Sarah Larbi: REITE club nation. Hello, I'm Sarah, and I'm here with Francois, REITE club community, we've got a great guest. We have Carina Guzman, who is a very successful developer. And she has a really cool story. She really started from scratch. She was self-taught and has been doing some amazing projects. I hope you guys enjoy the podcast today, and if you haven't yet, please leave a rating and review.
Francois Lanthier: Hello everybody. I'm really excited today to be joined by Sarah Larbi, one of the co-founders of the REITE club, and one of my friends, Carina Guzman. So I hope you consider me a friend, but welcome Carina.
Carina Guzman: Thank you. Thanks for having me guys.
Francois Lanthier: That's a pleasure. Would you like to give us and our listeners like a 30,000 foot view of your background and how you got involved in real estate investing and some fancy land deals and all kinds of things,
Carina Guzman: Sure. Yeah. I started as a buy and hold kind of investor back in 2009 and I wanted to level up in my real estate investment at some point after we got a few properties and I started basically learning about zing and severance and things that I had never heard of before, cuz I had attended so many events.
And nobody ever talked about land development and at the time in Ottawa for anybody who lives here or knows about it. The city was talking a lot about the Light Rail Train system, the LRT, and a lot of investment going on there. And there's a lot of talk about land values and how they're gonna change.
In the areas that are closer to transit. And so I just began to digest as much of this information on my own. I decided to have our second child on purpose so that I could take my mat leave to spend time doing this thing, which is crazy when I think about it right now. But it worked . And then I told my husband when he used this one year to figure out what to do in real estate and make this my full-time job, and I did.
I quit my day job. That was, I guess about three, four years ago now. And I've been doing it ever since. And my projects have been getting a little bit larger, a little larger and larger.
Sarah Larbi: Very cool. That's obviously not for the faint of heart to go right into development. There's definitely a lot of profits that can be made, but the mistakes are much deeper and much more expensive.
So let's just fast forward a little bit. I'm just curious to see if you're able to share the type of deals that you've been doing and what you're currently working now in terms of what you're developing.
Carina Guzman: Yeah. And you're so right Sarah, like this is what I tell a lot of people cuz I get a lot of people asking me, I wanna get into land development cuz it's niche in a sense it's a different strategy in real estate. But you're right, it's not for beginners, I gotta say. And you gotta start small and you gotta take it's a riskier endeavor. So you really have to take a calculated risk when you do it because there's a lot of capital that goes in the front end and you really only get your payout at the end.
It's very different from a buy and hold where maybe you can cash a little bit every month and if you have money it can supplement your income. But you're right. And so the way I started just after researching, I realized there's this one piece of lot closer to the hundred meters, like walking distance to the train station.
It was a large oversized lot with a little bungalow on it, and I used that as my guinea pig kind of project. This was back in 2005, I think it was, and that's how I created architecture, some engineering. I did the soil analysis. I went to speak with the city. I asked questions. I went to meet with planners, and I used this as my catalyst to teach myself essentially. Not that I'm saying that it's good for you to teach yourself.
There are definitely a lot of people and coaches and other things. I guess I'm a little bit of a high tolerance risk kind of person, and I throw myself into a lot of things that I don't know. Not to say that's good for everybody but if you have that personality, maybe you can like I did, it's not impossible.
And then through that project, we started small. That was the 12 plex. Small but in the sense that I created the vision, I created the plans but I sold it. I sold it when I got the permits to somebody who would construct it, because that construction in itself is a whole other risk that I did not wanna take, at least not at the time.
And then I realized this is a strategy that I could do over and over again. I could buy a piece of land, create the vision, have my architects, engineers and everybody put the package together, go through the approvals, and then sell it for profit. And that was my aha moment. And that's what I did over and over again, six plexes, 12 plexes, eight plexes.
I also severed land, so I took a big piece of land and severed it into three. And all I did was put concepts together. This is the single. that you could build. It was three singles and we sold that to a developer too, who was like, I have clients who wanna build singles. I'll buy the three lots from you. We did that back in 2006. I've also done it for other clients, so there's clients that hired me to do all the work for them, like there was one client that wanted to do a 14 story commercial in the bottom. He's a very busy guy. He's got the money, he's got the land, but not necessarily the know-how of how to do it, nor does he want to do it.
So people hire me for their development management service to do that. And I have my team that helps me out to do that. And then I do my own projects too. Like I said, it's mostly transit oriented. They're usually around walking distance to the transit, but they're like, I'm working on one right now.
It's a 45 unit six story. and it's purely residential. And because it's transit, the city is super supportive of it, which makes it easier and less risk for me and everybody else involved because the city has already delineated these areas to go up in density. So it's a good gamble in a sense.
Francois Lanthier: Absolutely. And this reminds me, you were at the REITE club Ottawa, Eastern Ontario event a while ago and you mentioned, so this is all about relationships and you just mentioned it as well, the city is supportive of certain types of projects. So for those that are interested, you don't go against the grain, you go with the flow. And that's with Carina here. I don't know if you have other tips like on how to continue with that.
Carina Guzman: There's and like a lot of the people always ask me like, where should I invest? What area should I focus on? How do you find your deals in Ottawa? And I think in a lot of. City that are growing, they have official plans.
Every single city has a plan in place, and a lot of these plans. What I call treasure maps. They're literally maps of these areas and they delineate the areas that are meant for intensification. And like you said, Francois, it's a lower risk in the sense of land development. I'm not pushing the grain,
I'm not pushing the boundary because I'm staying within what the city has already delineated in the official plan. In Ottawa, for example, we're going through a brand new official plan, right? And it's like an exciting time for me because they're bringing in brand new bylaws that we never had before. They're really, the city itself is pushing the boundary to get this all intensification happening quicker. So they're creating new processes to make the process faster.
So it's a great time. , like you said, it is not pushing the grain because it's a way to follow what the city wants by following the official plant or the secondary plant and then also making it less risk for you cuz they're already supportive of it anyways. So those are the types of projects that I deal with and I put myself into or our investors into. I know there's a lot of developers that buy on speculation and they try to push the. . It works out most of the time, sometimes it doesn't, but it is a higher risk if you're gonna do that. .
Sarah Larbi: So it seems really interesting. So you're basically taking a piece of land. You're either, repurposing it, making it it's best use possible for a builder to say, this is, worth way more because you've spent the time, you spent the money to get it ready so that somebody can essentially take it and start building what are, what are some of the steps, because I know this is not really a topic that we often talk about, right?
The BRRRRs, there's the buy and hold, there's steps. And there's steps to development, from the acquisitions to, like I, I think you talked about the soil testing and just different things like that. Are you able to share just an overview of the things that you do? If you had to summarize each step?
Carina Guzman: Sure. Yeah. So when you're going to acquire a property for land development you really wanna take it, a big part of it is your due diligence. So when I go in and I put a property under contract, I literally go in if I believe that it's a very good prospect for me to do a development on it.
I put it on the contract right away, meaning like I put an offer into the seller. And the reason for that is because I spend a lot of my due diligence, time and effort. Into figuring out next, is it gonna be something that I'm gonna move forward with or not? And if I'm gonna spend all that time doing that, I don't want somebody else napping at the same time.
So if I have it on the contract the due diligence part, I gotta say, is probably the 95% of the work that you have to do upfront. And due diligence means creating the concept, figuring out what is the highest and best use for that property, creating the concept based on that pre-con consulting with the city.
So having a pre-consultation meeting. To submit your proposal and present it to them. They come back with a lot of feedback and letting you know what it is, are the studies that are gonna be required for you in order to obtain the approval for that specific proposal. A lot of times in the due diligence we're doing our ESAs, so environmental site assessments, phase one, if it's a commercial property, which most of our is page two, environmental which means drilling into the ground to assess the soil.
You definitely want to check for any contamination and things like that. You want a geotechnical report. The geotechnical will mean that you have to know the stability of the soil. So all of those studies actually get done during the due diligence process because if you do an environmental, for example, and it comes back as contaminated.
You're gonna have to bring those tosses up, right? So your project is gonna be more expensive, or it may not even make sense to do it at that point, depending on how much contamination it is. So this is all part of due D due diligence. But like I said, land development requires a lot of capital upfront.
And yes, a lot of people ask me, so you do all of these reports, you pay the money to do it, and you might not even move forward with the project. We do, we spend, we could spend $50,000 just doing these reports depending on the size of the project, but you could spend $50,000 doing these reports and decide that, you know what? It's just not beneficial for us to move forward. It's just a part of doing the business. And like you said Sarah, it's not for the faint of heart. I totally get it, but it's so important to do this because otherwise you could get yourself into a lot of issues down the road. So due diligence is a big process.
Once we know that the land is for sure, like something that we wanna move forward with, then we negotiate, right? Like we have the property. A lot of times we'll say maybe we wanna renegotiate because we found something. on the land, which happens all the time, but then you lock it down, you buy it, and then you move forward. With our faced approach, most of the time my land development projects are faced, meaning that I do like zoning, first zoning amendment if I have to, and then I do the site plan. I know a lot of people say, why would you do Aon Amendment and a site plan separately? Because there's a lot of risk.
There is a ton of risk, and it allows me to exit at any point. So I could essentially change the zoning, raise the value of that property because I've upzoned it. and I could now sell it for a profit at that point in time, or I can proceed to phase two, which would be the full site plan, the entire report, everything that has to happen to get the approval. And now I connect it at that point too. So there's many options available.
Sarah Larbi: Can you share timelines with each of these steps so you know, when you're doing your due diligence, roughly on average, like what's the contract that you've got it, under contract for, and then zoning and all that good stuff.
Carina Guzman: Sure. So commercial, it's very different from residential. A lot of ours are commercial property, and so with commercial property, it is very common to ask for 4, 5, 6 months of due diligence period or conditional period. Most of the time we're getting roughly around that four to six months just to complete it. And it makes sense because these reports take. So like a geotechnical or an environmental, they literally have to drill into the ground a few feet down, and then they have to send the soil to, to the science lab to get it analyzed, and then the report has to come back.
Those things take time. It's not something that is very quick. Even sometimes the surveyor could take four weeks just to get out there. . So it is very common. Also in the development world because everybody knows these things. These reports take time. I don't really get a lot of backlash on asking for a four to six months conditional period.
That's usually around that conditional period. For zoning amendments, we're looking at probably anywhere between six to eight months with Covid. I had one of my projects delayed 12 months like in It took me 12 months. I lost four, four months because the city closed. That was something totally unexpected.
But luckily all of our properties have a, an. Asset, like a property on it. They're fully tenanted. They carry it themselves. So it wasn't a really big deal for us to carry it. But you're looking about six to eight months for zoning and probably about 60 to $70,000 for the zoning component of it.
When you move to the next phase, which is site plan, it's another six to eight months because. Both the Sony Amendment and the site plan is a hearing process. So when you submit, you guys might see those big signs at the front of the lots, and it basically says the proponent or the applicant is proposing to build this and such.
It's open for the neighborhood and for the community to contest it. or to support it as well. So there is that hearing period that has to happen in order for that approval to happen. So you're looking at another six to eight months for a site plan and you're looking at about the same, you're looking anywhere between 60 to a hundred thousand dollars to submit for a site plan.
You can see, our due diligence, we're looking at 30, 40, 50. Zoning Amendment, you're looking at another 70, 60, $70,000 site plan, you're looking at another 60 $200,000. Again, not for the faint of heart, but the outcome is completely different.
Francois Lanthier: It's a lot of money upfront and a lot of time as well. So how do you finance these deals? Like I, I'm sure you're very wealthy, but what's the plan behind it? How do you support yourself?
Carina Guzman: You know what Francois, like at the beginning, my husband and I were funding all of this ourselves, but again, we were doing Six plex, eight plex 12 plex, a smaller type of development. Then we actually moved with Covid. Funny enough, we moved into super high gear and Covid has actually been like the busiest time for us. Surprisingly, I don't even know because deals came up that people were just not looking at it. maybe because I'm looking at it in a development eye and other people would see, this is an ugly, crappy triplex. Why would I buy this thing? And for me, I'm like, oh my God, it's 300 meters from the station.
This is amazing. This is a gold mine. But because the projects got bigger, I started working with investors and this was only back in 2020 when Covid hit, and we started essentially working with some investors. So we do what they, what our accounting calls debt investment, meaning that we use our investors money. To finance the debt, basically to do all this work, to acquire the property, to do all the reports. Yeah, we give all of our investors positions on our properties. We buy, we pull all their money to buy the assets, so they're essentially our bank.
And then for the soft costs either my husband and I will fund that yourself. or we use other investors to fund it, and we give them a percentage. In return for their investments. I'm very simple, very simplistic. Here's your money, here's your investment and this is what it's going for. And I talk to my investors all the time on a monthly basis so they know what is happening with the project. Cuz the one thing with land development, I can't walk them through anything. Like people can do flips or birds and you can walk your investors and they can see it. I'm so up front I'm like, there's nothing I can show you.
I can show you my permit package, I can show you my architecture. But I really involve them in the sense that I tell them this is what we're doing, or this is some hiccups, or just some changes and all that, so they feel like they're part of the process. In a way, they're knowledgeable about what's happening. But again, like I always tell them, if you drive by, you're not gonna see anything cuz nothing has changed.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely, it's all essentially on paper and the approvals and on the city going back and forth. It is really interesting. I'm just curious like what type of structure you've got set up for the investors to pull their money. How is that set up on your end?
Carina Guzman: I work with a broker who has his security license. So again, this is all done legally with lawyers and he's amazing because what he helps me do is essentially he's got the infrastructure to accept all the money in like large pools with the, through the lawyer. And then we use that money and they're all in first position, right? He puts them all into first position because they're essentially our bank and then the funds get used to acquire the property. And because he's got his security licenses and he's a broker, he also has all of the administration. To help with the electronic transfer of funds, meaning that our investors get paid every single month, or they get a balloon payment, let's say at the end.
It's all done digitally. I don't have to send e transfers to anybody or a check. It's all done through a broker's administrative support that he has. So our investor, what I love about it is that one he basically syn. the mortgage for us so that we can use the funds. But two, he makes it seamless. Like it's, our investors get paid their money every single month in their checking account or into their RRSP account. It's all done automatically for me, and we just do it that way. And then at the end of the year, we submit their financial records, right? So what they've been paid every single month so that they can have their own accountant do their accounting for them based on that.
Francois Lanthier: Oh, that's excellent. I was very curious about that. Cuz I mean with these numbers, e transfers with the $3,000 daily limit. Good luck. It's gonna be, yes. So really interesting stuff. So that's great. Could you walk us through a typical deal? I'm sure there's, I know there's a lot of variety, but there's probably one that's easier, let's say.
Sarah Larbi: Your bread and butter deal. Like in what you're looking for and what you love to buy, that kind of stuff. I think that's what you're saying, right? Francois?
Francois Lanthier: Exactly.
Carina Guzman: Sure. Yeah. So my bread and butter deal is transit oriented. I love it. Again, this is a lower risk, so I'm always looking for deals that are closer to transit. And I find them essentially a lot through word of mouth. Cuz a lot of people know what it is that I do at this point. So they send me, I have a lot of realtor friends who send me stuff literally all week. I'm getting stuff. I also do my own research and I also used to love, love, love the live events because that's where I would go and like just meet people and talk to people and tell 'em what I do.
And a lot of times I used to get deals just from conversations that I used to have with people. So I meant that. But yeah, that is my bread and butter is the transit oriented I am getting into the plan of subdivision. It has been my dream to move into an entire subdivision. So I'm working right now on a deal.
I can't really talk about it too much because it's not under contract yet, and I don't know if it's gonna go through. But essentially that's my next big step. Moving into plan subdivision. If nobody if people don't know what a plan subdivision is, it's essentially like your rural, develop your typical rural development that we might all know, like canata, where you have a bunch of lots and the roads have been created, infrastructure has been created, and the developer or the builder is selling lots or they build it themselves.
They sell some and keep some or build some, so those sorts of things. That's my next step. Hoping to move into that by the end of July and get it locked in. But essentially my bread and butter since 2005 has been purely transit oriented, and I love those .
Sarah Larbi: Very cool. By the time that this airs, you'll likely have either made a decision or not on it. So you're good. That's really exciting. Just outta curiosity, cuz there's a ton of information out there for new investors, this is not really a new investor type of strategy, where can people access information on the strategy?
Carina Guzman: That's such a really good question, Sarah. Cuz I get this question all the time and I honestly have really found a lot. Like again, I am self-taught and I do teach other people to do it. I coach this also to do that. But in terms of books, there is not really one book or one Bible that you can go into and say, this is land development.
There are some online courses that you can take that are a lot like Athabasca College. Has that and they offer them, I think Goman College also offers a land development semester that you can go and take. So certainly there are universities and colleges that offer these courses a semester or two semesters.
Definitely look into that. And a lot of them are now online because of covid, which is. For a lot of people. So I definitely think there is no book, unfortunately. But there are higher levels of education that people can look into should they want, or to hire a coach, somebody like me who can teach them. Literally hold their hand and we can do one together, but that's the only avenue that I know of today.
Sarah Larbi: Yeah, think for something like this, it's important not to try to just figure it out on your own because the mistakes are very costly. It's not like a typical buy and hold. Definitely do your due diligence and find somebody that's done it before and lean on them however that is, if it's hiring a coach or having them handhold you through a deal that maybe you guys are partnering on or something along those lines. You don't wanna be making mistakes in this type of deal and this caliber of deal because it could bankrupt somebody very quickly.
Carina Guzman: Absolutely. You're absolutely right there, Sarah. You're right, it's a high risk and it's a lot of capital. And just like any strategy really, even if you're burning, you wanna have a coat, you wanna have somebody like Sarah, like Francois teach, really, like you could learn so much and reduce your risk so much by doing it with somebody who's done it before.
And so that's where a lot of my clients come in, those type of people that wanna learn and eventually become land developers themselves. But one at the risk of the first one. I think that's the one of the best ways to do it, for sure.
Sarah Larbi: Very cool. So Carina, the next part of the podcast is our lightning round. So Francois and I will ask you four questions. Everybody gets the same four. You're gonna give us the first answer that comes to mind. Are you ready?
Carina Guzman: Sure. Yes.
Sarah Larbi: All right, so Carina, question number one. What is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event? Fail as much as you can. I know it's tough, but that's how we learn. We learn more through failing. Not to say always fail. Learn from your failures, but fail and don't be afraid to fail. It's okay to fail.
Francois Lanthier: Yeah, so then you don't get stuck in analysis paralysis, cuz you figure it out, the parachute, you find it somewhere.
Carina Guzman: And that's where people get stuck. A lot of people don't move on things because they're just so afraid to fail. But in reality, when you fail, it's not a failure because you've learned, you've gained from that and you gained confidence through that. And so that confidence then pushes you to go on to something. Bigger and better. So it's worthwhile to fail. I always say.
Francois Lanthier: Great advice. Our next question is, what is your favorite resource for real estate investing? A book, a website, a webinar.
Carina Guzman: I listened to so many podcasts, like the REITE Club. I listened to a lot of different kinds of podcasts as well. Quote of the day, I dunno if you guys have ever heard of it, it's a podcast. He's amazing, the guy that runs the podcast and it's really a lot of mindset. again in, in land development. It is very I guess in a sense it is lonely because there's just not a lot of people that do it. It's a very high risk and it can feel very scary to do it.
So your mindset has to be just really strong. And there are days when I feel like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Is this over my head? Am I taking too much risk? Am I, like it's just, it's fearful, but then at the same time, I realized if I'm scared, it's because I'm really pushing. and it's a good thing to push yourself.
I always say educate yourself. Irwin Sido has an amazing podcast. The right club has an amazing podcast. You learn so much from the guests. But also I follow a lot of mindsets, coaches, and I listen to them every single morning when I'm getting ready because it's part of my ritual and getting my mindset going. So it really helps me a lot.
Sarah Larbi: It's important to start the day off. And it sounds like you've got a, you've got some great things that you do in the morning to continue with the day and make sure that it's successful. That's awesome.
Carina Guzman: Like working out. I wake up at five 30 in the morning to work out every day. I feel good about it.
Sarah Larbi: It clears your mind, makes you able to focus more on everything else. Getting that out of the way in the morning, that's what I find anyways. Totally awesome. So question number three, Carina, what is the one attribute in your opinion that has made you most successful?
Carina Guzman: Honestly, I think it's being myself. When I started in land development, I was literally the only girl in a lot of the meetings that I would go meet with land owners or other land developers. I was the only girl. And on top of that, I was bringing my baby with me in the carriage to these meetings.
And I would always joke, I'm like, he's like a businessman in training, but nobody said anything about it. Everybody was so respectful all the time. So at the beginning, I felt out of place because I'm a woman getting into land development and I was brand new, so I would feel scared a little bit because it's obvious that I'm new at this and I'm a woman, so I really am not in place here. And I had to be honest, other land developers that would be like, you're too new for me. Like it just, I had even coaches that I had approached and they're like, you're too new. You have to be more, which it's probably why I self-taught myself to do all of it now that I think about it.
Yeah, I think it's a lot about, just at some point I just realized I need to be myself. show people my passion, cuz I do have a passion for it. And that energy, when I talk about what it is that I do, I think it translates to people so much better. They almost feel it. And when I'm able to explain my vision and my passion and they see the work that I put into it, it becomes almost like a no-brainer.
And people just connect with that. I've had so. Women even. Especially women that are just like, you're doing this. I wanna do what you do. And I think it should be something that not just men can do. There's a lot of women that can do it. There's no reason why there can't be more women into it. And that's how I decided to make it more mainstream.
Like I wanted to be, land development wanted to be more mainstream. And something that's more spoken about in real estate investments, clubs and podcasts like this one, because it's important. I think it is a strategy. That people can get into and work into. There's no reason why you can't do that. But just being yourself, being myself is really honestly Sarah, what has gotten me to where I have gotten and I think it's sped it up somehow just being me. That's it.
Francois Lanthier: That's amazing. With the baby and so on as well, it's crazy. I love it. I know. It's so true. They'll let your personality shine and that. So our next question is, what do you typically do on a Sunday morning?
Carina Guzman: Oh my gosh. I work out. So I still get up at five 30 in the morning and I work out. My favorite thing is getting up before everybody else gets up, except my husband, cuz he wakes up really early with me. But when the kids are asleep and I can have my coffee and I go outside, get some fresh air I meditate.
So after my workouts, I meditate for 15, 20 minutes. And then of course I have my podcast, so that mindset podcast that I was mentioning before, I always have that running in the mornings while I'm getting ready and doing stuff. So my routine is pretty much the same every single day. I'm pretty consistent in that sense because, , it gets me to where I wanna be, really, like if I don't do my routine, I don't feel the same during the day.
And to be honest too you guys would probably know this as business owners, I'm still working on a Sunday. Like I'm working all the time. It could be daytime, it could be evening to do weekends. So for me, . It doesn't matter that it's Sunday, it's still the same day for me. A lot of times I think, Francois, I was talking to you and I'm like, what day is it today? Because I don't know, just every day is the same.
Sarah Larbi: That's part of being an entrepreneur and a successful one. And I think it sounds like you still, regardless though, even though you work hard, you also have a good life balance and it sounds like you're taking care of your wellness and your health, which is also very important.
Carina Guzman: Important. I always tell people. . I listen to a lot of these fuckers, like I said, and I know a lot of these guys say, work hard, hustle you're not gonna sleep and do that. But I'm not a big proponent of that because I feel like if you do not sleep, you are not really gonna be good for anything.
I know me. If I don't sleep, I'm cranky. I can't focus. I need to sleep. So I just, I think you should eat well. Take care of your body. Take care of your mind. Sleep. If you're tired, go to bed. Like these are the things that you need to take care of because if you are sick, and I was sick two weeks ago, like I mentioned, had pneumonia and I couldn't even get outta bed. And you realize oh my goodness, if you're sick, nothing else matters. There's nothing else that you can. I'm very big on that. Take care of yourselves, please.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. If you don't have your health, who cares about everything else that you have, right? Because you're not gonna be able to enjoy it if you're not there to be there.
Carina Guzman: And even if you're a mom or you're not a mom, it doesn't matter. You people are still relying on you. Your partner relies on you, your family relies on you. It's so important to do that, whether you're a mom or you're not a mom.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. Karina, that was awesome. Where can our REITE club nation reach out and find out more?
Carina Guzman: Sure. You can always find me on Instagram creative.dev.ventures. I'm also on Facebook, same name, and I'm also launching my website as well as creative dev ventures.ca. It'll be out probably by the time this podcast comes out.
Francois Lanthier: That's exciting. Congrats.
Carina Guzman: Thank you.
Francois Lanthier: It's been an awesome pleasure. Do you have any final word of advice or final part?
Carina Guzman: I love to help others. I like to provide a lot of value wherever I can. So feel free to reach out to me at any point in time. Should you have any questions, should you need some support, maybe you wanna take a look at a piece of land. I know that when I started, there was not a lot of people that helped me out.
I'm really big on helping others, and a lot of people ask me what do you wanna get out of it? What I wanna get out of it is to make it more mainstream and to make it something that more and more people do. Whether you're a man or a woman, whatever, doesn't matter to me, but I just, I'm here for you guys. If you guys ever need any support or some help or how to begin or have a question, feel free to reach out.
Sarah Larbi: Amazing. Carina, you are so inspirational. Congratulations on everything and thank you for sharing so much valuable information with our community.
Carina Guzman: Thank you so much guys, for having me. This was fun.
Sarah Larbi: Thank you. It was awesome. Francois, what key takeaways did you take from today's conversation?
Francois Lanthier: I love Carina, what she said to be fearless . So to fail, and this is gonna sound bad, but being like a woman with a baby on sites like taking risks. So whatever be yourself, take some risks and it's incredible what you can achieve.
Calculated risks, of course, like she said, get a mentor, get someone to help you out. But it's so inspirational and the whole mindset again, but in a different way. So a positive mindset on how to not worry about all that money you're borrowing and all that stuff. So it's just excellent.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. It's great to see the progression of how she started with smaller builds and now she's expanding and now her next goal is to do a whole subdivision. That is really awesome. And it's just great also that she's willing to share back and be a mentor or coach to others, because I'll tell you, there's not many people that play in the sandbox and there's even. Of them that are willing to coach and mentor people that are just starting out. So I think that it is awesome that she's willing to do that and she's able to do that.
And to me, the money that you spend on coaching, if it's gonna be avoided in this case probably thousands of thousands of dollars, is worth it in the end. Awesome, Francois, go enjoy the rest of your day. Congratulations on the move, REITE Club community. Come grow with us. And don't forget, you gotta live your dream. Until next time.
Francois Lanthier: See you soon. Come grow with us.
- Log in or register to post comments
- ARNEL-LLEMIT-1637316866's Blog