Dylan Suitor: If you wanna get into real estate investing it's very rewarding, but it also could be very dangerous if you try and bypass or skip steps, don't skip steps. Commit, find the right people in your ecosystem. Connect yourself with the right who's get the right power team and the world is your oyster.
Alfonso Salemi: Welcome back, REITE Club Community. It's Alfonso Salemi, and I am here with Francois Lanthier, and you are listening to another episode of the REITE Club podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh, we hope you're enjoying these podcasts. We're putting them out every single week.
Find the best of the best in the industry. Uh, interviewing them le, allowing them to share their stories, their expertise. There's tips so that you can continue to build your real estate business, uh, to the best that you can. So, really hope, uh, uh, you're enjoying these. Uh, today is a great, great episode. We have Dylan Suitor from Elevation Realty, and a whole bunch of other different businesses and companies that Dylan's a part of.
You're gonna hear all about that in the podcast. Dylan has been a longtime supporter of the REITE club and, uh, lots of information and lots to learn from, Uh, Francois. Yeah. What, uh, what are you been up to? How are you doing? I'm
Francois Lanthier: great. I'm great and you're, I really enjoyed this conversation. I don't want to give away all the, the details, but there are little bits about international investing and the freedom that real estate investing affords.
That's what I'm working on is my, my real estate freedom, customizing my life. And maybe enjoying Costa Rica a little bit more. . I love it. That's kinda what I'm up to but I invite the REITE club, the listeners, to make sure to subscribe to our channels. Look us up on social media. We have, we're on different channels, YouTube, we have some shorts and different things going on. And make sure to rate and review our podcast. We need to hear from you to grow and, and reach more people. That's the goal. The REITE Club is all about customizing your life. So, how about you, Alfonso? What's new with the family and your, your lovely, uh, new situation?
Alfonso Salemi: Lots and lots going on. Uh, little guy is turning one later this week. Uh, so that's a huge, uh, huge, huge. I can't believe how quickly this one year has gone by. It just floats by. So now I know what all you parents out there are talking about, how quickly the time goes by, and it's only been a year.
Also just personally just moved into, uh, a family home as well. So congrats boxes everywhere. is, is, uh, current lifestyle. So, um, yeah, but, uh, just really excited, really, really awesome to, uh, to put some down, some new roots. And JAAG is continuing to grow. Obviously with our Rent to Home solution, we've been helping more and more individuals achieve the dream of home ownership.
And our joint venture program is really just taking off. There's so many people that just want us to manage it, take care of those things, passive investing, uh, and helping another family achieve home ownership. So, continuing to grow. Our team is 10 strong now as well. And, uh, at the time that we were recording this, this is the beginning of October, we were actually just recognized by the London Chamber of Commerce for the best small business of 2022.
Huge accomplishment. A great milestone for us and the team. And, uh, yeah, continuing to grow and helping more people and yeah, of course, customizing our lives the way that we want to, uh, to run them and, uh, make sure that we're enjoying every aspect of it. So, uh, for those of you that are listening, thank you again so much.
Please make sure to rate, review, share it with friends, and, uh, you're already doing this and this is just a little, little sneak peek of the episode that you're gonna listen to the best investment. Is the investment in yourself. So thank you for listening and hopefully you can find some knowledge and find some value out of these episodes. Hope you enjoy the show.
Welcome back to the podcast, Mr. Dylan Suitor. It's, uh, it's a pleasure to have you on here Again, thank you so much for joining.
Dylan Suitor: Francois and I today. Awesome. Really looking forward to, uh, reconnecting and discussing some updates on where we are. I think it was probably a couple years since we've been on and, uh, lots has changed. Lots has grown. Yeah,
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. Lots of changing. I think I heard that's put the best ways, you know, that's the only thing that stays the same, is that things are gonna change. So, uh, that, uh, that, that's been, that's been a constant, uh, reminder in my life that we always have to grow and adapt.
And that's something that, you know, you're, uh, You're very, uh, familiar with. And for, for those you know, if you've been following the REITE club or know anything about the REITE club, you've heard of Dylan, you've heard of the Elevation team, you've heard of, you know, the amazing things that he does. But, uh, for those of you that maybe first time that you're hearing, um, you know the name Dylan Suitor, give us a little bit of a, you know, a 30,000 background, 30,000 foot background on you and who you are.
Dylan Suitor: Absolutely. Yeah. I always talk about my first investment property. When I was 18, it was a student rental. That's where I went to school in Waterloo, and I'm sure it's worth probably five times more than what I sold it for now. But, uh, I didn't really know what I was doing with investing. I bought it. My mom thought it was a good idea to, to put down the deposit and make me responsible for it.
I went from there to buying a couple of new build condos. Then I bought a. Uh, that flip ended up being 2017, which 2017 everyone knows was kinda like what we're experiencing now, a bit of a pullback in the market. I missed it by a month or two. So instead of selling it at a loss, I actually flipped that over to Airbnb and I didn't do a typical Airbnb because I didn't wanna deal with some of the regulations of tax implications and HST building and whatnot.
But I would do kind of midterm leasing. Uh, I focused heavily on different insurance companies on executive. Um, I would, I would look outside of Airbnb and, and do more of Expedia type bookings. Um, a little bit longer bookings that weren't necessarily one day or two days, they'd be for two, three months. Um, some of the bookings were six to nine months, and then there was a fire in a house and building took too long.
They were there for two years. Um, and those were inflated rates. So instead of a three or $4,000 house rate, it would be 8,500 or 9,000. Um, so I ended up kind of tweaking and, and playing with things. And as we spoke about a minute ago, The only constant in life is that things are gonna change. And so as things change, I was constantly pivoting.
In 2000, actually four years ago, today was when I closed my first property in corporation with my business partner, Robbie Clark. And, uh, that was through Claire Drage, one of your amazing, um, sponsors that I also met at the REITE club. Um, I spent probably three years of education before doing a lot of education courses, and the best investment you can make is investment in yourself and with Claire. So that was four years ago today, October 3rd. And, uh, I obviously this is gonna come out afterwards, but, um, nice to, to kinda celebrate that. And in that last four years, I've added about a thousand units to my portfolio. Uh, everything from short term rentals to a couple of flips to condos.
Our big focus is on one to four unit, uh, cash flowing properties at high cap rates. And my big focus over the last two years has been apartment buildings and, uh, my largest apartment building being 88 units.
Francois Lanthier: Wow, that's amazing. Quite a, a bit of growth in a fairly short period of time. But as you mentioned earlier, you did have some prep time as well. Now we just see the end result. Sounds like it happened overnight, but you said three years of education in different things. So an 88 apartment, uh, 88 unit apartment building. Um, how did you go about that? Like that's probably, um, a bit more complicated transaction.
Dylan Suitor: I think when I first started educating, I was listening to every podcast under the sun on real estate investing, and I couldn't get enough of it. I had time, I didn't have a whole lot of money and I didn't have a whole lot of knowledge. So those of you that are REIN members out there are gonna, you know, those, those three key components to real estate investing. So instead of spending my time door knocking or, or menteeing under someone. My focus was on learning everything I could through groups like the REITE club and different coaching programs.
And also through podcasts and most podcasts, I've found that most joint ventures were like a 50-50 agreement. And I heard all kinds of different structures, whether it was the money, the people to deal the time, the money and the knowledge or the mortgage and the down payment and the construction and the finding the deal and whatever that split would break up to.
I found that there was usually an active and a passive side. And what I found was there was a point, a breaking point, somewhere between year two and three where we bought it, we re, we renovated it, we refinanced it. I gave the investor all their capital back, and then the lifetime earnings of that asset was then sided where the investor would have an exponentially higher return than I would, cuz I was putting in the time I was putting in energy. My dollar per hour would decrease over time and their dollar per hour would increase over time cuz they had no money in the deal and they had very little time left in the deal.
I looked at other ventures and other ways. And that's where I, I reconnected with Claire Drage and um, that's where she actually introduced me to the, the financing structures that she's worked on now. And, and those have developed and grown since there as well. But my concept was if I use private money and I use higher leverage capital at higher interest rates, which little bit scary now, I would say the market was definitely more conducive to it over the last few years than it is now given the current rate environment and current, uh, market. Uh, but what we decided was that we would use a hundred percent of other people's money and we'd pay a higher interest rate and a higher guarantee higher risk on us personally.
It was also a higher long term return. And obviously that bet on myself has paid off. And I've always said, the best bet you can make is a bet on yourself. And so it's been exponential and that's kind of where we've developed, We have over the last four years and building out teams, building out models, building out solutions to problems.
And getting back to your comment on that 88 unit. Um, when I first jumped into apartment buildings, I realized that I couldn't use a hundred percent financing. I wasn't gonna be able to get $4 million from a lender that was gonna just roll the ice on 100 hundred percent financing on a $200,000, $300,000 home there's some different strategies and ways to make that possible, but on a, on a $10 million building or a $4 million building, it's tough to do. And so, uh, I actually have a family member that sold a business, had a large capital injection from that business. His dad had passed away and he found himself on about nine figures.
And wasn't sure what to do with it. Never had any experience with real estate. And through the education that I built, through the knowledge that I had, through the, the different properties and, and the information and infrastructure that we had, uh, I was able to, to get 'em to jump on board with a deal.
And we did a debt and an equity structure initially. So I bought my first 32 unit apartment building in St. Catharine's. There was three partners. We were a third each on the equity piece. And then we actually had my family member fund 100% of the, the purchase and the renos. Uh, he actually did it in cash. Which I wouldn't recommend now we've learned a lot. That's also what started a lot of the understanding of multi-family financing and that project has actually just come to completion. So that, that started, we closed on that, I think it was the end of 2020 and we had our final fire inspection today, and it 32 units fully turned over.
We bought that for 3.4. And we have a CMHC mortgage that will be in place before the end of November, uh, for 9.925 million. And that deal is going to be, uh, we have a value about 12 million right now. Uh, we'll have all money out. Plus about a million and a half. And, uh, so we'll get 500,000 each and it'll still cash flow, um, about 20,000 a month, I believe it is.
It's a pretty good, pretty good deal overall. Um, pretty happy with the outcome of where that's at and uh, and the structure of where that one went. But there were a ton of mistakes and I think that's where, um, you asked about the 88 unit. Again, I'm getting back to that one. I used similar structures with my family member to do something similar on the 88 unit, but it's really important to understand the exit and through all of that process, there's always been a problem. There's been a change, right? There's been a change in rates or there's been a change in construction, or there's been a change in guidelines and city expectations, whatever that may be. When you're doing these retrofit problem projects, you need to be able to, to kind of grow.
And so along the way I've ended up launching a ton of different businesses. So I have a real estate team that I started in the residential and small multifamily field. Um, now we have four full-time residential agents and seven full-time commercial and multifamily agents. Along with, uh, almost 10 administrators, um, client care transactions, director of operations, always working on different integration.
We have one person full time dedicated just to analyzing deals. We've analyzed over 700 deals so far this year, uh, multifamily deals, and we plug 'em all in, getting everything on and off market. Um, and then as of a week ago, we've actually launched three new businesses to go along with the real estate acquisition side, which were gaps and holes that we found for our clients.
Property management, construction and asset management were something I didn't really know about before I was kind of hiring, but it's taking property from when you acquire it to its highest and best use. So everything involved in that paralegal, appraisal, environmental, um, maybe conversion from commercial to residential.
Everything that an active partner would do. Our, our asset management company now does at a fee. So if someone's interested and they have a bunch of capital and they wanna reach out, we can kind of go over what that would look like, um, on how we can get them from point A to point Z without having to be involved.
And it's kind of the solution for someone that doesn't really have time, but they have the money. Um, and all of those businesses got brought in and were formed because of a need. They were because of a problem that I had in something I did. And so the one thing you'll hear throughout everything I've done is anytime I sell something, I want to have done it first.
I did a flip, I did Airbnb, I did condo purchases, I did a building, I did duplex conversions, triplex conversions. I've done them all personally, and been on the, been on the tools, been hands on, been on site, been through procedures. I sat beside Ken Beckendam at Committee of Adjustments for my duplex conversion of Burlington.
I wanted to know it all halfway through I ended up just leaving and saying, This is ridiculous. You can enjoy that, Ken. But I know every step of it. And so when I hit those problems and I hit those snags and hurdles, I grow with my clients. And the value of a client for me is, is lifetime. I'm not, I'm not interested in one and done or transactional.
We like to keep a small group of clients so we can hire, offer a higher service to those clients and build and grow. A lot of that is based on my personal experience. Most of it, if not all of it, is based on my personal experience within real estate investing. And so now a lot of the agents that join my team, they join my team and, and they do that for wealth.
And so they're setting goals of, I want three buildings I want five buildings, I want 10 buildings in a year. And, uh, I, I bring on some JVs and give them to them, or we'll buy some deals together. Um, but the whole concept of it is how can we create massive wealth? And I can always pay someone way more in net worth with a building then I'll ever be able to pay you on a salary or commission, just given the fact that real estate has such an opportunity in it, um, and we find the really good deals and, and we bring 'em to our clients. If our clients don't jump on 'em in a couple of weeks, then we jump on 'em ourselves.
Alfonso Salemi: Dylan, I've always really admired about yourself is that, you know, you can go really wide on topics and just, you know, but you really go deep on, you know, figuring out, you know, the strategy, getting all the details, getting in there, like you said, rolling up your sleeves, understanding it inside and out.
I think, you know, maybe some people that are, are, are scared to go down that route or don't spend enough time in. One area cuz they get distracted and they say, Okay, I'm gonna go do this one strategy, but then something else comes up, or another opportunity or a new deal, or now I'm gonna do a short term rental, or now I'm gonna do something a little bit different.
That's something that I really admire about what you've done, Dylan, is really kind of get in there, roll up your sleeves, really, and figure that out. So, kind of a two part question and, and I, this might be a little bit difficult, but some advice for someone that's maybe fairly newer to real estate investing and, you know, they hear these, these crazy numbers and that you've done all this and you've sent all this, and they say, I don't have the time to go to go through all of this stuff and figure it all out.
What's some advice that you could give to them and then maybe someone that's a little bit further along their path, um, and is looking to, to further grow or, or, or to grow their portfolio or to grow their wealth and maybe saying, I'm getting to that point where maybe I want to get into this full time.
I know it's a kind of a complicated two part question, but I hope you wouldn't expect anything less from me. Happy
Dylan Suitor: to answer whatever I can. So how I'm understanding you is what, what advice would I give to someone newer in the business trying to get going in real estate investing? And then how, what about someone who's been in a little while and looking to ramp up or, or scale? I'll start off with, with new, and I think that your comment was, Well, they don't have the time. Quite frankly, if they don't have the time, they're gonna lose money. So if they don't have the time to invest into themselves or they don't have the time to invest, um, into education or into partnering, Like if someone doesn't have a whole lot of time and they don't have a whole lot of money, they should probably spend their time mentoring or sitting in and learning or or educating before they jump in anything.
If someone's got some money, They just don't have the time to actually go out and look for the deals and shop for the deals they need to be surrounding themselves with a really strong power team. Um, and that's exactly why the business, the businesses that I have, the ancillary businesses all around me have, have been created is cuz I have a number of those people that will come to me that have $2 million, $3 million. But they're a full-time doctor or a dentist or, um, they sold their business cuz they wanted to go to Costa Rica for six months a year. And so they're not boots on the ground all the time. And those are the people, they're relying on us. So they get weekly or monthly reports based on where the project's at.
They get updates, they get photos, they get videos, They always know what's going on. We have our checklists that we ensure we upkeep people on. And all those systems and the systems that I get my reports on. So someone that doesn't have a whole lot of time, if they have money, we can talk about it. If they don't have time and they don't have money, my concern is that they're not willing to put the energy into real estate investing.
And as much as real estate investing can be a side hustle, as some people like to call it all the, the millennials and the new kids. But I mean, that's kind of what I am too. But, uh, the, the side hustle concept is it's, it's a hustle. Like you can't just do it because it makes a bunch of money because you woke up in the morning.
It takes a lot of time to build. and it's, it's the whole concept of mastery takes 10,000 hours. I mean, on a typical person's work that's, that's literally doing the exact same thing for five years, at 40 hours a week. Um, I would say that my mastery has come from over a two and a half to three year period cuz I worked 80, 90, a hundred hours a week, every single week. And everything I do is real estate focused. So when you say that I can go wide and I go deep, it's because when I go wide, I go crap. I have to add more hours to my day because I need to keep going deep on all those items as well. And I'm either gonna drop something, bring on someone else, or being pay paying for this lesson.
I haven't had the ability to pay for the lesson the whole time. So, What I would say, if someone has money and they don't have time, then definitely look to either be a joint venture partner and put their capital in, or to work with an asset management like we have to, to kind of build that wealth.
And if someone has, uh, no time and no money, then they should look at their priorities because what they're doing with their current time is obviously not yielding the capital that they would like. So if they're working a job that they're working 80 hours a week and only making 18 bucks an hour, or whatever that may be, and that's not fulfilling for them, then maybe they should look at making a drastic change in their life to be able to enter into an ecosystem.
Alfonso, I know you've hired a couple people in in JAAG as well. We're just unhappy with what they were doing day to day. And they're like, I wanna get more into real estate investing. And so they join your world, they make their salary that they can survive, but then they understand what they're doing. Like the mentorship program is just so valuable. I have a number of agents that come into my world, whether it be inside sales agents or licensed agents or unlicensed to get a licensed, and they'll spend a year, or they'll spend a year and a half and they'll roll their sleeves up and they won't make a ton of money their first year because really they're, they're grunt workers, but they're learning more in that year than they would've learned in 10 years in school around real estate investing. And so that's really the focus is educating, educating, educating. No, I love it.
Francois Lanthier: And earlier on you mentioned some mistakes and it sounds like a lot of your businesses came from those mistakes. Can you expand a little bit on errors you made that others could learn from?
Dylan Suitor: Absolutely. Something that I was told at the very beginning of my real estate venture was that I wouldn't need a permit if I was just doing cosmetic renovations. Well, that only goes up to a certain price point, at a certain price point you still need a permit, even with cosmetic renos. So our 32 unit building, we went through thinking we could do it for $800,000 and 32 units, cuz a price per unit was gonna be fair.
We were 25,000 or 22,000 per unit and that was gonna be all good. We didn't calculate CapEx improvements. We didn't talk about the roof, we didn't talk about the main stack. We didn't talk about HVAC, we didn't talk about plumbing, we didn't talk about these issues. The electrical updates, like there's a $400,000 upgrade to the electrical underground on that building.
We had no idea when we figured we were gonna put AC in each of the units and they were gonna be mini splits, we didn't think about the fact that we wouldn't have capacity with the electricity going into that building. So we had a massive upgrade that was a bit of a side swipe, but that had to get done to continue the project.
We didn't apply for a permit. We ended up closing in it in cash. As I mentioned, my, my family member closed cash, which means that we didn't go through the proper due diligence. We didn't have an environmental, We didn't really worry about an appraisal. The difference between multifamily and commercial versus residential is substantially different.
If you have a dirty site that has remediation needs to get done, that can cost millions of dollars. Very rarely does it cost millions of dollars, but it could cost 50, a hundred, $200,000 because there's an old oil tanker underground and it needs to be cleared out, or you need to clear the top one foot of, of, um, of the driveway off because of dirty soil, whatever the contaminants may be, and you're not getting financing until that stuff's completed.
We did really get lucky on this site, but it's the learning lessons and the fact that we went to refinance and like, Hey, can you give us your environmental when you closed? Like we never got environmental when we closed. And the lenders were like, You didn't what ? And so we obviously got an environmental, we crossed our fingers and, and we got really lucky on that.
But there are a number of things that came up on those buildings that we just didn't know, and you don't know. If you don't, you don't know if you don't know. And that's where a lot of clients will work with us, is that the cost associated to us managing asset management for them and covering all those angles or even our agents, what we do for our clients.
We cover this like every single day. We've got a team, like I said, a seven full-time agents that are in the office. Every morning they meet at 8 45. Then they have a meeting at nine 15 to go over their top clients. So 8 45 to nine 15, they're doing some conversations. What were the objections you dealt with?
What were, How do you overcome them? What are problems you dealt with? Nine 15, they jump in and they do a half an hour of what are your clients looking for? Buyers, sellers, Buyers, sellers. We're trying to pair that up. And then from 3 45 to. Three to four o'clock. We have a 15 minute kind of regroup, four to four 30 with a coaching call every day with a a third party coach.
And then four 30 to 4 45 is like, what's your action is for next day? So we're spending two hours as a team collectively every single day talking about the problems and the hiccups and issues that they're seeing and facing so that they can learn all those things so that we can bring those things to our clients so that we're not missing them.
And a lot of times I'll get brought into those meetings and they're like, Hey Dylan, tell us about the worst things that happened on this building. What are the biggest problems you encountered in this building? What was the surprise you had on this building? And thankfully, that list gets shorter and shorter and shorter every building, but there's always gonna be things that you can't possibly check for until you get into it.
Alfonso Salemi: That knowledge transfer for yourself, your team, from the people that you just, you surround yourself with is, is, is really kind of priceless because you, you can't even, as much as you've done in terms of the amount of units experience that you have, it's impossible to, to know everything or to figure out every single problem that you can find.
Bringing in others that have done other projects or, you know, different types of things where you can underst. Where those shortfalls were or where those mistakes were made so that you can avoid them or at least mitigate them right where you're going throughout that process. And I think that that knowledge transfer, that's something again, that you've always done as well too, is continuing to improve yourself, different trainings, different surrounding yourself with, um, and I know, you know, you've traveled quite a bit, you know, uh, you know, recently going, you know, different conferences, things like that.
Am I wrong in thinking that, you know, you're also buying real estate across the world. Is that correct as well too, looking at different places? Uh, like are you, are you looking at different, you know, other continents, other, other countries as well too, outside of Canada?
Dylan Suitor: Covid has opened my eyes to a lot and I'm not gonna get political here. I'm just gonna say what I've decided is that I would like to have multiple flags, plant multiple flags. So anyone who may understand what I'm talking about, There's a book out there called the Nomad Capitalist. And the Nomad capitalist talks about three big focus, it's freedom, lifestyle, and financial.
And the concept is go where you're treated best. So I just got back from the nomad capitalist live in Mexico a week or two ago. Real estate isn't very conducive to picking up and moving your life and avoiding taxes in Canada, so that's likely not gonna happen. However, I can still have some extra freedoms or some different lifestyle based on maybe I don't wanna see snow.
I am currently looking at, I have, I, I do not own any real estate outside of Ontario. I only own Ontario Real Estate right now. However, I am looking at different areas that I may want to go, that I may wanna spend 3, 4, 5 months a year, or 3, 4, 5 weeks, a year, whatever that may be. Uh, areas that may have good Airbnb opportunities.
I mean, Costa Rica's always been a big one there where people will go stay there for three months and they'll short term rental at the rest of the year. Um, there is definitely opportunity that you can do, um, around the world. I, I know the economics and I'm. I've become a, a nerd around macro and microeconomics.
I wanna know every detail of why things work and why they operate. Cuz I think prediction is so important in our industry. And if you haven't read the book, The Fourth Turning or watched, the 90 minute recap where Tony Robbins interviews the author of the Fourth Turning, it just came out a few week, few months ago.
I would highly recommend it. And it talks about the 20 year, uh, cycles of, of the economy. And it's 80 year total, but it's 20 year seasons. Um, we are going into Winter and we've had really good times. There's a couple different ways to say it, and I'm not gonna get politically correct, but hard times create strong people.
But then good times create weak people. And if you look at some of the, the cycles of what that's done, we've created a concept of things can come easy. And the world can fall in my hands. And we've had really good times for a long time, longer than we should have. Um, so now that we're seeing covid, now that we're seeing the war in Ukraine, now that we're seeing some of these macroeconomic pieces and these political side of the world coming into play, um, I do think it's important to have multiple locations, have to have different flags in the world and have somewhere safe to go.
It's definitely something that I would, I would urge to, to look into. Reading that book is phenomenal. Going to the, the conferences is even better. Um, but yeah, it's, it's something that I'm looking into seriously, not just for myself, but also for people on my team. Most people on my team came because they wanted to create freedom in their life in some way, shape, or form.
And freedom shows up in multiple ways. Um, I think that understanding and being able to guide them and point them in the direction of, of where they can find that freedom, where that lifestyle is important and, and also for our clients. I've had a number of clients that have said, Hey, I'm moving to Dubai, okay.
Have fun, right? Like, let me know how it is, send photos. Never been to Dubai, but I've heard it's pretty cool. So, um, yeah, I think that there's, there's opportunity around the world. Um, but it really comes down to doing your research, doing your homework, understanding, because you're gonna go and you're gonna invest in real estate in Dubai or in Greece or wherever you're gonna go.
And it's a whole new set of rules. It's a whole new set of guidelines. Your building code's different, every detail that, you know, financing's different, everything you know about real estate is gonna change. And you're gonna have to go back on that exact same learning path that you did for me for the last seven years, three years of education and four years of application, or the 14, 15, 16 years that I've been in real estate investing.
I think that it's important to do your research and, and speak to the right people and understand it, but there's definitely opportunity anywhere in the world if you're willing to look for it.
Alfonso Salemi: And you know what? Traveling to all those different places, researching, probably not a bad thing either, right? So, uh,
Dylan Suitor: I'm not upset about it if I move outta Canada 10 years because I did my research now, at least I got 10 years to travel. It was a lot of fun and I got take advantage of what I know already.
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. Yeah. And if you do it right, hey, that's a, that's a business expense, right? So, Awesome. Dylan, you know what, this has been a great, uh, great conversation. We'd love having you on here and so much information and knowledge, uh, uh, encapsulated.
It's just amazing how quickly that the time goes by in these conversations. But, uh, I think we've reached the, the point of the podcast where we're gonna do our lightning rounds. Are you ready to go for the lightning round?
Dylan Suitor: I forget all these questions and I'm excited bring 'em on.
Alfonso Salemi: It's gonna be as surprising as it is to us, to you. I'll start off with, uh, question number one. What's the best advice you ever received from another investor or at a networking event?
Dylan Suitor: The best investment you'll ever make is an investment on yourself.
Francois Lanthier: I love it. It's so true, and everything you're saying, it shows, I mean, you've really invested in your knowledge and you're able to use it potentially internationally very soon. So maybe we'll be seeing each other in Costa Rica or Dubai. , you kind of pointed to a few things there that I enjoy as well. Uh, so question number two, what is your favorite resource for real estate investing? It could be a book, a person, training.
Dylan Suitor: I've moved around a little bit. I think before it was a lot of podcasts and books. Now I've, I've focused a lot more on economics and macroeconomics. What's going on in the economy? What's going on with interest rates? What drives interest rates? So The Fourth Turning is really valuable.
There's some podcasts around economics that drive what's happening in Canada Hyper focus around that, that's important for me. Um, so I would say like digging deeper into the economics around what makes a, a country work is, is really what I'm focusing on now because I wanna make sure that we're sustainable long term. I'm not buying for today, I'm buying for long term. And I wanna make sure that I like the economic foundation that we have.
Alfonso Salemi: Great advice, like, you know, kind of understanding the rules of the game before we start playing the game. Right. So, um, Got it. Awesome. All right. Question number three. What is the attribute that has made you the most successful and it could be haircut, but I think there's other attributes, uh, that have made you successful as well.
Dylan Suitor: I'll give you two and I'll give you two just because you, um, uh, you mentioned game. If you saw my basement, I just bought a 3000 square foot bungalow that has a three square foot basement in it, and I bought an 800 square foot storage unit, but half of that, like storage space is board games.
And since I was young, I love games. So you mentioned like understanding the game. How do you master the game? What can you do to create find like I'll play risk and it'll be five people in risk and I'll win again. And they'll all be like, We know you're gonna win, so we're gonna team up four on one and I will somehow find a way to create a win for me.
I mean, just the regular old rescue when you roll dice is too tough. But if I can bring in risk, 2210 has nukes and water and lunar and all these different ways that you can strategize to come around it. So strategy is a big piece. Um, and then in the same vein of that, I would say my commitment to the end result and being able to pivot through change and challenge, as you mentioned earlier and as we spoke on earlier, is, um, if I promise something to someone, I'm gonna follow through on it.
It's one of the first things I teach my team and everyone in my organization is, uh, 90% of people will not follow through on what they say. So just be the 10% that follow through on your promise. And if you can't, if you can't follow through on it, then don't promise. Because people are expecting that you're gonna follow through with that.
And too often we hear the buyers or liars or all that BS that you hear about there, where people are like, Oh, they, there's only this much accuracy to what you're saying. If everything you say follow comes, comes true and comes to fruition, then you're never gonna have a problem in any business or any world application.
Francois Lanthier: Excellent advice. And yeah, that 10% and it's easy. Like you said, just follow through. I mean, wow, , I love it. So question number four, what do you typically do on a Sunday morning?
Dylan Suitor: What time of year?
Francois Lanthier: Well, at the time of this recording, it's kind of early fall, so let's say, uh, November. It's the snow. While you're in Southern Ontario, snow is coming soon.
Dylan Suitor: In the fall. And I mean, the reason I ask that question is because Sunday's for football. So don't find me, you won't find me doing anything on Sunday other than kind of probably getting up early, still working out, spending some time on myself. Um, planning my, my life for the rest of the week and then come 12 30, 1 o'clock.
I'm usually in a bar watching football the rest of the day and, uh, and just kind of relaxing and, and regrouping a little bit cuz it's, uh, like I say, I work 80, 90, a hundred hours a week, so I need to take a day where I just recoup a little.
Alfonso Salemi: And all those that are in your fantasy football league, you're probably winning that league too, right? You'll find a way to win that fantasy football league as well.
Dylan Suitor: There's a few fantasy football leagues. I'm doing well.
Alfonso Salemi: Nice. Awesome. Dylan. You know what, uh, again, like I said, just thank you so much for, for your time today for, for sharing your knowledge and some great wisdom, some great tips and some awesome stuff. How can the REITE club community get in touch with you?
Dylan Suitor: Absolutely. So you can reach out to me@infoelevationrealty.ca. You can send me an email directly at dylan@elevationrealty.ca and I can redirect it, or you can call our line at (905) 592-4220. You can also check me on Instagram, Dylan Suitor.
Alfonso Salemi: So for all of those, uh, the REITE Club community that are listening, take, take those notes, go back, listen to this podcast again. And take those to heart. Any last thoughts or comments, Dylan, that, uh, that you wanna share before
Dylan Suitor: we wrap up today? Real estate investing is the oyster that you can open up and have whatever you want, but you have to be committed to it.
And especially go back to that part where, what, what would you do if someone that didn't have a whole lot of time, I'd had clear time on my schedule? If you wanna get into real estate investing it, it's very rewarding, but it also could be very dangerous if you try and bypass or skip steps. Don't skip steps. Commit, find the right people in your ecosystem. Connect yourself with the right who's get the right power team and the world is your oyster.
Alfonso Salemi: Love it. Thanks Dylan.
Dylan Suitor: Thank you.
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