Alfonso Salemi: Welcome back, REITE Club Community. It's another episode of the REITE Club Podcast with me, Alfonzo Salemi, along with my co host Sarah Larbi. An awesome interview with Eric Doyle today. You know what he's. Fairly new, two and a half years. He was an investor before he became a realtor.
Dropped a really cool little tidbit that you gotta listen to the podcast for how he was able to persevere and get through something that, maybe some of us have dealt with, right? Not necessarily things going on a plane right from the beginning. And then, that grit that got him through.
You want to pay attention to that in the podcast. And again for Eric and for the whole Elevation Team huge supporters of the REITE club community and helps so many of our investors. Actually buy the real estate that they're doing these transactions and making these amazing deals with and great partners. Yeah, real, real pumped for this podcast.
Sarah Larbi: Me too. Let's bring it in. Eric, welcome to the show. How are you?
Eric Doyle: I'm fantastic. Thank you for having me.
Sarah Larbi: I am excited to have you on. You're part of the Elevation Realty team and you've done a great job supporting investors so far. Before we get into that, I know you're also a real estate investor. Are you able to share how you originally got started in your own journey and why Real estate investing?
Eric Doyle: Sure. So I was realistically always interested in real estate investing. Mostly for the time freedom and financial freedom that I could grant me. I always had these dreams of, starting out living on the beach and having passive income to cover all the expenses and that sort of stuff.
I was working a full-time job at the time as a parking supervisor for a company in Toronto. And during my journey, I met Stephan Arno. I read a bunch of his books. He offered a free ticket. So I flew up to Winnipeg not knowing anyone, and that is where I met Dylan. So I met Dylan Suder, who I'm sure is many of you.
We got to talking. We're from the same area. He basically asked me to get my license to learn more about real estate investing and to become a realtor. I had never been in a sales job or anything like that before, so that was a complete change. But I just dove right in both feet first, head first, honestly. And now I'm on his team doing fairly.
Alfonso Salemi: That's awesome, Eric. And first of all, you know what congratulations to you that how many years ago, that was when you went out to Winnipeg?
Eric Doyle: Two years ago.
Alfonso Salemi: Okay, so awesome. Two years ago, having this inclination that you're interested in investing, you want the margarita, I'm the beach type of lifestyle, right? You're thinking of that and you're going, Hey, you know what? Let's go to Winnipeg. Let's see what's going on.
Taking that opportunity, taking that risk, that's where it always gets. Then you're making that connection. I remember. You just, I think you're just new learning from Dylan the first couple times you were actually out to the live Club events and you were soaking it all up in We were networking afterwards at the I think it was the Boston Pizza or the the tailgate char, whatever the restaurant was around the corner.
We were there. It's like midnight talking about real estate and you were just like, What, how does this work? And you were just like a sponge. So congrats to you for taking that plunge and getting that and really immersing yourselves into it. And, in two short years or two long years, depending on the way you look at it, you definitely probably learned a lot.
I know conversations like that. We've had you yourself were actually the one that had found the duplex conversion that I did, that we burned out in Hamilton. Obviously from just starting out to where you are now, I'm sure you have a lot of favorite strategies. You work with several different investors, seeing them doing different things with the properties.
You're the boots on the ground, getting them tied up and getting 'em to own those contracts. But what are some of the favorite strategies that you've seen? or even, before the two years that you're like, wow I love that. I want to do more of that. I know you're doing some flipping yourself talk about what your favorite strategy or what you're seeing out there currently.
Eric Doyle: Sure. So currently I'm doing flipping and this market is extremely hard to do, which is unfortunate if you're trying to do that strategy. My favorite investing strategy of all time is actually, and not to Sarah. It's the BRRRR strategy. I like doing BRRRRs on big multi-family properties, like three to 20 units we'll say.
That's my favorite kind of strategy because you're able to put more capital in, you're able to raise the value of the building and then refinance it with preferable financing and get the most of your capital out. It's harder to do with lower units, but that's my favorite strategy of all time. Eventually moving into apartment buildings, but it'll be down the road.
Sarah Larbi: Very cool. So you've got some experience. I also wanna say, speaking of multi-family, one of my students you worked with and found a really awesome six unit in Georgetown and you were able to get five or six of those units to reset rents, which was really cool.
Like you don't get those often. So congrats on also being a successful realtor in addition to doing a great job. Investing yourself in real estate. You're fairly new. You've got two years in, have you seen there's good and there's bad to real estate investing?
Have you experienced any issues along the way or any downsides or, because it's not all roses and butterflies at some point you're in it long enough and you. Some problems. So as another new investor maybe listening to this, what kind of advice would you give them and can you share that maybe a situation that you maybe have dealt with in the last couple years?
Eric Doyle: Sure. So the worst investing, issue or story that I ever had was actually on my first flip. Hadn't really done a flip before, and it was all hard money. So it's expensive over time. So I purchased off a wholesaler and I got a great deal, thankfully, to actually save the deal. However, when I actually got in, what I didn't know was that there were 15 cats living in the property at the time.
All those 15 cats, there were I would say millions of fleas in every single level of the house. So when I walked inside after a closing day, a white socks came outside. They were black and. If not, the strategy to actually get rid of fleas is to spray every single wall, every single floor to rip up the carpet spray everywhere, and it usually takes three to four months for them to actually die.
Now I am three to four months behind on a project that I'm carrying with hard money, and it's just very expensive eating a hole in my pocket, and I can't really do anything for those four months. So there were a lot of sleepless and stressful nights there, just making sure, kept everything else super tight to budget. So I still came out in the block, and thankfully I did. But that's one of my favorite stories as a learning lesson, but it also just killed me.
Alfonso Salemi: You know what is good for you, right? That's your first one outta the gate, right? You hear about all this passive investing and all your money working for you and the Rich Dad Poor Dad mentality and get right into it and then boom.
Reality in the face. That delays the problem. So maybe what are a couple of things that you learned and, who did you reach out to? Who is your sphere of influence at the time and how has that evolved and changed in the last little bit so that, if you do get another flea problem and you'll know exactly what to do this time. Much easier the second time around. But if there is an unforeseen issue or problem how did the team come in to help and who are those people that you reached out to?
Eric Doyle: Sure. So I guess the number one lesson I learned is to check for cats . If there's 15 cats in a house, you're probably expecting issues. But what really saved me is the team around me. So the team that Dylan has built over the past, I would say couple years or five, six years he's been in real estate and in more in business just relying on him and relying on some of his contractors and contacts that we can manage That problem and make sure it go, everything else goes smooth according to plan, and there's no more delays so that it will make up for that unforeseen consequence.
It's really just having the right power team around you, like the proper contractors for each job, specialists. Like we had a foundation issue in that first flip as well. So I was lucky to have a foundation guy on hand that I could also bring in and he solved the problem with very little downtime.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. The team is important. As real estate investors, we could not be where we are today if it wasn't for people that are much more knowledgeable in their field than we are. From a financing mortgage broker standpoint, lawyer pay. You're a structural engineer and all of those trades, it is important to have the right people on your team and that is going to potentially make or break your success, especially early on, if you don't have the right team.
You could have known the situation lost a lot of money, but you had some people that were competent and, being able to still be like you said, gotten to black despite how expensive that hard money was. But let's talk about hard money for a second and in, where you found it and roughly what are the costs of hard money these days and what are the pros and cons of using hard money? So maybe you can talk to us about hard money.
Eric Doyle: Sure. So specifically hard money. Where I found it is actually from the Mortgage Alliance team. Angie Pettyjohn, the Pettyjohn team. That's usually who I use for all my hard money flips. Current mortgage or current rates, I guess are 9% interest, 2% lender fee, 1% broker fee for a standard mortgage, they are, it's around 17% for construction.
1% lender fee, and then the down payment is also nine, two and one. So it can get very expensive, especially if you're carrying log projects over a long period of time. But the reason why I enjoy using it is that you can scale. So virtually if you find a project at work you can scale up to an infinite amount of projects at a time.
As long as you can manage it. You have the contractors for it, you have the team around to actually do it, then you are not capped out with your own capital. You can take on more and more projects and scale as your expertise grows. And now we're going to take a quick break to hear from one of our sponsors.
Alfonso Salemi: I love that. And, sometimes that's what we're maybe all grown up with or learn or what, what's more prominent out there in the media is oh, the hard money and lending, that's expensive. Don't use that. But really it's unlocking so that, that potential to do the third one, the fifth one, the 10th one after that. And untapping Say I have found that project and I'm like, you know what? I can afford this 9%, no problem. You know what? I can sustain that.
The broker fee, the lending fees, what's the criteria that you're preparing, that you're lining up so that you can bring it to, private lender A, B, and C, and then negotiate what are the things that they're typically looking for and that you're gonna have to have ready to present to them?
Eric Doyle: Sure. So they're typically looking for you having experience in real estate investing. So they generally try not to give, That's financing for your first one. If for a new investor that's trying to do their first flip and then doing a lot of harder money loans you can get buried real quick if you don't know what you're doing.
That they try to look for experience first. Secondly, they have the fallbacks. They prefer you own a property in your own name just for a collateral as well as have capital to cover if something goes wrong. So those are the three main criteria they look for just to make sure you're not gonna be $500,000 in debt at the end of the day, and you'll be , like pulling your hair, wondering how to pay that back.
Alfonso Salemi: I've got no hair pool brother.
Eric Doyle: You've used too much hard money already. It's all coming.
Sarah Larbi: You know what that's why we say it's not about the money. Sometimes it's more about the deal. The money will come and it might make sense to use hard money and you might need to use hard money because depending on the, whether you can qualify for financing or not, what your strategy is, cause if you're flipping, it might make more sense.
Use private money or hard money and get in and get out. But, and sometimes the properties that you're buying don't qualify for a typical institutional mortgage, either because they're in rough shape and red flagged. So there's lots of reasons, but money is not the hardest thing to find.
It's the good deals and your exit strategies and what you're doing. With those different deals and properties and building your team. And then I think the rest just falls into place. And I know what we're saying, and it sounds easy, but we all started somewhere at some point.
We started by the first one, and then we started learning, and then we started building our team. But money is easier to find. than a lot of other things, right? To me, if I had a deal and I had no money, I'd probably bring in a partner or find somebody that wants to come in and if the deal is good enough, people will come.
Somebody will say, I'm gonna loan hard money on this deal because I could see the exit strategy. So you just have to have the right team to be able to shop that around. So Eric, I wanna take a little bit of a step in a different direction because you've been working for, in my opinion, one of the best.
Real estate realtor teams. One of the things that you know, you're learning is sales and strategy and working with investors. What are some of the things that you've learned? Cause, I know when you mentioned you were starting with Steph and Ario, you didn't really have a whole lot of experience or experience in sales or experience in, so maybe walk us through your journey and how you maybe self-developed and became successful at doing a realtor job.
Eric Doyle: Sure. So I was actually an investor first. I got my first property through rockstar Real Estate. And then quickly after that, I found I was capped out. So I put all my capital in for the first property. That's why I went to Stephan Arno after. So getting into a sales job after that I would say the biggest thing, the biggest change is you need a huge mindset shift.
I would say that's the biggest thing in all aspects of real estate. But you'll need a huge mindset shift for something in sales. You're not really going to be able to, kick it around the water cooler for seven hours a day and then expect some sort of return. It takes a lot more time to get started, especially if you don't have sales skills at the start.
It took way more time and effort to get the momentum rolling and the ball rolling than I just thought it would. Commission only can be extremely rough. So if you don't follow proven models and systems, this could also apply to real estate investing. If you don't find, if you don't follow proven models and systems, it's for consistent effort. It's going to be very difficult for you to scale and for you to grow as a person and as a business.
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. And you know what I'm gonna make a statement for everyone that's listening and whether you think you are or you're not, it's that everyone is in sales in their own personal life, at their jobs where you're currently working.
If it is within real estate and investing with our partners in our life, we're always trying to convey our idea, maybe our way of thinking, a different spin on it, right? So when you're saying, oh no, I don't do sales. Or, from your experience before that you said it took a little bit of time to ramp up.
I know maybe sometimes some of the mind shifts, and I know you're pretty analytical and you're tight with the numbers. That's why you were so excited about that East end property. This is the one if you don't put an offer, I am. That kind of mindset and, shifting around, how to win friends and influence people.
One of the greatest books I've ever written. How do you convey this? Those ideas and thoughts so that you can share those with others to say, Hey, this is gonna work. I'm on your team. And when you have a realtor or a realty team that have that investor mindset that wants to help you propel and say, here, this is what you need to see, and they're giving you the blind spots, you didn't even know they were there.
They're helping you out. And that experience is huge. I know you, you've definitely taken a lot of courses. We've taken some classes together as well too with sales and stuff and you're so right with that mind shift and that mind thought is just because you thought it doesn't mean it's right.
Think of it and look at it from another opinion as well too. So you're fresh and you're talking about, two and a half years, you invested first and you're going through those things. What are some of the advice that you give to those investors? I know you mentioned a mindset.
I'm sure along the way, whether you sat in, whether it was Stephan and, rest in peace, Stephan or the rockstar guys or other communities that, that, the REITE Club for sure. That you're talking and meeting new investors that are saying, oh yeah, it's passive, and you just invest and then you sit on the beach. What are some of the advice, the good things, the bad things that you can share with new or even savvy investors out there?
Eric Doyle: Sure. So I would say my first. My first advice for new investors is just to jump all in. Currently when you're trying to start something new, you're going to have to dedicate a lot of time to it. For the education piece, getting educated is very important and it takes longer than I would've expected to get educated in what we call the real estate investing Jumping all in, getting educated and having that mindset to connect with like-minded people to network for money partnership.
If you don't have money or if you do have money, you are looking for an active partner to partner with. So I would say jumping all in is my number one advice. Analysis. Bio paralysis will kill you with your lack of opportunity. Cost more than you can probably make in your lifetime.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. Great advice for new investors, what's next for you? 2021. Lots of opp options, lots of opportunities. And I know Dylan does goals, so I'm guessing you guys have goals probably for all of you guys. Are you able to share, from a personal standpoint, what some of the goals are that you have for this coming year and maybe from a real estate standpoint and then a realtor standpoint?
Eric Doyle: Sure. For my personal goal for this year from a real estate investing standpoint, first is to purchase seven flips this year and also purchase my first big multi-family burr, which I can do at later in the year. So that's my big goal, or that's my real estate investing goal.
As a realtor, I have a goal that I want to help five people get six figures net worth. In their portfolio by the end of the year. So I've already helped two last year, and now we're just going to triple that and try to triple that in 2022 as well. So that's my continuing goal going forward, just to help more people in real estate investing, teaching what I know, coaching them along the way and just increasing their net worth and their freedom, and that's what we're all here for.
Alfonso Salemi: I love that. And was that, I know I'm sometimes tough with the quotes, but Zig Ziegler, right? Help enough people. Get what they want and you're gonna get everything you want. And that, that's awesome. And for, like I said, case in point I've seen you actually with the boots on the ground, working on it, running things down and you actually care as each one of these investments as it's your own.
It's like your own little child, like giving it to a good investor that will take care of it and profit the maximum that they can with cash flow and all that. Awesome stuff. I think it's time that we get to our lightning round. Eric, are you ready for the lightning round?
Eric Doyle: I am. Ready for the world famous lightning round. Yes.
Sarah Larbi: All right, Eric, here's question number one. What is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?
Eric Doyle: I would just go back to get educated. It was the most important piece by far for my entire real estate journey. That, and just jumping into it. So why, that's my advice for new investors. That's the most important advice I've ever received, and I'm glad I risked it all and went in.
Alfonso Salemi: We're at a time in history where there's so much available, so much information, free, not free, very little investment to get started, get the ball rolling, and really in any flavor that you want, right?
A good place to start would be at thereiteclub.com, where you can find a lot of these investors and a lot of their stories. Yeah. Great advice, Eric. All right. Question number two. What is your favorite resource for real estate investing? Now that could be anything. A book, some training, a person. What is your favorite resource?
Eric Doyle: It's thereiteclub.com. Hate to plug your website, but you guys have a ton of members who are extremely knowledgeable in real estate. It's one thing to read a book, but it's another thing to talk to people who are actually doing this day in and day out and getting their experience, their expertise, their stories coaching you along the way and the relationships they can bring to you and you can bring to them for mutual benefits. It's just networking groups are far more important in my opinion than just reading a book.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. That's great. Thanks Eric. And number three, what is the one attribute, Eric, that has made you most successful?
Eric Doyle: Dylan would call this being annoying, but it's grit. , di one, one thing I don't really share often is he actually fired me one time for being on the team. Before I started as a realtor, I started as an admin first, just to learn a bit. And my mindset wasn't really there. I was still in the corporates, like not my job kind of mentality. So it took that big wake up call for more for me to change my mindsets and just have the grit to keep back, keep on going.
Sarah Larbi: I have to ask before the next question. How did you get back in?
Eric Doyle: I got my real estate license, and he basically said, okay, show me. And then I just put it in the work, put in the effort, and got the results. And that's now I'm back on the team and I'm glad I'm here.
Sarah Larbi: I didn't know that. That's not really, that's a, that, it's actually a cool story, right? Because you, you took something where a lot of people might have given up and said, this is not for me. But you actually got back and said that you gotta gimme a chance. And you had that convincing attitude and now look at you, you're like an all star on the team. That's amazing.
Alfonso Salemi: I love that. That true grit, right? And that's usually not like the sexiest answer. Just working hard and being persistent and, over time and being, knocking that one thing at a time, one thing at a time, those small little wins, but that's what's gonna get you there. And case in point. Yeah. And thanks for that share. I love that. That's a really cool man. And alright, so to wrap up the lightning round, the last question of the lightning round on a typical Sunday morning, what are you up to? What are you doing?
Eric Doyle: I am sleeping in on a Sunday morning. That's the day I try to take off just to get my mind a break from real estate. So I usually sleep way more than I do during the week. But that's, it's not the sexiest answer, that's just the truth.
Sarah Larbi: What does sleeping in mean though? Because that could be relative for many people. My idea of sleeping in is 7:00 AM maybe seven 30. Alfonso would be like noon, so I don't know. What is it?
Eric Doyle: That's 10:30 for me. Dylan usually has me up during the week at six. Just cause that's when I get the ball rolling with all my clients. It's just the schedule I built around. So I really enjoy those extra two hours just to give my mind a break on the weekends.
Alfonso Salemi: I love that. And Sarah it's only 12 depending on what's going on the Saturday night before.
Eric Doyle: It's pretty 10:30 depending.
Sarah Larbi: I remember. Alfonso, like when I was working a job and I would wake up at 4:30 or 5, I don't do that anymore. And you would go to bed at that time, and it was just, it was insane. I've always been a morning person, not a night person though. I don't think I, necessarily four o'clock at night. it needs to be done. Now that I I don't have a j o b anymore, but beforehand, that was when I was, I like to go to the gym and get things done. But not everyone's morning person. Not everyone's a night person.
Alfonso Salemi: There's 24 of them in a day. There's 24 hours in a day. You get to pick which segments, which ones you use, right? You know what, actually, that's a great great segue, REITE Club Community. What is sleeping in for you? So if you wanna put in the comments of this podcast, get on the reiteclub.com hashtag Eric on there for being an amazing guest today. And let's hear from you. Let's put it out to the community. What is, what do you consider sleeping in? Because that's different for everybody, like you said.
Sarah Larbi: That's true. All right. On that note though, Eric, where can our REITE club community reach out if they wanted to find out more about you?
Eric Doyle: We can reach out to eric@elevationrealty.ca, or we can find the Whole Elevation Realty Team at Elevation Realty.
Alfonso Salemi: Awesome. Awesome. Eric, thank you so much for sharing your story for just being an amazing member of the Wright Club community. When we were in person, you were at those tables, shaking hands, meeting people, and now you're doing that virtually doing the street tours that we constantly have available at the REITE Club as well. Elevation has been an amazing supporter and sponsor and partner of the REITE Club. So any last words of advice or anything that you want to impart or share with the community before we wrap up?
Eric Doyle: I would just say I love everyone that's into real estate investing. I love talking about this stuff. I love people that are interested in it. So I would like to meet all you like-minded people either virtually or back when at the REITE club, when we are able to see each other in person.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. Eric, it was a pleasure having you on. Thanks so much for being on our show.
Eric Doyle: Thank you very much for Having me.
Sarah Larbi: That was awesome. Eric is great. He does have the grits and I liked his cat flea story. We've all got a story where something went wrong and we had to maneuver through it. So that was awesome. And, he's just an overall great guy and he loves talking about real estate. So guys, you heard him reach out to him if you wanna have a real estate investing conversation or you want him to show you some properties or whatnot. Alfonso, any big key takeaways for you?
Alfonso Salemi: I love that. The same one that right outta the gate, the first investment, running into those obstacles, running into those problems. And then the second piece that he shared of, not having the r right mindset or, Hey, that's not my job type of mentality when we're investors, when were business owners, everything's your job.
At least oversee it or take care of it. Make sure that it is getting done. Shifting that mindset and getting into the right frame of mind. So that was my big take. And REITE club community, huge ask, if you can please rate review This podcast, it helps us get out there to impact and help so many more investors along their journey to getting to where they want to be.
Visit thereiteclub.com. Check out the forums and the calendar. We have events coming out every week. We're going across Canada. So many good things, luncheon learn that we're doing with some of our amazing partners. Learning all those different aspects to build your team and everything that you need for the business. Of real estate investing. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. And Sarah, I'm gonna give it to you. What do we always say?
Sarah Larbi: We say Come grow with us.
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