Laurel Simmons: Welcome REITE club nation. I'm Laurel Simmons, and along with my co-host Sarah Larbi, we're welcoming you to another podcast episode of the REITE club. Hi, Sarah.
Sarah Larbi: Hey Laurel. How are you? How are you doing?
Laurel Simmons: I'm doing great. And we have a wonderful guest tonight, don't we?
Sarah Larbi: Kayla is the best. Ontario landlord's watch Kayla Andrade. She is like, when you think of Ontario landlord advocates, she is the person behind a lot of it for us in Ontario. And I will say what she's been able to do for landlords and help us have a voice.
Has been tremendous, but even just to educate landlords on the new things that are coming, the new bills and what they mean, and I think it's just important to have a good pulse on all of that stuff because yes, the strategies are great. The BRRRR is great, the rent to own is great, but when it comes to at least understanding some of the landlord's side of things of what can potentially go wrong and what the rules and regulations are, I think that's just important to know that as well.
Laurel Simmons: The whole political side, although people think that real estate isn't political. First of all, everything is political when you get right down to it. But, we live in a society where we're ruled by rules and regulations and laws and it is political if you want to change something because you can't just wake up one morning and decide.
It's gotta be changed. So Kayla's taken on that burden and it is a burden. She loves it, obviously, but to do all that work and to try to affect change on a political level, that takes an awful lot of effort and a laugh, an awful lot of commitment. And, she has four kids. I seriously don't know how she doesn't, you and I were talking about that earlier and it's like, how do you do that with four kids between the ages of what one and was she a teenager? I just, it just boggles my mind.
Sarah Larbi: I think one and a half to about 16 in, I think 16 and a half. But at the end of the day, she also started a property management company, so she's just, miss, I don't know, like she's like a superhuman or something, but I will say it is incredible.
She's also an investor in a landlord and she's been investing for many years. But I will say she's also very humble too. Like she does really well and she's still very humble and willing to help and speak to investors and landlords. So guys, I hope you enjoy this podcast. And guys, if you haven't yet, go check us out online, thereiteclub.com and register. It is free to do there's lots of great information forums. You can ask questions, you can meet other like-minded individuals and so much more.
Laurel Simmons: Absolutely. Sarah, shall we go to the podcast?
Sarah Larbi: Let's do it. Kayla, welcome to the show as a second time or maybe even third time, you've been a guest before, but welcome back and super happy to have you again, share your great insights on your knowledge.
Kyla Andrade: Thanks so much for having me, Laurel and Sarah. It's a pleasure to be here.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. So let's just do a brief overview. If there are any listeners from the REITE Club Nation that haven't heard of you or met you, just a little bit about what you do when it comes to the Ontario Landlord's watch, but also from a real estate investing perspective of yourself.
Kyla Andrade: I am a landlord. I've been a landlord for over 17 years. I've been a landlord advocate fighting the elected officials on the Residential Intensity Act of the landlord tenant board for about 10 years. We recently just started our own property management company in April. Hey, I want to open up a property management company in Covid. It's been great. And my heart and soul is into advocating and making sure that we can create a fair and balanced housing system that is desperately needed in Ontario.
Sarah Larbi: That's awesome. So congratulations by the way, for the new business though, the property management side of things. And how did you, just a little bit about that. How did you get started with that and why property management out of all things an investor could be doing?
Kyla Andrade: I really wanted to get into consulting, but my husband said you've been advocating for 10 years. You're doing it for free. He's if you wanna continue to do this, you gotta start bringing money in.
I said I did not wanna charge a membership for our members to join our Facebook group. I was like, it's, it started to be free. I want it to stay free. But in order for him to let me continue to advocate, I'm like, okay, I'll bring in money through the property management business. You know what? I'm glad I did it because it's the concept of understanding all types of landlords. Like I talked to a lot of landlords on the phone, I talked to 'em on the computer. But when you're really trying to guide them on how to manage their property, now we get to see the other foot, we get to see the other side of it.
I'm learning a lot just by trying to coach our clients on how, why we do what we do. And once they get it, they absolutely, I feel better knowing that we're educating them if they ever wanna do it themselves.
Laurel Simmons: Kayla, what's the number one thing that you tell your clients? Or what's the number one issue or the number one, whatever that you really work with your clients on?
Kyla Andrade: It's looking at the, when you're talking to a client and you're looking at the rental property that they're getting into, and if they're coming from different, at a pro, at a stage, or a outta state, outta city, and they're trying to invest in another city, then they're getting They're paying, a top dollar for that property and then they think they can get it really high rent going on there.
That's where they could start falling because of the fact that I think you can get that high rent there. But you really gotta understand the area and where you're investing in order to understand what you're gonna get for that. And then a lot of landlords are trying to cut back.
Are not trying to provide more to their tenants. And when you have high rents, you also have to be able to provide more to your tenants as well. They expect more. So it's just about really trying to get them to see that you have to give customer service to your tenants in order to really make a good business out of your property.
Manage out of your property. And trying to scale it as far as you can go. But a lot of landlords get really picky on who they wanna pick and sometimes you have to take a chance, but a lot of 'em are having a hard time understanding what you need, you can't tell someone that, you can't have a pet.
If they move it in, you just have to deal with it. You have to babysit a little bit more. You gotta do more inspections in there. But understand that you have to be open in your tenant screening process.
To understand if these are the type of tenants that could already have a pet, or they think about getting a pet, you have to let the tenants know that you're open to it and not so close minded, cause then they're just gonna do it and lie to you about it. So you really have to work with them and make sure that you're giving them the customer service that they expect from their landlord.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. It's important to know what the rules are for landlords and tenants for every single province, and they're also quite different from province to province, so it is important to learn that. Now, what area are you covering when it comes to the property management piece?
Kyla Andrade: I'm in the Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, and Brantford area. Okay. So it's and you'll get different, so in Guelph it's, you can get your mixture of residential and students, and then in Waterloo you're getting a lot of students.
Sarah Larbi: You're in a lot of different areas. So you do some student rentals, you do some long-term, regular type of, family or whatnot. What are some of the things that you've been seeing, throughout March onwards in regards to, the tenants and what they're needing that may be different than if this wasn't, throughout the pandemic.
Kyla Andrade: Definitely the students have taken a hit in the student market. We're looking at more landlords who have a heck of a time trying to find students to come into their rentals. They also are having some issues with students who have already signed on a 12 year a 12 month lease.
Now they've able, they now, Retract it and they don't want to go ahead and fulfill their agreement of the contract. This is where it's moving our landlords into, Hey, maybe we should be getting into long-term properties, or they might just get into short-term. But it all depends on where you are in the province.
That many municipalities have prevented landlords from going into short term as well. And we have to advise them that, Through our overall long term. If you're switching over to long term, just until you figure out what's happening with Covid, that is now gonna be a dicey thing cuz you're not gonna be able to go back into your short term unless that tenant is leaving.
It's really, and the market I still think it's still going very fast for our rentals. You still have a lot of showings. The rents are still continuing to climb. For us as a management, we have a lot of people paying, even for my personal tenants, not one has skipped a beat through Covid. That's a good sign. But we do, again, we still have our rent strikers and we do have many groups out there now trying to stop people from getting the evictions that are now starting to roll out ever since they lifted the eviction man.
Sarah Larbi: We're definitely gonna get into all of that. Cause I, I wanna know about the new bills and everything that's happening and the whole eviction stuff. Before we get into that, when you take over properties or portfolios for a landlord, what are some of the first things that you discuss with that landlord and and what are some of the first steps that you take, with that new portfolio or that property? Because you probably have tons and tons of processes and procedures and all that good stuff.
Kyla Andrade: Especially when you're speaking with a landlord, you wanna know what their level of education is, just so that you know how much you need to educate them. Then you need to know what kind of property it is and what type of tenants do they currently have in there. Are we gonna be placing a tenant for the very first time as we take over that unit, or are we taking on problem tenants? And if we are taking on problem tenants or concerned tenants, then we need everything. So everything from their lease, their application, any type of N four, N five, and eight, any type of applications that were given to these tenants and any correspondence that was ever happening between the landlord and the tenant.
We can honestly feel like we've been managing it ever since that tendency began. Because of the tent, the landlord is going to be able to show us the type of correspondence with them. We let them know that we're not here to nickel and die and we have our in-house maintenance team. We try not to do our sub subcontractors as much as we wanna keep things cost low for them, but they have to understand that we move quickly and we wanna make sure that the maintenance is getting done because we don't wanna have any problems.
With the tenants not paying rents based on the maintenance. So we have that in our policy where, if it's under a certain $500, we're doing it without their permission. We'll give them a heads up on it, but if anything more, then we let them know that this is a bigger purchase. And guide them through why we need to do that.
It's definitely understandable that they are given them a crash course of the Residential Intensity Act, the Landlord 10 Board. And by us being that property manager, we're also trying to educate them that the landlord tenant board is a mess. So we wanna really handle things with TLC versus the concept of going in guns blazing and start shooting all these forms out completely.
You really wanna work that relationship with the tenant in order to try to avoid the landlord tenant board right now. But again, you're gonna get that feeling of what kind of tenant we are working with? Is this a, can we work together as a nice team to make sure all parties are happy? Or do we have to get these forms ready and start the process and get in line to have the case heard by an adjudicator or a dispute resolution officer?
Laurel Simmons: Have you found that expectations have changed, like both on the landlord and the tenant and especially since the pandemic has started and, all the whatever, the media, the hype, that's not working, the Serb and whatever you wanna call it, right? Are expectations changing and has that affected? Be the relationship between landlord and tenant and landlord, tenant and property manager?
Kyla Andrade: I think for the expectations, it all depends on what market you're into. Because the Toronto market right now they are selling a lot of their condos. They're finding it very hard to rent. They seem like the rent for people looking to rent now in Toronto. But a lot of people have now Started to move outside of the Toronto area and they're starting to get into our neck of the woods.
In order to do it, more tenants are still, like I said, they're still paying the tenant, the landlords are still being very cooperative with their tenants, but it's about guiding them now into helping them with a payment arrangement. That's gonna be a very crucial thing for our landlords because of Covid and after, is because of this payment arrangement. So it seems like we're gonna have to do more policing and more. Parenting, I think in order to get our tenants back on track because of Covid. But yeah it's more of the concept that we're it's still operating pretty the same for us and here.
It is gonna be different as the current Covid evictions are gonna start to roll out. That's where we're gonna have to see what is gonna be happening. Because right now these are the evictions that are happening now. They're the ones prior to Covid.
Sarah Larbi: That's really interesting and you mentioned payment plans and that kind of stuff. What does that even look like? So let's just say you're an investor and you've got a tenant all of a sudden that can't pay, they're not necessarily deciding not to pay you, they just can't. So you wanna work with them. And what does that look like in, with a little bit more detail and just speak maybe a little bit closer to the mic so that we can hear you
Kyla Andrade: When you're getting a payment plan in place, which I feel is that payment agreement plan that's on the landlord intended board website, that actually I would say it could still be changed because when they did their public consultation, they asked what we thought of it. And the first couple of paragraphs that would talk about this is a legal binding contract. Then the second paragraph is, you do not have to sign this. Agreement.
It was like you created this to help mediate and to help cover disputes, but the way that your headings are, it's gonna continue to keep turmoil between both landlords and tenants. So there could be, I think, some changes happening there now, again, with a payment agreement. Plan, when you file that payment agreement plan, they want you to have an L one application, so a non-payment of rent for the N four and then waiting the 14 days and filing the L one application. So they want you to have that in place before you're filing your payment agreement plan. I would educate our landlords into having everything documented to show that you are willing to work out a payment plan with them.
Give them the form that's on the landlord's intent. Board website so that it gives them almost the blueprint, the footprint that they need to work out that type of payment plan. And also even to put the icing on top of the cupcake so that you can keep that in writing as well, is to educate them on these homeless prevention programs that are out there for their tenants to have access to.
For rent arrears, because now you're not only showing that you're willing to work with them, but you're now guiding them to different government programs in order to help them out. And it's not just the homeless prevention programs that are out there. They also now have a Canada Ontario housing portable benefit.
That is 3000 people have already applied for it, and they believe there's gonna be another 5,000 people by the end of this year. Having access to more funds to help them with rent as their jobs have been affected through Covid and they've probably got less hours. So we have to keep everything on paper.
How you've been that supportive landlord in order to make sure that if the tenants are not agreeing with you and they don't wanna sign a payment plan and you wanna get them. In writing to say, nah, I'm not working on anything with you. And that will paint that picture that is needed for the adjudicators to make these proper decisions and either the adjudicator or the customer the dispute resolution officers.
Sarah Larbi: That's really interesting. Now you also mentioned homeless prevention, different options for tenants not to be on the streets necessarily and to get that help with the payments. And, probably before you and I spoke about it maybe it was six months ago now, I didn't even know many of these existed. So can you share a little bit of where somebody can go and what they do to help tenants out with payments?
Kyla Andrade: I'll give you an example there, there's different names from them that they have in each region. But if you also, and some regions have an actual different type of, like in Cambridge it's called Luther Wood.
Other areas it's called something different. But sometimes you, so a social worker with social assistance can also help somebody as well if that program hasn't fully been implemented. In that region and when you go to these agencies, they will ask how much you're in the arrears. They would wanna see an N four application that was given to them in order to show that they are indeed at risk of an eviction.
They will do an intake of like how many people are in the house. What is your salary? And if it's not a salary, what is your form of income? And they will also ask for a bank statement to show that you either have the money or you don't have the money. And this is something that we've really been advocating for through covid, is a type of rent relief.
Program for residential properties. And these programs could be the people to vet to make sure that program's not gonna be abused because they do need to do checks and they do require information in order to be granted this type of rent relief. So if you Google in homeless prevention programs for your area, you'll be sure to have something popped up.
Then of course we got the new one. Steve Clark, the Minister of Housing, had come out to speak about the Canadian Ontario housing benefit. So that's gonna be new. Don't know the details of what you're gonna be, what year you could qualify for and how much, but that is a nine year program.
Just understand that. As a 10 as a landlord, if you do have a tenant that's coming to you saying that, Hey, this is my income, I also get the housing portable benefit. Understand that it is a nine year program. So there will come a time where they are gonna renew it? Are they gonna cut it back? Are they just gonna cut it down?
There's been places in Canada that had a housing portable benefit. We have one now. It's in the region of Waterloo. It's $350 extra. But again in Alberta, I believe it was. They had it taken away. So you now have the thought of, Hey, my portable housing benefit is now cut. They are now gonna be less that money if they, if you're accepting them based on that concept that they have that program and that benefit.
Sarah Larbi: Nine years later, hopefully they get themselves out and move forward and find different things that will help with their income. But that's what you hope for, so it's definitely good to have that in the back of your mind. For sure. I wanted to talk a little bit about the new bills that came out recently that you mentioned and what they are and why it's important. So let's start with the rent freeze.
Kyla Andrade: Bill 2 0 4 has passed. It's got, it's lovely approval, which you're not really happy about because you're not gonna be able to raise your rent. At all, not even above the normal guideline, and this is on the 1.7 million tenants in Ontario. So we have a concept that, each landlord, when you look at taking on properties, you look on, if our raising our rents is, making that cash flow.
It is going to be hurtful for some of our investors out there. But most importantly, it's still putting an eviction ban on the commercial landlords as well. If the landlord does qualify, For the commercial rent relief, they won't be able to evict their commercial tenants because they do qualify for that program, even though the program is not the greatest but it's still something.
If they do qualify, then they won't be able to get their eviction ban for the commercial tenants as well. So we have to take in consideration that we could fight it, but at least we have the eviction ban lifted. We can, we were, we're thankful that still lift it, but with a second wave that's coming, we do have the other political parties trying to introduce another freeze on the eviction ban. That's what we're concerned about. But we do have a lot of a lot of support that we have, with the people who have thought about the old bill 180 4. So they get the concept. This is a supply and demand issue. So if they keep putting more restrictions and regulations on these private investors,
We're seeing more leaving the industry versus getting into the industry.
A lot of people are just, they're still not getting their cases heard and they're bailing now because of that. So that could be just a straw that breaks the camel back where the government is. Forcing private investors to be social agencies for the government with no compensation.
Laurel Simmons: What about the, to take a left turn here, the whole concept of reporting to the landlord credit bureaus like just this, because this is fairly new, right? That if people cannot pay their rent, there can actually be reported to the credit bureau. Can you talk a little bit about that and how that's gonna affect things or how you see it affecting things?
Kyla Andrade: You wanna know how excited I am about it.
Sarah Larbi: That? That is actually very exciting. Like the one, okay, once you get the keys, the one control, the one control, we get back a little bit, right? So go for it.
Kyla Andrade: You look at being an advocate for 10 years, and you see how many people and how many elected officials we spoke with, how many rallies, how many meetings we've had to try to get some sort of protection and know that. The Landlord and Credit Bureau has been sitting there since 2012, but spending their money probably on the development part of it, more of expanding out to letting us know that they're there.
We were able to do our due diligence. Anytime there's a new program or a new service out there, I'd love to know who they are, what they're all about, because I wanna share that with our members. And I had my meeting with them over the phone and I'm like, this is good. Then I had another meeting. I'm like, This is gonna be really good.
Then it's the third one. I'm like, I just love you guys. So the bottom line is that you finally get something where we have the protection that we need for both good landlords and the good tenants. So with the Landlord Credit Bureau, being able to report your tenants monthly payment history for the good and the bad.
This is gonna be so much good for the good ones because you look at what kind of bills you pay and knowing how much your rent is, this is now going to be positively affecting your credit report to show that you're paying rent on time. Because a lot of tenants out there, they may have bad credit, but they do pay their rent on time.
It's gonna be doing really good things for them and it's gonna help the landlords when they're doing their screening to say to the tenants, we also report your payment history to the landlord credit bureau. So the good tenants are gonna love it and go, this is. Great and the bad ones, they may not even bother to come by and fill out that application.
This is where the people who are already in your units, the people who are already taken advantage of Covid and the rent strikes, or people who are just downright not wanting to work with you or connect with these housing programs they're now gonna be. Report it negatively to the landlord Credit Bureau, where now landlords have that tool to go and look at these payment history and to actually have that affecting their credit report.
It would be reported to Equifax on a monthly basis. And then the way that landlord credit bureau is also working, when you have. You put someone into the system, they're getting an email, they're getting a welcome to let them know how this is gonna be really good for them, how it's gonna be able to build their credit, and it also reminds them that your rent is due.
Even if they're not in the arrears, just giving that simple reminder to them, it's changing the behavior of how our tenants are now understanding the rental industry and that's why it's like I just wanna tell everybody about it because if we can pull our efforts and pull our reports of our past tenants, even they have to be maximum two years.
You can report them into the landlord credit bureau and you have your choice. You have your choice of being a property manager, a landlord. If you see someone struggling and working a payment arrangement in there, if they break that payment arrangement, that's when you report. Be reasonable with it.
This is where we now have that system to keep people. And to keep the tenants in line, keep the landlords fair. And they also have a dispute resolution program too. So if you're reporting something that the tenants wanna dispute, there is that option that the Landlord Credit Bureau dispute program is going to be able to help guide both parties.
It's almost like instant mediation, something that the landlord and tenant board should have done, and also being able to download that payment history. For your court case with your hearing to show the payment arrangements that's working with them. And you can also review your tenants, give them a review, and the tenants can also give the landlords a review.
I think that brings fairness to both the landlords. That's why I call it the game changer because I've had some tenants contact me about this and. They go back and forth with me and at the end they actually like it. I'm like, there you go. So this is why I'm very excited to be talking about them. Cause if it's anything that I can do to protect our landlords besides just advocating is informing them of the landlord credit bureau.
Sarah Larbi: I've been talking to a lot of my students and even the REITE Club. They're one of our partners or Wright partners as well. And the thing that you said that I think is brilliant is the fact that it uploads.
There's lots of things that you said, but that was brilliant. But the fact that it uploads into Equifax. So when they go to apply for a car, when they go to apply for a cell phone, a credit card, like anything, they're gonna see that information right before, there might have been a few things, but unless you're looking at that portal, it's hard to find.
The fact that they go up to Equifax I think is amazing cuz. It's going to force them to say, do you care about your credit or do you not? And hopefully they do. And the other thing I also like that they can do, so let's just say you have damage and we had a few calls with them too.
If you have damage, you can actually upload that. And, even if they try to leave you with I dunno, $5,000 of abuse in the unit or a lot of damage, you can actually put that into the credit bureau. And sometimes they may come back and say let's meditate. And you're at least a step further, and this is not like a year in the process.
It's a lot further quicker rather than sometimes going the other route. So just, it's something else in our tool belts to be able to utilize. And I like that you said it's gonna be for the good and it's gonna be for the, the, it's gonna be good or bad, depending on what kind of tenants they are.
If they pay on time, it's gonna help. Boost their credit, it's gonna help them be able to get into another rental property. And if they're, and if they're not, then at least it's gonna allow them to say, wow, this is actually affecting me now. I can't play the system. Of course they can, but they may not.
I have to do something if I wanna keep up my credit and move into something else at some point. Or get a car at some point. I think it's just another great tool in our tool belt. And it's something that as you're screening tenants, just let them know that this is gonna be part of what you're gonna do.
There's no surprises. You can always start it with your current tenants. That's fine too. And if you can, like Kayla said, they go back two years. So if you've got a tenant, whether you want to report for the good or not. Maybe they still owe you some money or whatnot. Go ahead and put it down and they'll get that notification. And worse comes to worse, nothing happens. But you could have that mediation opportunity with the landlord credit bureau. So why not?
Kyla Andrade: Sarah, I was, I had firsthand experience when I took my, I've been in Atlanta for 17 years. I had one tenant that was able to get away with seven months of not paying me. I put him in the system. He contacted us in less than 24 hours. We had done it for our property management. They had their money. They had 2250 sent to us within hours of me reporting their October repayment. When you look at the fact that we have 58,423, Nonpayment of rent applications, landlord and tenant board, and understanding that is the contributor to the backlog that we currently have.
This could help alleviate that type of backlog. So I would like to see, even the landlord could be tagged into the landlord with the landlord and tenant board in order to really make a deep understanding of the situation before they make any type of judgements. But this is, it is the game changer for the rental housing industry and I can't wait till more people talk about it because it's just, it's almost like telephone.
You just have to keep waiting until people find out about it. But it's totally worth the money of a premium account because it's a quick click of a button for Equifax and you get a quick click of a button for collections. They have many more features that are coming. And I can tell you guys right now that by the time this airs, they're gonna be able to get their credit checks done through them as well. So we're really excited to share that.
Sarah Larbi: Thursday. Very cool. And this is Canada wide, I think, right? Just correct me if I'm wrong.
Kyla Andrade: It is. They're but they're not currently in Quebec.
Sarah Larbi: Quebec market is always different. I'm from Quebec, so I can say that.
Kyla Andrade: Yes, I like to follow them, we follow everything that's happening in the province. I'm like, oh, look what Quebec's doing.
Sarah Larbi: I know. We think we have it hard here, man. So what other new changes have you seen and what other things are coming down the pipelines that landlords, whether Ontario or not, should be aware of.
Kyla Andrade: One, we have the NDP trying to work with a bill one 2 0 5. I don't know what the whole thing is, they're going 2 0 4, 2 0 5. I can't wait till 2 0 6. What's happening there? But the NDP are looking at trying to give more of a punishment or more relief to the tenant based on illegal evictions. Like normally right now, if you wanna take it over for your own personal use, you are giving them a month's rent. They want that to be three months of rent in order to take over. Ownership or possession of your rental unit once again.
Normally if you want to tell someone that they have to leave, it's in that three month cycle. They want you to give six months notice to these tenants. So again, it's an unrealistic request. That the NDP is asking, I really can't see it gaining it through the first read, but I can't really see it gaining traction just because they do know this is about bringing in investors and trying to get the supply up.
This is obviously not gonna do that, and we have so many people selling and buying that N 12 s are a frequently used form that is needed. And if you look at trying to compensate. Three months of rent off of the sale price because you are now trying to get in there. Or if you're a snowbird and you just are, you're done dealing with that and you wanna take over, like a lot of our snowbirds have gotten caught in this trap of covid trying to take over their own personal home again, and the tenants refusing to leave and they now are seeking accommodations in hotels or in short-term rentals.
A lot of that is still happening and the board is. Still a mess because of the fact that they're still not dealing with the backlogs true issue. But it's also based on video conferencing and teleconferencing, where tenants are getting away with saying, I can't hear you. I can't hear you. And then they say, okay, let's try to do the phone.
No one's still having cutout problems. Okay, let's adjourn the meeting. And they get to. Go ahead and wait another couple of weeks or months in order to have their hearing heard again. So I think that's where a lot more issues are being held. And we do have some groups in Toronto mostly who are going to properties where the evictions are gonna happen.
They are barricading the enforcement officers from getting in to evict these people. And the evictions are happening later in the evening when everyone has left and now, The tenant groups are very upset about it and trying to reach out to the media to try to get an eviction, bam, put back on. I wish I could come to you guys.
The only good news we got now is the landlord credit Bureau and that we don't have an eviction ban currently in place, but we are continuing to make these changes after speaking with the landlord and credit bureau chair and giving her our ideas and different ways of alleviating the backlog.
She mentioned that there is an advisory committee for the landlord credit for the landlord tenant board. And she thinks that I should be on it. So just waiting for that formal invitation so that we can help them do it because she says, they just take Bill 180 4 and they try to adjust it to fit their rules and procedures, and a lot of 'em are not.
Investors themselves so they don't have their boots on the ground, so they know they need to create this round table so that we have landlords and even tenants to help guide them through creating better rules and procedures to really address the backlog because justice delayed is justice denied.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely before we get into our lightning round. Kyla, like you said, it's, it's also important to have a good pulse on what's happening and I will preface all of this and say, investing is the best thing I've ever done. It got me out of my nine to five opportunity.
It's important to know the other side of what can happen or what's going on from a political standpoint, even though we try to stay as unpolitical as possible. But it's important to understand what's happening and it's important to understand what the rules are and the changes in the landlord and tenant rules.
Whatever the province is because there's always gonna be things that are happening and you may be thinking, how am I gonna handle all of this stuff? There's a small percentage of overall tenants that end up at the board. I mean that 56,000 or 58,000, that sounds like a lot of cases, but I'll tell you in the grand scheme of things, overall, it's. Not that bad, right? So definitely do a really good job screening, utilize the tools that you have.
It's also good to have a pulse on what can happen, should something go wrong because everything is not a piece of cake. Otherwise, I dunno, just loan out your money or something like that. And even that has its ups and downs. So what can landlords do, Kayla, right now? If there was a call to action or a next step for them before we move on to the next part.
Kyla Andrade: Call to action right now is to always get very familiarized with who your MPP is, getting to know their background, where they come from, where they stand on many different political issues cause that will help you when you need to speak with them, how we're supposed to speak with them.
Being a part of the Ontario Landlords Watch Group on Facebook is a way for us to be able to give you these updates and give you the call of actions in order to inform you of what we need to do to unite ourselves together. But most importantly, it's about making sure that you know what you're getting into and reading the Residential Intensive Act and Landlord 10 Board and getting that link to all of these bills that are being pushed through very quickly and having an understanding of taking the time to read it.
They have to do that. And our way of telling our elected officials right now is that we spent a lot of time putting reports together for you. And we need protection. And we need protection now. And that's why we're telling all of our landlords, the best money to be spent is signing up with the Landlord Credit Bureau.
In order to do that protection, But making sure that they understand that they need to be very politically interested in this. Anything to deal with housing, if it's homeless, if it's pod homes, if it's tiny homes. Always pay attention to what our elected officials are doing. Cause they will do it extremely quickly and you may not even know about it until that bill is passed.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. Thanks for that insight. So Kayla, the next part of the podcast is our lightning round. So Laurel and I will take turns asking you four total questions. You're gonna give us the first answer that comes to mind. Are you ready?
Kyla Andrade: Okay, I'm ready.
Sarah Larbi: All right. Question number one. What is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?
Kyla Andrade: My best advice to give you would be, man, wow, that's Cause you told me it was a lightning round.
Sarah Larbi: That's okay. You can expand a little bit. As long as it's not Five minutes into it, you're still explaining it.
Kyla Andrade: The best advice that you have to give is that you can't be pushy. You can't be pushy with your tenants. You can't be heavily involved with your tenant's lifestyle, what they're doing, who's coming by. You have to sit back and understand that this is their home and they have to make sure that they feel comfortable and they feel safe, and they don't feel harassed at their home. So this is about understanding to do your due diligence, making sure you're doing your inspections when they should be done.
Don't get heavily involved with their personal life and who they are and what they're doing, because that just brings drama and it just brings a lot of open areas for you to get caught in that web and to get yourself into some trouble and make sure that you don't talk about that tenant's situation.
With another tenant, cause that's where you wanna get information. So landlords talk to the other tenants, but then they start being friends again, and now you're caught in the middle. So just keep it to yourself, talk to your other landlord friends about it without any type of names to get your advice, but try not to talk to other tenants about the situations that you're dealing with other tenants.
Laurel Simmons: In other words, be professional. Be really professional, become security, respectful and professional. Got it. That's good. So question two, what is your favorite resource for real estate investing? Be it, a book training and a course person event. Do you have a favorite resource and what is it?
Kyla Andrade: REITE Club, are you kidding me? You guys have everything. You have it all. You have from joint ventures, from, getting yourselves in rent to own and how to scale and how to quit that nine to five job to get in there. You had this lady, Danielle, I believe it was that she was there.
She's such a passionate speaker, like your speakers are amazing and you guys really help your land. The landlords and your members really escalate to be bigger and better landlords, and I think you guys are doing a fantastic job. That's why when you guys want me to come on, I'm like, I'm there like you guys are Awesome.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. Thanks Kayla. You too. All right. Awesome. Question number three, what is the attribute, the one attribute that has made you most successful?
Kyla Andrade: I think my customer service and getting to know people, business that you get into, it's about providing customer service, is about getting to know your person, getting to know their character, and understanding that character in order to give them the type of service that they deserve.
The best way to get that is continuing to talk to as many landlords. Tenants, different type of businesses, and getting yourself into a network group because that's where it's gonna really give you the education that you need to pro to get that skill.
Laurel Simmons: Okay. And the last question. So what do you typically do on a Sunday morning?
Kyla Andrade: I have four children. I am running the landlord group, so I'm doing that. I'm usually doing that all day long cause they we're just over 5,000 members now. But I'm always doing something with the rentals. It's been a passion of mine for many years, but I don't really have much downtime, but I like it. It's you keep yourself motivated. The only time that we really have some downtime is when we take away notification, but we can't do that anymore, so I'm gonna be very stimulated.
Sarah Larbi: I actually don't know how you do it all with four kids and now. A whole property management business. I know you have a partner to help, also, but it's still a lot on your plate. And thank you. But I would say you're doing it in a way, you're doing a thankless job. Even though we're so appreciative of what you don't get paid to advocate. You don't get paid to, ensure that landlords have a voice. And so thank you for that. And Kayla, where can people reach out if they wanted to help? If they wanted to know more what they can do or just ask you some questions? Where can they go?
Kyla Andrade: They can join Ontario Landlords Watch Members group. They have our, we have our pages, Ontario Landlords watch. They can also, I would say email me. But I'm not, we have so many emails. We're a little bit backlogged on responding back, but if you do wanna send an email ollandlordsgmail.com. And then, connect with Sarah, she'll be able to give you my phone number.
Sarah Larbi: Kayla, you will have an Ontario Landlord's watch page as well on her website. So if people have, information or they wanna access the Facebook group, we'll put that stuff there for you as well, cause that you, what you're doing is, extremely important for us.
I wish, I wish you, you got compensated for it in a way because it's 10 years of time and time. Thank you for everything, Kayla. And if there's one last, piece of advice for other landlords, what would it be?
Kyla Andrade: It's network. Network with as many landlords as you possibly can, get to know them, what area they're from, what they like to invest in. Cause that's gonna be the power of protection as well by getting to know the investors in your area and being able to work together as a team for the protection of both both of your protections for your rental properties and your tenants.
Sarah Larbi: Awesome. Thank you so much Kayla, for being on the show and thank you.
Laurel Simmons: Thanks Kayla.
Kyla Andrade: I really appreciate it.
Another awesome interview with Kayla Andrade, and guys, Ontario landlords watch Facebook Group if you haven't requested to, to be in the group. There's so much great information and if you have any questions about Landlording or the rules or the regulations or anything you know, real estate related for landlords, that is a great group to join as well.
Sarah Larbi: Laurel, what was your big takeaway from it?
Laurel Simmons: I think the biggest takeaway for me was that it's all our responsibilities to know what our local politicians are doing. Like we can't complain about what the politicians do, if we don't even bother to find out what they're doing. It's as simple as that.
Sarah Larbi: Absolutely. I think it's important to have a good pulse. On what's happening. And even if you may not ever need to use it, that's great. At least just know what the rules and regulations are and you have the support. And I think that's a big takeaway is we are stronger together and there is support out there.
We just have to go to different places to find it. And just like in the beginning we said thereiteclub.com, is an option. That Facebook group that she has is amazing. So Ontario landlords watch. You can reach her on there or you can meet a lot of other investors that can give you some advice too and you can share stories and learn from one another. So Laurel, I will say it was great to co-host with you, but what do we say to the REITE club Nation?
Laurel Simmons: We say, come grow with us cause we really want you to grow and come to our website, join us, join the conversation, take part in, in what's going on, all kinds of resources as Sarah said. So yeah, come join with us @thereiteclub.com.
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