Alfonso Salemi: Welcome back, REITE Club Community. It's another episode of the REITE Club Podcast. I am Alfonzo Salemi here with my amazing co-host, Sarah Larbi. And our guests this eeek are Jennifer and Francois. They're gonna talk a little bit about that patience, right? Their first deal, right outta the gate. They're sitting there, signing the deals, the pens in their hand, and then they're getting smacked with fees. And that was their start of real estate buying and selling.
They've been able to turn that around, have some patients learn things along the way and take those bumps and bruises and really make them good lessons. And now helping so many of the REITE club community, including myself and Sarah. Every time that we talk to Francois, Jennifer, there's always more information, new knowledge, things that they're coming up with great tips for.
Stick around for probably about three quarters of the way through. There's an amazing tip that you're gonna wanna listen to when you're buying a house. That's all I'm gonna say. When you're buying a house, what do you want to do? So stick. Make sure you listen to that part.
Make sure you communicate in contact with all of us at the REITE club. It's thereiteclub.com. We have their forums, our events calendars, and so many amazing things. Introduce yourself. We want to hear from you. It's a great podcast. Patience talking about the long term what you want to build and having that.
What do you say, Sarah? Let's do it. Awesome and welcome to the podcast, Francois and Jennifer Lanthier. I hope I said that I always like to emphasize that you guys say it. So great. Welcome. It's so exciting to have you guys on the podcast with Sarah and.
Jennifer Lanthier: Yes. Thank you.
Francois Lanthier: Thanks for having us.
Alfonso Salemi: I love it. And this was just a simple thing. As we know, we're talking in different languages, but we're really now across the country. And these two that are on our podcast tonight, Francois and Jennifer have been a huge, integral part of helping us get across the country with the REITE club.
If you haven't met them already, That means you're not part of the REITE club community, so get to enjoy the REITE club community. But for those maybe that I forgot, or maybe you want a refresher, Francois and Jennifer, give us the 30,000 foot view of the background, a little bit about who you are and why you guys are so amazing. What I think you guys are anyway.
Francois Lanthier: Jennifer, you should get started.
Jennifer Lanthier: Oh my goodness. We'll, real estate investors since 2015 2016. We have several properties now and a little bit from Ontario all the way to New Brun, Brunswick, and now also in the States. We've been doing it pretty well as a tag team together since the beginning. That's how we've done everything since we met in college. We've been together for 22 years. And We have two great teenagers.
Francois Lanthier: That is excellent at removing old carpets.
Jennifer Lanthier: Yes, they're great at demo, they're great at QuickBooks, they're great.
Francois Lanthier: Labor is the best.
Jennifer Lanthier: They're learning buildings right now.
Francois Lanthier: Systems kids are great. Even building websites like our sons, seriously, we do pay them as well. So it's not cheap, actually, it's expensive. It's great at websites or at tech stuff.
Jennifer Lanthier: Brother does our social media.
Francois Lanthier: She looks after a lot of posting, yeah. And we studied interior design, so that's how we met in 1998. Yeah, that's retro. We were two years old back then. That's before you guys were born.
Sarah Larbi: You both age amazingly. I wanna put it out there a lot of people listen to this, but if you are going on our website or you're going on YouTube I wanna say you're in your early thirties, there's gotta be a secret.
Jennifer Lanthier: I love you Sarah.
Alfonso Salemi: They have a sponsorship with a facial cream. I think that they're gonna share that later on.
Francois Lanthier: Yes. That's our story. We met in college, studied interior design. We always liked housing and houses and looking at potential. We used to flip through MLS and realtor.ca just to look at old houses and how we would renovate them and do things. And then we bought our first house in 2006, so at first house. Everything was hot. It was a horrible, nasty house, super cheap. And we had an awesome mortgage. It was prime minus two.
Jennifer Lanthier: It was 1.45%.
Francois Lanthier: It was just nuts.
Sarah Larbi: A mortgage management was like four, end two. That's pretty good.
Francois Lanthier: That's back when you could buy it, a hundred percent like mortgage loan to value. So no down payment actually you got cash back. So some of them you could get 5%. So 105% amount of value. That was just nuts.
We did what we call slow flips. So at first we would buy these rundown. We called them the black sheep on the street. So a nice street. But this house had long grass and everything was old, and we'd move in and fix it up with our kids while they were very young back then.
They weren't non-existent then and then, yeah, we just moved on. So we had a house in a small town. Then we moved to Ottawa. We bought a house after a divorce. It was, yeah, a bit disheveled like hunter Green windows and anyway, red countertop. Everything was bad. So again, a slow flip. Then we moved to Quebec City. We bought a house. Everything again was pink. I don't know why. What was with pink?
Jennifer Lanthier: It's like we have a thing for pink.
Francois Lanthier: We don't like pink. Normally we're not, I don't hate pink. But anyway, it is not everywhere. And we just kept going. And then at one point, after Quebec City, That's where we are out there, like we're not Quebecois, even though French is my first language. But in Quebec it's very different.
When you sell a house, you meet a notary rather than a lawyer, and they go through all the the the paperwork and all your history together with the seller and the buyer so we were selling our house, and then they said, okay, you're married to each other, blah, blah, blah.
Then this couple, they go through all the details. He's paying this much, he's paying that much. They've been together so many years, you're divorced, blah, blah, blah. And then surprise, here's the penalty for selling this house on the mortgage. And that's where you find out when it's too late to do anything about it.
We're like, oh wow. And that was a lot. And here's your check. We were left with almost nothing from the sale of that house because of the penalty and all the fees. But then we were told that this is a portable mortgage, so you have 90 days to buy something else and you could recoup, all of it or part of it. That's how we got our first rental property condo. And we used the penalty as a down payment, most of it as a down payment on our first rental.
Sarah Larbi: The return of the penalty. So you obviously bought your mortgage early, so they penalized you for that. There's a fee, but if you port your mortgage somewhere else, then you essentially got that back. So that's what you used essentially to buy it. Okay, got it.
Francois Lanthier: Now if nobody is tuning into Sarah's podcast. Let's look at the terms, not the interest, cause we always looked at the interest and that's when we learned the hard way. Wow. Terms really matter.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. And a lot of new investors will ask about what's this rate? Oh, I got 0.02, less or more, or whatever. Yeah. Like at the end of the day, it's about flexibility. It's about options and and in terms actually come to me, I'd rather pay more and have more flexibility than pay less in terms of the rates and have a better amortization, more flexibility, all that good stuff. Just to get an idea of when that was. So when was it that you bought really ultimately that rental property at that point in time with the penalty?
Jennifer Lanthier: It was the end of 2015 and we closed in the beginning of 2016.
Francois Lanthier: Actually the condo we moved to in 2014, early 2015.
Sarah Larbi: I guess he remembers better than Me.
Francois Lanthier: We sold because of what happened, we bought a new house and then we sold the other house cause it wasn't a hot market, but we had something very specific in mind. So it was hard to just sell and then hope for the best. So we're like, we'll buy this house we like. And then we sold the other house and that was, yeah, 2015 was the beginning.
Sarah Larbi: Cool. So is it fair to say that you were dabbling by 2015? You were just like doing very slowly, maybe a little bit more by Oh yeah. Not specifically saying, here's where I'm going and here's what I'm doing. 2015 and I just wanna fast forward to today. Cause I think the last I heard you have 30 units. Is that roughly where you have what you have right now? 30 doors in the last, can I say two years?
Francois Lanthier: Yes, cause then it stayed very slow. And then only in the last 19 months and 20 months, we went on a buying spree.
Sarah Larbi: What happened? What happened that really unlocked that opportunity for you guys to say We are going to play at a different level?
Francois Lanthier: A few things. Like this condo that we bought, my mom was my tenant. Funny story. Yeah, mom can be a special tenant. But then we noticed the same for her. She owned her house, but then she wanted to be a tenant to let my brother move in. Complicated story, but, and my dad passed away, so my mom's I don't want to be in that house anymore, but I don't wanna sell it.
Then I'm like, wow, okay. She has good credit. So how about us? And then Jennifer's like, let's buy another rental property and then we started looking at different markets. So secondary markets, cause we didn't have those huge deposits. We looked at Cornwall, Ontario, which was very affordable back then. How much did we pay for that?
Jennifer Lanthier: 110,000 for a duplex.
Francois Lanthier: That cash flowed quite well and we refinanced it twice to help us buy other properties. But again, that was slow, so it was always our money. And our mortgage approval. And I like to change jobs a lot. Right now it's very good. I don't really need to work, but I used to switch jobs every year or so. It was really hard. You had to time credit before I quit my job and I was very bad about it. And then, we bought another duplex for Jennifer's birthday.
Sarah Larbi: Happy birthday.
Jennifer Lanthier: Thank you.
Alfonso Salemi: These candles when you could get keys, right?
Jennifer Lanthier: Exactly.
Francois Lanthier: She cried, but not tears of joy. It was really bad. It was like the first floor was nice. Second floor was really ugly, and we had tons of work, and I'm not handy at all. So it took a week to do. Little piece of flooring that probably would've taken a day to professionals.
Jennifer Lanthier: Yes. He is not a handyman.
Francois Lanthier: No, not at all.
Alfonso Salemi: That's okay. Finding the deals, finding the projects, the properties, that's a skill in itself too, right? So there's all different skills that we all need and Sarah touched upon it there we're looking at almost six years or so, a little bit more from 15 to now 2021, and he said, it was slow at first and then you gained confidence.
I know now you're working with joint venture partners. So everything went swimmingly. Actually you didn't, you already said from right on your first property, right? Like the first property that you sold, you had Oh, unexpected fees. But you looked at it from a positive stand. We can port this mortgage, we can move this on.
Let's find the opportunity for it. So at what point, throughout that journey, are you still starting to put the pieces together and saying, Hey, this is possible. We've gotten some dings and bruises and learned some lessons along the way, but how do you feel so confident to work with your adventure partners?
Was it a book, was it something or was it an experience? Because I think that's what a lot of the community members look for, is something to just click and be like, yep, that's the perfect deal. And it never happened. , we all want it to work that way. And it never actually happens that way. So you shed some light on that, how, your confidence continued to decline throughout that period right?
Jennifer Lanthier: I think after the first two duplexes that we purchased, we realized that those cash flowed really well. We were buying them in secondary markets and getting thethat cashprices. And then we're like, okay, we wanna buy more. We were addicted, so it was almost like we were on crack a lot more.
We just started looking around online to find out more information. How can we buy more? Do we always have to wait to refinance it and always use our own money? And then we saw that other people were using other people's money and we ended up actually joining a Mentor Pro program in 2019.
Which made us re-learn more about using other people's money than we learned more about joint ventures. Not in that mentoring program but through other real estate investing groups, we learned for the right there's tons of podcasts online where you can learn things.
I think that the mentoring program really gave us the confidence to okay, we're just gonna go for it. We're gonna use other people's money. We're gonna find ways we're gonna. Graduate to triplexes and Fourplexes and whatever kind of plexes that we can get our hands on.
Francois Lanthier: Not have to qualify for the mortgages. So that's a huge deal cause it's very stressful and we pity our joint venture partners now. I'm kidding. But we prepared them. We tell them to get ready. It's a lot of work. Even with good mortgage brokers, the rules are so complicated and you need to produce document after document and it's, yeah, you need a, like a pound of flash and commercial is, oh, it's worse.
They even dug up Jennifer's maiden name. We never heard anything about the Maiden name. And 15 years like 10 mortgages. And then who's Jennifer? Oh man, seriously, like 20 years in the future. Shouldn't even have credit in her maiden name, but it appears somewhere. So anyway, that was fun.
The mentoring program absolutely was awesome and the REITE Club instrumental, like speaking with Danielle Danielle St-Jean, he's not on right now, but I met with him a few times. He's oh let's do a meetup in Ottawa. Let's do this, let's do that. And his energy, and I thought he was in his late fifties, but I found out.
Jennifer Lanthier: He's actually 70 isn't it?
Francois Lanthier: Yes, he's my father's age.
Alfonso Salemi: Trivia question for all the REITE club community. How many candles? I think that breaks the fire code if we do the candles.
Francois Lanthier: There's energy and everything. He's like oh, you can do joint ventures. And I do rent to own like you do Alfonso and I do joint ventures. I'm like, what are joint ventures? And then , we started researching. and joint ventures are a lot of opm, like other people's money and investment techniques. That's not what was taught in our program, but we just liked it cause we liked having partners and helping along people and yeah, just growing together, like the whole come grow with us is really applied to what we do and it's just been very beneficial.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. Mentoring, networking, talking to others, getting ideas has been instrumental. What specifically, so obviously there's pros and cons to JVs and there's pros and cons to all that good stuff, but. I'm just curious what specifically brought you out of Ontario?
Because the majority, I think if all of your investments are, you said in the US and out east Eastern Canada, that is . What specifically made you say, I don't wanna do any JVs in Ontario. I'd rather be out of Ontario. How did that come about?
Jennifer Lanthier: I think it was getting harder to find a deal. I think the deals are still possible. I think another thing is, that's a bit of a challenge is Landlording in Ontario. Which is harder. There's other provinces that are much more landlord friendly, like in Eastern Canada where you don't have to always be at the mercy of your tenants.
We had a few kinds of. Bad experiences, cause Francois was a nice guy and he's a good cop and I'm the bad cop. And if they get the good cop before the bad cop comes by, it's too late.
Francois Lanthier: Yes, it's over.
Jennifer Lanthier: I think that it's all that, so we just started going outside and outside until we found markets that..
Francois Lanthier: Cash flow had good rules. You can increase. Not gouge people or anything, but you can charge a rent according to the market. If this place is costing a fortune, the rent should be priced accordingly. So too bad. And property taxes are fairly high in different areas. Yeah, we just went where the opportunities are, and the same applied to our lives.
That's why we moved around a lot. We used to live in Southern Ontario. We moved where the jobs were. So when we came out of college, you guys were fortunate. You didn't really know that era, but 2001, 2002, there were no jobs. It was really hard. Unemployment was really high. Like London, Hamilton was very poor with 10%, and 11% unemployment.
It was normal we were fighting for minimum wage jobs. If you were late, one minute, you were fired. It's a whole different era now. Like we're you guys are millennials, but we're like just 90, 80. So 80, 81 is when the millennials begin. So we're like Gen X depending on some books. They are millennials and it really shaped us like a work ethic.
Now we see people applying. I've been in charge of a lot of groups and people, employees, and you see them super laid back. Oh yeah, no worries. And you get very few resumes, but back then you were fighting like hundreds of people for one job. And yeah. So it really shaped us and what we had to do. That's why we're not afraid of going where the opportunity is and not staying home. I am at home wherever you are.
Alfonso Salemi: That's funny you say that. I've heard that. Obviously the late seventies people born in that 75 or later, it's like the Gen X that, like that old school, but know how to use a smartphone.
Francois Lanthier: I remember when they came out, I wanted my Blackberry in 2004. Yeah. I was selling high-end furniture and I'm like, I need a Blackberry for my British clients. Cuz they come and talk on Skype, which was brand new and now it's super old and no one uses Skype. But anyway.
Alfonso Salemi: Zoom definitely ate Skype's lunch, that's for sure.
Francois Lanthier: Even Zoom, people are all about Zoom. I was using Zoom years ago and then I'm like what's with this like Zoom is old people are starting to use that, but anyway, I guess it works.
Alfonso Salemi: It's taken over. And I think that is something about that generation or that period of time, whether, you're from Ontario, other parts of the world, there was, we weren't as connected maybe as we were. Like you'd watch the six o'clock news and that was the information that was discerned.
Everybody could have their opinion. But now our own information is translated differently for the way that we view it. And yeah. And you guys just have that. I don't know what that spirit is, but it is something representative in the REITE club of, it's okay, we'll get past this. There was 10% unemployment and we got past that too. And we're gonna, talking just off air that there was a certain percentage of vacant units and we'll get past that too. It gives us time to run and bring in new things and try new systems. So that spirit that you continue to fool through. And now you have, with your kids in the business as well, do they take some interest in it as well?
Do they talk about cash flow and those types of things? Or is it like we just, let's do the social media, mom put a smile, or let's put some, let's get some branding. Like how, what's your goal like now that you've amassed some success in different ways of bringing these on. What are the goals that legacies that you want to bring on for your kids or maybe beyond that? And obviously helping your partners and joint venture investors as well.
Jennifer Lanthier: I think it's super important to show the kids that hard work pays off and that it's really important. That's something that we've always done. We opened our cottage that we have with partners on the weekend, and we cleaned up mouse crap.
Francois Lanthier: Yes. Jennifer's I'm not paid enough for this.
Jennifer Lanthier: Live in the dream.
Francois Lanthier: Live in the dream. We're picking up. They even eat Irish soap, believe it or not.
Jennifer Lanthier: Everyone told us that this big trick was to put Irish Spring soap in the cottage. Those mouses just went to town on that soap.
Sarah Larbi: Like even like our cottage too. We'll set mouse traps like once in a while. We get them. I don't know what it is, but I don't know where they come from.
Jennifer Lanthier: There's nothing to eat here. Anyway, our son is super into the whole idea of investing, cash flow. I think he's totally got it now. He's almost 18, so I think that he gets the idea like, I can do this pretty soon myself, our daughter's more then, let's do a reel and let's do a TikTok.
Francois Lanthier: TikTok and stuff. And she doesn't realize it all yet, but we were having this conversation just a few minutes ago. I'm like I guess when we're 60, we'll just liquidate everything and you can live in a box, but that'll be your choice. That's me.
I left, we left home at 18 and we never went back. Thank goodness. I don't want to kick my kids out, but when they're in their early twenties, you'd better be moving because that's how, it's like a bird. You have to kick them out of the nest. If not, they never learn how to fly.
Sarah Larbi: If you make it too comfortable, they don't leave. Like my brother who's two years younger, still lives at home.
Francois Lanthier: Oh no. The house will start shrinking.
Sarah Larbi: Cause he can't afford it. Just comfort it's nuts. Okay so here's one of the things I want, I wanna do, because you guys are very open. You got tons of property. Lots of experience. Shit happens. Let's talk about the shit that happens. Let's share some jobs that can happen in real estate investing. Maybe you should share some of the stories that you've. Experienced and you're crazy. I would say 18 months of acquisitions and acquisitions. What are some things that you can share with us that maybe the REITE club community would be horrified to hear.
Francois Lanthier: Jennifer, we should talk about today. So today we're just reflecting, Jennifer had a day off from work, and we're just reflecting, looking at our bank accounts, and we have to pay this bill and that bill.
I don't know how much I enjoy this anymore, but there's always ups and downs. You need a strong why to make sure you're, you stay focused and connected. But for the past, since June last year, so how long. Nine months, we've really been supporting our properties. So paying this, paying that, and there's never money coming in. It's always money coming out to the tune of what a hundred.
Jennifer Lanthier: I would say about 40,000 last year. But I think that we found what the problem was. And we fixed it. It just took time. And the problem was property management, but we had to go through two bad property management companies to learn that really bad lesson.
Francois Lanthier: Cost us 40 K. So we're not paying income tax on our corporation because we have so many losses. But there's a lot of positives too. I could have used that 40,000, I would've been happy to pay 10,000 in income tax and keep that 30 K or something.
Jennifer Lanthier: Exactly. So I think that a big lesson for us was property management. If you can't find good property management, you have to be able to find a plan B. We started our own property management in Eastern Canada just to fix that problem cause we were at 70% to 80% vacancy. Yeah. And that was a problem that was fixed in about five days across being there.
Francois Lanthier: They were sitting there for three months. Oh no one wants to rent through places. I put ads. A few days, everything was renovated.
Jennifer Lanthier: We could barely keep up with the demand.
Francois Lanthier: It just shows the importance of your power team. There's a lot of. Of bad people out there. It's very sad. I always try to believe the best in people.
Jennifer Lanthier: There's a lot of good people though. But you just have to be able to find them in and when you're with Covid, it is just so complicated. Like just going to Eastern Canada from Ontario, for people that know, you have to apply. You had to wait five days to see if you were accepted to go.
You had to have a really good reason. And just being a property owner is not enough, is not a good enough reason. You had to have a really good reason to be able to go there. So that was something that was a big problem for us. We couldn't go and kick people's butts so that was something that was a bit of a problem.
Now that we have our team in place, we have, we know that we can get a plumber, we can get an electrician. We have our contractor, we have a lot of people already in place. We actually have other investors that kind of co connected with us, and they're like, oh, if you guys want us to go look at your properties or anything.
Francois Lanthier: That live there anytime.
Jennifer Lanthier: I finally feel okay, things are getting it into place.
Francois Lanthier: It all started with one bad realtor. So we're not gonna name or anything, but if it starts, it starts with a bad apple. So this realtor is promising these amazing deals. Cash flow from day one. But he just forgets a minor little detail that this house is pretty much a crack house. And it's on a bad street with, yeah, like small detail. Tiny little detail. And it needs, oh, instead of 40 K repair, it's probably more like a hundred, but they took really good pictures and the house inspector was probably bought off as well.
It's just a bunch of lies and stuff. So that kind of garbage does exist. Be very careful. ask for references, do your due diligence. Our biggest lesson was more than I would say, but we survived. So 2001 did teach us how to be just like a cockroach. You'll survive.
Jennifer Lanthier: You get cockroach spraying.
Sarah Larbi: I dunno about that analogy.
Alfonso Salemi: One of the most resilient in the whole world. That's for sure. Nobody likes them, but they are resilient. And I saw, Sarah and I were both jumping on running through the screens cause you know how frustrating that can be, especially when you're investing over, like out of town or you're not there. Boots on the ground. That's a professional that holds a license and is not abiding by their license.
The best interest of their clients being full disclosure. Hey, you might be an investor that's open to that. We know several of them. That love those types of properties and say, Hey, we wanna put that allows you to build your budget, get more investments. I love that you said, we get frustrated with that and, whether you're listening to this, whether you're working out, you're walking.
You know what? However you listen to your podcast, if you are commuting and still going to work, if you're doing that, this is a one way, you're listening to Sarah and I we're interviewing Francois and Jennifer, but the REITE club community's really about the connections and conversations so that you can find one plumber in Eastern Canada through a conversation or a couple texts, or you can find a good property manager cause you reach out to Francois and Jennifer and say, Hey, I'm thinking of it.
The question I wanted to bring up from all this before, when you guys were designers and staThe questionur family in, the late nineties you guys weren't property managers, you didn't have any background, your family? So was that a skill that lets you be able to learn and learn from others maybe?
Jennifer Lanthier: Absolutely. I think that you just, we've always been people that just learn as you go. And I find that sometimes you just, okay, now we're doing tenant screening. Okay. We're gonna look at podcasts about tenant screening, because we weren't doing it very well at the beginning. We made a few mistakes. Okay, let's learn more about tenant screening or let's learn more about maintenance or.
Francois Lanthier: Realtor screening.
Jennifer Lanthier: Well realtor screening. Asking the right questions. And when you're going for an inspection, we actually don't send an inspector anymore. We send our contractor because he's gonna be telling us really quickly, how much is this gonna cost me to fix this, and this? What do I actually need to do to get it rented to a good tenant at a good price?
The inspector's gonna tell you that the grade is I'm not gonna say anything that's bad to get it inspected. I think it can be important, but I think that when you're at a certain level, you already know a lot. You already know a lot about buildings. You already know a lot about it's gonna be talking to you about things that maybe aren't as important to an investor as maybe your contractor might tell you. So that's what we found more.
Francois Lanthier: Extend the downspout six feet from six feet from the foundation. Sorry, but I don't wanna hear it.
Sarah Larbi: That's a great point.
Alfonso Salemi: I have a favorite, I have a favorite GFIs in the kitchen and washrooms.
Jennifer Lanthier: Like it's obvious.
Francois Lanthier: Never would, and electrical with plumbing, like water white off wood top is not good. Wow. Or there's a crack in the foundation about two inches long and it can be filled with this epoxy stuff, whatever. And it's like a thousand bucks.
Alfonso Salemi: This is the loop, right? This is the loop that I want to close that you guys through connections, mentorships, listening to free stuff B, buying other classes, reading books, applying and actually doing it. The most important piece of it all, of actually going through it and doing it and yeah, maybe taking one on the chin, and paying more in tax, or sorry, losing it, not paying in tax, all that kind of stuff.
Doing it and learning it, that's the journey. And there's no fast forward on that. There's no just perfect deal. There's no going through that and learning and that's what it is, right? And so I just wanted to close that loop for everybody that's listening, working out, walking, doing what they're doing, listening to this podcast. Yeah, you gotta go through that, right? So go ahead Sarah.
Sarah Larbi: I know the only thing I would just say is anybody listening to this, that is a huge piece of advice that you just gave someone instead of your inspector. Bring in your contractor or bring both right? Bring both. Even if you have both, if you're not comfortable.
No, absolutely. So here's the thing. My contractor, and he doesn't do this for everybody, but he's this is because he's actually, sorry, my inspector, because he's also a contractor, he can't do both cause it's a conflict of interest. But if he's gonna inspect my property, He actually gives me ideas of how much things cost, which I think is awesome.
Most inspectors will not do that for people. But you want to bring your contractor as they go through, okay, what is this gonna cost? But it depends on the strategy. If you're planning on renovating any anyways, as long as there's no, like huge problems. You can fix it, right? It's all fixable at a certain price.
Your contractor should have a good pulse on that. And I think that's a great tip that you just provided. And, sometimes, if somebody's listening to these podcasts and there's tons of podcasts, that is, I think, the tip to learn today. And then the other thing is just vet your team.
It is a small industry, I think that person that screwed you guys over they're likely not getting any referrals from anybody that's going to be like,
Hey, who do you know in this area? Who you know, who do you recommend? And they probably dug their grave for a long time to come. This is why it's important professionals that are listening to this.
Make sure that you do what you're, you need to do and don't oversell, don't overpromise. Your reputation would be ruined very quickly if that's the case. So what's next for you? I know you started dabbling in the US but what are you next, if we fast forward 12 months, like what are some of the goals and the things you guys wanna do?
Francois Lanthier: Yes. So we were just talking about that today. Again, that seems to be a good day to discuss these topics. We're like, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts, a whole millionaire mindset, so I'm like, okay, I want to spend three hours doing positive affirmations and putting my toes in the sand. I'm just kidding but yeah, more American investments, probably some investments abroad. I want to convince her to buy in Costa Rica, but she's not, we'll start with Florida for now. So baby steps. Let's do Florida.
Alfonso Salemi: Note where to stay before you fly to Costa Rica. So let's state your Airbnb in Florida first.
Sarah Larbi: Maybe the REITE club could buy a Costa Rica place. We just like each split week.
Francois Lanthier: We're all good. We're open. .
Jennifer Lanthier: I think we're definitely gonna continue doing joint ventures as well. I think that it's a recipe that we enjoy.
Francois Lanthier: More like corporations, maybe streamlining, cause we're now at five corporations probably a holding corporation cause it's getting a little complicated. And that way you can do all kinds of great accounting stuff with more systems. So we're, we've been working really hard on that, like better accounting. Property management. So using building stack using different resources delegating stuff organizing keys. We have a bag of keys for a building.
There's probably like 80 keys. I don't even know what to do. So getting organized cause There arewere like thrown around. We changed property management. Okay, let's just do new keys. That kind of thing. And the kids too. So what's next for them? Our son was talking about crypto mining, so I know it's not really here, but we're like, we'll buy a cheap building, fill it with computers that are mining for money. I'm willing to explore it. My son devised a plan, a business plan of how it could work. So you have tenants on top. And in the basement it is filled with computers mining for Bitcoins. So we'll see.
Sarah Larbi: I can't even pretend that I know anything about that, but hopefully it works out.
Alfonso Salemi: Let's figure that out. That'd be, that sounds really cool. It was like an episode of a show. They did that and they cut out the whole city's power system and that's all. I have no idea. I think mine. So well that, that sounds good. The future sounds bright and you guys do such an amazing job for the REITE Club and, on behalf of Sarah and Daniel and Laura and Catherine Paul you guys are such an integral part of what we do.
A lot of our community gets to meet Francois, Jennifer and talk to them and all the things that you that you do provide through your own experiences and everything that you help out with the community. I personally wanna thank you as well too. And You guys are awesome and great examples for the whole community that you can, if you have that positive outlook, you keep going, you can do it. At this point I think we're ready for the lightning rounds. Are you guys ready for the lightning round?
Francois Lanthier: Yes.
Sarah Larbi: All right. Let's do it. Question number one. So I'll get an answer from each of you. What is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event? Jennifer, let's start with you.
Jennifer Lanthier: I think it was to take action. That was the best advice I got just to get into it, get doing it, and then you make mistakes and you fix it.
Francois Lanthier: Mine was similar to. So something about instead we did both, but instead of being from a mentoring program, actually bought a property and learned from it. So we did both. We took some, a little bit of learning, but you don't want to have learning glut like too much. Yeah, cause then you fall into analysis paralysis.
That's not our problem, at all. It's the opposite. So yeah, take action just like Jennifer, but learn. Learn as you go and you'll make mistakes, but you'll survive. Worst case, you just walk with nothing left, but that's a minimalist lifestyle. There you go.
Alfonso Salemi: I would need a suitcase just for my shoes. Alright, question number two. What is your favorite resource for real estate investing? And is that, books, training, a particular podcast or person that you listen to? What do you guys like, and we'll start with Francois this time.
Francois Lanthier: At the REITE Club. I'm sorry I had to say it.
Sarah Larbi: You don't have to. It's whatever your answer is. But if that's true, then that's true.
Francois Lanthier: It's really true. I know a lot of people mention other podcasts and I like a lot of other podcasts, like Andrew Hines has an amazing podcast. Sarah, you have an amazing podcast.
There's a few people, I don't even know their names, but I do listen to their podcasts and yeah, the podcasts are just amazing and other investors. So that's a huge resource and that's why we did join Ventures too, if you learn from your partners too. Even if they're not experienced, they have other life experiences.
Some of the things they taught us were really, wow. Okay. Some of them were a bit older than us and we learned a lot. Even our private lenders. We learn from them. They're just amazing people. That's a huge resource. Good people.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. Great answers. Awesome. Next question. Question number three. What is the one attribute that has made you most successful? All right. Who wants to start?
Francois Lanthier: The team effort. So usually when I give up she's no let's keep going. Then she'll give up. Let's just walk. I'm like, Nope, let's keep going. Being a team, let's say you're single, find a good person that's gonna push you to be better. So just that team effort. I have perseverance. Yeah, it's true and sometimes it's not natural. You just have to smile and pretend the show must go on and then it gets better. So it's like exercising and stuff. The more you do it, you start enjoying it.
Jennifer Lanthier: Try when we're doing something that we really hate. It's almost done.
Francois Lanthier: It's almost done. We just got started, but it's almost done.
Alfonso Salemi: We're almost there. I love it. And that's so unique, with you guys obviously, being married, being a couple, having kids right in, and that's that thing is, I think there's a great saying, right? And this is for couples all out there, or even business partners professionally, right? If you love me or if you want something to succeed, you won't let me settle for less than my best.
That's what you guys are getting out of each other, and I love that. So I'm gonna end it off with question number four on a typical Sunday morning. When you're not pooping, wrap poop. On a typical Sunday morning, hopefully you're not doing that. Too many Sundays, but what are you guys up to? You guys? The family? What do you get up to on a Sunday?
Jennifer Lanthier: Church.
Francois Lanthier: We're Christian, so we really believe in God, and we attend virtual church right now and that's something else we forgot to mention, but the Holy Spirit, and we believe in the strength of higher beings, and that's really guided us.
Jennifer Lanthier: And we're usually at church. Our son's usually doing the technical things behind the scenes. I don't know what he's doing, but he's making sure that everything's working, sound system, sound lights and all that. Our daughter is either taking photos at Sunday school or she's taking pictures or she's helping me. I usually do the welcoming. It's not natural.
Francois Lanthier: You enjoy welcoming people.
Jennifer Lanthier: Yes. And Francois also usually on camera or helping somewhere because yeah, our church is very modern, so live streaming and broadcast on YouTube and different things. And we used to cook breakfast, so to welcome people and yeah, so it's not very, didn't used to be relaxing. We were up very early on Sundays, so Saturday is the day where we would rest. Kick back . So yeah, that's it.
Sarah Larbi: Sounds like a ton of fun. Where can our REITE Club community reach out to you? Francois and Jennifer?
Jennifer Lanthier: I would say mostly Francois. That's more on the internet. On the scene that I am. So I'll let you,
Francois Lanthier: Unless you wanna find Jennifer, like she's on Facebook looking, scrolling through recipes and dry bar jokes and stuff. But anyway, for me, thereiteclub.com. So the forums or send me a message or on social media. So Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. FL Holmes Corp. Or my own name, Francois Lanthier LinkedIn as well. And we need to launch our website. We do have a website, but anyway, it's been a year in the making. Email me.
Alfonso Salemi: Don't know anything about that. But that's awesome. Francois, Jennifer, thank you guys so much for your time. Any last words of advice or anything that you wanted to share with the REITE Club Community?
Jennifer Lanthier: I would say just to connect with other like-minded people. Network as much as you can and just do it.
Francois Lanthier: Really go to the REITE club for real. Like it's come to grow with us. It's true and I can't believe it. Like it's been a year almost collaborating with you guys. Maybe a little bit more. I'm not sure. With covid time I forget, but it's just amazing. So the whole team, the REITE club, is genuine. It's really true. It's a nice team of people anyway.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. And I will say you've acquired the majority of your deals during the lockdown or shutdown or pandemic, so like you guys took a situation that was hard on everybody and you're like, how can I make the boast of it? And you took action and you found some really good opportunities. So congratulations to you both.
Francois Lanthier: Thank you.
Jennifer Lanthier: Thanks for having us.
Francois Lanthier: Yes. It's been a pleasure again.
Sarah Larbi: Thanks for being on. It's awesome to be able to interview Francois and Jennifer, we work with 'em at the REITE Club. They are, huge asset to making things run smoothly, but it's also great to be able to talk to them on a personal level and see their progress. And, 30 plus units in a matter of 18 months.
That's remarkable. And yes, it comes with some bumps in the road, but I love what they've been able to do. I love that they work together. They inspire each other, they're kids as well to take some of the tasks on. I think it's awesome. And they're open to sharing some of the pitfalls that they've had to endure along the way. But I'll tell you, for the most part, they are likely very happy to have started and actively invested in the amount that they did.
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. Whether you're listening to this and you're thinking about getting into your first real estate investing project, maybe own your own home or maybe you don't own anything. You are renting, you're in your parents' basement, right? Francois said he's kicking his kids out early twenties. Maybe you're getting that feel from your parents, right? If you're a younger community member and you're listening to this, It's up to you. Time is gonna pass anyway. God willing, right?
Time is gonna go by anyway. Three years, five years, seven years, 10 years, 20 years. God willing, they're gonna go by. So what are you doing with that time today? What's that future person, future self? What are they gonna thank you for or get upset with you for? I know every real estate investor. Everyone that I've met, any good one anyway that I've met always says they wish when they would've bought more and when they were back then, or five years ago pr 10 years ago or 20 years ago.
So why be that person? Why do that? Try to do what you can now and say I'm glad at least I did that. or did something, or I learned or I took a class or I tried this and stick with it and stick with it. Don't give up when it doesn't work after two weeks and you're calling properties and nobody wants to sell you their house, guess what?
It's gonna take two weeks, two months, two years. It's gonna keep taking longer and different things are gonna change and evolve and put on an awesome show today. Always love doing these podcasts with you, Sarah. You ask some really good questions and it makes me think, you're asking the rest of the question and I'm like, wow.
How right. Answer that question right now. And it's really thought provoking and really amazing, over the time that we've been able to do these podcasts, some of the amazing people and now the team that we built spotlighting them and having them share their experiences so that the community can contact.
Sarah Larbi: It's very cool. Alfonso, congrats on your success as well, cause you took lots of action in between the pandemic and everything. So on that note, what do we say to the REITE Club Community?
Alfonso Salemi: Come grow with us.
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