I think all those kinds of conventional wisdom things that were always taught that people tended to ignore in a really hot market because they were winning anyways kind of thing. That stuff becomes a lot more critical. But I think the main thing is you want multiple strategies that bring you to a cash flow.
Sarah Larbi: REITE club nation. Welcome back. It is Sarah Larbi and I'm here today for the first time co-hosting together. Actually the person that created a lot of my branding and marketing and everything behind the scenes, Paul Copcutt. Welcome.
Paul Copcutt: Thank you. Great to be here and really looking forward to co-hosting with you and then also hearing from our guests. It's gonna be fun.
Sarah Larbi: Amazing. Now you've also started your own podcast as well. What is it called? I have renamed it just recently. So it's now called personally brandtastic. Amazing. So, it's aimed at real estate investors or anybody in the real estate space, uh, but it's helping you on the marketing and branding.
Sarah Larbi: Very cool. So the REITE club is now also excitingly back in person. Uh, we are obviously doing it still online opportunities, online networking, and online webinars, but we are also adding an in-person component. Check it out the REITE club.com and go to the calendars. Section, uh, today's guest is Jacob Perez and Jacob is not only a real estate investor.
He's doing some really cool stuff. He's a developer now as well, buying in the US, and developing in Florida. He's also a mortgage broker. And so we talk about everything in between that lots of great information, lots of great information for today for what's happening in this market. I hope you enjoy today's show, but don't forget.
Check out thereiteclub.com. Check out the profiles, reach out to us, and communicate. There's tons of stuff online. We also have a Facebook group and, uh, Paul, any last words before we bring in Jacob?
Paul Copcutt: Nope, let's get to it.
Sarah Larbi: All right, let's do it. Jacob, welcome to the show. How are you
Jacob Perez: doing great. Yeah. Having a lot of fun right now, a lot of conversations. So I'm sure we're gonna uncover a lot, uh, in the next half hour or so.
Sarah Larbi: Amazing. Before we started recording, you were telling me that you were, uh, having an awesome party on the boat. Uh, we'd actually just had a fun party on Saturday, on a boat as well. And, uh, you know, it's the beauty of the weather in the summer. It's always so short though.
Jacob Perez: Yeah, definitely. I can't believe, uh, we're in September. Awesome.
Sarah Larbi: I'm co-hosting with Paul. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I mean, obviously, you've got, uh, your real estate investing experience. You've, you've got a mortgage background experience, but, uh, for those of you that do not know, give us some insights.
Jacob Perez: Yeah. So a little bit about me. I'm, uh, been investing in real estate for about nine years now. So I started when I was 23 years old. With, uh, you know, 5% down just trying to get into any kind of property that I can get into at the time. And that investing in real estate led to a lot of different pivots,
You know, it allowed me to kind of pivot my career bunch of different times because I had access to fallback and equity and things like that. Uh, but eventually, you know, I kept buying starting with long term rentals to, uh, duplex conversions eventually started buying bigger multifamily. I've done joint ventures.
And then the last couple years taking on some bigger projects in Naples, Florida in some kind of like luxury style markets. Which is, um, which is great because you know, there's upside and there's also lifestyle benefit to those investments as well. So once you build a foundation, it's fun to kind of pivot towards some things that could bring you a bit of joy in your life as well.
And then throughout the, the side of this journey in the last four years, I started as a mortgage agent. Two years later opened a brokerage and that's gone really, really well. Um, and that's taken up a lot of time and energy as well. So, you know, I'm seeing a lot of things, um, from my own investment journey and I'm learning a lot from my clients as well, kind of thing.
Paul Copcutt: Jacob, what, what kind of differences do you see between, or have you seen between investing in Canada and now investing in the US? What are the things that people should kind of keep an eye out?
Jacob Perez: Well, I think with all real estate investors, we can easily suffer from analysis paralysis. Right. And when you're looking at a market like the US, you're like, where do I start, Texas, Florida, all these different places.
I think just from a, you know, high-level point, if you're Canadian or you're looking in the US, you really gotta narrow your focus even further, because it's really hard to sit down and decide one place to invest. So for me, I had a vacation property in Naples, Florida. I bought a condo there just for leisure and myself.
That's where I decided to narrow my focus and. Figure out, you know, what's the best strategy in this specific market. There's probably better markets that exist out there. Um, but I think with the US, it's really just diversity in Canada. We can't just move to a different province and be in a completely different tax situation, completely different weather situation, completely different political climate.
Whereas in the US, there's so much diversity that, um, every, you know, state represents almost like a different little country, which is really interesting.
Sarah Larbi: That is awesome. So with your current portfolio right now, as a real estate investor, uh, are you focusing just predominantly on the US or are you still buying in Canada and, and what are you doing exactly with your portfolio with, you know, as the market's changing.
Jacob Perez: I definitely have, you know, just ongoing projects that are going on. You know, I recently picked up a, um, a building in, in Southwestern Ontario, around 23 units. So that's something where it's gonna be a long term turning over one unit at a time kind of thing. Right. I'll always be involved in the projects that I've already kind of like the sun my teeth into a little bit in terms of right now, I'm definitely taking a little bit of a step back in, uh, in both Canada and the US.
I just wanna kind of see how things shake out in the next little bit. Right. But, you know, I'm, I'm in a position where I'm staying liquid so I can take advantage of an opportunity. Should it come up? I think if you're a real estate investor with a reasonably sizeable portfolio, you know, you have the luxury of waiting.
Jacob Perez: Whereas if you're somebody who's looking to enter the market, that's a tricky position to be in because waiting might mean you're missing opportunity and things like that. So right now I'm, I'm probably taking a little bit of a step back, but actually. I have enough products on the go that I don't necessarily need to be ripping more things on my plate kind of thing.
Paul Copcutt: And, do you have any advice for somebody who is trying to get into the market or is very early investor? What do you think in terms of strategy or, uh, type of property, should they be looking at?
Jacob Perez: Well, I think that you know, all that old conventional wisdom really starts to make sense right now. So a lot of people would say, you know, run your projections with a much higher interest rate than what you're actually getting, you know, factor, uh, more conservative, appreciation, value, things like that.
I think all those kinds of conventional wisdom things that were always taught that people tended to ignore in a really hot market because they were winning anyways kind of thing. Right. That stuff becomes a lot more critical. But I think the main thing is you want multiple strategies that bring you to a cash flow.
If you're doing a strategy where you need the peak, uh, rental income from a short-term rental, and it just can't work as a mid term rental, or it can't work as long-term rental, those are the ones where it's a little bit tricky. And then you also have to analyze how liquid am I. So if I have a business that makes millions of dollars a year, I can take more risks on the real estate side.
Whereas if I have, you know, a $50,000 a year job, then my strategy needs to be really cash flow dependent because I don't have the personal liquidity to make up for any kind of issues. Right. Mm-hmm,
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely changing strategies or pivoting, you know, probably is, is something that many investors are doing now that have been in the market for a little bit. And you mentioned cash flow. I mean, I'm, I love cash flow and it's obviously a little bit harder as the, as the rates are increasing. What are some strategies that are still working in this market or that you're seeing either your clients or yourself doing that still produce some decent level of cash or cash flow to begin with?
Jacob Perez: I think, you know, it always starts. Pivoting to the right markets, right? Not trying to force an investment somewhere, just because it's in your backyard. Right? So moving towards those markets where you don't need a crazy high rental income in order to generate a cash flow, things like that. And then, you know, we're definitely seeing a ton of short term rental and we're seeing a ton of midterm furnish rentals.
This is one that I'm seeing a lot of investors pivot towards, but, um, the Airbnb strategy, as well as the medium term rental strategy are definitely becoming the most popular. I think a lot more people would be doing more short term rental. If there wasn't that fear of all these municipalities kind of slowly turning against it, one by one kind of thing.
But definitely having something rented on the more short term seems to be the more popular player right now. And
Paul Copcutt: what, what are the particular advantages of midterm rental versus short term then
Jacob Perez: I think it's just that you can get a higher, monthly rental income than you might. If you were on a 12-month lease kind of thing.
If you have someone who just showed up to Canada, They're gonna buy a house or they're gonna get a long-term accommodation, but they need somewhere to stay for a few months, uh, without having to worry about getting furniture, plates, dishes, things like that. You know, that could be a really good option depending on the city you're in, right?
If your city has, uh, maybe an employer that has a lot of short-term contracts or seasonal contracts, or maybe you're in just a big city like Toronto, where there's a lot of immigration, um, that type of strategy can work in a few different types of markets. I love
Sarah Larbi: the midterm rental strategy. I'm, I'm pivoting a lot of my stuff to those.
And then I'll tell you one of the things that I find makes sense as we're doing the BRRRR strategy still. Uh, but now it's, you know, instead of one to two units, it's like three or four units or, or more, but. Again, things could change, but I'm taking the rent-controlled units and I'm like gonna furnish those, put them on the Airbnb, you know, whether it's short term or midterm and be ready to pivot.
If short-term, uh, becomes banned at some point, but the midterm opportunity, if you're an area that has, you know, homeowners nearby, you'll likely get a lot of people that are in between construction or, or houses. Um, often they are homeowners or. If you're close to a hospital that helps a lot. But you know, the rent control piece, especially with the inflation and everything changing, you know, next year, we can only do 2.5%.
We're capped at 2.5% regardless. So any rent control units that were existing before, uh, you know, November 15th, 2018. Those are gonna go on the midterm market for me, and then anything that's new, again, that could always change cuz our government always, you know, tries to, to do things, uh, to make it harder for landlords along the way.
Those I'd probably do long term, um, cuz you can increase by to market rent each year.
Jacob Perez: Thoughts on that. Yeah. And I think, you know, it makes a ton of sense. Right? And you mentioned, you're already projecting that you may have to pivot again in the future. Right. And that's just the nature of any business and real estate is a business, right?
Just like every other type of business. Now, one really creative strategy. And one of my clients was talking to me about this. I can't say I've been doing this strategy personally, but this is one really, this is just a statement to how creative some investors can get. So what he was doing is he was buying properties.
Had a zoning that could allow for hotel. And it was actually getting the hotel designation to get around the Airbnb bylaws and was renting out his units on Expedia Dosier and websites like that. Right? So there's a lot of different creative ways. You can approach this, um, that are legal, that fit within the guidelines.
That even if the city says, you know, you need an Airbnb license or something like that, you still can get onto a short term rental strategy. It just might need a bit more. Genius that that is creative.
Sarah Larbi: I love it.
Jacob Perez: Love it. it's awesome.
Paul Copcutt: Talk, talking about creativity. What about the financing side, Jacob? Because that's, we're, we're seeing obviously a lot of change, but I guess we're expecting to see more. Um, what are you seeing currently and, and where, where do you see things heading?
Jacob Perez: Yeah, it's tricky right now. You know, I, I don't envy anybody, uh, looking to become a mortgage broker right now for the first time. Cause it's about to become one of the trickiest environments to deal with. So what we have, what we're dealing with right now is we have interest rates rising, Which the bigger effect that's having is that people are qualifying for lower price points as a result of those increased interest rates.
And then the flip side. The appraisal valuations are changing, not just because the market's changing, but in addition, the banks are asking the appraisal companies to appraise the properties in a different, uh, evaluation criteria than they did in the past. You know? So in the past it would always be this comparable sale price.
Jacob Perez: Was, you know, relevant and we don't factor any kind of market appreciation, even if the market went up and we don't factor any kind of depreciation, even if the market went down, which you know, it hadn't done that for, you know, X amount of years. Now, if it, if a comparable is, you know, over 30 days old or over 60 days old, a lot of banks wanna see market depreciation percentage applied to that former sale. And this there's a lot of people who are getting their houses appraised and the only good comp that exist are outside that 60 day window. Right? So the market may not actually be down, but these appraisals are even tighter than they've been before.
It's not these appraisers, you know, wanna do things poorly. It's just, that's how they have to do their evaluations now. So we're getting squeezed from kind of all angles, right? What does that mean for clients and things like that? I think it means that, you know, they're pivoting towards different types of financing strategies.
Commercial, like commercial financing has been getting more popular year over year. Right. So looking at those niche credit unions who will touch three-unit, four-unit properties on the commercial side. Right. But even those types of, uh, financing strategies, they have their own limitations as well. But it's really. At the end of the day, it's as simple as what is the cheapest best financing option I can get given my situation. And if I know that in advance, I can pivot an investing strategy around those metrics kind of thing. So a lot of people, you know, they're seeing a house that was discounted, that's discounted, let's say $75,000 and what it would've sold at four months ago and they're thinking that's a deal, but then they actually run the numbers with the interest rates that are out there right now.
And it's like, no, that's still an over. Right. So I think you just have to right now, really know what the payments look like because these interest rates have had a very material effect on everything.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. Now you mentioned three and four units. Commercially. Can you expand on that a little bit and then why somebody would want to potentially go that route? So like my, my thoughts are potentially if someone's doing like the BRRRR strategy and they're, they entered with, uh, A or B lender, but so for some reason they can't exit, uh, you know, like what are their options? And then could it potentially be co.
Jacob Perez: Traditionally, when we say commercial people think larger buildings, you know, 10 unit, 20 unit residential buildings. Now, if you go to, you know, a major bank, TD bank, BMO Scotia, whoever, and you talk to a commercial account manager, commercial advisor, and you say, Hey, you know, can you. Refinance or get me a mortgage against a duplex or a Plex property. Like those banks can facilitate those types of transactions. They just often push them away because they're trying to bring in million dollar deals.
They have goals that don't align with that. So if they actually did. You know, fund a deal that was that small, they would need to kind of provide a good reason upstream as to why they took on that type of, you know, lending asset or whatever it may be. But there's some niche co there's, some niche credit unions who are more than willing to work in like the two unit three unit four unit space, as long as the financials are there.
There's a lot of people where. They pivoted from having a corporate life, to being a full-time investor. A lot of them they're buying really good deals with really good cash flow margins. And those deals work really well on the commercial side. Now, the deals that don't work really well on the commercial side are, you know, if you're doing a duplex triplex in places like.
Hamilton or close to Toronto where the cap rates are a lot lower, right? The valuation will be there, but the loan amount you can get won't because the cash flow margins aren't high enough on those types of properties. So if you are working in markets like. Sudbury Sarnia, Windsor, some of like these smaller markets, those work really well for commercial loans.
And you have a lot of people where, you know, maybe their maximum approval price is 500,000 on the residential side. But if they buy a building that's four units and it's worth a million, but the rental comes there, they can qualify for a refinance. So it's really just, you know, is my lending options. Are they better on the commercial side or worse on the commercial side? If they're better than I would pursue that option kind of thing.
Paul Copcutt: And how are you seeing interest rates affecting the private money market beyond the, the banks and the credit union?
Jacob Perez: We haven't seen the interest rates in the residential side push towards the, the private lending side. So it's not like we've seen the private lending side shoot up an interest rate. Actually the private lending space has been really competitive for a long time or last couple years. So we actually, the rates coming down in the private lending space, like almost still, but what is changing in the private lending space is the loan to values because there's uncertainty of the market and valuations and things like that.
A lot of these private lenders. Who used to do 80% loan to value who might have pushed to 85% loan to value or scaling that back to 75 or 70% loan to value. So they're not necessarily jacking their interest rates up, but they are adjusting their risk profile. And it's usually reflected in the loan to value.
Sarah Larbi: That's really interesting. Are you finding that people are now starting to panic? Like what are you sensing out in the market right now.
Jacob Perez: Yeah, there's definitely panic. Um, and it's for a few reasons. So a lot of people. They take variable rates because they like the benefits of the variable rate, the flexibility, the low penalties to break, um, the lower rates generally at the time that you get the property. But there's another big subset of people who took the variable rates because they couldn't qualify for the purchase price they're buying at. If they took a fixed rate because the fixed rates were us at higher. And as a result, they kind of were pigeonholed into taking variable to get the price point they needed.
There's certainly a lot of people. They're in this position where my rate's going up, my affordability is going down. I have a fixed income, so there's not that much outside of getting a promotion I can do to kind of push myself upwards and they're coming to us and they're saying, Hey, like what can I do? And, you know, They can't qualify for a fixed product right. Or they can switch into a fixed product with their bank, but they're just increasing their interest rate. As a result. They can't really qualify for maybe a slightly cheaper variable if one exists or a static variable where the payment stays fixed because the qualification rates have changed significantly.
They're just kind of in this like sitting doc position and there's a lot of people in that position right now. I would definitely. It just speaks to, you know, the need for budgeting, liquidity, things like that. If you're on a fixed income, right? It's in a lot of cases, just a lot riskier than being on a variable income where you can put in the extra hours, you can do certain things that maybe help you produce more money.
But I think we're at the point where people are gonna have to start considering things. Having a roommate when you never had a roommate before. right. Like just little things like that, where there's gonna be new ways to pivot that were, you know, never on the table before now. I think people are gonna start to consider those things, um, you know, just to stay afloat, but like, you know, like we've talked, we've alluded to the government.
A lot of times in this there are countless things the government can do to help people right now. It's just, will they do that or not? Is the big question kind of thing. And can you
Paul Copcutt: explain for people, uh, about trigger rates, because that seems to be hitting the headlines. A lot right now.
Jacob Perez: It comes back to that product. I just referenced it's called a static variable. So there's a product called a static variable rate. And the way a static variable rate works is your payment. Stays are fixed throughout your term until you get to quote unquote a trigger rate. So when I say your payment stays fixed, it means, you know, your monthly mortgage payment is $2,000 a month.
Some proportion of that goes towards principle. Another proportion goes towards interest as the interest rates rise instead of your $2,000 a month payment increasing what happens is that. Your interest portion of your payment increases and the amount of principle you're paying decreases right now, there's a certain point where you're no longer paying principle down and you're just paying straight interest in, in order to maintain that fixed payment and that, and once you get to a certain point where you're, you're above a lo a certain loan to value in the bank size, there's, what's called a trigger rate.
And when you got to your trigger rate, what you have to do. Increase your mortgage payment. So you start paying principal down or make a lump sum payment to bring you back to a point where it could accommodate that, that monthly interest payment. So, you know, it's not something where we're really on the front lines of it as a mortgage agent. Cause it's more between the bank and their client. Right. But it's just something where, um, it could come up. If you're somebody who just recently bought a property with a static variable rate. But if you're somebody. Took a static variable six months ago, or things like that. You probably pay down considerable principle where it's gonna be a long while until you're seeing a trigger rate or things like that.
But everybody has the opportunity to prepay their mortgage or to get ahead of it. Right. But again, it's gonna come back to that one place, which is. Do you have the liquidity even do that kind of thing? Mm-hmm right.
Sarah Larbi: Lots of scary headlines for sure. I think there's lots of people that are, you know, unfortunately, um, are probably like you said, like on a fixed budget and any increases is severely affecting them. I'm not that familiar with the us market, but like, are they experiencing similarities over there?
Jacob Perez: Yeah. Like the federal reserve has been raising the rates in the us as well. Right. So you're seeing a lot of similar stuff happening in the us. Now, the difference is, is that Canadian mortgage lending and us mortgage lending is very different. And if you look back to, you know, 2008, the big short that movie that, you know, popularize the subprime mortgages and things like that, you know, we always go, oh man, well, Canada has a way more responsible lending. Environment than the us does, but I would actually say in this type of environment, Canada's lending style is actually riskier than the us, because pretty much all our mortgages are on five year terms.
Even if you got on at a low fix rate or whatever it may be, or, or a fix rate that you could afford, like it's gonna be five years or less until you're revisiting the rates that are in the market. Whereas in the us, you can get a 15 year fix a 20 year fix a 30 year fix. Right. So a lot of people can be completely unaffected by the rate environment in the us, whereas in the Canada, we're not like that everybody is within five years away from facing this, like no matter who you are.
That's what, the difference where it's like, we're starting to see Canada's lending environment to be a lot riskier in a sense. And we're just a, it's just a different world up here. We have five major banks that are heavily regulated by our government. Whereas in the us, there are a lot more banks in the US.
And it's not as pigeonholed. I think we're starting to see some flaws in our lending system here from a risk perspective that maybe we didn't know existed before now, do you think we'll get ever?
Paul Copcutt: I'm thinking of my, my home country, the UK, that, I mean, the UK is now 40 year mortgages, 99 year. Mortgages on something. Do you, do you ever see that coming into Canada?
Jacob Perez: I'm not sure. One thing I've been kind of floating around in conversation as an example with a lot of my clients that I've said, Hey, you know, like there's a lot of ways the government can help people without bringing the rates down. They need to keep the higher rate environment to tackle inflation. There's a lot of things they can do to still help people. So one of the examples I was gonna give is that. All they have to do is say, Hey, we regulate all the major banks. So anyone who has a mortgage with a major bank, um, can extend their amortization to 40 years without any qualification criteria.
If they give everybody that option. And then, but then on the flip side, I'd say, no new buyers can get a 40 year amortization. Cause that's just gonna put gasoline on the market, have the prices go up. Right. So, that will be one little thing the government can do to help people out during this time, while still trying to maintain their goals, which is tapping inflation through what seems to be their only tool they use, which is raising the interest rates. Right. So that would be one little thing. The government can do that. So can I see that stuff happening? Like yeah. Like you would, you would think it's already on the table in discussions, but we're not seeing it probably like it's not being, uh, whispered in the media, like absolutely nothing on that kind of thing.
Sarah Larbi: It is interesting. because that could be, like you said, like the ideal solution for people that are very, very close to the edge right now without. Adding fuel to the housing market and just, uh, grandfathering in those that already have mortgages in two 40 plus years. Um, and it is interesting cuz like I've got, you know, I've got different mortgages with different banks and C I B C for some reason are not raising mine.
They're actually. Extending the amortization, like, how does that work? Like how are some banks doing that? For example, like, one of my properties has met. It's actually more than 30 years now that the rates have gone up in terms of amortization. So they called me the other day. They're like, oh, your mortgage is at, I think it was like 60 or something crazy.
And it's an investment property. And like, the payments are the same. And they're like, do you wanna increase your payments? I'm like, I mean, unless I have to, I probably won't I'll stay like that. I mean, I don't extend, expect to keep that piece of property anyways for that long, but like, why are some banks doing that versus.
Jacob Perez: Well, it's, it just goes back to that static variable piece. So when you're on a static variable, and there's a change in the rates now, all of a sudden the time horizon in which you're paying it back, the mortgage back, you know, gets extended. Right? So realistically, when they say, you know, you have 50 years remaining on your amortization now, or whatever, because of this interest rate change, it's really just a projection.
Like when your term is up in five, You're gonna be on whatever term you sign up for next. And that might be 20 years, 25. You might extend it back to 30, but all that stuff really is. Um, if people are seeing that is like, it's just a projection, you know, if it's concerning you that you're never gonna pay off your house, cuz it's a primary residence or something like that.
Just understand that like you can always pay your house off even without penalty and like. Five or six years, really, if you take advantage of all the different mechanisms, but yeah, all that really is, is a projection and that projection will change once you get to the end of your term kind of thing.
Paul Copcutt: And J just going back to the us, um, from a financing perspective, uh, are you recommending then that it's better to do financing in, in the US with the US institution or what, what are the sort of options available to people?
Jacob Perez: If you're investing in the us, is that what you. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I, I think you just, it's the same strategy from a high level everywhere. It's what is my cheapest financing option? Like that's just really where it begins for some people it's gonna be going, uh, through, let's say a Canadian institution and doing cross-border financing now getting cross-border financing with like one of the major banks in Canada that is a us mortgage.
They're funding it through their us operation. Right. So it is so realistically like yeah, any kind of form of financing you're getting. Is gonna be a us form of financing, even if you're getting it. Even if you walked in the door at a Canadian bank, they funded on their American side. Right. So it really just comes down to, you know, what is the cheapest option?
We've gotten really creative with some of the stuff we're doing down there. I've gotten some where I use like an RBC cross-border program for my first condo I bought. Down there. We've been linking up with builders and finance and using their financing connections. Right? So I'm doing a project where we're building, um, nine houses with pools and guest houses, and we're partnering with the builder.
And that builder has a really good financing connection. And we're getting terms that, you know, we would never get if we talk to a mortgage broker in the us, right. Same thing with another builder, we're doing three custom houses near, uh, the beach in Naples. You. They're they're giving us their financing connection on the project too.
What I found in the us that was such a big difference from working, uh, with people in Canada and not to discredit anybody, but the contractors and the builders in the us, the level of professionalism and how much they have things ironed down to a T. It just seems way more advanced than up here in Canada.
And it might just be that we have so much more red tape that makes it harder to do this stuff. But in the us, it seems to be like, oh, you want to build? Here's the timeline? Here's the prints. Here's the architectural drawing. Like they have everything ready to go. And, um, that's been one thing that's been very interesting, cuz like I just kind of alluded to like.
I'm building 12 houses in the us right now. I've built nothing in Canada and it seems easier in the us. Right. So it's just one of those, one of those things. But I would just, just say to anybody, wherever you plan invest, like you have to do your research. You have to like, you know, go through the process and no, nowhere will be easy.
I can't like this us stuff has not been easy. It's been a lot of research, a lot of networking, things like that. But one now that we're getting to the finish line, it feels easier, but there was, there was a road to get there kind of thing.
Sarah Larbi: Very cool. Awesome. Jacob, we are gonna go to our lightning round next. We're gonna ask you four questions. You're gonna give us the first answer that comes to mind in 20 seconds or last. So you ready to play? Yeah. All right. Number one. What is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?
Jacob Perez: I don't know, but there's one, quote, someone said an investor that I've always loved and it's just count the pennies and you'll lose the dollars. I think there's way too much of a focus of on frugality in this real estate investor world. It's like frugality got really cool and people I think have taken it way, way too far. And I think the main thing is, you know, Count the pennies you'll lose the dollars. You're gonna have to spend money. There are a lot of burnt costs. There are a lot of sunk costs in real estate. You might hire a coach. You didn't get a lot of value out of, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue coaching again in the future and things like that. So I think that, uh, counting the pennies and you'll lose the dollars is, is one that stuck with me. I like it. Nice, nice court. Uh, what's your favorite, uh, real estate investing?
Jacob Perez: Favorite real estate investing resource. I think, uh, I think I just love just old school is, um, well, there's two, so I like matrix. So I have access to all the real estate listings and looking at all the sales. And I think that helps a lot.
If you just look through every pending sale, all this kind of stuff in a certain market over a long period of time, your brain just automatically makes the connections on what is valued. For example, like when I bought this piece of land in Naples, I was like hanging on my coach, my girlfriend, I see this piece of land.
I'm like, this just seems like really good value. I've never bought land. I don't know anything. We buy the piece of land within three days. One builder's offering us $300,000 more than what we bought it for. So like, I feel like if you study the data, your brain makes the connections without you even really realizing it.
And the other tool is purview. It's a tool where you can. All the registered loans against properties in Canada. So if you're going into an off market and you're going to a negotiation, it helps a lot to know. Does this person have a mortgage? How large of a mortgage? Because, you know, I might look at 20 multifamily buildings and I find one that has no mortgage against it.
And maybe there's just a personal name on title. Not a corporation that might be a really good target towards approaching for an off market. So I think those two tools is to have a bit of data on the background have been huge resources. Yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Larbi: I love those resources. And then even figuring out if a VTB may even make sense, uh, and asking for vendor takeback instead of going conventional and, uh, the more they own, the easier it would get. Number three, what is the one attribute that has made you most successful in your
Jacob Perez: opinion? Self-belief was a hundred percent the, the game changer, you know, I think when I started reading the personal development books and things like that, that's when my brain started to go, oh, like all this is undeniably possible.
I think self-belief is the most important thing. Because if you, if you know, you are capable of something, then you can't make the excuse. For a lot of things. Right? So things like that, it's like, I know I'm capable. So now I have to do it. Like if I don't go pursue this thing, I don't achieve this goal then like I'm literally taking it away from my future children because I'm a hundred percent capable of doing it.
I think self-belief is, you know, the greatest attribute, whether it's your career, whether it's finding a good relationship, whether it's, you know, real estate investing, like it will take you, you know, wherever you want to go. Nice.
Paul Copcutt: An final question? What do you typically do on a Sunday?
Jacob Perez: Sunday morning usually starts being very hungover. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, no, I like, for me, it's like right now it's NFL Sundays. So for the next 17 weeks, I'm gonna be parked on the couch every Sunday. I know it's not very proactive investor, uh, focus, but you know, I like to have a little bit of fun, but you know, for me, it's really like in the gym coffee, read a book or my kind of leisure is, uh, is NFL Sundays, for sure.
Paul Copcutt: And there's no nothing wrong with. Customizing your life enough that you can do that.
Sarah Larbi: It is about lifestyle, right? This is why we do what we do. And this is why we actually ask about Sunday morning, cuz we hope it is something like you just said where you're, you know, taking advantage of, of your freedom and your lifestyle and what you've accomplished along the way, which it is. I mean, you do nothing and watch sports.
Jacob Perez: Chill out. Sounds amazing then. Yeah, Sunday's a big day. I do dinner with my parents every Sunday, too. So it's just like one of those days where, you know, Monday's coming, that's usually a big day every week, but, um, but yeah, Sundays, you know, should take it for ourselves for sure.
Sarah Larbi: Amazing. All right, Jacob, where can our REITE club community reach out and find out more?
Jacob Perez: Best place to reach out is find me on Instagram at Jacob Perez. 10, just send me a message. I'll hop on a call with you. Whether you wanna talk about investing mortgages, you wanna be a mortgage agent, like literally anything like under the sun. I'm not charging for a call, nothing like that. So, uh, happy to connect with as many people as possible. Then other than that, you can go do our website at synergymortgagegroup.com and, uh, get with us that way as well. Amazing.
Sarah Larbi: Jacob, thank you so much for being on the show. It was a pleasure having you on and, uh, you are a wealth of knowledge and congrats, and I'm excited to hear more about your us development properties. I've got my eye on Florida, so I can't wait to see what you've got.
Jacob Perez: Thank you.
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