of the three, four unit type properties. Because it keeps everything rolling.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. Now you're a realtor and an investor, so where do you find these properties? Are they on market, pocket listings, off market? Are you going and buying stuff from wholesalers? Like, how does that all work? Because you're, you're pretty well connected to every part of the industry.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay:</strong> We obviously were everywhere really. But of course, you know what, I always refer to 2017 spring, which is really hot in most areas. One of the hottest times ever as we bought a lot of properties on the market that year in the spring, paying a hundred thousand over asking, on 500,000 thousand dollars purchase.</p> <p>We buy a lot off market. A lot of our clients buy a lot off market too. So it's always a balancing act. You know how much, we can't buy everything. We find a lot more than we can buy. So that's a good thing. We have enough to go around. But at the same time, a great opportunity comes up or who's, clients always ask that we are buying that or are we giving that to our client who's buying for themselves?</p> <p>Not partnering, but buying it just as a realtor client, right? That's always a balancing act there. So we do our best to kinda work it around everyone. But we buy a lot on the market ourselves because we give a lot of our off market stuff to clients that aren't partnering with us. So that said I would, I don't really care personally where we buy 'em from if the deal's a deal.</p> <p>Buying for a hundred thousand over, I think we bought seven or eight in that spring. We bought it in a year or two maybe. That was by far our most active period. And it was just, cause there was quite a bit of inventory at the time and we kinda, at the time it felt like we were going crazy, buying a lot.</p> <p>Because it was more than we were before. I would, I'm totally glad we bought every property cause we wouldn't have had them in our portfolio now and wouldn't have had the growth permit it that we have. We buy it from anywhere. It doesn't really matter to us. I'd rather be active than be waiting, sitting on the sidelines forever. So wherever the deals come from, we're open to everything and all those places you mentioned we've bought from before and we'll continually look within to find them.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> Do you have a specific area? Are you focusing in the Hamilton area or GTA, west or East or Viagra or Northern Ontario, or, I dunno, outside some area that you'd like to look at?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay:</strong> Definitely Hamilton, where we spent a lot of our time over the years. Right now we have properties in Oshawa Berry Vaughn, only because we used to live there and Hamilton. We are looking at other areas. Hamilton is still, I would still say it's my favorite place in sales Ontario, Southwestern Ontario, probably partially because we know it really well.</p> <p>Then beyond that, it's got great inventory. There's, especially for those three, four properties that we do a lot of, there's great inventory for it comparatively. Cause it's that right size of a city and it's the right price point. But then we're looking at some other areas cause we look, cause we're looking at a lot of these bigger properties now.</p> <p>Hamilton's got decent inventory, but it doesn't have enough inventory to get really active on that side of it. So we need to be a little flexible. We started looking a little more in Niagara region Waterloo. London. Windsor Ottawa. But we're Ottawa. Toronto Price Point City. So those are some areas we're into, we're looking to get into that we like.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Get into the bigger units, bigger number of units. Are you finding that you are starting now to run into more institutional investors in terms of competition? Or is that, are you not quite in that league yet? Because we all know about some of the teachers federations and there are big pension funds out there, right? That buys up these apartment buildings all over the place. And are you running into any of that?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>I think a little bit in Hamilton, there's a little bit of that. We haven't hit that at a huge level probably if we're buying or looking at more like these 58 type unit properties. So probably you're gonna find that more. We haven't found that. Cause we haven't really. We weren't necessarily looking for that. It just kinda came across us and we were intrigued by it. The eight to 20 units in that range, I'd say there's definitely less of that and maybe not even that many at all. So we haven't got a whole lot, but a little bit here and there.</p> <p>You're noticing more of them, especially in Hamilton find, if you find a lot of the older landlords who are, they've had their properties forever and they're not like an institutional type investor themselves, they're probably not gonna be attracting that type of buyer. So we're not dealing with those, and those are usually our sellers because, they're sick and tired of dealing with it, and there's some motivation there versus just the institutional type landlord who maybe has motivation, but maybe they're just more than happy to sit on it and not let it go for a price that makes any sense.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Those guys that are 70 or 80 and that are getting tired are potentially open to Vtv as well, which could work in your favor. Very cool. So Sandy, the next part of our podcast is our lightning round. So we're gonna ask you four questions. Laurel and I will take turns. You're gonna give us the first answer that comes to mind. Are you ready?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Ready, let's go.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>All right. Question number one. What is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?<br /> Sandy Mackay: The best advice for sure is to really dive deep on what you really wanted life first before you go down any strategy or any sort of, come up with the end first and go back from there versus just going for the shiny object.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons:</strong> I'll start with the end in mind is really what you're saying. Figure out what you want and go for it. Okay. Number two, what is your favorite resource for real estate investing? Whether it's book training, person, event, what is it?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Used to be a podcast for sure on iTunes. I still am great. That's still the best, that's still the best anywhere, any sort of podcast you can find online. There's some great video versions of that too. Now, YouTube's obviously great. Mostly digital stuff. I read a lot of audible books, so I would like to throw that in there too. Audible's really easy to listen to, whether you're traveling or going around day to day. Anywhere we can find great content. Digital world is probably the best right now.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Absolutely. Awesome. Question number three. What is the one attribute that has made you most successful in your opinion?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Abundant mindset and not trying to get a hundred percent of everything, or a hundred percent of very little, but being open to sharing and growing others to help. I would say that, but growing others and focusing on others versus everything, I'm gonna get outta it, but focusing on helping others get their piece of the pie, whatever that might look like. And it all comes back to at the end, as long as you do that.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Absolutely, you're right on that one. So number four, what do you typically do on a Sunday morning?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Sunday mornings changed a lot for me. I used to do a lot of real estate activities. Right now. Definitely not real estate to be honest. I've taken Sundays off most Sundays, so I would say hanging around the house, doing some stuff at home, if I'm lucky. And it's a really good Sunday, probably round.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Awesome. Sandy, where can the REITE Club Nation or listeners reach out if they want to know and learn more about you?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>A lot of ways. You can find me on social media a fair amount if you just look me up or Google me that way. If you wanna reach out directly I can throw my phone number and emails out there. 4 6 5 6 7 3 8 6 6 or sandyMcKayrealtynetwork.com.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Amazing. Any final last words of advice for the REITE club nation?</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>Obviously you gotta take action. All these things are great and great to think about and learn about, but you gotta take action. Stop wasting your time listening to all this stuff and go take some action with it and continually grow. You'll learn more as you go through action taking than just sitting here listening all the time. Gotta implement stuff. Definitely take action. Successful.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi:</strong> Go take action, learn and you're, you guys are doing the right thing by learning. But now apply that learning into actual concrete steps. And Sandy, thank you so much for being on the show. It was a pleasure having you on. Thanks for all your insights.</p> <p><strong>Sandy Mackay: </strong>This is fun. Really appreciate it.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Sandy. Bye. So Sarah. Wow. Like he's, Sandy's just amazing, isn't he? He's got so much energy and he's done so. He's got so many properties and doors and just to listen to him about, he's going from the sort of three and four units up to what, a 58 unit? Unit property. That's a big deal. I think there's a lot of learning in there, and I know we could have talked for an hour, not even come beneath the surface. There's a lot of stuff that goes on with that kind of stuff.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Yeah, absolutely. We talked a little bit about the realtor stuff and the JV stuff, but we could have been talking to him about BRRRRng, the multis. We could have been talking to him about so many other things, but it was really interesting. I will say one takeaway that I may apply myself is as I'm going into the JV world, now that I will not be employed anymore. I have a bit more time and I wanna focus a little bit on that, but it is really smart that he mentioned to do the letter of intent and then at least have a refundable deposit so that it shows.</p> <p>A little bit of commitment from the other person is because it's tough to find that deal and go out and hustle cause it's not like they're just sitting there waiting for people to buy them. They do require some work to find the right deal and sometimes it takes months to find the right deal.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>I think we've all been in, in situations where I know, and certainly Danielle and I have, where we've had an investor back out at the last minute. It's not fun. It really isn't, it's a lot of pressure and a lot of stress. So for him to have that just, put them, put your money on the line and it really does seal the deal in a sense. People are committed then if they're doing that, they're serious.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Yeah, absolutely. And guys, if you enjoy today's podcast, feel free to leave a rating, a review on Apple's podcasts or wherever else you guys are listening to this or YouTube. We are now on YouTube, so if you want to watch us, you can do so on there. And thank you as well REITE Club Nation for tuning in and staying engaged and reaching out to us. Your emails are always appreciated.</p> <p>If you have any questions or feel free to also check out our calendar of events. You can join some free webinars. We're doing two webinars a month. They're right now at this point in time, they're free. Go join. Go learn about. Different strategies or learn from some of our experts. Partners, lots of great things happening.</p> <p><strong>Laurel Simmons: </strong>Absolutely. And if you have a free moment go on, give us a rating for our podcast. Because the more you know, the more you give us a positive rating, the more we'll be in front of other people. And, one of our goals is just to help people learn about investing, real estate investing, and get out there and do it.</p> <p><strong>Sarah Larbi: </strong>Awesome. Get out there, take action REITE club Nation, thank you so much. </p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-blog-comments--blog-post.html.twig * field--node--field-blog-comments.html.twig * field--node--blog-post.html.twig * field--field-blog-comments.html.twig x field--comment.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <section> </section> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/wxt_bootstrap/templates/comment/field--comment.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/child_wxt_bootstrap/templates/system/links--node.html.twig' --> Tue, 06 Jun 2023 08:25:43 +0000 ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866 7889 at https://thereiteclub.com https://thereiteclub.com/en/blog/lessons-learned-scaling-over-200-doors#comments