Alfonso Salemi: Welcome back, REITE Club Community. Another episode of the REITE Club Podcast. I'm Alfonzo Salemi and I'm here with my co-host Sarah Larbi. Our guest today is Cam Rowland an amazing investor. He's out of Winnipeg. And I got to meet Cam a few years ago through the Rent to Own Association, the Canadian Rent to Own Association for Professionals CAROP.
Yes he's coached so many different people, him and oftentimes, every couple weeks or months, we'll have a chat. What's going on in the industry? What's new? How to adapt, how to change. It's just like anything, right? If you're making hamburgers, it's different than 20 years ago. If you're doing rent to own and if you're doing real estate investing, it's different than 20 years ago. How do you improve yourself?
Keep getting better. And I love that we talk so much about the mindset, right? It's not that I can't, it's how can I, and that's from I think, yeah, Robert Kiyosaki. And that's really what the spirit of the REITE club is how can I, so if there's something, some goal you want to achieve in the real estate investing world, making partnerships, building your team, learning more, you're at the right place. Thanks for listening today and yeah we're super pumped to have you.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. Let's bring in Cam. Cam,welcome to the show. How are you?
Cam Rowland: I'm great. Thanks for having me, Sarah.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. I'm excited to have you on. Now, we don't always talk to as many people as we would like out of Ontario, so I'm really excited for today because we get a different feel for a different market.
The strategy that might work differently in the market that you're in. But before we do get started for the REITE Club community, are you able to give us a little bit of information on how you got started in real estate investing and what your strategy is?
Cam Rowland: Back in, I read Rich Dad Poor Dad took his basic principles. I've been wanting to invest for some time, I think I probably waited six years until I took action, which of course I regret. But read the book, took the basic principles, and I bought first place, and I was hooked after that and I just kept going and bought more and then learned different strategies and then, quit my day job and just kept on going.
I've done a lot of different stuff. Land development, apartment block builds, flips, BRRRRs, all that sort of stuff. I spend most of my time these days doing rent owns as well as coaching other investors how to do rent owns successfully.
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. And I've had the good fortune of Ron Cam for a little while now, and he's also a part of the Canadian Association of Rent to Own Professionals. And many of the members of the association have not cam or taken one of his classes. And in your true inspiration. So I wanted to mention, I wanted to go back to something you said, you had read the books, taken some classes, and it took you a little bit of while to get started, right?
You said almost six years. And you regret it now, right? We always, hindsight's 2020 as always, but, what was it that you think that stopped you specifically, or made you wait that long? Was it, you weren't ready, you didn't have the money? You need more knowledge. Maybe for those listeners that have been in and around the real estate world for a little while and looking to take action, but it's been a while, maybe you can give them some encouragement or some feedback at least from your own story.
Cam Rowland: Probably two or three things. Knowledge obviously is one, but I think even bigger than that. Fear of whatever that is, right? Some people are afraid of what other people will think or say of them. Fear of making a mistake and losing money. Those were probably the things that held me back.
Taking action is what really turned that over for me because, like up until that point is just, yeah you are too concerned about what other people think or losing some capital or whatever. And it's learning something new, which means that you've got to experience new things. You gotta flex new muscles and that can be painful because it takes you outside of your comfort zone. As we know, growth happens outside of our comfort.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. If you stay in your comfort zone too long or you have an s paralysis, you're gonna look back 10 years and have not achieved where you could achieve by stepping out of that. So I wanna, because you're out in Winnipeg and you do the least own or rent to own or lease options. I think they're probably interchangeable. Can you walk us through how you structure everything because I think one of the things that you've done really well is been able to do this without using your own money.
Cam Rowland: To answer that question, how do you structure? How much time do we have? But I'll keep it really short. It's what I did so on my first one that I did, I like you look back and you go, how did I put that together? It's because it was, it ended up being really a sweet deal.
I put together three pieces. So I found an investor who wanted to invest with me. It was my first investor who reached out to me because I was just excited about what I was doing. I wasn't asking anybody for money. So anyways, they said, yeah, we want to invest with you. And I started looking for houses.
At that time I was at a spot where I knew I wanted to quit my day job. And this looked like it could be a really good strategy. So I hired a coach and I put this deal together and so I structured it so that, like my money partners were untitled, they qualified for the mortgage, they put the down payment, and I was just a sideliner at that point other than, you know everything.
I'm running everything in the background, right? Putting a deal together. They bought the place. They actually never even set foot in the house. The investors. Like I brought the house to them and said, here's what we could do with this house. And then I found tenant buyers who wanted to be in that house.
That's called a sandwich lease where my company's in the middle and I've got a tenant, buyer on one side, investor on the other side. So I've put together a bunch of those, and when I put together that first one, I got a chunk of money up front and I was cash flowing monthly, my investors were happy, the tenants were looking after repairs.
I sat and ran the numbers. This is totally duplicatable. And I just started doing that. And so over the next five years I actually did about 39 more of those deals using other people's money. So that's typically how I structure the deals. Now, there's many other ways you can do it. We were talking earlier, Sarah, about doing BRRRRs.
I've done BRRRRs and turned them into an RTO as my exit strategy. Rent to own I think of it as a burrito. If that works.
Sarah Larbi: I love that term. That is awesome.
Cam Rowland: Look, it works because of the same principles, but now you're helping a family get into home ownership and an exit strategy on it, and then you're making money on the flip and on the rent to own and like all the benefits that come with that.
Alfonso Salemi: That sounds really cool. And you're getting me hungry there, talking about burritos, but yeah. And it's so true what you said, how much time do we have today in structuring the different deals and, you talked to five different people or investors and you might have 20 different ways. Of how to do the actual property.
It sounded like you were looking for that property. Making sure that you were buying that first, especially in the sandwich leasing. And I know for those obviously learning about rent to owner and the rent to own, there's a few different ways. The client first, property first, and then for yourself that you're sandwiching where you have that. I guess strategy or which method have you found is more successful or maybe some pros and cons of Client First property, first sandwich way of doing, because I know you've worked in a couple different facets and even the Burrito way which is awesome.
Cam Rowland: Obviously, burrito would be property first most of the time. But yeah. Tenant first house first. I've done both. I probably have done more house first just because I've had. Literally tired and frustrated landlords throwing keys at me. I had this one guy, we sat at Starbucks and he had a ball of keys.
I was taking over four of his properties and he said, I don't know what all these keys are for, but I trust you that you're gonna figure it out. And so that just kinda snowballed. Investors who, you've got a troubled property or they just are tired of dealing with tenants and just doing a lot of that way, there's pros and cons with both.
I've had clients who have been very successful in qualifying with the house first, where I put my sign out front and I advertise and they come see the house, and I've had people who, we've helped find properties and, get it that way. I did some research on my deals in terms of, what were the common traits of people who succeeded.
It boiled down to about three or four things. And a lot of the stable income and the other factor was a stable family. That's the biggest thing that I've seen. You can't always predict that. But when I look back at all my families that have qualified, those were the common threads.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. Because if people break up or they get divorced and they have to leave, then, that's sometimes where you see these rent to own, not succeeding as well as you would hope, because it sounds. I know Alfonso does this too, is the hope is that they do close on it and they, obviously enjoy that equity in the home ownership piece as well.
Which I think is important. So how is it any different doing this in Winnipeg than it might be in Ontario or, maybe if you could talk to us a little bit about the market, maybe differences or maybe there isn't any because it's a rent to own.
Cam Rowland: Obviously there will be some market differences. I've never done a rental in Ontario, but I do have students who are successful in Ontario and doing these deals. You know what? You can really do these anywhere. That there's standard sale agreements and standard lease agreements. That's the crux of what a rent is. Now you'll get into markets where house prices are a lot higher and that's gonna slow it down a little bit.
It still can be done. And as I've been trained over the years, it's like, what's nice about doing rental deals is that they run independent of the quote unquote market in the sense that, like right now, Winnipeg is really hot. There's a few houses, there's a ton of buyers. Lots of stuff is going way above the list but there's still rental and clients that need my service, right? And they're still tired and frustrated. Lenders. Even in markets like this, you can buy homes that are below market value. Now, lots of people will say it can't be done.
It's being done. And, we had a hot market back in 2011. I picked up some stuff there that was well below fair market value and have recently picked up a number of properties. Now in the last five months, that is under fair market value. So that's one of the things I love about this strategy, is that it's creative and that it really does run separately alongside the traditional housing market.
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. And I wanna add onto that as well to your clients. The renters, the people in the homes have a different mentality when there is a runway that they want to own at the end, versus I'm gonna move out eventually in a year or two. My landlord might sell one day.
You have typically a better relationship with your tenants as well too. So there's a few factors and the family life, you can't. And sometimes, I wish we had a marriage counselor on staff for some of our projects, because that would help.
Again, we have to work with those fundamentals. So obviously with your experience focusing on the rent to own, and then you said you've done all different types of projects. And obviously I personally think Rent to Own is the most creative strategy out there because you are putting a couple different things together, investors and clients, homeowners, but maybe something that you can share with one of your most creative projects.
It doesn't have to be a lease option, but it could be any of the projects that you've done that you're proud of and said, Hey, you know what I really challenged myself. We overcame some obstacles and it ended up being a great deal. May there be one project or some projects that, That you think that way?
Cam Rowland: There's a whole bunch that kinda pops into my head. One of them was a rental deal. Early about four months after I quit my day job and I had investors lined up. We made money by buying it. It was on mls. We made money in the buy and it was a sweet deal and my investor can't remember why.
Had to back out. At the last minute, like it, we had an under contract. And Kiyosaki's, I think his first book, he talks about, takes the word I can't outta your vocabulary. And so my old self would've been like, ah, we can't do the deal. I can't get an investor, like everybody was in a time crunch.
The owners had to sell quickly. But instead, up on my whiteboard, I wrote, how can I, and then I started to list all these ideas of how, how I could structure this. Brainstorming often, a lot of your brainstorming ideas are crazy or stupid but it's often those ones that will generate the best ideas that you can actually act on.
I think I had seven things on there. One of them was to find another investor. And the other one was to qualify for the mortgage myself. And for those of you who've ever quit your day job and are new into owning a company, recognize that typically banks, traditional lenders won't lend to you until you have two years of good history and an upward trend.
It's four months into my self proprietorship. So anyways I started pursuing that one. I was still pursuing the other ideas, but this one I pursued and long and short of it I got the deal done with traditional bank financing in my company name. And yeah, there's a whole, that was quite a story in the midst of that.
Anyways, I got that deal done when really everybody around me was saying it can't be done. And that deal generated me about 80 grand as a no money down deal cause I had other investor capital in. But I ended up qualifying for the mortgage. It netted me about 80 grand and my investor about 70 grand.
Sarah Larbi: That is awesome. There's gonna be ups and downs in every single strategy and there's gonna be some really awesome wins and some really awesome stories from it. So you know, somebody that's starting out that wants to get into rent to own, like what are some, I know there's many things, but what are like maybe the top three things that if they wanna be somebody that does this without using any of their own money and they wanna find investors and bring tenant buyers, like what are three things that you recommend they can do to move their way through to get started?
Cam Rowland: That's a great question. Start off just by educating yourself and there's a couple books out there. There's lots of information online, but don't follow three or more different people on the same subject because your brain will just be scattered unless they are from the same team. I've been at spots in my life where I've been following different people and it's just like they've all got great stuff to say and they're all finding success, but try to mix that in the pot and get results.
Forget about getting some information and then take action on it right? Because what most people will do is they'll get information, and then they're just overwhelmed, I don't even know where to start. So if you get some information, like I, I send out some free guides.
There's other investors that do the same. When you get that information and it's like there's a couple moments in there, take action on those ideas and actually go out and start practicing them. If it's making a phone call, knocking on a door, posting, That's where you're gonna really start to learn.
Now you can start implementing stuff, and when you learn new stuff beyond that, then you can step on to the next step, right? As opposed to just having a ton of information now you don't know where to start. That would be the biggest thing I'd say.
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. I love that fact. Don't follow more than three people. I think I'm gonna start implementing that because you can, you get all different types of opinions and different, everybody has their own way of doing things. You need to find your own, taking the best and worst from other people and making that into your own version of that. Now again you're coaching, working with a lot of clients these days.
What are some of the mistakes or things that you're seeing that come up? More often than not with newer students, whether it's rent to own other strategies but they're coming out of the gate and they're, and maybe they're getting a little discouraged or maybe it's not happening as quickly as they wanted to, but what are some of the mistakes or what are some of the obstacles that you've helped alleviate for some of those coaching clients that you work with?
Cam Rowland: I think a big one is taking a regular consistent action in that people will be super pumped, super excited. They'll dive into stuff and then they'll hit a roadblock, and that roadblock could be they're someone close to 'em saying, ah you're stupid. This can't be done. Or you gotta start making some phone calls and you can't do that or you feel like you can't do that. And it's just you gotta push through that stuff. And so to, like the way I've got my stuff set up my coaching program is like stuff is built upon each other, right? So week two, you'll miss some stuff if you haven't watched week one. And so lots of people want to jump in, just, gimme the contracts.
I've had some students who've got success, but they've set stuff up incorrectly because they didn't watch week three or whatever. And so it's about. Taking the time to understand what you're building as opposed to, buying that really nice thousand dollar wardrobe at IKEA and going I know all these parts.
I can put it together, and 10 minutes into it's like crap. I gotta start this whole thing over again because there's a piece that I put on backwards or I missed it. And that's the same with doing this, right? It's about following the strategy, following the steps to get it done successfully.
That combined with just wanting stuff done immediately and just recognizing that, it's not a hundred yard dash to get your first deal done, especially if you want to get it done right.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. Steps are important and following them is important. So team is also very important in having the right people on your team. When it comes to this particular strategy, are you able to share, who just profession wise, your team members ideally would be and then maybe if you could do a second part on, how do you work with them throughout, whether it's three years or five years, the whole process along the way to ensure that tenant, buyer will essentially close on that property.
Cam Rowland: You're asking the team for myself to get a deal done?
Sarah Larbi: Yes, so the team members, like we'd be a mortgage broker, a lawyer as an example, and then, like communicating. I guess like with a mortgage broker for example, like as an idea, you tell me if I'm wrong, but they would likely be having these ongoing conversations with the tenant buyer to make sure that by the end, they're gonna be closing. That's an example, you let me know cause you're the expert in all of this.
Cam Rowland: For sure. Yeah. Especially early on someone that I could go to who knew how to do these deals successfully. I don't know a lot of lawyers who know how to do rental and successfully just because they don't do them. They'll often do a piece here and there whereas, my contracts have been built over years and have been through literally hundreds of lawyers because people look at 'em stuff. To have a lawyer that is on my team that understands now what I'm doing, cause I've taught a couple different lawyers how I do these.
How they're successful. So obviously, yes, a lawyer, you need to have someone who not only understands what you're trying to do, but also has got your back if you run into a roadblock, a mortgage broker to help you, determine for your tenant buyer in terms of if they even qualify and, helping them.
Now that's a tough one. Throughout the three years, ideally your tenant buyers are motivated enough that they're taking the information which they got up front and they're actively working towards it. Because I've had, I've put together mortgage brokers and even credit specialists with tenant buyers and, but the mortgage worker can't get ahold of them or they're not responding.
That's just human nature, one that's really tough. Like you've put 10,000, you've put 20,000 down and you're qualifying to purchase this house, but you're not doing the basic things of, pulling your credit every couple months or you're not responding to the mortgage broker.
I think those are probably two of the keys. People on my team that help support my staff or like my tenant buyers when they're in the property, communicating with them well. We do what I call triennial visits where we get in the property and we talk about their credit as well as we talk about the condition of the house, all that sort of stuff.
Those are probably the key things, but I think for my growth, what helped me the most is having other people around me like we do in care Up, who are also doing the same thing, that you can run stuff by each other. And we do that in my coaching community as well. Just the ability to bounce ideas off, here's a problem that I'm having, what do I do? Because that really helps you move forward a lot quicker than sitting in your office by yourself, I don't know what to do.
Alfonso Salemi: That's a great point there. There's one team that is helping you, obviously with the transactional stuff and the actual buying, selling, coaching, but then your larger team, the community of people we talk about the five people that you speak with the most or within that professional industry of just getting different ideas.
That's where I think real estate investing is very unique. And then you get into your own separate niches when you know, Sarah I know talks to all different types of people. Doing the BRRRR out the newest and latest and greatest way. And I know with Cara, we're always doing that as well too, saying, okay, that worked in Winnipeg, it worked in BC, could it work in Ontario?
Can it work out east? In doing that Cam mentioned something really important that I want to pick up on there. And I like what you said at the try. Annual visits, the conversations, the following up, this is the rent to own is not set it and forget it type of strategy. Yes. You have your clients in there.
You're getting more cash flow. You have a future sale press, but it can't, it's like leaving a cake in the oven and going for, I don't know, a five hour drive. You want to make sure you're checking on it. It's rising properly. You're checking and doing that along the way. There's nothing that's passive.
Everybody wants that passive income and passive investing. It's like the least passive thing that you can do if you are on the operations side, like Cam is, and I know he's an ethical operator and he's on top of his deals all the time and has a great investor base. Maybe Changing a little bit of direction now, but who are some of the influences or people that inspire you these days?
I know you read Robert Kiosaki, that's usually people's first step into the real estate investing world, but what are some of the, what's some literature, some books or maybe publications that you're keeping in touch with on a normal basis to keep you informed as an intelligent investor and a business owner as well?
Cam Rowland: Wow. Great question. I got a ton of books that I have and as well as reread probably the biggest book in my life for the past couple years is Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. It's all about mindset. That's a huge game changer. I've probably, the first time I read it, it's a good book.
Then most of it was over my head. And then I read it a year later after I'd been through some monumental failures and it was like, Holy smokes. This book is speaking to me and that was probably fall of 2019. I read it for a second time and then that following year I read and listened to it probably another 10 times throughout the year, just because of so much information.
I still follow Kiyosaki. I follow, for some business stuff, I just try to be a really avid reader. The Sam Walton book is a fantastic book about, how he like, as an entrepreneur built stuff up and what I'm realizing now is so much more of businesses about what I think about stuff then the actual transaction of doing a business because and so a lot of my reading is to that side of it, right about how I think about stuff, about expanding my horizons, all that sort of stuff.
Other people, obviously I'm following a lot of this crypto stuff right now. And that's expanding my mind. Forget about crypto. . But that's expanding my mind in terms of business and how things flow and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, there's just lots of different stuff. There's a whole bunch of books on the tip of my tongue, but I'm not remembering them at this moment.
Alfonso Salemi: I just wanted to make sure we get that title again . Who's the author? Was Maxwell?
Cam Rowland: Maxwell Maltz. Psycho Cybernetics.
Sarah Larbi: That's gonna be my next go-to Amazon purchase once we get off the call. Awesome. Cam, what are, I guess we, we'll probably ask you one more question and then we'll go to the lightning round, but what are some of the goals that you've got for 2021?
Cam Rowland: Wow. That's I've got a whole walk of them , probably two macro goals in terms of business. For my rent owned company, Square Foot Properties is to keep growing and to have an active team I had to downsize about two years ago. Not because of rent to own something else that forced me to downsize and that can be another conversation if you want to have that at some point.
I had to pull back a bunch of stuff in my life and so I'm expanding that again here at the spot and working with a couple investors to make that much bigger is the wrong word, but more effective, helping more families doing more deals. And then on the flip side growing my coaching company.
I think every real estate investor needs to know how to put together a lease option successfully, because you're gonna come across periods in your life if you've never thought about doing one before. If you're an apartment block person or a BRRRR, or land development or whatever, The more experience you get, more people are gonna come to you for advice and stuff, and understanding the power of the option and the agreements for sale and all that stuff is so powerful.
You can help people outta pickles that most people would just give up and they would lose the house or whatever. This is a great strategy. To learn. And so I want to be the premier coaching company in Canada for rent to own for that purpose. It's helped me quit my day job. I've helped a lot of families get into home ownership. It's a great way to make cash flow and I just want to help people be able to do that. So those are my two macro goals going in the next five years.
Alfonso Salemi: That's you're absolutely doing that Cam, and anytime that members of Kop or even the REITE club community mentioned your name, nothing but praise and you've done it the right way in the ethical way all the whole time. Yeah, I think it's time for our lightning round. Cam, are you ready for the lightning round?
Cam Rowland: I'm nervous. I don't know what you're gonna ask.
Sarah Larbi: All right, so same four questions for every single guest. Cam, question number one, what is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?
Cam Rowland: Best advice. It's really not about real estate, it's about mindset.
Alfonso Salemi: Love that You get the mindset right. You can get anything. Awesome. And I touched upon this and I know you mentioned the book, but specific to real estate investing, what is your favorite resource?
Cam Rowland: Favorite resource for real estate investing interestingly enough, these days I would say that it would be Facebook because you can connect with so many different people, right?
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. Number three, Cam, what is the one attribute in your opinion that has made you most successful?
Cam Rowland: Persistence.
Alfonso Salemi: Love it. The persistence. Keep it going. All right. And the last question of the lightning round, on a typical Sunday morning , what are you getting up to? I see the bike in the background if you're watching this. So maybe he's going for a nice ride in the nice, in the summer months of Winnipeg. Those 14 hours of summer. But what are you doing on a typical Sunday?
Cam Rowland: Coffee is the first thing. Hanging out with my wife. My kids are all grown up and we're going to church if we can go to church or we're doing online and reading and just experiencing that, so it's I love Sunday mornings cause a different pace. But yeah, those are the things, often there's a couple pots that have gotten brewed and we're learning, we're talking and yeah that's a Sunday morning for me.
Sarah Larbi: Sounds nice and relaxing. Cam, where can our REITE club community, our listeners, know more about you? Where can they go to reach out if they wanted to?
Cam Rowland: I'm mostly on Facebook and Instagram. If you look up Cam Rowland same with Instagram lots there. My primary website is creative investor.ca and Yeah, that's where you can find me.
Alfonso Salemi: Awesome. Cam, thank you so much for being so generous with your time, your information, your knowledge. Any last words that you'd like to share with the REITE Club community?
Cam Rowland: Going back to that first question that Sarah in lightning round, the quote that is so profound to me is whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. And that thumbs up life really. And you know what you want to accomplish.
I've seen it in my kids, they'll sit at the table and they're freaking out because they don't know how to do something and they say, I can't do it. You're right. But then you ask, how can I, and it's just there's that and then you pursue it, right? What if there's one thing you take away, take the word can vocabulary. And when you want a new car, you want a new property, you want a partner in life, you ask, how can I accomplish that?
Sarah Larbi: That is great advice. I love that quote. Cam, thank you so much for being on the show. It was a pleasure having you on. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and your insights.
Cam Rowland: Thank you for having me. Great seeing you guys. Thanks.
Sarah Larbi: Cam is such a nice guy. That was a great podcast and I love his quote because it's so true. And whether you think you can or you can't, you are right. That was super inspirational, any key, one piece of takeaway that you wanna share with us, Alfonso, that you really got out of today?
Alfonso Salemi: Absolutely. I'm gonna go and find that book that he recommended there, that Maxwell, you said that's an Amazon buy for you today. And I love him cause he's got an extensive library. A lot of information. He's continuing learning. He's been at this for a while. But yeah, like that book, that's one takeaway. How about yourself, Sarah?
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely, always find it fascinating just to learn about the different types of deals, the different types of strategies. Mindset obviously is 95% of your success and he just seems like a very genuine, humble guy that looks to help others, which I think is awesome.
On that note, guys, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. If you haven't checked out our website, thereiteclub.com recently, we have completely revamped it. It is awesome. Check it out. Register it is free to do thereiteclub.com. And if you enjoy these podcasts, don't forget to leave a rating and review. On that note, Alfonso, what do we say to our REITE Club community?
Alfonso Salemi: Come grow with us.
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