Exploring Alternative Investing Options

 

Laurel Simmons: Hello REITE Club Nation. I'm Laurel Simmons and I am your co-host for the REITE club podcast today and with me is a special guest host Daniel St. Jean. Hi Daniel.

Daniel St. Jean: Hello. How are you guys doing?

Laurel Simmons: We're all doing well and we have a great guest today. We have Steve Blasiak of Pinnacle Wealth, and he's gonna be talking about alternative investing. We all know that. We know that real estate investors are interested in real estate investing, but Steve has another option for you.

We always like to provide the members of the REITE Club Nation with other options because hey, it's all about exploring your options. Finding out what's going on and growing your wealth in many ways. But before we go to the actual interview, Daniel, let's talk a little bit about what's happening at the REITE club.

Guess what our website is out there. Our online community, we would be so grateful if you went in there and signed up. It's free folks. It's free. thereiteclub.com. Just go sign up. You'll find forums and webinars and podcasts and the marketplace is coming.
All kinds of things are coming. Just get in there, start making connections, talk to people, and everybody's having a great time on the website and don't forget to check for our upcoming events. So shall we go to the interview?

Daniel St. Jean: Grandpa Steve? Yes.

Laurel Simmons: With Grandpa Steve. Yeah. You gotta stay to the end if I don't how what we've talked about Grandpa Steve. Alright, here we go. Welcome Steve to the REITE Club podcast. How are you doing?

Steve Blasiak: I'm doing extremely well. Thank you very much. And you guys?

Laurel Simmons: We're doing wonderful. So we're gonna get right into it. So Steve, What's alternative investing all about?

Steve Blasiak: That's a wide question, to speak to it in that broad sense, what the REITE club stands for is alternative investing, right? Real estate is alternative investing. Second mortgages are alternative investing. So what I represent is something very much more specific and I guess the main differences are the investments that I offer are regulated by the Ontario Securities Commission.

That's the biggest difference. But we're all alternative investors. We're all entrepreneurs. We're all outta the box thinkers. And so this space is known as an alternative space as opposed to taking your hard-earned money, walking into the bank and handing it over to the bank manager and saying, put that in your best mutual fund that's on the public stock market. So these are private alternative investments that we're talking about here today.

Laurel Simmons: Before we go into a little more detail on that, why don't you just tell us like, how long have you been working in this field and, when did you start and why did you even decide to do this?

Steve Blasiak: Laurel? I love that question. So I'm a very hands-on person and I turned 50 a few years ago and when I did, I took that. I like that laugh. Nobody could see you smiling there, Daniel. But I like that because this is the path that I went down and I looked at my portfolio and I'm thinking I'm not gonna be retiring on that, that amount of money that I've got.

My wife has our portfolio. So I started doing some small investments taking charge of my LIRA and RRSP. I did not have a tax-free savings account at the time, so I took charge of that and I started self-directing it until literally I stumbled over some investments called. The exempt market.
Again, alternative investments mean the same sort of market where you take charge of your own investments. And so I started looking into this. I did an investment and I thought, wow. I love how passive it is, yet it's very simple to understand because some of it's based upon real estate principles.

I grew to love it so much that I decided to get my license. Yes, you have to go to Ontario's Careers Commission and have a specific license to talk to people about these alternative investments. And I just kept on going from there and to date, I've been in this business for five years.
I am a financial advisor as well as I work with these alternative investments. We do look at your entire portfolio when we're talking about whether you have room to do these kinds of investments or whether these investments are suitable. For you, but basically out of passion. I'm here now and semi-retired, but still supporting people just to know that this space exists, this alternative investing, passive investing space exists.

Daniel St. Jean: That brings an interesting question. Naturally. It's almost you right into that one there, Steve. So how come most people have not heard about that type of investing before?

Steve Blasiak: Private investing has been around forever. Second mortgages or you lending money to your neighbor because they're starting up a business That's all sort of alternative investing. What happened in this space is back in 2011, the government realized that there's no rules, there's no regulations. Anybody could stand on the street corner and say, oh I'm raising money for a hundred million project and just start collecting money from people. So the government put strict rules and regulations in place back in 2011 and in Ontario we did not adopt those rules until 2016.

Lit a mere four plus years ago when we were finally allowed to start investing in this space with registered money and cash. It hasn't been around for, in this shape, in this form. It hasn't been around. And that's probably the biggest reason why people haven't heard of it. Also if you walk into your bank, banks don't support alternative lending or alternative investments. So then you go in and talk to your bank manager and if you're asking him what to do with your money, he wouldn't steer you in this direction cause that's not part of his portfolio of items that he's allowed to sell you.

Laurel Simmons: The banks don't offer those products. So this is an alternative set of products that you offer the savvy investor so that they can diversify and they have options as to what they wanna do with their money, whether it's real estate or they put some money in with you. And just because it's with you doesn't necessarily mean it's not with real estate. And I think there was a double negative there, but it could be.

Steve Blasiak: We understand what you're saying.

Laurel Simmons: It could be like a syndicated mortgage, right? A large syndicated mortgage.

Steve Blasiak: Yes. And it could be directly into real estate. There's a couple of funds that we have that you're buying apartment buildings or buying industrial plazas. Absolutely. And you have direct ownership in the company that owns that piece of property. So, it's a very newer way of investing your money with the same ideals, values, and principles that most entrepreneurs have, which is like I said, don't just pass your money off into into the banker, to somebody else's hands that you not sure where they're investing or what a mutual fund is.

This is direct investment into real estate or other businesses on a very passive side. So you're not getting involved with a business. You're not gonna be asked for more money if there's more money needed. You are literally putting your money in for a set term and you're gonna get a return at the end of that term.

Daniel St. Jean: Steve, I need to ask you for clarification on something because you said that Ontario, since 2016 can invest in that type of market. It was possible for somebody before to do that for a long time. If you are Mr. Molson, for example, and you had some really big financial advisor, they would be investing in that type of market. But what was the difference between before 2016 and now?

Steve Blasiak: The rest of Canada began under the new rules and regulations back in 2011. And basically the Ontario Securities Commission observed how those rules and regulations affected raising capital in those provinces.

Then five years later, the Ontario Securities Commission looked, and was happy with what they saw. They said, we'll, Make sure that these rules and regulations are implemented for Ontario companies and then flick the switch for regulars to start investing into this alternative space. And now anybody can invest for, even for a minimum of $5,000. And you can invest with your RRSP, your LIRAs, your tax receivings accounts. Any registered funds.

Daniel St. Jean: That's where I was going with my question. You can, because before those dates that you name, you could invest in this market, but you had to be an accredited investor.

Steve Blasiak: Accredited, that's correct.

Daniel St. Jean: There you go. So it was possible to do this, I wanted to bring this up because somebody might say, what is he talking about? My father was investing in these things 10 years ago. Yes, but that's because your father was rich and he was an accredited investor. Yes. They were different. Now you can, like you say, Pretty much anybody can do it with as much, as little as 5,000 bucks.

Steve Blasiak: Correct. Thank you for the clarification, Daniel.

Daniel St. Jean: Yes. Okay.

Laurel Simmons: Is it you're licensed in Ontario. Can somebody who has funds, say in any other province or territory in Canada invest with you? Or do they have to go into their own province?

Steve Blasiak: I have associates right across Canada. There's approximately 120 pinnacle reps like myself. This just happened to me very recently where somebody called me from Quebec and I, I simply would just steer them onto the Quebec rep who then turned, rolled out the red carpet and took the gentleman's investment.

Laurel Simmons: Okay. And what about risk? Everybody's people are always concerned about risk. How do I know A, I'm gonna get my interest or whatever it is my return, and B, am I gonna get my money back?

Steve Blasiak: Right. And that is one of the questions that I go over with a fine tooth comb. It's very important that people understand what the risk is. And first of all, let's define the word risk. All right? A lot of people feel that risk means that I'll lose my money or I won't get my interest. All right. Now let's just address that for a second. In all the situations that we have, all the offerings we have on our shelf, let's talk about the real estate offerings.

When you buy a house, let's say you buy your next door neighbor's house, you fix it up and you rent it out. Is there a possibility that you could lose all your money in that investment venture? It's tough, isn't it? It'd be very challenging for you to lose all your money. Let's face it, if you were a horrible landlord or you didn't rent it, you didn't cut the grass and the city was all over you at worst, you'd sell it at a loss.

And you'd lose money. All right, so the chances of losing all your money in these type of investments where you're investing in a bricks and mortar, or investing into equity or investing into products or services that are established, chances are fairly low that you lose all your money. All right?

Now, no risk. Sorry, no investment at all is guaranteed, ever. So we have to understand that risk is plausible. But let's address risk in a different way. So the way Ontario Securities likes to look at risk is how liquid the investment is. So if an investment is liquid, like you've invested into cash, a silly investment isn't that, but some people have cash.

If you invested in something like an open GIC, anything like that, a stock. You buy a stock, you can sell it tomorrow. We consider that, or Ontario safeties consider that very liquid, and therefore they say the risk is low on the opposite side when you invest into real estate, believe it or not, they call that a risky investment because if you need your money quickly, you can't get it. You, if you'd have to sell that you, that house that you bought beside where you live. You have to put it up for sale and then, who knows? It could take 2, 3, 4 months before you get your money. So that's very important.

Laurel Simmons: Sorry I just wanna clarify that. So in other words, what you're saying is that the way Ontario looks at risk is not the product itself, it's the ability to liquidate the asset that you've bought to turn it back into cash. And the longer that period is, they say, that makes it the riskier it is. Is that correct?

Steve Blasiak: Correct. Excellent way to put it. So therefore, that's why, when I sit down with my clients, we take a look at their entire portfolio. It is very important that they have access to liquid cash immediately.

Cash in the bank, line of credit on your credit card, some access to immediate cash. And then your portfolio should have maybe some medium term stuff, maybe, I don't know. Mutual fund. Maybe if you lent money on a second mortgage that's bringing in income. And that's like the medium hold stuff and then you have the longer term hold.

That's one of the reasons that I really favor using people's RRSP money or lira money because they've dedicated that money so they don't want to touch it for at least five years. When you look at their entire portfolio, they've got very short term cash stuff, medium term stuff and long-term stuff.

That is a well-balanced portfolio and that's what we're striving to, to talk to people about, is to look at your portfolio in its entirety and have short-term, medium-term, long-term stuff. And yes, the long term by Ontario security standards would be more risky because it's not as liquid. But you've addressed that by having cash on hand.

Daniel St. Jean: Which is why when you meet with a client, you don't automatically, immediately assume that this product is gonna be what they want. You need to see what they have. Because if they already have cash in the bank, if they already have a line of credit, then you can immediately suggest something long-term because they already have an address, the part about immediate cash. But if they don't, then it could be a different product altogether that you're gonna be suggesting.

Steve Blasiak: Yes, Daniel. We have 21 opportunities on our shelf and all 21 are different. So some of them are very short-term, some of them are long-term. Some of them pay monthly, some of them pay quarterly. Some of them don't pay until the very end. So it all depends. You're absolutely right on what the client needs for this particular investment as to where that investment is going to be placed.

Daniel St. Jean: You offer a really personal service.

Steve Blasiak: Correct? Yeah. If it wasn't for Covid, we'd be sitting at your kitchen table right now. Absolutely. And we'd be going through your needs, your wants, your desires, your past experiences in investing and then from there I would open up my computer and make two or three or four suggestions of different companies where you could invest your money and why I feel that they fit into what you're looking for.

Daniel St. Jean: Then you get in your car, you drive down the street to somebody else, and what you're gonna show them on a computer will be completely different than what you did for the first one. Okay? Very personal.

Laurel Simmons: Can you give us some examples of and we don't need specifics, but, and I know this is maybe not a fair question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway cause I'm the host. Can you give us just some examples of what type of investments that people could make, maybe one short term and a medium term and a long term, just to give people an idea.

Steve Blasiak: Absolutely. That's a great and fair question. One of the things that I love to make sure a portfolio possesses even in the long term stuff is diversification. And I know most of the people probably listening to this podcast are real estate lovers and may even have one or two or five or 10 real estate properties in their portfolio. So what, one of the things I do like to do. Talk about diversification. Again, God forbid what happens if something horrible happens to the real estate industry.

You don't want all your eggs in one basket. So one of the products that I like to diversify with is called OKR. It stands for Old Kent Road. It doesn't really mean anything, but it's simply an entrepreneur who partners, believe it or not, with the Canadian government, with the Canadian government giving out entrepreneurs.

Who are working, striving for inventions. And have a great idea and they just need money to take, to get these inventions to fruition. So the government actually, if you qualify for these type of credits, will actually give you specific money to cover specific things that you are inventing.
All right. All the materials that you're inventing or if you're, okay, a good example is Blackberry. Everybody remembers Blackberry. Blackberry was a shred recipient. All right? And again, without getting into too many details, obviously when you're dealing with the government, things take a long time to come.

To get your money back. So these poor shred companies, if they're small and they were taking money outta their own pocket, they would have to apply to the shred government to get the credits back. But that could take six months. To get your money back from the government. So now you've been outta pocket, let's just say for a year and a half.

It's very difficult to survive. So what this company OKR does is bridge between the Canadian government and this small company that has this new innovation. And basically, the company that has new innovation signs over the shred credit to OKR will lend up to 60% of the money that is owed to them by the shred company.

Okay a hundred thousand dollars the shred is handed over to OKR, hands them $60,000 and then 90 days later, the government pays OKR for that shred. And then OKR gives the rest of the money, whatever is due back to that company. And basically they make money on charging high interest.

I remember it may sound high, like 24% a year, but the company is only borrowing it for a very short period of time. So that's one sort of diversification company. Listen I'm not, probably not doing it justice. When I sort of skim over the top of the company like that, there's much more to know about the company and the brilliant founders. If I'm just giving you an example of a diversification away from real estate.

Laurel Simmons: Would you call that like a short term or a medium term?

Steve Blasiak: They have two funds. One is a six month minimum. So you put your money in there for six months or more and you can earn around 9% on your funds. And then there's a long-term hold, that's a five year hold that you can earn up to about 12% on your money.

All right, and that's paid quarterly. And they've been around for many years. Never missed a payment. The fund is now worth approximately $60 million. So they've really got their wheels turning and they're doing extremely well. As a matter of fact. Because a lot of people are wondering, what about covid aren't, isn't Covid affecting these companies?

The Canadian government actually increased the amount of shreds, shred credits that they're handing out to these entrepreneur companies because they don't want them to stop. So they're actually throwing out a wider net, throwing out more money during covid. So that's an example of a short term and a long term because they have the two funds.

It does show excellent diversification. Another excellent diversification. Again, I won't go into the particulars, but we are supporting a cannabis fund. A gentleman Has incredible connections in the cannabis field, and it's not just growing or smoking or recreational. He owns part of a company that produces special seeds, for instance, or another company that is a retailer.

He does own a couple of grow ops and this kind of stuff. And the general premise is these are starter up companies, small to medium companies that are going to get iPod. So they're going for the initial public offering to get on the stock market. And if anybody knows IPOs, typically when a company comes out at a dollar, it usually goes up to $53 and he gets warrants to buy at whatever price it is selling at, but he gets warrants to buy it 75 cents, as an example.

Again, another excellent diversification company. And he's been doing this for over three years now. Double dig, better than double digit returns. It's just incredible the returns that he's having with the cannabis industry. I was just gonna say, and then the third one we have real estate.
There's either lowrise, like three story apartment buildings that the one fund is buying, another fund is buying High Rise. Class A Buildings. Another fund is buying industrial buildings and a fourth fund is buying commercial properties. So there is a huge diversification in and around the real estate business.

Laurel Simmons: I remember what wasn't that long ago? What was it, 2, 3, 4 years ago? We were, you were talking about storage facilities in downtown Vancouver? There's all kinds of stuff, isn't there?

Steve Blasiak: Yes, there is. And I wish I could talk about the car wash, self storage. Which by the way they've on paper doubled in value, so anybody who invested is doing extremely well there. They have done or in the middle of doing four two are open and operating. One is under construction and the fourth one, they just finished funding. So hopefully they can find a fifth property and continue to raise. But that fund is closed for now.

Laurel Simmons: You lose, right?

Steve Blasiak: Let's plant these seeds and let's get people to understand and ready to invest. Because when opportunities like that do come up, they're fairly short-lived.

Daniel St. Jean: Steve, there was a conversation one time at the Wright Club. I overheard you say to somebody that they should be thinking about a pension style portfolio, and then we, the break was over and I could never ask you what that is. What is it?

Steve Blasiak: All right. That's the basis that we are building people's portfolios. Lemme give you a little bit of history. So 20 years ago, or let's take the best pension plan that I have ever seen in my life, which is the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. They have incredible pensions. And so 20 years ago, if you looked at their entire portfolio, approximately 3% was in something called private equity or these alternative investments, and 97% were out in the stock market.

The problem was that the stock market fluctuates so much, and that pension needs stability because that pension needs to produce monthly money to pay the teachers pensions to pay the teachers of retired teachers pensions. So they found you, and when the stock market's up, woo-hoo. They're doing phenomenal.

When the stock market was down and they needed some cash and they had to sell, they were selling underwater. That's not a good thing. So they were trying to stabilize their portfolio and what they found was when they invest into real estate, and again, a lot of times teachers' pension plans don't actually physically go out and buy a building.

They buy with partners, they buy with an entrepreneur that has a building, maybe needs some cash or needs the mortgage and that's the teacher's pension plan is, that's the money half. So now they're, let's say they're 50-50 partners or whatever the case may be, but that is an alternative investment. So the teachers found, yeah, investing into real estate or shred credits or the cannabis industry, whatever.
When you do it properly, it basically, it just, the profits grow. There's no downfall, there's no downstroke to that. Today as an example, the teacher's Pension Plan has about 55% of their billions of dollars. Portfolio is in the private equity space. And so this has really stabilized their income.

I think it was 2019, they returned 18%. On their billions of dollar portfolio, 18% return. So when you extrapolate that thought and when you say I want my portfolio to look like that as well, here's where I come in because I know that people listening to this are excellent and entrepreneurs understand out of the box thinking and probably have a piece of real estate, two or three.

No doubt they have cash. No doubt they've got, so they've got all that taken care of. But what they need is diversification. And that's where I come in and I can add to that private equity space and diversify them away perhaps from real estate or keep them into real estate or whatever.
This portfolio that we're striving to create, mimics that teacher's pension plan, that is, Powerful. That's stable and that's built on a solid foundation. That's how we should have everybody's portfolio that's listening to this.

Laurel Simmons: As you say, people who already have invested in real estate, that's a good another investment vehicle for them. But I'd challenge you in that too, and say that, there are a lot of people out there who maybe don't, have an invested in their first property, and there's nothing to say that they're not, and it's even younger people, right? I really wish, I wish, the Laurel of now, if she knew now, knew then what she knows now. About 21 years old. I went back and oh my God, I'd be, no, I wouldn't even be talking to you. I'd own a Caribbean.

Steve Blasiak: Dream big girl. Go big. I love it.

Laurel Simmons: Own one. I wouldn't care. You could talk about it, but I don't care. I own my own. I don't care.

Steve Blasiak: By the way, it's never too late to start something ever. Right?

Laurel Simmons: Of course. Like we say in the real estate world, right? The best time to invest in real estate was 20 years ago. The best time, the second best time is today.

Steve Blasiak: Now. Exactly.

Laurel Simmons: Right now. That's just the way it is .

Steve Blasiak: Whether it's true whether you have a hundred properties or don't even have a property, this is still a place to consider maybe getting your foot width because it is a passive real estate investment or not. I think the best thing to understand is to have a conversation.
Find out where to the people who are listening to this, have a conversation with someone like myself that sort of looks at the big picture and can poke things and say what if and what about diversification? Where's your balance? I think that's probably the best advice that anybody could take from this podcast.

Laurel Simmons: That's good. So Steve, we have another burning question cause I know people are thinking about it. So how does Steve get paid? That's great, you give advice, but you know what, how does Steve get paid? People wanna know.

Steve Blasiak: There's many people like me that would sit down and do a big, huge, detailed financial plan, all right? And they would charge you for that. And whether they hand it over to you and say goodbye, or whether now they're gonna coach you more money out the door that you're gonna pay them.

Because I work with Pinnacle, and Pinnacle is like a broker picture Century 21 Remax as brokers, that's who Pinnacle is in the investment world. So we search out and look for the cream of the crop investments. We do the deep dive on making sure all the Ts are crossed. And so we are a middleman and I'm like a real estate agent.

I'm a financial advisor dealing with rep. So I go and I meet with the clients and I steer them in the direction of the investments. So Pinnacle charges the company a marketing fee that we're raising the money for, so it does not come out of your pocket. If you invest $10,000, the full $10,000 goes into your investment. It's the company that's paying us a marketing fee to go out and promote that company and raise money for that company.

Laurel Simmons: Okay, so that's for the consumer. That's a good model cause they're not those fees, those management fees can really add up, can't they? On an investment with a mortgage or a mutual fund or whatever it is. And that's, a lot of people don't realize how much money they can actually make. Can be drained out of their accounts.

Steve Blasiak: There are some ports.

Daniel St. Jean: Steve, something important that you said there. Cream of the crop because I heard you also say to somebody else one time that while you have 21 products on the shelf, how many people, those 21, how many people or companies or businesses have applied to get you down to 21.

Steve Blasiak: I think the last time that I was talking to Darvin the owner and CEO of Pinnacle that it was 2018 that 480 companies applied to us to raise money for them, and only four companies made it onto our shelf. So thank you for picking up on that, Daniel. Let's face it, there's tons of opportunities out there.

Basically what our job, Pinnacle's job is to do is to police. All those different opportunities. Grab the cream of the crop, make sure that we're not duplicating them on our shelf, and then we offer them to the general public. We're like teaming up with you.

Daniel St. Jean: A word here is that, Instead of me going out to 400 companies to find out you do that, and then whatever you send me, you're saving me a lot of work.

Steve Blasiak: I've got a neat analogy. I'll take 30 seconds to say this. You guys are extremely busy and you need a new car. Okay? You say, okay, we sit down and we talk about what you need? You need four wheels. You need a steering wheel. You'd like an AMFM radio, but by the way, I'd like it to be convertible and I don't want it to be red.

Really, it has to be. Has to be red and convertible. And there you go, Steve. So I go off to a lot with 500 cars and I eliminate all the other cars, the red, the white ones, the black ones, green ones. And I go look at the red ones and I find there's 50 red cars and then I go kick the tires of these 50 red cars.

Until I come down and figure it out, here's three awesome reds. Cars convertible that you should look at. So yeah, that and then you go do your test drive. You say, I like that one and then I do all the paperwork and I buy that car for you. So that's in the big picture, how this works. But I love that car analogy, cause everybody owns cars.

Laurel Simmons: Yeah, that's true. So you know what, we could talk about this for hours, but it's time for the lightning round. Are you ready?

Steve Blasiak: All right. Yes ma'am.

Laurel Simmons: Alright. So we're gonna ask you four questions and I'm gonna ask you the first one. So what is the best advice you've ever received from another investor or at a network event? What's the best advice you've ever received?

Steve Blasiak: It's to talk to people that's the best advice. I don't think that you could do it by yourself. And, you're probably really good at something. One thing I know, I'm really passionate about this kind of stuff, but my, let's say I wanna know more about Rent to Owns, which by the way, I did, and Daniel, you were so kind to walk me through and, we came close so many times so that you're, The expert that I go to.

If I didn't talk about it, let's just, I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere. So to me it's very important that people just talk and communicate. And by the way, I know you, another question is gonna be about the REITE club, but I'll just answer that right now. That's what I love about you guys.

You guys have such a diverse crowd and they're all enthusiastic. They all love to talk, to communicate, and they're all there to learn. That's what I love about the REITE Club because it fits right in with what I love. Getting out there and connecting with people.

Daniel St. Jean: They're all there to learn, but a lot of them are also there to teach. So in other words, if you, whether you want to be a student or you want to be a teacher, there's a spot for you at the REITE club. So my question number two, what is your favorite resource for real estate investing? Anything like a book training person event, what's your favorite resource to learn about real estate investing?

Steve Blasiak: That's such an easy question because, and this from the bottom of my heart, I'm not a huge clubby guy. I belong to different investment clubs, but I loved coming out to your club every once a month on Wednesday nights. So that's my answer. Come on. It's true. You know that I'm not making that up.

Laurel Simmons: Thank you. All right. Question number three. So Steve, what is the attribute, the one attribute that has made you the most successful? If you had to pick one, what would it?

Steve Blasiak: I'm gonna say personable. That's, leave it at that. I love noble people. I love to interact with people. And I'm, yeah, so my. One trait that I throw on the table right now is I'm personable and I'm dying to get outside and meet people.

Laurel Simmons: Very easy to talk to. That's really good. Alright.

Daniel St. Jean: Okay. I'm gonna add one more thing to that though, Steve. Sorry, but I know some of your clients, right? And here's what they would say. You care about the people you work with.

Steve Blasiak: Thank you Daniel. I appreciate you saying that.

Daniel St. Jean: Last question. What do you typically do on a Sunday morning?

Steve Blasiak: I've got grandkids. Yes I have two, two grandchildren. And so Saturday nights, either Friday or Saturday night they sleep overnight. And so let's say it was Saturday night. Sunday morning is breakfast pancakes out to the park. Yeah, no I love my family. I love spending time with my family. And now that my grandkids are one is four and the other one's one. But I love them both and you can talk with them like little human beings and why it's a blast. Love family and love those kids. Okay.

Laurel Simmons: That's great. So Steve, where can people reach you? How can they help you?

Steve Blasiak: Do I just say it like people would write it down?

Laurel Simmons: We will be letting people know, but you just cuz people will be listening, so you just say it.

Steve Blasiak: Okay. I love phone calls. So my cell number is 4 6464308 5. Okay. Text or call. And of course Pinnacle. I guess if this is a podcast, people aren't seeing the pinnacle sign behind me. But Our website's it's pinnaclewealth.ca.

Laurel Simmons: That's great. Good. Thank you. So any last words before we sign off?

Steve Blasiak: Yes. Again, I really from the bottom of my heart, wanna thank you very much for taking your time and inviting me on this podcast. One of my drives in life is to plant the seed, just to have people know that there's alternative investment opportunities all around and you're an excellent place to go get some other ideas and, mine are slightly different and it's another great place to balance your portfolio. So I want to thank you for letting me speak to your audience about it tonight.

Laurel Simmons: All That's great and thank you, Steve. I'm sure you'll be getting some people contacting you. So until the next time, have a great day and week.

Daniel St. Jean: Goodbye, grandpa. Goodbye.

Steve Blasiak: Thank you.

Laurel Simmons: Danielle. Wow. Steve really knows this stuff, doesn't he? When it comes to alternate investing?

Daniel St. Jean: Yes. And that's what I hear from the people that I've recommended to him.
They come back to me and they are blown away by how personable he is, how much he cares and how, and all the good things that he has to offer them that they would've never heard of if it wasn't for that connection and them sitting down with Steve.

Laurel Simmons: It's really worth at least considering because we know as real estate investors that things happen and, you, you have your real estate portfolio and maybe you're looking at other options other things to do. This is a really good place to look to go talk to Steve, whatever. And if it's not Steve, somebody else likes Steve because it's again, it's about. Rounding out your portfolio and making sure that you've got that sound fan foundation all the way around. Daniel, what was your main takeaway from what Steve said.

Daniel St. Jean: My main takeaway is that there's a lot of options out there and too many people sync with their blinders on, like they're looking only this way, and Steve has a lot of other options to offer. And here's something really important. You can call Steve. He gave you his phone number.

You can go visit Pinnacle and get ahold of Steve. You can make an appointment, you can sit with Steve. You can discuss things. You can look at all the options, and that does not cost one penny. You like it, you invest with Pinnacle. You don't like it. You say, thank you very much, Steve.
At least now I know about it and you walk away. But Steve will do that with you and there's no. Charged for doing that. So there's no reason in my little head here why somebody would not want to listen to Steve and see what he has to say. What if it's amazing for you?

Laurel Simmons: That's right. So it's you owe yourself, you owe it to yourself to discover the possibilities. Yeah. Okay folks, we're coming to the end. So before we go, I just wanted to say that if you have a chance to go on to whatever platform you've used to find the reiteclub.com podcast to rate us. The more you rate us the better rating you give us, the more we're ranked in the various listings and more people can find us and we can share the knowledge cause our goal is to help people learn about. Real estate investing, all the options out there. So with that said, we hope you have a great day and stay tuned for the next podcast. And Danielle, what do we tell people about the REITE club? We want them to.

Daniel St. Jean: Come grow with us.

Laurel Simmons: That's it, folks. Come grow with us. See you next time. Bye.