When Real Estate Investors Need To Make Tough Decisions with Claire Drage

 

Claire: That expiry date could be when you're six foot under. I'm not saying every relationship is bad, but every relationship has an expiration date.

Alfonso: Welcome back REITE Club nation to another episode of The REITE Club podcast. I'm Alfonso Salemi and today I'm joined by Sarah Larbi. How's it going, Sarah?

Sarah: I'm doing awesome. How are you doing?

Alfonso: I am doing fantastic. I wanna thank you, we know on different podcasts and different episodes. We talk about scheduling, and figuring things out. I don't know how long now we've been doing podcasts on Monday evenings, and this was just a time that worked in your schedule. I was like, okay, I'll just go with it. Cause my schedule is all over the place, but now I have it locked in on Monday nights and playing around it. And that's one thing I guess we've been able to work together and figure that out, but yeah.

Scheduling and learning. That's something that yeah, I guess I just wanted to thank you about, I don't know why I'm saying this in the intro, but it's just something that yeah I really enjoy doing this and when you can plan and go through it, but today's episode is gonna be amazing.
If you've heard of the REITE Club or been part of the REITE Club for any amount of time, you've definitely heard of Claire Drage in the windrows group. She's amazing. A wealth of knowledge today is no different. She shares lots of information and she's got some cool things coming out as well.

Sarah: Absolutely. I think that's the beauty, right? Is that we have a lot of really great experts team members that are partners with the REITE Club that we personally work with ourselves. Claire is one of those people, where she works with me. She works with my students. She works with many people at the REITE Club and has a great reputation, always willing to help tons of insight.

She's an investor herself. We have, a great conversation with today's podcast, every time we bring Claire, there's so many directions that we can go. There's many topics that we can cover. Not only is she a mortgage broker, but she's a private lender and a great one at that where there's lots of different, scenarios and situations that she can help with.

I do recommend that you reach out to Claire and her team, if it's from a mortgage standpoint or if it's for private lending, whether you wanna borrow it or lend it, she does both. But there's lots of really cool stuff. On that note, Claire Drage from the wind rose group, let's bring in Claire.

Alfonso: Welcome back. I think Claire to the podcast, we've had you on at least one other time, maybe a few other times, but it's always great to speak with you. I know both Sarah and I are ready to ask a lot of questions, get to learn a whole lot more. If you haven't heard of Claire Drage, you guys are in for a treat today, but so happy to have you on here, Claire.

Claire: Thank you. I'm just thrilled. I think I'm like a bad penny, right? I just keep showing up.

Alfonso: No. Hey, it's a penny. That's well, with inflation, that's gotta be a loony now.

Claire: I was gonna say it's worth a few bucks now, for sure.

Alfonso: That's awesome.

Sarah: Lots of insights and lots, every time I think you come on, there's a different topic we can take, you know what you're doing? And so many directions cause you do so much and you help so many investors.

Today I think we're gonna talk about the toughest decisions you have to make as a real estate investor. I'm actually curious to hear what some of those are and why don't we get started first, maybe just give us before we get into all of that stuff.

A little bit of insight, what you do. I know you help a lot of my students, a lot of the REITE Club members as well. Let's just do a quick overview just in case somebody's brand new. I'm sure many people have heard or seen you speak on our stage because you are there and super helpful a lot and same thing with our presentations online. For those that may not maybe just give us some insights.

Claire: Definitely. Technically I'm licensed as a mortgage broker, so of course doing mortgages is pretty straightforward. I'd say that our specialty area at the windrows group is specifically real estate investors. My background is rich dad, poor dad.

I taught the creative financing course. When we come to looking for money, It tends to be the pivotable part of the success of a purchase or a real estate investor's growth. Our goal is to get unlimited capital for our investors, but also make sure it's smart capital.

I think that's what a lot of people might miss. A relationship with a good finance person is a long-term relationship. It's not just transactional based. Our specialty is definitely with investors, everything from a hundred percent financing for BRRRRRs and flips commercial financing, your regular single family buying hold at whatever the investment strategy or property type is.

We have an amazing team that can handle that. Our best part is we enjoy seeing people execute on the why. Which is, do you wanna quit your job? What do we need to get to allow you to do that and work towards that goal? That really is what makes us show up every day.

Alfonso: I think we've talked a lot about that on this podcast, we obviously encourage people to invest in real estate and it's a great investment strategy, whatever strategy that you implement to rent your own BRRRRs, flips, all commercials. What you just touched on is why are you doing it?

I think that's really the big question to start off with. When you are gonna speak with Claire or her team, you have to really understand that cause they're not gonna make that plan for you unless you know what your idea or what, maybe not an end goal, but at least maybe a first goal of achieving some of that.

I wanna get right into it. We're talking about the tough decisions that we make as real estate investors. I think it must be said, every time somebody says due diligence, An angel gets their wings or something like that. We talk about that quite often, due your diligence, make sure the numbers work, all that kind of stuff.

We're gonna talk a little bit more about that. Not just give it, that once over, make sure the numbers work and go for it. What does that mean? Because you're the one that is providing those funds, providing that money, for those investors that are looking to get into their real estate deals, what does due diligence, what does that look like to you as the one actually distributing the funds.

Claire: It's such a long answer to that question. I'm gonna focus instead of on the financing specifically on actually, the deal itself or the strategy. I think sometimes the toughest decision an investor has to make is when to say no. In my opinion, you can't say no until you've gone through your due diligence.

Lot of people will skip due diligence or they will skip certain parts of it, oh, I don't need an inspector. I've walked through 50 houses before, or we can skip that. Or one prime example, which I see a lot is we are focused on the buy, right? You find a property, the numbers make sense.

Cash flow looks great. It's BRRRRs. The after repair value looks fabulous and we do all our analysis before we put our offer in. We put our offer in our offer, get accepted, and then we stop doing our analysis because I've got the property under contract. Now I'm just gonna buy it and do it. One of the things, one of the, some of the toughest questions is. Revisiting that analysis, revisiting that due diligence afterwards.

What I mean by that is, standard due diligence is just because the realtor says there's 1800 bucks in rent. Doesn't mean it's necessarily true that it's gross or net ,has that gone up? What's the demographic of the tenant?

What is a real rent role versus the back of a napkin? What are the actuals? Property taxes. Do you have the latest assessment? Is it gonna get reassessed based on the municipality? There's all those types of things, but I think that as an investor, an important thing is you do your analysis before you put your offer in.

When it closes, you need to revisit that cash flow analysis, that budget, whatever the spreadsheet you are using and go, okay. Were my closing costs as expected were their extra fees, was there a property tax adjustment? And then two weeks after closing, review it again, it's boring. It's not as exciting as the negotiation and the hunt for the deal and figuring out the design and what you're gonna do, but it's an integral part because at some point that deal might no longer be the same reason you bought it in the first place.

Sometimes when I look at a BRRRRs, for example, prime example, you buy the property, you do your renovations. Six months later, you've got this nice duplex, fully rented. Everything's fabulous. Now we're gonna go to the bank to get the refinancing, but the market rent versus the value of the property is not cash flowing.

Suitable to the bank. The bank is saying, we'll still give you a mortgage, but we're not gonna give you the 80% you want. We're only gonna give you 62% loan to value or 68% because the property's now worth 900,000, but you're only collecting 3000 rent. In relation to the value versus what the lender's giving you, you've really gotta think.

Is it still worth me keeping it? Does it still meet my why? Because now that property is gonna have capital left in it could be fine. All the cash flow could be impacted. I think that sometimes the toughest decision is revisiting the analysis on a regular basis. Not just before you put your offer in and be prepared to change the strategy, walk away from the deal.

Obviously legally do that. Maybe even sell. I often say to investors, I was speaking to one last week three properties, underwater, negatively cash flowing. I was asking the investor right at the beginning. Why I wanna quit my job? I need $10,000 a month cash flow.

You're keeping the three condos you already owned that you bought six years ago. That costs you a thousand bucks a month on a good month. Remind me again, how they align with your why. The response was, I don't wanna sell. Because, my brother says I'd be stupid to sell. They're gonna be worth more.

Your brother's not gonna put the thousand bucks in a month. Are they? To make them break even sometimes the toughest decision is understanding that selling isn't failing. Selling is just redeploying capital to continue to hit your why. I know Alfonso, that was a long winded way of answering that question, but that due diligence doesn't start before you put your offer.

It starts there, but it doesn't stop there and you've gotta continue matching up what people have told you with fact, which is the bill you've got in your hand.

Sarah: I mean that is such great insight too. I do agree because everybody has like their little spreadsheet in the beginning and they're like, okay, what's my ROI. But then even like you said, like maybe a month or two to even just say, is this actually still even, before even thinking about selling, but let's just say two months or three months later, or six months later, is this what I actually calculated? Or are my expenses higher or is my rent higher potentially than originally projected. 

Even just analyzing that and then potentially doing it on a yearly basis and figuring out, like you said, with your, why, does this property still align with your goals? I think like you said, being able to make those tough decisions, whether you are walking away during your due diligence, if you have something on your contract or walking away in a sense that you're gonna be selling a property that you've got in order to redeploy the cash.
It's definitely tough because there's definitely some probable emotion in that. They say don't sell, to try not to sell and you look back and many investors say one of the biggest regrets I had was selling because then obviously, hindsight is 2020 and there's equity potentially that they didn't have.

However, again, I think it goes back to what you're saying with the why, and if the, why is to leave your job and your cash flow negative, or this property doesn't fit into the bigger picture. Why keep it?

Claire: One is that redeploying of capital, either leave half a million in your portfolio earning you nothing or redeploy it.
 It generates, maybe you've gotta move into, six plexes, eight plexes multi-family maybe you've gotta build the value instead of buy it, especially in the current market where there just isn't that much inventory. I think due diligence is third party verification.

Again, if an investor comes up to me and says, I've got a hundred thousand dollars. I'd like to loan it to you. The borrower quite often will go. Yeah. Yes, please. But what is the due diligence the borrower needs to do on the lender? One do you actually have the money or are you co brokering it with 6,000 other people?

It's gonna cost me more. What are the terms and conditions? Not for me just to get in with the money, but how do I pay it back? Are there additional costs and fees? I think due diligence goes both ways in order that there's third party verification. If I have a borrower, bank's not gonna give a borrower half a million dollars just because they have cute children, you've gotta provide a boatload of paperwork, and that's part of everyone's.

I think the due diligence process is making sure you're going through that.

Alfonso: Absolutely. Things change from the time that like you said, those rent roles might not actually be true. Checking in measuring that aligning with those goals are very important. You mentioned that third party verification, when I think of that, I think about power team members, certain people that, whether it's coaches, whether it's brokers, realtors, different real estate professionals that are gonna be surrounding you.
What are some of the experts that you lean on for expertise or where you could spend your money wisely so that you can have this third party verification, those power team members, so that they can be there to assist you and know to bring in that expertise and when not to maybe.

Claire: It's such a great point. Your power team is extremely important. When each member is important to you. Obviously the key power team members, someone that's gonna give you money. Your finance, your mortgage broker, you're a banker really doesn't have to be just a mortgage broker, but anyone that's gonna provide you with a capital, obviously, a coach, working with a coach, lawyer accountant, etc.

There are so many people to build around your power team. The people are important, their expertise is hugely important. It's also very important to understand that you do not wanna stay around yourself with yes, people, the people just say yes to everything and don't challenge you, or don't suggest things that are specific to you.

Not just going along with what you think you want. No different to you walking into a bank and saying, I need a five year fixed term mortgage. The bank says, okay, here I go. Now, if you came in and asked me for a five year fixed mortgage, I'm not gonna give you that without asking at least six or seven other questions to make sure that's a suitable product for what you are looking to do today, tomorrow, next year and five or 10 years from now.

I think that when you're looking for power team members, they don't have to be people you like. Have people that are expertise in their field and are gonna tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. I have spoken to many people and I've said, I'm not getting a mortgage on this property because you shouldn't be buying it because it doesn't meet your why.

It's overpriced. You're going in with multiple offers. I'm more than happy to refer you to someone else. I just won't be party to that. I think it's no different to a realtor telling you when to not to buy a property, as opposed to just saying yes to all of them. I think that some of the best advice I can give to real estate investors is you are a CEO first.

You are a business owner first. Your product is real estate. That's your product. Treat your business like a serious business. A corporation is gonna have a chief financial officer, a bookkeeper, an accountant and people that are gonna advise them.

If you're serious and you're gonna grow exponentially, don't be cheap. People say, oh, that accountant wants to charge me a hundred bucks for a consultation. It should be free. You know what you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. I don't know. I dunno if I those people, those professionals can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars later in the long run. Treat it like a business.

Sarah: Yeah. Your team is going to be a big, if not the big, other than mindset, like the next biggest part of your success, right? There's taking action and there's mindset, but if you don't have the right team that can't get you there and if you say I wanna scale, this is what I wanna do, and they've never done it for somebody else.

You are on the wrong team and you really should have. The experts around you, in my opinion, are also real estate investors and also have scaled themselves. If that's your goal or replace their income, if that's the goal, it does take time to find the right team. Sometimes there's pieces of that team that you're like you know what?

There might be a little bit of a weak link here. I need to do something to update this because I don't think that they can continue helping. Reach the next level or that, that next goal or the next strategy. That includes mortgage brokers and accountants, but it also could be your contractors, your BCIN designers.

You name it. You are the CEO, like you mentioned Claire, I think that is very insightful. You wanna hire the right people, but you also need to know when to say, this is not the right person's thoughts about that.

Claire: Yes, when firing people, I stole it from someone, someone once said to me that every relationship has an expiry date. That expiry date could be when you're six foot under . I'm not saying every relationship is bad, but every relationship has some form of expiry date. I think it's really important to recognize that and recognize quickly that if something isn't working, you wouldn't continue paying a staff member for a poor job.
When you have a bad meal at a restaurant, you don't just keep going back. You feel like you'd stop going back. You discontinue that service. It's okay to fire people. It's okay to let people know, you know what this isn't working for me. This is why give them an opportunity to fix it.

If it's a one off. I give an example. I had a client, a new client, text me on Thursday last week. I responded by saying, I'll set up a time for us to chat and I forgot to set up a time to chat. I texted this morning and said, I'm so sorry. It's possible. We don't require our services anymore.

I'm not gonna bore you with excuses. It's not the normal way. We do business more than happy to chat, but wish you the best with the growth of your portfolio. It's okay if you screw up, as long as you admit that, I think, and good people will give you a second chance. Cause not every service provider provides good service or a good product and but ones that do you wanna look after them too, to keep them right, because the relationship's two way, if you treat someone like, garbage or expected them to be on your back and call, 24/ 7, they might not want that business either. It's definitely that, that two-way street for sure, I think is really important.

Alfonso: Having that honest conversation, setting those expectations out. That's what we talk a lot about with our team. What is the expectation? If you're gonna say something, then you have to stick to it. Don't just say it, if you're working with professionals and professionals are working with you, you have to make sure of what the actual expectation is.

If it's three to five business days, do your best to be within three to five business days. I know when we're talking with tenant buyers or clients or potential investors and they want answers tomorrow. I'm telling them, I'm sorry, I can't give you an answer tomorrow. That's not the way that we operate.

We need to take our time. We need to make sure that we're doing the right things and setting those expectations up for all the different relationships, business, real estate. Otherwise, I think these are the top things to do. To that point where relationships continue to grow or have an expiry date.

You mentioned it about, checking in on the spreadsheets and adjusting when you're buying a property. As your business is growing, as you've gone from one or to two, or you're looking to do some private investing and adjust different strategies or the market that you're focusing on.
The only thing that stays the same is change. Things are constantly changing right today. We've got some other news that we're not gonna talk about. That there's gonna be more changes that are coming through.

How well, like what timeframe or how, you've been investing and advising investors for a long time now, how do you advise them. How often should it be every day they're checking in every week, every year. How often should they be checking in on saying, Hey, this is the strategy. This is my plan. I dig. I thought I wanted 10,000 a month. Now it's something different. How often or when should they make some adjustments to their plan?

Claire: It's one of those things where I think if there's any material change in your circumstances or that of the market, ultimately if you're wise to quit your job and that hasn't changed. Your why hasn't changed, but you're noticing that there's a challenge in the market. You're struggling to find the right properties that meet the numbers that are gonna meet that why, so do you have to change your strategy? Maybe you are building, not buying, maybe you're having to build and go into development or different markets and adjust your strategy and not try and make your current market.

Where it no longer fits anymore. Be fluid enough to recognize that you may need to make a change so that you don't buy out of desperation. Like I see a few investors. I'm gonna go in with multiple offers. It's a really good deal. Like tomorrow will be worth another a hundred thousand.
Oh, it doesn't meet your why. Why are you buying a $2.2 million cottage again? Remind me. With multiple offers, and I think that also when it comes to regrouping with your power team, I think that's the same thing. If I decide I'm not gonna quit my job, I'm gonna take on an 18th month new contract.

How does that impact? My power team members and how they guide me because it's not just about financing. Does that impact my accounting, how my accountant views things. Is there another delay with me getting a dividend or whatever that might look like? I think that the faster you grow or the more properties you acquire.

Higher your net worth. I think a regular check in it could be monthly. It could be quarterly. Versus if you're a real estate borrower, so you're an investor, that's borrowing money and you're borrowing, for example, private money. I think every week you should know your carrying costs for each property.

Every week, you should be calculating and just double checking. Okay. With my private money, with my promissory note loan, with my interest on my line of credit, I borrowed with, what I loaned, you know what I borrowed from mom and dad, my utilities, my insurance, all of that kind of stuff. My property taxes.

What is that property costing me each week? Because if I know that property is costing me $2,400 a week, that's gonna change some of the decisions I make which might not be accepting the highest offer. It might be accepting the quickest offer. Because I know my numbers. Now I am a bit of a number freak, but I'll be honest with you.

That's where your sick people go bankrupt or get into big financial problems because they didn't realize it was costing them X amount per week to borrow against that property. They were just so focused on when I got bank financing, but that could take three months, six months or a year.
What happens? We talked about if your circumstances change, but what about the market? Now one thing we haven't talked about is outside influences like a pandemic. Might have an impact, on your access to materials trades, just the fact that your lawyer's office might be closed for a week because they have to isolate or whatever the scenario might be.

How do you pivot quickly enough that it doesn't negatively impact your success in your portfolio? Or reduce your profit at the end. I think there is no black and white answer to that question. It's like how long a piece of string gets me a tape measure and I'll tell you, cause I think it's gonna depend on everyone.

Someone who's gonna buy one buy and hold turnkey year probably doesn't need a weekly check in, but when they're ready to do their financials, when they're ready to, when there's any material changes in their circumstances, They're a strategy, they're a market or anything else. They think it is gonna negatively impact their growth. I think that's the time to have a check in with your core power team members.

Sarah: So many insights there in that short two minutes, but one of the things I wanna also go back to and re mention, cause I think it's important is five years ago. I remember saying this myself too, because it made sense back then to pick a strategy.

Become the expert, pick the market, know the market, like the back of your hand, where now I think not that strategy can't work, but it's just a lot tougher in this type of market that you actually have to pivot. You might have to pivot strategy, the BRRRRs might need three units. Instead, or it could be two units in a different, like a single family.

BRRRR probably doesn't work in most of these markets as a two unit BRRRR probably doesn't work in many of these markets. What's the next thing and being able to shift, I had to shift to development. You mentioned, people switching to development cause I'm like, there's not a whole lot of deals that I would wanna buy in this market where 20 other offers, I don't wanna be competing with 20 other offers.

How can I go into a different lane? I think that is a strategy or something today that didn't exist when there was a lot more inventory, five, 10 years ago, where we were able to say, let me learn this strategy. I'm gonna focus on this and it's gonna work over and over.

Claire: I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's definitely a matter of keeping aware of what's going on around you too. If you don't wanna limit yourself to a specific market, but you also wanna be confident in the market, you're gonna go. Maybe you're redirecting some of your time and resources, I remember back in the day, we'd spend 40% to 60% of our time on the acquisition.

We wanted to go directly to the seller. We didn't want to use realtors. We did letters and notices and pounded the pavement and went to collection agencies and defaulted, solvency lawyers, etc. There was lots of inventory. Now we're back to there isn't that much inventory and needing to go direct potentially in some circumstances or putting more effort that way.

Not because we wanna avoid a realtor or save on a realtor. Like we would've done six or 10 years ago, but because it's the only way to get inventory, but it's a longer sale cycle. Being able to adjust, but understanding it's all about time. Really, if five years ago I had two hours a week to spend on my portfolio.

You also go line of time, commitment, real time commitment that you can actually afford to spend versus your strategy. If you don't have the time you have to hire. Or build the team around you to make up that gap. You're running a business. You can't do it on the back of a napkin anymore.

Alfonso: The analogy that I always use, it's like a band, or, if you get big enough of symphony where I picture the one man band, with the drums and the harmonica and you kicking the heel and it's the symbols you can't, that probably make, really good song. But at the end that guy is leaning over. Dead tired and I need some help. You need to have those jobs that aren't looking.

I just have one quick question for you Claire, you mentioned, you're a numbers freak. You love looking at this. This is your job. This is your business that you're reviewing all the time. Where is some place that is trustworthy that you can go and review and take a look at for all those investors out there.

All the speculation. I know I'm on your email list and I look at all the information that comes out there, cause it's a trusted source, but where do you collect that? Or what's something that you can share where investors can take a look at that and avoid all the the buzz and get some real facts and information,

Claire: Actually get the real facts and not the news. I think there's obviously information that your power team members, if your accountant's got a newsletter sign up for it, if your lawyer does a newsletter sign up, obviously the REITE Club amazing information that's shared market updates. Some of the biggest resources that I will use are things like the CMHC housing portal.

The CMHC portal, if you just see, houses information on all their newsletters, they have quarterly, market surveys, outlook surveys, consumer surveys, but then again it's that third party. Things like purview reports, which tell us sales that have occurred based on title transfers, not just sales on the open market economists.

I love Benjamin, there're so many sorts of economists that are out there that will specialize and focus on the real estate cause real estate interest rates. There is quite a bit of connection there. How they impact each other is a whole different podcast for sure. There are so many resources out there. It really depends how deep you wanna go because the news will filter to what they think is news. As opposed to, if you're a bit of an economics freak and you love to read the 82 page report from CMHC on their economic and development outlook.

Fabulous. I sign up for all their newsletters and their updates. Therefore, anytime they send a new initiative or new growth plan, then I'm gonna get that on my email all the time. So newsletters used to be, don't send me newsletters now. I'm like, no, I want them in my feed. Cause they keep me up today.

Some, I ignore you, read the subject line and go to me. I'm not buying in that province, so I'm not interested. But some of the important ones will be there. That would be beneficial.

Sarah: It's definitely important to keep a pulse and have some insight on what is happening in the market. And especially if it does come from your team members that you've hand selected and you've picked out because they are the best in the industry.

Claire, speaking of new, you've got tons of stuff going on at The Windrose Group. What are some of the things that you're gonna be working on to, and continue helping investors because you really do have a great service. If you don't mind sharing, just some of the things that are coming down the time.

Claire: We're really excited. I think like any business you constantly have to look at, what's worked well, what could be improved on where else can we expand? We're super excited to launch a mutual fund trust. The windrows group capital will have a win a mutual fund trust. It's another vehicle for us to raise capital.

As well as for investors to invest. I can't say much more than that until it's official, but we're always as a CEO, I'm always looking at ways, what do we really do really well? What are the resources could we use to expand? I think that's super important is as you look at your growth, no different to yourself Sarah where you've moved into sort of development, where you've looked, you've either saturated or exhausted certain markets, and it's the next evolution of your business, to go into different areas.

It's the same thing with us. We always wanna make sure we have plenty of capital for our borrowers and a good, safe, and secure return for our investors. That's pretty much our mission to find a good balance to that. When we feel that there isn't an equilibrium, then that's when we go out and do things like trade a mutual fund trust.

Sarah: Amazing that I'm excited to hear more. I think we're gonna be having lunch and learning a few really cool things with the REITE Club to find out some more, but congrats. I think that's exciting.

Claire: Thank you so much.

Alfonso: That's right. We're gonna continue to keep evolving, keep changing.
I love that you keep growing as well, such an inspiration. I know we've done this before Claire and, to the topic of keep growing and keep changing. Sometimes the answers might have been different, but I think it's time for the lightning round. Claire, are you ready?

Claire: Oh, I forgot about this bit.

Sarah: That's okay. You know what, because you've been on here before, I'm gonna switch up my questions. If Alfonso wants to ask you the same questions, that's totally cool, but I'm gonna switch up my questions. Question number one without having a crystal ball. What are you doing with your real estate portfolio for the next 24 months?

Claire: Oh I am a private lender through and through, so lending my money, borrowing as much as I can to lend out.

Alfonso: Awesome. Okay. I'm gonna flip it. I'm gonna ask a new question. Where is your favorite destination in the world? If you could go put up your feet, relax, enjoy. Where would you be?

Claire: You know what? I have to go to Spain, cause we used to live in the Canary islands. We were lucky enough to go there for a month last year and no one really knew I went, which was fabulous, which was awesome. But very close behind that because it's a different vacation, when I go to Spain, it's family, it's friends. It's a different type of vacation, but Jamaica, I love Jamaica.

Jamaica's my go-to relaxed. Chill. No one knows me. Don't need to talk about mortgages or real estate as much as I'd love them. Sometimes it's nice not to talk about that.

Sarah: All right. Very cool. I'm gonna switch it up again. What is the item on your bucket list that you wanna make sure you do before dying.
I know I don't wanna say the word, but I guess, as you're living your one life, what is your one bucket list item you wanna take off?

Claire: You know what, the first thing that came to my head was skydiving, but it freaks me out. Like why did it just come in my head without even me thinking about it must be some subconscious thing, I dunno, or a bad dream or something.
I dunno. Pretty tendon skydiving.

Alfonso: We could definitely recommend somewhere a few years ago was skydiving was probably one most exhilarating experience. All right. I'm gonna round it up. You're having a dinner party. You can only invite three people, dead or alive, who are the three people that you're gonna have at the table. I know that's a tough one, but three people, anybody who, or who is coming over for dinner?

Claire: I can't think of anyone else. The queen, I think the queen would be quite fun.

Alfonso: That would be fun.

Claire: But I think I would hog Albert Einstein.
I would read his memoirs. I've read lots of stuff that he's written. Yeah, I'd forget everyone else. Just Albert, it's me and Albert.

Alfonso: I think Albert would come to you for some mortgage and lending advice for sure too. Cause if he was around, he'd probably be working with you to do that, but Clarence is always a pleasure.
We really enjoy podcasts. If those wanna get in touch or reach out, how can they do that?

Claire: Absolutely. Just email info, the windrows group.ca or just give us a call 2898620.

Sarah: Amazing. Thank you so much. That was awesome. You always have tons of great insights and advice.

Claire: Thank you so much. It's always such a pleasure. Thanks for everything that you guys do, the information you share and the continued education.

Alfonso: Thank you, Claire.

Sarah: That was awesome. It's awesome to see all the different directions that we could have a call and conversation about mortgages and about real estate investing. Every time Claire comes on, I feel like I learned so much.
What was your biggest takeaway Alfonso?

Alfonso: Yeah, it's swell. There was a lot in that conversation for sure. Thinking about yourself as a CEO of your business, your life, different relationships that they have, expiry dates. But the other part is every decision that you are making, whether it's in your portfolio and then obviously extending that to your own life.

Is it getting you closer to your goal? Why are you doing some she shared the example of, a certain investor that had three properties that were negatively cash flowing, but wanted to quit their job. Having that check in somebody else's perspective, and sometimes you can get emotional about your investments and emotional about certain decisions you make.

Having somebody check in coming from a different perspective, really asking yourself is this actually getting you closer? Okay. If it is then explain to me, how are you gonna be negative each month and put your job and really testing those theories and that it is true and it is what you believe. That was my takeaway. How about you, Sarah?

Sarah: I think you said it really well. I think it's the fact that sometimes it's okay to sell. Yes, there is some potential increase in appreciation over the years, but if it's gonna keep you further away from your goal, it might make sense to revisit that.
 It also might make sense to revisit it after another year and have those conversations with your broker to see if this is still the track that you wanna go. I think the other piece of it is, changing strategies with the markets, changing the markets as times go and being able to adapt.

There's tons of value. There's, I would say, go back and watch it again. Listen to it again. You can probably pick up so many different things from Claire and she's always just so excited too, about sharing all this information which is awesome.

On that note, guys, if you haven't left a rating and review yet before going to the next podcast and playing, if you wouldn't mind leaving one, that would be amazing in Alfonso. What do we say to our REITE Club nation?

Alfonso: Customize your life.

DJ: 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. 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.