Laurel: Hello, REITE club nation. It's Laurel Simmons here. Before we get started, I wanted to ask you a quick question. Have you checked out our online community? I really hope you do because our online community is a place where you can find lots of education, training, and information about real estate investing and about general business, plus it's a great place to network with like-minded people.
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Hi everyone it's Laurel Simmons here and I'm with Sarah Larbi my wonderful co host here at The REITE Club. We are thrilled to have a different kind of guest. Sarah, someone who really started from rock bottom and we don't often get those kinds of guests, but before we get into that, tell us what you're up to these days?
Sarah: What am I up to? I'm working on a new balance for my schedule, cause I think it's all about lifestyle. Even though my summers I take off, I still have to figure out exactly my schedule for the Mondays and Fridays during the fall and the winter. It's slowly getting there, but some weeks I'm like, oh my God, how did I schedule so many meetings?
I'm working on a few things. I'm obviously working at the resort. That's gonna be a long term project working on developing to eight units mixed use buildings which we are building from scratch, which is gonna be awesome. Couple things in Hamilton, some conversions and just continuing the short term mid term rental strategy along the way. What about you?
Laurel: I'm excited cause we're heading down to Costa Rica soon to look at some properties that are being developed down there. That's a nice way to combine business and plans, right?
Sarah: Absolutely. Where in Costa Rica are you looking? Cause I'm actually negotiating something in Tamarindo right now. Like a fourplex there. We have something in Tamarindo and a little bit farther South. Anyway, lots, there's lots of stuff going on down there. It's really cool. I think it's important to still, regardless of that I wasn't into this as much back in the day, but with everything that happened through the pandemic, I think it's just important to diversify in different asset classes, diversify in different countries and different currencies.
One of the things I really actually liked about Costa Rica was the fact that with $150,000 investment, you can apply for a temporary residency and then you can go and apply for your permanent residency. From there again, talk to a real estate lawyer that deals with that, but it seems from the research that I've done, that's an option to be a resident in another country fairly easily. $150,000 investment or is a good entry point. It's not a. 500 grand.
Laurel: No, it's within reach of a lot of people, although it is US dollars, but still it's within reach of other people or a lot of other people. And it is an option. It's just another option in our arsenal of tools, right?
We do this, we do that. You invest in BRRRRs, you have buy and hold, you have flips, you do rent to own. Whatever it is, these days we have to have more than one strategy.
Sarah: Absolutely. Today's guest is Konstantin Kuligin, and he came from Russia, really built himself from the ground up. We actually talk a lot about whether or not somebody wants to become a private lender. Actually he is one of them a private lender as well. We also talk about it in different ways, whether you wanna be a lender or you wanna get properties that you need money for. We talk about everything in between. It's a great conversation, super insightful.
It's nice to just like it. Talk to somebody that's just genuine and wants to share. There's lots of people that love to share, but I just, I really felt like he just goes above and beyond to help others be successful. And you can feel that when you have a discussion with him.
Laurel: You can really tell that, he took the famous book, rich dad, poor dad to heart.
Because he said, when he came to Canada, he didn't know anyone and he had nothing. It's absolutely nothing. He took that book to heart and looked at where he is now. It's all about motivation and getting out of your comfort zone.
Sarah: Absolutely. Let's bring him in.
Laurel: Welcome Konstantin. How are you today?
Konstantin: I'm doing a fantastic world.
Laurel: You're out in Vancouver, correct?
Konstantin: Yes. We just opened an office last year. I'm traveling back. We have a headquarter in Calgary, but we opened an office on the north shore in Vancouver. We traveled back and forth. Yes, It's sitting in another office here as well.
Laurel: The west coast, Vancouver's beautiful and you know what, Calgary's a beautiful city too. I love both cities. They're wonderful places to be. Let's get into it. Let's tell you a little bit about your background. So you've been a real estate investor?
Konstantin: Yes, I've been in, I own properties. I flee properties. I sell, now we lend money. So you realize that it's working best for me and my surroundings and my clients and my investors.
Laurel: How many properties, like how many doors did you have? When you got started what got you into real estate investing?
Konstantin: I am originally from Russia. I came to Canada about 12 years ago and I read the book. And oh my goodness. Like why nobody buys real estate , back in my home country, like nobody buys real estate. So when I moved to Canada, I had to rent because, bring 500 South dollars cash, so I couldn't buy real estate and didn't have any credit.
I started buying real estate. I bought four properties and I realized really quickly that banks are making money out of money over these properties. As an investor held all the risks, I quickly realized that, because my goal was to have 50 houses paying a hundred dollars a month , I said, I will be set for life.
Right now, $5,000 even doesn't cover my housing expenses. When I realized that I transitioned into the private lending space, in 2012, the first couple of years, I was learning English. I moved to South 10, a couple of years ago. I learned English. Then I worked on survival jobs, washing dishes, pounding pills, up north, installing alignment floors, whatever I can survive for.
I reread the book again. I bought my first property when I was in Calgary, like after a year I bought another one , then I bought in the US as well. I realized like at four properties, I realized looks like, a couple hundred bucks, cash is not sexy.
Let's do something better. In 2013, I got my mortgage license and in 2014 they started lending money. When I started lending money, I realized , I wanna land like a thousand loans. I currently have about a hundred loans personally, myself, and about that's what we lend out in about close to 400 loans with my investors.
Basically VIP rate, a phone bond fund that allows us to provide people who can get additional financing. Now we help real estate investors who want to flip houses. We have a happy flipper program where we provide financing and we also help borrowers who can get bank financing.
We use private money or wire property, you stabilize it and then basically you sell it. If you wanna sell it or you finance it using birth strategy with that, you can just keep the asset if you used to.
Sarah: I find it interesting because sometimes, in the trajectory of real estate investors' goals, not always, but sometimes their end goal is to be the bank at the end. When they've acquired enough of that, they've got the equity and the ability to then say, I'm just gonna turn it around and not deal with property managers or tenants or renovations or any of that stuff. I'm gonna lend it out. What are the pros and cons of doing something like that?
Konstantin: That's how I realize there's four stages of investment in real estate. It started as the first stage. Like I start like a lot of people starting. They buy what they can buy themselves. They buy what they can buy with the family. They spend all the cash and they move to another stage, which is acquired in the properties as joint venture partners. Some people grow up to be fast people who don't have their own cash. Like I didn't have my own cash, so I have to raise money right away. And this is the second stage. Between this stage. It's about five to seven years.
The research stage in this journey is when you start building, you can start doing commercials. 10 houses, not enough for me. I wanna have one roof and 10 units. You start going to a multifamily. And that's where I see a lot of people lose money because they got bored with what is working and they start something new, which is not because ego gets in the way, oh, you can do whatever.
That stage, people start lending development, assembly, and lots of money. Some progress is really nice. Some don't and the last stage, it's another five to seven years. So you in the game for about 15 to 21 years, and then you getting older, you getting in boulder, you have kids, you have family, you don't wanna do any work and you start lending money because you accumulated a little bit, or a lot of wealth, you sell your assets and you just it's natural.
When I learned these four stages, I had four properties and it's like, Why am I doing like everybody else, why not jump into private lending and then go backwards if I choose to, but I realize that I have more freedom. I have more flexibility. I don't need to deal with tenants and, but people don't pay rent, but people pay mortgages.
Of course there's people who don't pay mortgages, but I found that if you are scared not to pay the mortgage, then you'll be scared not to pay. Of course it depends on the different provinces you are in. But I found that fascinating.
Sarah: It does depend on the provinces cause I feel like Ontario gets away with a lot more. This Montreal and then you go to Alberta and it's different.
Konstantin: There is a level of friendly. Provinces and some of them are not. So that's kinda what I realized. For me, because I have security, right? But I- land secured.
They land my bio homes. I land art collections. I land on cars. I land different types of loans. I've done 200 loans, 290 loans myself through my own personal folding company corporation. I also help my investors to do the same, what I am doing. Four years ago we opened a bond fund where we could pull money out.
For me, it's kinda easier because I don't need to qualify for the mortgages. That's a pro, right? Because if you wanna buy and don't pay cash, then you have to qualify for a mortgage sooner or later bank will say no to you. They have to come to firms like us to borrow extra cash at a higher rate.
The cost is there, there is no appreciation. If you're looking for just a cash flow, steady cash flow, it's good. If you're looking for appreciation, then of course lending money, it will not get you there. That's why if you follow a well string formula, you have to grow your wealth on the top of the triangle at a higher rate.
You use money to protect using a specific design in a life contract. You use our bond fund, a similar venture, so you can have a cash flow in terms of other kinds of pros and cons. I think that's the biggest one that I see is that people are always asking me, you are not able to do it, but you have other investments.
You have something like, if you invest in the stock market, if you invest in businesses, because the business is the best way to grow your well. Eventually you invest in real estate in other classes. That's what I learned from a book by Robert Kiyosaki that said that you have to invest in business first, then invest.
I did the opposite. I started investing in real estate and made a business out of it. As of necessity, then just kinda fall into being smart.
Laurel: What's the number one problem that real estate investors come to you with? What's the biggest problem that you hear over and over from real estate investors?
Konstantin: Banks are very tough nowadays. If you wanna get and grow your portfolio, you need to use leverage, right? The bank is your best partner. There is nothing better than the banks because the money there is so cheap. You have to maintain a very good relationship with the bank. And people come to us because they buy not for the cash flow.
Banks will not lend them to speculative mode, buy something, not conforming. They cannot prove the income of the property to the bank. They come to us or the bank doesn't want to approve me. I said why is that? Because I don't declare enough income. They don't like self-employed people. We can fix that issue or they say property is not conforming because you have a speeded house and it's not there or DCR for multi-units.
It doesn't work because the banks calculate their own ratios on their own calculators. Not like you have a rent minus mortgage minus property taxes, everything else is cash flow. That's not how the banks calculate and the rules and regulations that come into the marketplace is just making it very hard for investors to buy it.
That's why I need to use other people's money. I recommend my clients and investors to start using private not private money, start using investors money and forward qualifications, like right from the beginning. Don't wait, couple of years while you're in acquisition mode, just start doing right away.
This way you'll be prepared. When you hear the ceiling, this bank.
Sarah: I'm a big believer in just having multiple options for lending, whether it's, traditionally working with a good mortgage broker, or private lenders, so you can cast a wide net so that you have a deal in your contract. You have options. I do wanna take a different approach and find out from the other point of view though, if somebody does have. Cash that they wanna lend out.
What are some of the criteria that they should consider before lending that out? Like what do you look for in order to say, I want to loan to this investor on this deal, or, this is not the right investor. This is not the right deal. Could you walk us through maybe some of that mindset and then how you go about that?
Konstantin: All comes down to trust. Financial services is a trust business. If you trust a spirit person, you will lend money. If you don't trust, don't lend money. Some people know, let money close in their backyard. We currently lend Alberta BC. So for us, it doesn't really matter.
Like I said, I was lending money to an art collection. There is no security. I was lending money, a 150% loan of value. There is no security. I was lending money on cars, trying to find the car for you. It's not for everyone like investment in real estate. Not for everyone. Some people like the stock market.
Some more people like to build businesses. Some people just laser it like me and wanna just lend money out. That's it. It all depends at what stage of life you are in. But in order for you to, how to underwrite the files properly, to make sure you mitigate the risk. It just comes down to experience because when you get started, I would recommend you to work with somebody who is experienced like everything else, if you invest in real estate, they wanna buy a house.
Don't just go blindly, buy it. Partner up is someone who has already done that. That's number one. As you go, you will see because you might do 10 deals and you never lose money in private lending. And if you do the very first one and it's gonna go sideways, same with real estate.
If you buy a house and it's not performing. It might be a disaster for you, but if you and disaster comes like all the problems, count of knowledge, like fear, lack of knowledge. If you don't know what you're doing, you will be kind of stuck. But if you actually know what you're doing, You can underwrite the files when you land.
I wouldn't lend to friends to be honest, because if you wanna lose a friend, give them money kind of thing. I've done this in the past and I still don't have friends, because sometimes I take advantage of it. However I would just prefer to lend to third party people.
Because when you get into this position, unless you understand, and they understand when you're secured on the property and you have legal right. To take their house and sell it to get your money back, everybody has to be, that's why you use lawyers, never do it like on a handshake kind of thing.
Of course you can do it and I've done this. I've done a promissory note. Not anymore because what for, but in the beginning, whatever, if you get an into, you just need this experience and check the property, how you see if you like the property. Some people say I only land. If I will live on the property, I have a different approach.
I will land just for the sake of lending money, because I will never live in a property where my borrowers live. For me, I like how I can justify that. Some people rely on that. I have a different approach probably because you have multiple deals and it depends how much cash you have available. If you only play with a hundred thousand dollars.
How many loans can you do, right? If you play with a hundred million dollars. A fund then you have a lot of things where you can lend out. It depends where you stand and it's something in between. If you have a million and $2 million accounts it's up to you. What I found most people starting small when they start lending and mostly they do in second mortgages.
That's how I started second and third mortgages. They love that because I can deliver good returns. I understand the risks of being in second, third position lenders. I'm okay with that. And for me there is no risk. Like it's asking somebody if you're doing it for the first time, of course you have a huge amount of risk.
If you're doing this multiple times, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 times. Then it's ask real estate, the experienced real estate investor. Would you buy there or not? I will not buy in this area. Because of that, it's the same here as well. You will not give money to people who fall into a specific category, but we give chances to people all the time.
Laurel: I would like to take you back to when you first came to Canada, because you were an immigrant and you had to learn like the languages you said and become accustomed to the culture here. So how did you start? Because a lot of people in the REITE club and people who listen to podcasts are going, but I don't know how to get started.
I don't know who to talk to. How did you get started, who did you talk to when you first started in real estate investing? Because, as an immigrant, it's really difficult. It's way more difficult than if you are born here and you grew up knowing a lot of people. When you go to a new country, you're pretty much starting with a blank slate.
It's very difficult. So what did you do? How did you get to know people? Because we all know you can't invest in real estate without other people, right?
Konstantin: That's an awesome question. I was poor and that's motivation. I will never go back to Russia. When we escaped the regime. I would rather die here poor than I'd die poor there. For me, that was, Power of Broke. I recommend people to read the book by them and John's power of broke.
When you have zero money, you have nothing to lose like we brought $10,000 when we came here and spend this, and then like you have to go and find work. I found there are only five simple ways to achieve massive success. It's a focus, networking, confidence, persistence, and patience. There are no other things, and everybody has strengths and certain things, or weaknesses.
I wanna get to this sooner. That's why I pay thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars in mentorships just to get this sooner, right? Some people can take 5, 10, 15 years to buy their first or second property. I don't have this, like I'm just impatient. Of course it was tough.
Like I was babysitting some of my early investors. I start doing it myself and I can connect with them and I start babysitting them. I start asking their questions. They wanna invest with me and of course they said, oh, let me see it. I have some investors who, eight years down the road say, oh, are you still there?
I will invest with you. I think if you are not working enough, then you'd be able to sooner or later gather what you're looking for and just never give up. Everything else will come as long as you truly believe in that. That's where focus comes in, when I get focused, because I was all over the place trying and buying here and there.
When I get my focus, later I will be able to raise a million bucks in 11 months. This kinda gets started with a lot of things. When people jump from one thing to another, I think you need to have some sort of accountability body, so you can rely on someone's advice or experience.
I would like to share with everyone, people, your clients on the podcast, your listeners and everyone else, they can reach out and ask any question. How we started and how it was there. But I think my motivation was because I was poor and I don't wanna go back. It's terrible experience.
Sarah: It is like, it is an interesting story just to see and hear how people got to where they got to today. It's usually from a place of discomfort, like some of the best success stories, hit rock bottom or came and decided that they didn't wanna be living the life that they wanted to be and made some changes along the way.
It sounds like you've done that and that's just amazing to see. I do wanna ask though, obviously there's a lot of money to lend out there. When you're in the industry, if somebody has a deal and they wanna work with you what are we on average? And I know we can't give exact amounts, but let's just do an average, like what is the cost to borrow money and how much can be borrowed?
Konstantin: Fantastic question, Sarah, because there are like four different types of lenders. There are lenders, which are the bank credit unions, financial institutions, where you get the money under 3%, there are senior banks, lenders. There are online lenders. The only thing they do is just land on the mortgages , where you get a little bit higher interest rate.
There are mortgage investment corporations and mortgage investment corporations. That's the kind of pool of money like our bond fund. And they'll lend money, at 5%, 6%, 7% and up, and there are real private lenders. That's where we are and that's where my investors ES in. Because if you have cash, RST, TF say Lira, your kids' savings, you can lend this money.
Basically if you start with a bank and we always try to start with a bank, when we approach the client and say with a bank, you can get under 3% and the range goes to private money and it is private money. You charge 10 %, 12%, 15%, 16%, 18%, 20%, 25%. The sky's the limit. If it's a risky deal, you charge more interest, and of course, if you pass a certain threshold, then you have to have a license and you cannot just charge whatever you want to charge.
Of course, there is a criminal rate that you can need to comply with that you cannot charge as well. But for you as individual investors you can charge whatever you wish to charge as long as other parties agree to that. I would say for us personally, on average, you charge between 10% to 15%. I've charged more than that and I've charged less than that.
Happen to see, and to know that the interest, the cost doesn't really matter. You can get. Two and a half percent for $0 in the bank, because that's what the bank can say to you. Or you can get 500,000 at 10% interest rate. So what would you pick, $0 at two and a half percent or 500,000 at 10%.
It all depends. If you cannot make money with the private money, then you should not get into this deal in the first place. But it's interesting enough that people currently pay Canadian Spanish right now between 90-99%. They said 6% on the credit card debt and they just pay it and don't even say anything.
When we charge people, 12% say oh my goodness, you charge so much. Your fees are ridiculous. They said you have a credit card. Yes. But I pay this all the time, but you are the only one from 5% of the population who pays the credit card all the time. You'll like you that way. Sure. If I answer the question, but rage can be from 3%, of course we will not lend.
We pay investors. Like when people invest into a bond fund, we pay them between eight to 10%. On their money. So we have to rent their money for higher 11, 12, 15, but if they are individual investors, they can generate their own rate of return. Whatever is gonna be feasible. If it's the first position mortgage, second position, third position, etc.
Sarah: It sounds like that's the average going rate. You know what I think from an exit standpoint, that is gonna be the important part, right? It's not like you wanna borrow this 10% to 15% rate for three years, four years, five years. These are usually flips. These are usually like short term bird deals, something with an exit, something where you've got a timeframe, I would say, ideally.
A year or less so that you've got an ability to exit, whether it's through an institutional bank or your plan is to sell. But I do wanna go back and I wanna say, I agree with you. If the deal is not too thin that your fees and the rates are going to make the deal no longer. Good. It's probably not that good of a deal to be good with.
Konstantin: I agree with you and you see this a lot. People come to us, we have a hyper flipper program where we charge borrowers 1% upfront or, and 3% upfront at 1% interest. If you use money for six months, it costs 6%. If you use money for a full year, it costs 15%. So basically the less money you use in three months is like 6%.
It's nothing. And that's what you'd be able to flip the deal. If you used it for six months, it's 6% the last day, it's 9%. So in this case we allow people to understand, even tell them I don't wanna lend you money because I see that I am the only one who is making money. I am finding that my investor will laugh.
But I don't want you to get into this position and not all the lenders are doing so, some people just lend money for the sake of lending it. They don't, they don't worry about the exit and that's where they can, the disaster can happen for a closure can happen for us in the position to provide a solution rather than just take advantage of people who are, might be not.
Reasonably estimating their exit and how they can make money on this particular project. You can use money in different ways but how you get started, that's the only way to use it. And when you accommodate enough cash, then you'll become a private lender yourself. It's like catch 22 when you don't have anything to start.
Like I did, I was paying like a lot, like for me, it doesn't really matter. I have to make it work and if I cannot make it work, then don't borrow. And from that you just kind of transition gradually into the position that you become your own bank of some sort.
Laurel: Can you tell us the most unusual lending situation you've ever seen. I'm not with personal details, but I wanna know, give us an example of someone who walked in and you just went, whoa, where did this come from? Or, and maybe you went for it and maybe you didn't, but tell us, give us a story about what a really unusual situation.
Konstantin: All our files are in an unusual situation. All our files are from people because they come to us and not as a last resort, that's what most of the people think it's kind of a misconception because, oh, if I can't go to the bank, I only go to private. No it is just because some people have damaged credit and some people had some disaster COVID happened.
We were still lending. A lot of people stopped lending when COVID happened, we will still lend money because we understand sooner later it will recover. Even right now, it's not even recovered yet, but we are still lending for us, people have gone bankrupt.
We didn't deal right now, double bankruptcy, and we're saving them from foreclosure. We are a solution for, and of course we'll charge that we will increase the premium because risk is much higher, but we always give people a second and secure chance, even if you start, legal action against them, because sometimes people don't even think that it's real, oh, you just kinda lended money and that's it.
I said, no lending money is the easy part. Collecting money back is the hard part, and that's why you get the lawyers involved and have proper documentation that you have to come up with and build over time. Same as your lease agreements. If you are, have a rental or rental, have you like to buy and hold properties.
I actually love difficult situations. I don't like easy peasy deals because I don't think that I can bring value. If you are bankable, your income is good. I don't believe in rate shopping, go to the bank, whatever you like, don't go to your mortgage broker, whatever you like, don't go for rate shopping, because you should understand how the banking works and you should control the banking function.
You can become your own bank using specific tools that we are teaching the key people about. But unusual situation is whatever you can imagine. Like I said, we have people come to us and they only have a car. You learn money in the car. One guy just brought our piece of art, so distorted in our office and we lent money to him and dad. The people were having trouble financing mobile homes because nobody finances mobile homes because it's a stigma or, my bio home is like a car. It goes down every day, which is true. But if there is an exit in place, who cares, if you are okay to take this risk. If you wanna help people from the bottom of your heart, you will find the solution, how to fund it. If you are very fixed and you're very squared like a bank or doesn't fit, this doesn't fit that they have enough equity, etc.
I lent money to a lady and she was a business owner. She went to five different banks, has a bad, perfect trade, but she doesn't have any equity in her property. So you lend her a little bit of money to get started on her. she kinda gets started. Of course we charge a lot and I told you it's super expensive.
Do you wanna do it? Your projection was great, but nobody was expecting the COVID situation. And now she kinda stuck and we are still working this year, but that's another good example. Another unusual situation right now we didn't have is for a double bankruptcy for reclosure because real estate investors don't really come often to us because they are either trying to use banks. And do it that way because I found not a lot of real estate investors using their performers based on the private cost.
Sarah: Unless it's a decrepit looking house, like there is gonna be some stuff that regardless, like you have to go private with, even if you have an investor that's a van.
There's a house that's missing a kitchen that has a, like a big hole through the floor. You are not getting any type of lender other than private going for that.
Konstantin: Absolutely. And that is for example, right now we have nonconforming property in previous George, like I've talked to one of our referral partners.
We work with mortgage brokers. We have 730 mortgage brokers that we work with. We have over a hundred pages of the altar that we work with. And so the mortgage broker said I have a property. They wanna buy a house. And right beside this house on the same law, there is a boarding house.
There are like a lot of tenants in the same house, so it's not conforming to the bank. What they wanna do, they wanna acquire this property with the private money, subdivide it in between. And then they go to the bank here and then other private's there. That's another unusual situation.
He's still waiting for the comment because it happened today. But I think that's will be another to put into the question, Laurel, because I love those challenge files. I told them my referral partners, mortgage broker, don't suddenly do this easy deal. I want a deal that they cannot sleep over.
I need to find a massager to make sure that they can go back to the office. And kind provide you a solution. That wakes me up at night. That's what keeps me going, because it's boring. Lending money is so boring. It's just crazy.
Laurel: It sounds like you really like the creative side of this and all those strange, wonderful deals that walk in the door and that's real estate investing like anything else? The bottom line, it's a people business, right? Yes, we're investing in a physical house, but like you said, at the beginning, it's about trust and you don't trust a house, you trust the person and that's as simple as that. I think we're going to move on to our lightning round questions now.
Sarah: All right, let's do it. Are you ready to play Konstantin?
Konstantin: Absolutely.
Sarah: Here's question number one. First answer that comes to mind. What is the best advice that you have ever received from another investor or at a networking event?
Konstantin: The best advice I received is, don't be cheap on yourself. What this means is you need to put money into yourself first before buying any properties, before buying anything like coaching, mentoring, that's the best. Like I wish my mentor more often I will be progressing even faster. I would say that don't ship out on yourself. Nobody can take it from you. If you absorb it, nobody can take it.
Laurel: Invest in yourself first. That's really great advice. Question number two. What is your favorite resource for real estate investing? It can be anything, book, training person, event, podcast, Facebook group. What's your favorite resource?
Konstantin: What we are doing right now, we are partnering up with mortgage brokers and real estate investment clubs, like your club. People who are already in the game, they understand that like our goal is to lend money in this case. We are sourcing instead of going individually, we just go into a network of people. For example, a mortgage broker in another province has another hundred people that they know.
We prefer to share the wealth and share the loss with them and explain that. And they give it to us. Networking is huge. I told you in my five simple things, networking, number two, if you are not shy and if you cannot talk, you just go and do that because that will bring you more deals. And if you tell the universe, you tell everyone about that, they'll be calling you. And then you say my goodness, so many calls now. I don't have this. I don't have projects like our problem right now. Like we don't have. That's our problem.
When you sit on cash, it's really bad because cash is going down every day. If you sit on 10 million cash, next year it's 9 million because real inflation is 10%. Your money buying power is diminishing. It puts stress, people when they say I would rather, problem with money like I have a lot of deals, but I don't have money. It's super easy to fix. Money is everywhere. It's how you put this. You just need to be open to that and talk to smart people.
Talk to people who join the club like yourself. Like I was shocked. Francois, when he introduced me I was very surprised at how many people he knows and how many deals we have already done so far. For the last little while, how like you have to find the circle and the influence in each town and each city, regardless of a small or big, there is somebody who everybody knows get to know them really well or wine and dine them buy their time, buy, bring some value to them to make sure you can get it to their network. And your network is your net worse.
Sarah: Amazing. That's such a great answer.
Laurel: Question number three. What is the attribute that has made you successful? What would you say? What's the one attribute that has made you successful?
Konstantin: I fear going back to a poor country. I think that that was my motivation, I am helping to escape right now. What is going on with what in the world right now, to help to escape some of my friends there and some people comfortable. And I said you need to get rid of the comfort, leave everything, what you have, houses, cars, but there are not many assets. If you have a house, you are already a rich person there, but leave it and just go for the better.
And if you have something to lose, you will never accomplish it in my view because you are comfortable. If you have nothing to lose. And if you're not the bridges, like you don't have any other, but to succeed, you don't have any other kind ways. And I wanna bring this to people and I, because nobody helped me when I started.
I think it's my duty and responsibility to share this and tell, and bring and lift it up and motivate people. I used to do coaching in the past. And then I started coaching my sales people. And after that, as I give up on that, which is better to spend time with is a family but I still like to do that.
I kind of pick up somebody and mentor them. And the attribute like you have to be super hungry if you are fed, you can wait until tomorrow for the next. But if you're hungry, you can't wait for tomorrow. It might never materialize for you tomorrow. You have to do it now. And that's probably where my weakness is with patients.
Like sometimes I cannot wait. Sometimes I make bad decisions but I think every successful businessman has to have the attribute. At least learning and developing themself. I put a lot of effort into learning, I spent 20,000 US dollars last year just for my training and learning exercises, cuz I truly believe in that because I don't believe in the regular education system.
I think if you have this life learning experience and life learning personality, and if you follow these five simple things to achieve massive success, like it's inevitable, then you will do it. It works with people, grows it, takes some time, just as long as you are in it, you will be in.
Sarah: Amazing. Great answer. I agree with you once you're too comfortable or you're in your comfort zone, you're not gonna push yourself to the extent that you need to make things happen. Question number four, what do you typically do on a Sunday morning?
Konstantin: Actually, excellent question. When I was flying back and forth, I joined a group very deep dive, but we just kinda went and slept in the ocean regardless of the water. That was my new venture here. I've done this several times on Sunday mornings because I have a very young kid. I like to sleep. And if I can sleep till eight, that's cool. But usually it's 7:00 or 6:30 and that's what I'm missing from my earlier days.
Sometimes I go to the office, like for example, I have a client because I like to help. And if it's urgent, I would go to the office and because I like to go to the office, do something to spend time right now. Like my priority is to spend time with my wife and it's my little. And just to teach him and explain to them how grateful we are, just to be able to leave even whatever economic situation is happening and just go for a walk might be just to relax and rejuvenate.
I don't meditate, which I always try to, but I think that's also a good part, but I like to listen to jazz music, classical music as well, just to relax a little bit. But that's pretty much it, I would say.
Sarah: Sounds great. Work in our REITE Club community, reach out and find out more.
Konstantin: How they can reach out to us? On our website, we have multiple website. One of them deals deals with best capital bond. That's our email bestcapitalbond.com. That's our investor website for the mortgages. We have key5mortgage.com. We also have different partnerships as well. I think the best way is to reach out is just give us a call on any, like you can search us. You can search my name. Research my company name on Google and find out about us, or just reach out to you guys. And you can introduce us directly or indirectly.
Sarah: We'll put your information in the show notes for the podcast so people can actually reach out to you directly and that way they can get some good feedback and answers to their questions in a timely manner as well. Thank you so much for being on the show. It was a pleasure having you on and thanks for providing so much insight and congrats on all your success as well. I'd love to hear the stories of somebody starting from nothing and really becoming successful with working their way up. Congratulations and thank you.
Laurel: Very motivational. Thank you very much.
Konstantin: Thank you ladies. And any questions I'm always here to answer and support everyone and your members as well.
Sarah: That was awesome. You know what, I really enjoyed getting to know Konstantin and he's just got tons of insights, somebody might be listening to this and realizing that maybe dealing with renovations or tenants or any of that stuff is not for them. They might wanna be a private lender and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes when people have a lot, they sell everything and then they become a private lender down the road. That could be an end game for somebody, but it could also be the starting game for somebody as well, who may not want to deal with all of the more active types of real estate strategies.
Laurel: I agree. And I think in our future, my future and Daniel's future where we will be looking at becoming private lenders. But it made me think when he talked about it, he started out pretty early on in his career. He just said, I wanna be a private lender. That's what I wanna do. And he's so passionate about it. Isn't he just so passionate. He likes to help people. And he really likes those unusual situations where he has to think and be creative.
Sarah: I thought it was pretty interesting that he was lending on art and on cars. Because not every private lender will do that. Like some private lenders in the industry is just real estate, but it sounds like you could whatever has some value in his eyes he's willing to lend on.
I think it's quite interesting in the REITE Club nation. If you haven't left a rating or of review or signed up for free to join our website and our community where there's a ton of different events and lots of opportunities, please do so thereiteclub.com, sign up it is free. There's tons of resources, but on that note, Laurel, what do we tell our right club nation?
Laurel: Customize your life because, hey, if you don't do it, who is?
Sarah: That's it.
Konstantin: Thanks for listening to The REITE Club podcast where the focus is on helping all levels of real estate investors advance to the next level and help you customize your life. Be sure to tune in next week at thereiteclub.com/podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you get a few seconds, please rate the podcast. Wherever you're listening, it helps the show get noticed by others like you. And we truly appreciate it. And don't forget to subscribe.
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