My friend Shawn Bedard who I first met at REIN over ten years ago and our real estate investing paths were quite different. Back in 2010, Shawn couldn’t find deals that make sense in Ontario so he went to landlord friendly USA and bought 4 houses in Atlanta and 10 in Memphis, Georgia. His experience and investment went…. I’ll let him SHARE.

Other than real estate investing, I’ve invited Shawn on the show to discuss his volunteer work at a non-profit organization called Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO), specifically the Accelerator program where Shawn leads the initiative to guide entrepreneurs with $250,000 to 999,999 in revenue USD to get over a $1 million USD and become a full member of EO.

EO has been an invaluable resource for entrepreneurs like Shawn and I. I luv it hence I joined the board of our Toronto chapter.  What I luv about EO members is they’re kind, successful people who all want to make their mark in the world.

Our values are:

• Trust and Respect. Each of us is unique and equal. ...

• Thirst for Learning. We have an insatiable curiosity. ...

• Think big, be bold. We innovate, take risks and see opportunity in a challenge. 

• Together we grow. We are committed to each other's growth and well-being.

To learn more about EO’s Accelerator program

https://eocanada.com/accelerator/

To connect with Shawn:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-bedard-65a3/?originalSubdomain=ca

Web: https://jigtechnologies.com/

On this week’s show we have a very real conversation with full-time, professional investor Austin Yeh who does it all: wholesales, flips, BRRR’s, negotiates his own cash for keys, podcaster, meetup host and it’s not all pretty.

Austin shares how he’s had to rebalance his portfolio, wholesaling market slow down, which are short-term problems as he’s successfully transitioned out of his corporate job in Feb 2022 to investing in Windsor, Sudbury, even downtown Toronto.

Austin shares how he got started networking at local investor groups, connecting with locals to build out his teams.  We walk through the numbers of a couple deals and Austin doesn’t candy coat the challenges that come with buying ugly properties including a case of arson where his property was intentionally burnt down by criminals, the phone call his partner received from the police, the sleepless nights if the insurance would get paid out… How his target markets and properties have evolved over his career. 

This is a very real, truth about real estate investing episode where problems are not always worth the profits.  Hopefully you, my friend, one of our 17 listeners can takeaway how to improve upon your real estate business, leverage the lessons from this episode and the 300+ episodes before this one.

To follow Austin Yeh, you can find him on Instagram @AustinYeh6 or Austin’s podcast and meetup network @risenetworkevent.

Please enjoy the show!

On to this week’s show!

We have Hart Togman, owner, founder of Rent Panda who’s been helping our clients locate tenants for my clients’ investment properties.

How good is Rent Panda? Hart tells me they’ve had one non-payment of rent issue among 900 to 1,000 successful leases.  That’s pretty darn amazing so if you want to know how to be a successful landlord with paying tenants you will want to listen to this episode. 

Rent Panda also now offers Property Management Services and Hart shares step by step how to create a rental ad and how to automate as much as possible how to handle the deluge or responses because if you bought right like our 350+ clients, your property is in high demand.

Please enjoy the show!

You can find Rent Panda at their website: www.rentpanda.ca, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RentPanda/, and Instagram: www.instagram.com/rentpanda

How refreshing is our guest Diana today! It goes to show one can’t judge from an Instagram handle. Eg Diana’s is @investorgirldiana when really it should be @sophisticatedinvestordiana but I get it. We are supposed to be humble and modest in our marketing.

But screw it. Diana is legit. She shares her experience and numbers flipping from a $2.3M luxury house in Toronto and to a century home in Hamilton to Windsor private lending as well.  There are lots of numbers in this episode including mortgage rates as some of the capital was private money AND Diana shares how she personally lends her own money. 

Diana’s taken expensive courses and masterminds.  The quality of some is questionable as there were folks in the same masterminds as her years ago who are now bankrupt financially.  That’s right, some courses, memberships, and coaching have negative return on investment.  You as an investor have to conduct proper due diligence on anything you invest in including education.

Diana however with her conservative projections and husband as a skilled general contractor have navigated this declining market and exited flips profitably. Some are more profitable than others and not without challenges which Diana shares.

Sidenote: I’ve noticed a trend where an investor’s ability to execute on construction or renovations can be make or break for investors. Especially the full timers. In my experience, constantly working with the best of the best contractors has been instrumental to my clients and our own success in our portfolios. Those unable to execute 

Not that any contractor is perfect unless maybe you marry them like Diana but much risk can be mitigated with the right one and proper oversight.  That’s something we do for our clients, connect them with the same contractors we use and we are in regular weekly contact with them for our own projects and for our clients.  As we here at iWIN Real Estate, we do volume hence we are usually our contractors top referral source and we’re all looking for win-win-win results. Win for the contractor, win for the client, win for us in that we have a happy client who buys more houses and sends us referrals. 

We are in this for not just long-term but rather intergenerational relationships to create intergenerational wealth as we literally have three generation clients: grandparents, parents and the kids.

To follow Diana:

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/InvestorGirlDiana

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/investorgirldiana/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/diana.lizarazorocha

We have the founder of Property Technology company Viler Lika on the show. He is the founder and CEO of SingleKey and if you haven’t heard of them yet you will want to pay attention to this show as in my experience, they are providing us investors a ton of value at affordable prices. SingleKey is the largest tenant screening service out there with their recent acquisition of Naborly.

The majority of the professional investors I know are already using their tenant screening aka credit checking online software as it’s fast, cheap, encrypted, and the reports written in plain english. Even our big local REIT uses SingleKey.

Viler is super smart having both degrees in Engineering and MBA from the same Business school I graduated from at Western University in London. On today’s show, Viler shares his journey of starting up a real estate technology business that brought us small investors the same tools the big corporate REIT’s use.

SingleKey will even underwriter insurance on the tenant which can be purchased by the landlord OR the tenant. How amazing is that? The rental market is highly competitive is most medium/major cities.  If I had to enter a bidding competition to rent a place, I would insure my rent to set myself apart from the others.

Viler is also kind enough to share what features are coming in just a few months to forever change how we screen non Canadians and report tenant rents on their credit/Equifax.

This is not an episode to be missed. Please enjoy the show!

As a bonus Viler was kind enough to provide us a discount code “erwin” my name, a five letter word for 20% off a tenant screening, background report that also works on Americans. I’ve included a link in the show notes!

20% off discount code:

https://platform.singlekey.com/screen/request?promo_code=erwin

Dmitri Bourchtein (CIO & Co-Founder of SHARE) was formerly an Executive Director of Investments at Starlight U.S. Residential, with direct involvement in over $7B of U.S. residential real estate transactions. Dmitri is a seasoned institutional investor with experience in all aspects of the real estate value-chain and is passionate about levelling the playing field for retail investors in the competitive landscape of U.S. SFRs and enabling everyday landlords to maximize their returns.

By the way, if you like what Dmitri has to say, he will be speaking at our US Investing Workshop this Saturday January 13th.  

Our guest speakers included Andrew the CEO, Carmen Da Silva, last week’s guest and CFO, and today’s guest Dmitri, CIO of Share.

We have owner of LendCity Scott Dillingham, the only investor focussed Mortgage Broker I know who can offer US commercial style mortgages to Canadians for income properties. Note commercial lending is better than residential mortgages. The property and the cash flow is the lender’s focus so it’s way easier to qualify and one can in theory have unlimited mortgages.

I’m your host and we are teaching direct investment as in the investor owns the property 100%. That is the definition of direct investment. No shares, no joint venture partners, not private lending. Good old fashioned income property ownership, in-line with how my client 350+ clients and I invest in real estate.  

Link for details or to register: https://USworkshop.eventbrite.ca/?aff=iwin

To connect with SHARE: https://sharesfr.com/partners/iwin

We have a special guest today who we squeezed in before her return home to Tampa Bay, FLA to warm weather, pickleball year round, fruit trees in her backyard. The reasons are obvious why Canadians love Florida. Carmen is a Canadian living in Florida, she’s Chartered Professional Accountant Tax Specialist in both Canada and the USA. She owns 70 income properties in the USA, her 24 year old son even owns three rental houses in the States too! Carmen got into investing after selling her business, then in the 2008 real estate crash and bought a portfolio of single family homes in Florida to generate cash flow and replace part of her income.

Carmen is a passive investor as SHARE’s property management team takes care of everything so she gets to enjoy early retirement income.

As Carmen is a practicing Accountant who prepares tax returns for Canadian clients, she introduced clients to invest in US based single family rentals including Andrew Kim, CEO of SHARE and together could see how involved the process from legal setup to ongoing property management but the returns are life changing hence they knew they had to create SHARE, a technology based real estate solution for anyone to become a US landlord without all the hard work.

I’ve invited Carmen Da Silva, CPA in both Canada and US to return to the show to focus on the most common questions Canadians have about investing in the US.  The answer is different for everyone and Carmen takes the time to explain why.

Friendly disclaimer, I Erwin Szeto am not an Accountant, Carmen Da Silva is an Accountant but not your personal Accountant so you still need to seek your own professional, expert advice for your specific situation.  Our conversation is for educational purposes, tax let alone cross border tax is a complicated subject.

With that said please enjoy the show!

We have old friend of the show Russell Westcott who was in town all the way from Vancouver to Toronto for the Wealth Hacker Conference.

Russell has owned 100+ properties and has the battle scars and lessons on how to invest better in Edmonton Alberta.  Russell is a smart guy and here to share about how his coaching clients are navigating this high interest rate environment with creative, above board financing and a couple different investment strategies for highest and best use to create more housing units and of course generate higher rents on properties that other investors simply don’t see.

As always it’s a treat to have the JV Jedi on the show, someone who’s always thinking outside the box on how to maximise returns for his coaching clients and on their properties.

I give you best-selling co-author Russell Westcott!

To Connect with Coach Russell:

Website: www.russellwestcott.com

Instagram: @russellwestcott

Facebook: russellwestcott10

We have an author, coach, mentor, mom, wife and investor since only 2017 who’s done a lot while keeping her day job. English isn’t even Brooke Shang’s first language as she moved to Canada from Taiwan at age 17.

Brooke has done a lot from losing $50,000 on a joint venture in Winnipeg with a now bankrupt partner who drove a Porsche to owning nearly 30 rent to owns, a bunch of duplexes, and focusing more on private lending and building her custom dream home thanks to the profits from tenants buying out the RTO’s and selling other income properties.

Brooke is also a leader within the Trust Your Talent Academy like past guests Tim Tsai and Vince Lee.  Brooke’s story is a good one how much one can accomplish in a short period time while keeping the day job and how one’s goals change, e.g. Brooke has hustled and now wants more passive investments.  It all works, one just must decide for themselves what journey they’re on.

Please enjoy the show!

To connect with Brooke:

Web: www.RealEstateNetworkingQueen.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/brooke_shang/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/brooke.shang

Book: FINANCIAL FREEDOM THE ROYAL WAY https://a.co/d/0p90cVB

Zac Killam: Real Estate Innovator and Entrepreneur, a Top Forty Under 40 winner, has made significant strides in the real estate industry. He has built a rapidly growing multi-family real estate business of 500 units, leveraging his entrepreneurial acumen to drive success in this competitive market.

Beyond real estate, Zac founded Canada’s largest taxi advertising network, the second largest globally, and a PropTech company.  The other property technology company he’s know for in our community is getting national attention called Front Lobby, pioneering rent reporting to credit bureaus in Canada, enabling renters to build credit through their monthly payments, used by a small as mom and pop landlords to publicly traded real estate investment trusts.

Join us on our podcast as we explore Zac Killam's real estate ventures and his innovative impact on the industry including how all landlords can better screen and improve rent collection while tenants build credit. A win win outcome!

https://frontlobby.com/

Please enjoy the show

Hello and welcome to the Truth About Real Estate Investing for Canadians, my name is Erwin Szeto, residential real estate investor since 2005, and in my experience, the investment that has gotten my over 350 clients ahead in life is direct ownership of real estate as they own the property, manage it themselves or hire a property manager, and grow their portfolios by borrowing cheap mortgage money. My team here at iWIN real estate has been coaching clients to do so since 2010 and it’s been a great run.

Yesterday, I was supporting one of my clients who I’ve helped acquire several properties whose tenant has not paid rent in 13 months even though they won at the Landlord Tenant Board five months ago.  He also shared with me how his rental portfolio was the highest source of stress in his life.

Another client, a real estate mortgage professional, he’s had minor basement leakage in one property in a brand new renovation and in his other brand new renovation, the tenant move out because the floors are out of whack having been installed onto of an uneven floor.  The tenant said the flooring edges are sharp and too dangerous for their baby to be crawling around on. My client is back and forth with the flooring manufacturer and the general contractor and it’s been months.

The truth about real estate investing is it can be stressful and there are challenges.  I have my own stories too for another day but this is not why I first got into real estate.  I started investing for an alternate source of income. I would side hustle as a real estate investor for a return of more freedom, more control over my finances and bring my clients along for the same journey.

It’s always my job as chief investment officer of my household and for my clients to find ways to optimize their portfolios including reducing risk.

In the current environment with inflation, rent control, dysfunctional Landlord Tenant Board, and elevated interest rates.  Add to that how anti landlord the politicians and media are, I don’t feel I’m in control anymore hence I see the writing on the wall.  Cherry and I are selling several if not all of our rental properties in Ontario to take profits, pay off debts, raise cash to take advantage of other opportunities mostly in landlord friendly locations in and around the top 10 cities for investment in the USA.

Both Americans from California and New York along with Canadians are making the move to red, sunbelt states.

The business environment in certain states where I will be targeting offers better numbers and less risk. No question.  At my stage of investing career, I’ve invested in over 40 houses, done many advanced BRRRRs but because I can cash flow better on single family houses in the US, 5-7 cap rates, the same cap rates past guest of this show do with apartment buildings after 5-10 years of renovating, turning over apartments.

I see no reason to take on so much risk when there’s an easier way.

I finally have easy financing, it’s actually easier to get a Mortgage in the US than in Canada. Scott Dillingham of LendCity, who I’ve been working for years to get me mortgage brokers on income properties shared with me in the summer he would soon be able to offer easy, commercial style mortgages for Canadians to invest in an unlimited number of American income properties.  No credit needed.

Investing in real estate without mortgages makes little sense hence I’d never taken US investing seriously but Scott opened the door, I walked through it and went all in on my due diligence.

I’ve never been so frustrated as an Ontario landlord.  For example, did you know tenanted properties for sale are getting next to no showings?  In my nearly two decades, I have never seen showings volume so bad for turnkey income properties at the same time the LTB is so broken, the allowable rent increase so far below inflation, the government anti landlord rhetoric so bad.  I just witnessed a turnkey duplex in Hamilton, ON sell for almost 30% off from peak this past weekend.

But that’s OK, I’m going to pivot to investing the the USA but big but, I’m risk adverse and I’ve seen so many deals go sideways when remote investing.  Plus I don’t like sharing my investments, I prefer to keep all of the equity and all of the upside returns to myself.

Then by fate, a past client of mine, Brent introduced me to his friend Andrew and it was as if the universe was telling me something.

Andrew Kim, I read about his start up, a tech, Ai, enabled asset management company in the Toronto Star and Brent out of the blue introduces me to Andrew. 

First off, what’s an asset manager? Let’s first start with explaining what a property manager is as we’re most familiar with that. Per ChatGPT a property manager handles daily operations, tenant relations, maintenance, and rent collection to ensure the property runs smoothly.

An asset manager manages the property manager, focuses on maximizing the property's value and investment returns, dealing with acquisitions, dispositions, and strategic financial planning like when to refinance.  That’s what Andrew’s company SHARE does specializing in single family rentals.

I’ve invested the last three months conducting due diligence on investing in the US, on Andrew’s Share, Scott’s Lendcity (I’ve researched their competition, checked references), and we delivered our first ever US investing workshop to much success. Feedback rating was 9.5/10, we’ll announce our next one mid January and we raised $5,400 for charity.  Win-win-win-win, the way I like it. A win for Andrew, Scott; a win for my business iWIN, the attendees loved it, and $5,400 goes a long way at my charity the Hamilton Basket Brigade.

My trip to Atlanta, Georgia was hosted by Share, I invited along another real estate investor friend of mine, we got to hang out with both Andrew and Chief Investment Officer Dmitri who is a real estate investing wizard having experienced acquiring and managing 20,000 apartment units or $7 billion as an Executive Director of Investments at Starlight. Dmitri easily has the most institutional experience of anyone I know personally and for someone who has a million questions like I do, I was super excited. 

Our tour of investment properties in the suburbs of Atlanta was led by a nationwide, institutional, top tier property management company who manages 2,800 single family houses in America with 800 alone in the Atlanta area.  I was thoroughly impressed by what I saw: well oiled systems, reasonable renovation budgets and turnaround times, no rent control.

I had a deadline to complete my due diligence by the end of the Atlanta trip, to understand the asset I was investing in plus the operations and just as importantly the leadership.

As we were exiting the baggage area of Pearson Airport, we’re walking out together and we see a family with small kids.  Mom and dad are pushing three, fully loaded luggage carts, mom is trying to push two carts while herding her four year old.  I take a step in their direction to help out, Andrew, CEO of Share who’s been struggling with pain the whole trip due to a partially herniated disk in his back beats me to it and pushes one of the mom’s carts.

What a Boy Scout like I was growing up.

As my due diligence is complete, I have some exciting news to share effective immediately:

iWIN Real Estate is proud to announce its strategic partnership with SHARE, a Canadian real estate asset management company specializing in streamlining the end-to-end process of vetting, buying, and managing high-return single-family rental homes in the USA for investors. Using IWIN’s influence in the Canadian real estate investor community, more frustrated, everyday investors will have the opportunity to improve cash flow, diversify, and make real estate investing great again!

By combining SHARE’s U.S. investment expertise and IWIN’s commitment to delivering exceptional results and pioneering investment solutions, investors of all levels can access a wealth of benefits, from streamlined investment process, quality education, and coaching.

“Frustrated Canadian investors, especially in Ontario and BC are looking for diversification in a more landlord-friendly environment and modern solutions, including supercharged systems where everything an investor needs exists under one roof,” said Erwin Szeto, Founder of IWIN. “Together with SHARE, we aim to make direct ownership of income properties more affordable, profitable, less risk, and rewarding for the everyday mom and pop investors.”

SHARE offers investors a comprehensive suite of services for Canadians, including sourcing and acquiring high-quality single-family rental homes in prime locations, professional property management, financing options, legal structuring, and investment portfolio diversification.

“With SHARE's diversified inventory and proven track record of generating high returns, investors can access even more lucrative opportunities with reduced risk,” said Andrew Kim, CEO and Co-Founder of SHARE. “Partnering with IWIN allows SHARE investors to tap into that passive income element and portfolio expansion all while knowing their assets are protected.” 

Partner With SHARE

SHARE offers real estate service providers with existing customer bases or audiences like iWIN Real Estate the opportunity to expand their investment offerings for a mutually beneficial relationship and provide clients with a comprehensive and seamless real estate investment experience in the USA.  Book a call with Erwin  to learn how partnering with SHARE can add value to your investment offerings.

End of press release.

My plan is to continue operating iWIN Real Estate as we are carrying more properties for sale than we ever had in my 13 year career as we continue to help our clients with their real estate needs.  Our offerings of real estate investments have simply expanded and when new investors come to me and ask what they should invest in, I simply present, side by side an $800,000 duplex or $1.2 million triplex here in Ontario vs. a single family for $100,000-300,000 in the US that cash flows better along with all the reasons a US investment is easier and they can decide for themselves.  

Officially, I’ve joined Share’s advisory board to guide the growth of the Canadian market as a part time role as part of my full time role as chief investment advisor for my family, to our hundreds of mom and pop investor clients, and my favourite people, our 17 listeners of the podcast.

The truth about real estate is, I haven’t been this excited about real estate investing since legal duplexes in 2015 and now with US investment properties on the table, I see the path to no longer have to subsidize the out of control housing inflation for my current tenants and make real estate investing great again.

On to this week’s guest we have Danielle Unsworth who has simply caught fire since attending our 2019 Wealth Hacker Conference.  Danielle took the whole 10X’ing thing to heart, first she started converting basement apartments in her existing properties, then hired a coach in my old friend Susan White Livermore, she’s since invested in vacation rentals in Turks and Caicos, six townhouses, in Edmonton, each with basement suites using cheap CMHC MLI Select. You probably want to write that down to google it later. To investing in two apartment buildings in New Brunswick and whatever else she’s bought since this interview took place three weeks ago.

Danielle has shot out of a cannon and she’s built a large Instagram following and she shares how. If you’re one of the quality investors or coaches out there looking to raise capital, I suggest you give Danielle a follow as there are bankrupt investors, both morally and financially doing the same and they can raise millions of dollars.  At least that’s how I justify to myself in all the content we put out there with more to come in 2023.

For Cherry and I, if nothing else it’s a public service to share the truths about real estate investing.

I give you Danielle Unsworth.

To Follow Danielle:

Web: https://www.danielleunsworth.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielle.unsworth/?hl=en

WINC: Women Investors Network Canada: https://www.instagram.com/winc.investors/?hl=en

Victor shares a lot today about how to scale up a real estate portfolio, how novices can get started interning/volunteering on development projects to gain invaluable experience for a smoother transition from side hustle developer to full timer. 

There’s Victor’s strategy of “buy on the line, move the line” for investing in gentrifying locations.  We’ve been practising the same strategy in our local markets, I just didn’t know there was a name for it.  In Hamilton the old rules were to stay south of Main St. and West of James St., as a rule breaker we didn’t listen knowing affordability would cause the areas we targeted to appreciate and it worked out incredibly well. 

If you too are looking to build out a team in the areas east and west of the GTA where properties actually cash flow then don’t miss out on our street smart tours! New to 2023 we’ll be operating tours of income properties in Oshawa followed by a mastermind lunch for which I’ll be in attendance as well. This a wonderful opportunity for investors of any level, especially novices to see how the FOUR time Realtors of the Year to investors service their clients enabling them to build intergenerational wealth.

Make sure you’re on our email newsletter along with 10,000+ other hard working Canadian investors available at www.truthaboutrealestateinvesting.ca. I hope to see you in 2023 at one of our iWIN Real Estate meetups and/or street smart tours.  Like Victor says, there are going to be some great deals available in the near future.  Learn what a deal looks like and work with an award winning team that produces successful, multi-millionaire investor clients.

BTW, Victor is also the President of OREIO and if you’re in Ottawa, you want to check them out. In my experience, the value and quality of group can’t be beat hence I’m a paying member as well.

To Follow Victor:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce/?originalSubdomain=ca

Personal Website: http://www.victorjm.com/

Work Website: www.Ystreetcapital.com

OREIO: https://www.oreio.org/

We have my friend Adam Kitchener back on the show as we get along because he keeps it so real.  No pictures of him on a private plane, or luxury vehicle or luxury watches. Well he does actually but they’re obviously photoshopped as he’s poking fun at the phonies out there.  

Don’t get me wrong, luxury stuffs great. I personally luv it when folks celebrate their success and reward themselves.  Keep in mind, most successful people in my experience don’t brag about their wealth, read “the Millionaire Next Door” if you don’t believe me. The book describes 99% of my millionaire clients exactly.  Why would anyone brag about their cars and watches or gold chains, on social media? That would make them a target for robbery.  Adam actually rips people who do such things and turn out to be frauds on his social media accounts.

On today’s show, Adam recounts his trials and tribulations of being a full time, active investor.  He shares how he finances deals including private money, the numbers on the deals he’s done, why they are deals, how cash flow and timely execution is paramount to survival and he pulls no punches, it’s not sexy.

He’s been assaulted and harassed by tenants, arrested by police, bought houses with backyards littered with used syringes from drug dealers. 

Investment wise, he’s doing excellent and well setup for the future but it was far from sunshine and rainbow getting here. Feel free to reach out to Adam on social media, he’s happy to take a question or two for anyone who needs a second opinion on anything real estate related.

https://www.instagram.com/mradamkitchener/

https://www.facebook.com/adamrkitchener

Please enjoy the show!

On to this week’s show!

Today we have a full time real estate investor who’s really really smart. I’ve known Christian for a couple years but only in this interview do I get a better understanding of how he transitioned out of an executive position in the tech industry into a full time investor.

What’s especially interesting is how Christian originally capitalised his investing and how he found a bunch of cash flow, enough to replace his job income in mixed commercial/residential real estate.  If you’re a geek like me, you’ll enjoy this episode as I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head who’s as successful in mixed use commercial/residential… the worst commercial too: retail, yuck!

In my experience, financing is expensive when investing in mixed use but Christian has cracked that nut so if you want to learn the truth about how someone replaced their job income with real estate cash flow from operations you’ll want to take notes, listen to this episode more than once.

You can find Christian on the web: https://aliferous.ca/ or instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliferousproperties/, facebook and LinkedIn @Aliferousproperties.  FYI Aliferous means to have wings. I’ll ask Christian to explain why he chose the name on part 2 of this interview but I’m guessing if you want your retirement planning to have wings, then invest in real estate.

Please enjoy the show!

Nick Karadza is a real estate investor who discovered the power of leveraging real estate through "boot camps." Starting at 21, he bought, renovated, and flipped properties for profit but realised it wasn't generating the desired cash flow to replace his job income and it was a lot of work. 

Nick shifted to rental properties, achieving monthly cash flow and recouping his investment. Nick founded Rock Star Real Estate Brokerage Inc. and the Rock Star Inner Circle with his brother to assist real estate investors. Nick publishes a newsletter, shares online articles, teaches classes, and holds events for their 1,000+ members and co hosts the Your Life, Your Terms podcast. Nick remains an active real estate investor, consumes endless economic news and collects some silver, gold and bitcoin.

Please enjoy the show!

To follow Nick Karadza:

Rock Star Inner Circle Website: https://rockstarinnercircle.com/ 

Live Class Investor Training: https://rockstarinnercircle.com/erwin/ Note, if you would like to work with Erwin’s team and save 50% off the Initiation fee, use case sensitive discount code ERWIN

Podcast: https://rockstarinnercircle.com/podcast/

If you can’t tell, Cherry and I prefer to buy than rent.  I like hard assets and being in control. I do rent some things like cottages, hotels, cars while on vacation as I want my life to be simple. We used to lease our cars for tax purposes and those are generally depreciating assets.

Other examples of wanting to be in control is of our estate when we pass on from this world. I don’t want our staff nor our kids to have to sell off our businesses or properties hence we invest in insurance to cover the taxes as the good old government will want their pound of flesh.

As we prefer to own over rent, we prefer whole life insurance over term life insurance. If you don’t know why that’s because you’re among the 99% of Canadians.  I only learnt of the Infinite Banking Concept strategy a few years ago at my real estate mastermind where I’m the poor person in the room.  Several members were already applying the Infinite Banking Concept and we even brought in an outside expert from one of the big banks to educate us on the subject.  Unfortunately, the subject is confusing until we met Jayson Lowe, founder of Ascendant Financial, co-Author of “The Bankers’ Secret, a Simple Guide to Creating Personal Wealth for Canadians.” And leading Financial Professional in Canada.

Jayson being an expert in whole life insurance including being a client of all the insurance providers in Canada alone gives him more experience than anyone I know.

At the end of the day, Cherry and I’s policies, because we own them, shows up on our balance sheet with the banks which they love to see hence they’ll lend us more money.  We can also borrow against our policies at rates low rates and can pay it back whenever we want.  Cheap money, flexibility and control. All things I like hence our plans in 2023 include growing our policies. 

To explain it in further detail, I give you Jayson Lowe.

For priority access to Jayson and his team go to: https://www.ascendantfinancial.ca/cherrychan

On to this week’s show!

We have something different in that our guest is a successful entrepreneur in the world of Business and not real estate investing, YET.

Nick Kindler is the Chapter President of Entrepreneur’s Organization, a private membership of seven figure entrepreneurs that Cherry and I also belong too.

As a member of the real estate community, I find learning from entrepreneurs just as helpful as learning from real estate investors to broaden my learning.  I also see all these memberships and masterminds costing $20,000-30,000 or more, I wanted you my 17 listeners to be aware of other masterminds, membership groups and Entrepreneurs Organization is less than $10,000 per year and I’m a big fan.

Who better to talk about Entrepreneurship than our very own Chapter President Nick Kindler who also happens to be my client who’s working with team member, Chris “the Captain” Hook to acquire quality investment properties.

Nick is here today to share his experience as an EO member, President, his entrepreneurial journey which includes a $4.5M business that went bankrupt but more importantly how he bounced back, the lessons learned so you may avoid the same mistakes.

FYI - failing businesses, losing money and letting staff is not a fun experience in my experience. Please take notes.

If you would like to learn more about Entrepreneurs Organisation please reach out to Nick on his company website www.kindlerandcompany.com/contact you can hit me up on email on DM or you look up your local chapter at https://hub.eonetwork.org/

I’ll be a the open house event on March 9th that Nick mentions so I hope to see you there! Link: https://www.eonetwork.org/toronto/Pages/upcoming-events.aspx?i=2&s=5

Nick’s consulting business helps innovative leaders communicate better, for example I attended Nick’s two day workshop on how to give a TED talk which was excellent where Nick deconstructed what goes into an excellent talk then walked us through to write our own and how to deliver with stage presence. 

Nick is also the author of Impact: Simplify, Transform, and Perform Pitches and Presentations available at https://www.impactbook.ca/

Without further ado, I give you Nick Kindler.

Real Estate Journey: Woods started with a $69,000 property, gradually moving to multi-family properties, mixed-use, and commercial buildings.

Market Shifts: Discussion on the changing real estate market dynamics, particularly in Ontario, Canada, and his strategies in response to these changes.

Personal Strategy and Lifestyle: Woods talks about his transition to investing in the Dominican Republic and the U.S., focusing on lifestyle alongside investment returns. He stresses the importance of being in markets that are favorable to investors.

Investment Philosophy: Woods emphasizes the value of education in real estate, joint ventures, and creative investment strategies, including his plans to explore single-family homes and creative financing in the U.S.

Health and Work-Life Balance: He touches upon the significance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance and not letting the pursuit of wealth overshadow personal well-being and relationships.

Challenges and Learning: Woods shares lessons learned from managing properties, the difficulties faced, and how these experiences shaped his approach to real estate investing.

Book: https://www.amazon.ca/Ultimate-Wealth-Strategy-Complete-Refinancing/dp/0993671705/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083765135506

Web: www.jefferywoods.com

This week we have Mackenzie Wilson of SingleKey the tenant credit and background check reporting service that recently acquired Naborly.

If you haven’t heard of SingleKey… well they are quite popular in the circles I run in and for you new investors, you’re so lucky you don’t have to run credit checks the old way…

Mackenzie is a very diligent investor from Calgary, Alberta.  He shares how we went from oil rigs and IT at Telus and left it behind to start an online business in real estate that didn’t go so well but he survived, still owns his three duplexes in Calgary and works at SingleKey as a Director.

As you’ll soon tell, Mackenzie is a diligent landlord (one of the most diligent I’ve ever met) and loves to help other landlords in Alberta out as he’s always sharing and educating his peer group of 4,200 Alberta Landlords

On today’s show we talk about the difference between commercial and residential in Calgary, Calgary vs. Edmonton.  Of course we talk about tenant screening as it appears to be a passion of Mackenzie’s even though his properties are in Alberta and how appropriate it is his day job is now at SingleKey.

One big nugget is I asked Mackenzie as a beginner investor, what should I buy in Calgary and his protip is a good one.

Please enjoy the show!

To follow Mackenzie:

Website: singlekey.com/

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/mwyyc/

Alberta Landlord Communit: albertalandlordcommunity.ca/

Two recent articles Mackenzie recommends

https://www.singlekey.com/blog/how-can-landlords-spot-fake-application-documents-from-tenants/

https://www.singlekey.com/blog/airbnb-arbitrage-should-you-let-your-tenant-rent-out-your-property-to-short-term-renters/

In the latest episode of our podcast, we had the pleasure of speaking with Milena Simsic, a remarkable individual who transitioned from being an ICU nurse to becoming a top 1% Realtors in Windsor, ON. Milena's journey is a testament to the power of determination, strategic thinking, and adaptability.

Career Transition: From Nurse to Realtor

Milena's story begins in the high-pressure environment of an ICU in Detroit, where she worked for four years, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite her passion for nursing, she realized that her financial goals and long-term aspirations required a different path. Intrigued by the potential of real estate, she saved diligently and made her first property investment, a sixplex within eight months of starting her nursing career.

In February 2022, Milena made the full-time switch to real estate. Leveraging her skills, discipline, and having grown social media presence of 10,000, she quickly established herself as a formidable player in the Windsor market. By the end of her first year, she had achieved $300,000 in gross commission income, placing her in the top 1% of realtors in the area.

We talk about why and how Windsor’s market is booming unlike the rest of the province and how an investor can take advantage of it.

What I love about having this podcast is getting an hour of time from busy, successful talented people such as Milena so we can drill into what makes her tick, her secrets to success, how it didn’t come easy but rather with a lot of hard work.

I’ve been lucky to have many pasts guests of this show and I happen to hang out with 7 figure entrepreneurs all the time so I have experience hanging out with talented people and I’d count Milena among them. You don’t become a top 1% Realtor without talent and hard work. 

If you’re in the Windsor area, you definitely want to the check out the Windsor REI Social, the largest real estate networking event in Windsor, ON. Milena has honoured me with an invite to be the guest speaker Wednesday June 19th, 6pm at the Winelogy Restaurant and Bar.  I’ll be sharing my journey from 20 year landlord in Ontario to my recent pivot to the USA and I have to same kudos to Windsor REI Hosts Milena and Brandon Finn for hosting a speaker on the subject of USA Investing.  Not many local real estate professionals would.

To register for the meetup:
Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/windsor-rei-social-429899

To follow Milena:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milena_simsic/

Website: https://milenasimsic.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/windsocialrealty/

Please enjoy the show!

 On to this week’s show, as always, we try to focus on cash flow the young, lovely couple Spencer and Ashley Giles are Niagara- based real estate investors with a shared love of travel (they are literally vacationing in Nashville, TN right now, hopefully they find an AirBNB investment there as I hear Nashville is awesome), fitness, and dogs. They started investing in 2018 and have since expanded their portfolio to 13 units with a mix of short- term and long-term rentals. Spencer and Ashley co-founded Travelluxe Inc. in 2019, a short-term rental management company, which currently manages over 45 units across Canada and has expanded to the USA. We go into detail about that on the show including the numbers.

They were able to leave their corporate jobs in 2021 and 2022 to focus all their efforts on their businesses. Their love for travel has brought them all around the world where they are able to mix work and pleasure by creating systems that allow them to be location independent. 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spencerandashley/

Website: https://spencerandashley.com/

Ellicottville Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/53721048?locale=en&_set_bev_on_new_domain=1719192849_EAMTU0NWYwZTcwNj&source_impression_id=p3_1719192850_P3OWaZ8QQzOrJpJd

On to this week’s show! 

As always, I look to bring you a variety of guests to share their unique experiences and journeys. Today we have old friend Greg Habstritt back on the show to share what he’s up after dominating the influencer scene, owning a $100 million dollar real estate portfolio, going through dark times both economically and personally.  He invests in Calgary Alberta afterall. To his current personal interest and finally aligning his personal passion with curing mental health via medial psychedelics.

Greg and I are not medical doctors so none of this should be taken as medical advice so please speak to your own health professional.  Greg does share his own out of body experience, flashing back to his childhood trauma allowing him to understand his adult insecurities.

This episode is not for everyone, we have hard core real estate guests all the time, you may want to check out a past episode if that’s more your liking but if you’re into bleeding edge or want to better understand yourself how a childhood trauma helped shape who you are today or learn about the best big thing after Cannabis then you’ll enjoy this episode with Greg who is a super smart dude.

His website is https://alightment.com/

Please enjoy the show.

On to this week’s show!

Full disclosure, Tim Collins is one of our longest time clients hence he’s bought and held properties for several years in order to get rich slowly. He’s also taken our Stock Hacker Academy courses. He’s switched careers a couple times from high paid tech executive to now a Real Estate Agent.  Moved his family from Orangeville, Ontario to Nanaimo, BC for warmer weather and a view of the ocean.

Tim is open minded, successful, wants more out of life and is now financially free and has the option to retire early thanks to his now $10,000+ passive, dividend income each month from his stock portfolio. Tim’s mental health is likely better than that of most investors these days.

From my experience working with investors everyday, many of you want passive cash flow hence I’m excited to bring you this episode to learn how Tim escaped the 9-5 rat race and golden handcuffs by building wealth in real estate then pivoting to stocks for greater yields and passivity.

We’re all on this journey of learning together and what better way than to learn from folks who have what we want.

Announcement regarding Stock Hacker Academy, we’ve completely revamped the course to make it more comprehensive and added numerous modules to aid those new to the stock market.  Plus several value adds we will announce at the Wealth Hacker Conference. As always, we believe in and practise continuous improvement and I’m beyond excited to share with our community the absolute best version of our beginner course at the lowest price anyone will ever see and only available for purchase at the conference.  Just another bonus for those in attendance!

 Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Tim Collins:

Website: https://www.timjpcollins.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/timjpcollins

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timjpcollins/?originalSubdomain=ca

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timjpcollins/

We have a long-time friend of the show Kayla Andrade, President of Ontario Landlords Watch, a grass roots, not for profit organisation, there’s almost 10,000 Facebook group members. Kayla has been advocating for landlords ever since her local city passed a by-law that if a tenant doesn’t pay their water bill, said debt gets applied to the landlord’s property tax.  Got to love how landlords are expected to back stop the tenant’s debt.

Kay is here to share about best practices and how we may advocate for our rights so we may all come together to make a healthier rental market for everyone including the vast majority of tenants who are great.  We discuss challenges we face, how she’s pausing growing her portfolio, and the always amazing, upcoming Ontario Landlord Watch Conference on October 28th, doors at 1pm and dinner is included.

I’ll be there along with many wonderful speakers and a certain member of Parliament Kayla announces for the first time on this show!!

Link to receive more information and tickets available here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/ontario-landlords-watch-5th-annual-private-housing-sector-conference-tickets-681955085017?fbclid=IwAR2BgiOKha4BOJhFvCHjY9MSN7UwA2AUISHy-tUsPRgMZO6hqNOUlpajMUI

Again that’s Saturday Oct 28th, doors at 1pm, my friends from SingleKey and Front Lobby will be there too. Dinner buffet included!

Please enjoy the show, I present to you Kayla Andrade.

To Follow Kayla:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayla-andrade-b4855648/?originalSubdomain=ca

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/818378618219840

Personal FB: https://www.facebook.com/Kayla.Andrade.olw

Website: https://ontariolandlordswatch.com/

This week we have our friends from Calvert Home Mortgage Investment Corporation back to give an update on the private lending/mortgage market including lessons from the downturn: e.g. what did in default real estate investors do wrong have in common so you the listener, my clients and I may avoid the same mistakes.

Please keep in mind, real estate investing can easily be done wrong and less right.  Ask anyone who speculated on pre-construction and is negative cash flowing or does not have the means to close.  Long-term, that could be a fine investment but most can’t handle today’s interest rates and strict lending guidelines.

Anyways, on today’s show we have Garret LaBarre, Underwriter at Calvert. He’s the guy who actually reviews mortgage applications from a risk perspective and determines if they’ll lend and Jesse Bobrowski, who is Vice President of Calvert.

One of the magical things about real estate investing is the asset is so good that banks will lend me a lot of money which suits my objective of keeping the deal and equity to myself. This is why learning about all your financing options is key to being a successful investor BUT debt is a double edged sword as your risk is greater as you’re about to hear about in this interview. Such is the truth about real estate investing.

Since Jesse and Garret live and invest in Calgary, they share a market and economic update on Alberta which I know is a hot topic for investors.

As we do discuss securitized investments, here comes the disclaimer.  You can check out Calvert at https://chmic.ca/.  Please enjoy the show!

The information and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely for educational and informational purposes and should not be considered as investment advice. The hosts and guests of this podcast are not licensed financial advisors, brokers, or registered investment advisors, and their comments should not be construed as recommendations or endorsements of any specific investment, security, or strategy.

Investing involves risks, including the possible loss of principal. Before making any investment decision, you should conduct your own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor to determine the suitability of any investment for your specific financial situation and investment goals.

The hosts and guests of this podcast make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any information discussed in this podcast. The podcast is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information.

Listeners are advised to use their own judgement and seek the advice of professionals before acting on any information provided in this podcast. The podcast shall not be liable for any damages, including but not limited to direct, indirect, special, or consequential damages arising out of or related to the use, inability to use, or reliance on any information provided in this podcast.

Cody Yeh arrived in Canada at the age of 18 on a student visa, initially lacking knowledge in income and wealth creation. Over the past 11 years, Cody has undergone a significant transformation, evolving from a student to a full-time project manager, and eventually to a financial coach, real estate investor, and stock options investor. The skills he acquired during this period enabled him to leave his full-time job at the beginning of 2020. 

Cody now has a stock options investing program and he’s buying apartment buildings in the USA.  It’s quite the journey.

To follow Cody, his website is his name Codyyeh.com

Please enjoy the show!

We have an old friend in Georges El Masri returning to the show, host of Well Off Podcast, Georges used to work at the same Brokerage, the wonderful Rock Star Real Estate Brokerage but like many talented investors do, they transition out of service work into more focus on their own portfolio.

Like I’ve told many new Realtors, investors in my experience make more money and Georges will prove me right on today’s episode.

Georges is going to tell you it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows but he’s doing really well thanks to smart investing, quality education, keeping an eye on the numbers and execution.

As is the trend, the above market returns are often in the more complicated projects.  Those who solve problems tend to get rewarded and Georges shares how he uncovers deals, find hidden value add but adding apartments in commercial multifamily and small developments. 

Georges shares about different joint venture structures he’s negotiated so make sure to have a pen and paper ready, this interview is full of nuggets.

To connect or follow Georges:

Email info@welloff.ca

Phone 416.855.4902

Podcast: https://welloffpodcast.ca/

Please enjoy the show!

We have something a little different, a real estate investor with a lot of heart in Melissa Dupuis, we rarely have investors on this show who target those on social assistance but Melissa has with her renovated, repositioned 10 bedroom rooming house.

As we don’t have many rooming house investors on this show, we spend some time on the subject in terms of numbers, target tenants, regulations, and of course the numbers: $525k on the buy and after fully renovated, $6,000 plus per month in rent.

Melissa is a true sophisticated investor as she’s an avid student and action taker in converting underutilised properties as she’s currently converting a duplex into a triplex to improve cash flow in this rising interest rate environment.

As always, real estate investing is a team sport, Melissa has engaged in hiring a coach and has a mentor. Melissa details how she found them and how it worked out.

Melissa is also a Property Manager, owner of Athena Property Management Inc servicing Niagara Region, Hamilton and she’s also a land banker in Belize. 

Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Melissa:

IG: @eatsleeprealestaterepeat @athenapropertymanagement

Web: http://athenapmi.com/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/athenapropertymanagementinc

On to this week’s show!

We have my old friend Tim Hong, we’ve been associates at Rock Star Real Estate and coaching investors since 2011.  Tim has done several joint ventures in rent to owns, an apartment building, student rentals. Tim has his own property management company for condos to duplexes from Toronto to Hamilton to Kitchener-Waterloo.  In his newest venture, a cash flow play, Tim acquired a private, off market Canada Post franchise and he is approaching one year of ownership and has drastically raised revenues.

He’s done this all while being married, having three young kids and two dogs.

To follow Tim:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_timhong_

Email: tim@infinitywealth.ca

We have podcast host of A Canadian Investing in the US, Glen Sutherland, hey’s a nice, sharing guy, a seasoned real estate investor, and he’s here to share his own journey of how he ran into a wall investing in Ontario then pivoted to the USA in 2017 and never looked back. 

Glen shares insights from his experience, including strategies for finding and managing properties, navigating different market conditions, and the importance of building a reliable team all from the comfort of his home near Waterloo, Ontario. He emphasizes the value of solving complex property issues, I emphasise complex as Glen is dealing with complicated deals in small towns not for the faint of heart.

Me personally, I’m going for boring, Glen however is a full time investment with sufficient capital and he must like the excitement.  We are totally on two different end of the risk tolerance spectrum which is totally ok. This is the truth about real estate investing podcast and there are various ways to invest in real estate.

So with no further ado, I give you Glen Sutherland

Web: https://www.glensutherland.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@acanadianinvestingintheusa

Have you met Steve Phillips? He’s a member of my team, the four time award winning iWIN Real Estate. Right out of school he worked for one of the largest condo management firms in the GTA, he’s a serial entrepreneur, had a construction business, real estate runs in the family as the Mrs. is a designer. Steve is well known in the Durham region as well within the investor community having been coached by, and taken courses by Quentin D’souza. 

If you know Steve like I do, he doesn’t sleep until his clients have a great deal under contract and he’ll be sharing how he’s been doing so along with the numbers behind the deals. You can reach out to steve at Steve@infinitywealth.ca if you’d like to book a call or tour. 

To book a call with Steve: https://calendly.com/steve-1502iwinrealestate/30min

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iwin_on_the_eastside/

On to this week’s show!

Our guest is basically a Canadian as he grew up in Minnesota near the border. Ryan grew up further north that the vast majority of Ontarians so he knows snow, hockey, black flies and cold winters.

Then he smartened up and moved to Florida and participated in some roller coaster markets including the financial crisis and housing market crash of 2007-2009.  Ryan will share his experience on how they made a killing back then.

Ryan is well beyond just being a Realtor, he’s the founder and CEO of RealTrade Inc. which is like the Facebook Marketplace for real estate professionals and real estate listings, a smart diversification play for Realtors to keep control of their listings vs the Zillows and Redfin.

On the Florida real estate side, Ryan recounts how he made money buying bad mortgages from the banks in 2009, the current market inventory and demand, short term or hybrid rentals which is a split between mid-term and short term rental, hurricane insurance and changes to construction, the landlord, tenant laws and tax benefits, what to do for fun the south Florida.

50% of survey respondents wanted to hear more about Florida so here you go! I give you Ryan Poole, please enjoy the show!!

To follow Ryan:

Ryanpool@realtrade.io

Investing for positive cash flow, areas of job growth and warm weather, regaining control of the retirement investment plan and legacy portfolio; all this and more on today’s episode of the Truth About Real Estate Investing Show for Canadians.

I’m your host Erwin Szeto, landlord since 2005, Realtor and Coach to investors since 2010, 4X Realtor of the year, $400,000,000+ in client transactions, and host of this little podcast that could that is ranked #81 Business podcasts per Apple iTunes.

We have a different podcast for you today as I am the one being interviewed by today’s guest of the show Andrew Kim, CEO of Share, a technology based asset manager of single family rental properties in the USA with focus on the landlord friendly states of the southern USA.

After months of research and due diligence on both investing in the US and on Share, I’ve convinced my wife Cherry the risks we bear with the Landlord Tenant Board with an eight month backlog just for a hearing, rent control that makes inflation our expense to bear and with better, simpler investment opportunities in the USA it make sense to sell some, if not all our rental properties here in Ontario.

On today’s episode, the tables are turned: Andrew asks me all about the decision to invest in the USA via direct ownership of real estate. Direct ownership, unlike what others out there in doing in raising capital or OPM is I own the property with full title. I have complete control over the house and do not share ownership with others like joint venture, or shares in a company.  It’s just me, the bank, and my wife Cherry.

As always in how our nearly two decades of investing has been, direct ownership, if done correctly, means higher returns to get ahead in life.  I bear all the risk and keep all the upside.  Worst case, I own a quality house in a quality location that I can renovate, move into, or sell.  That’s how I’ve always invested.  

My wife and I don’t take on partners, you don’t need us as joint venture partners, I can show anyone how to invest just like my 45+ millionaire and multimillionaire real estate investors in the most efficient path, with the least stress as possible via direct ownership.

Let’s never take our eye off the goal of every real estate investor: a comfortable, maybe earlier retirement.  With easy financing in the US available for unlimited properties, the tax part I’m not worried about as the worst case scenario if done correctly is one pays the same amount of total tax but split between US and Canada, the biggest risks to the real estate investor are removed when investing in the southern, landlord friendly markets… there are risks like there always are but I’m choosing to invest my hard earned money where there are a lot fewer risks and more potential for cash flow.

Everyone has to do their own research and due diligence. I’ve done mine including a site tour around Atlanta, Georgia and I’ve grilled Andrew probably more than anyone ever has.  Poor guy was seated next to me on the flight home from Atlanta and there was no inflight entertainment on our ghetto Air Canada plane.  Just 2+ hours of me asking questions :))) 

Have a listen to Andrew asking me the most common questions Canadians are asking about investing in the United States.  Please enjoy the show.

For more information on SHARE and investing in the US:

Web: www.iwin.sharesfr.com mention Erwin or iWIN or you’re in pursuit of the truth about real estate investing and they’ll take good care of you.

On to this week’s show!

We have a young rock star in Joseph Costanza who was 24 when we met and owner of the title of the youngest client we’ve ever had.  He’s a young hustler who when I met him had three jobs: Architect day job; bartender, evening weekend job; landscaper with remaining time not sleeping.

Thanks to all that hustle and saving money by living at home with his parents, young Joe saved up enough money for his first investment property of his now five properties.  Crazy enough he’s already made his first million dollars hence he’s now our youngest of 45 self made investor millionaire real estate clients at 28.

Joe’s here today along with Coach Tammy from the iWIN Real Estate team to give us an update on his expansion project in Sudbury which didn’t go so well and his lessons so you may avoid the same mistakes he made.

Plus a gem of an expired listing in Hamilton that coach Tammy helped Joe with that eventually was priced well under market because the property failed to sell, was rough and the challenging tenant with previous orders against him by the Landlord Tenant Board.

We talk numbers on the most recent deal so have your pens and calculators ready or email us at iwin@infinitywealth.ca and we can send you Coach Tammy’s draft numbers.

Please enjoy the show!

To follow Joe’s journey:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephcostanza/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joseph.costanza.50

We have my friends returning to the show, Marty and Amanda who’ve been renovating and investing for nearly 20 years, Amanda Bouck has managed properties for nearly 20 years, Marty her husband is a carpenter by trade and personally much of their 15+ duplex conversions in Guelph.  They are a power couple: they get numbers, execution, cash flow and hate vacancy. They drank the same Kool Aid I did. They’re reward is a country acreage and building the custom home of their dreams they’re too humble to talk about with all the gurus out there flaunting Rolex watches, Lamborghinis, private jets and yachts.

Amanda & Marty scaled up as well in small multis likes six plexes, small apartment buildings to their current project, both a REIT: real estate investment trust called Legend Real Estate Trust and a 60 unit building in Waterloo.

Amanda and Marty are here today to share their experience including coaching, retiring from coaching for possibly the biggest real estate education company in Canada.  As always, we share both the negative and positive of real estate investing including all the losses going on in the community, over leverage with expensive hard money loans and their own investment philosophies where none of their investors have lost any money.

The honest truth about real estate investing is, speculative investments can work until they don’t and also I don’t endorse any product or offering of Marty and Amanda nor do I receive any compensation from Marty and Amanda nor from their businesses. This episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

Please do your own due diligence. If you read the article about Robby Clark, you see how some of the property used to secure financing had fires and were torn down by the city. If any lender, broker, investor had simply driven by the property, they would have known the deal was no good. 

For my house in San Antonio, Texas I have a termite inspection, home inspection including pictures and video walkthrough, a quote from the property manager for renovations and maintenance. My cousin is in San Antonio next week for work and doing a drive by.

Diligence people, trust but VERIFY. That goes for all guests of this show. I do my best hence Epic Alliance and Robby Clark never made it on this show or any of my platforms.  I learnt my lesson from Paramount Equity.

Back to this week’s guests, Amanda and Marty, just to note, they have been censored on other platforms and Facebook groups for trying to warn people about gurus losing other people's money. They going to offend some so be warned.  

Links:

www.LegendRealEstateTrust.ca

Amanda@Legendinvestments.ca

Marty@Legendinvestments.ca

Please enjoy the show!

We have my old friend Aaron Moore on the show who is an extremely successful real estate investor, wholesaler and flipper. Aaron and I met monthly to mastermind for three years so I know him well and can verify he’s a nice guy and he’s much more successful than many of the real estate influencers on Instagram.

Aaron is the only wholesaler I know who guarantees the purchase from the seller including the time he got caught in the downturn, knew he was going to take a loss and did it anyways.

Aaron takes us back to 2008 when he would deliver hundreds of fliers and hang bandit signs, you know those unauthorised sings on traffic lights saying “I Buy Houses.” Soon after successfully cracking the Google SEO and Ads code back in 2010, Aaron’s one of the best at generating leads for off market properties.  Hence he can wholesale 66 properties in a year.

Aaron walks us through how he grew his organisation, number of employees, his journey from harder deals to easier for long-term holds, what he thinks of the current market, several pro tips, and if you can believe it how a scammer impersonated a seller leaving Aaron in limbo as the “new owner”

According to Aaron, these scams are becoming more common so you do not want to miss this episode, listen to the end.

To follow Aaron, his website for investors is www.housedealsgta.ca and for sellers www.gtahousebuyers.ca

Please enjoy the show.

Real estate development for it’s lack of long term tenants makes more sense which is a great segway for this week’s guest Victoria Cluney fresh off recording a show on Dragon’s Den to pitch her Tiny Home community and manufacturing of tiny houses!!  Victoria is under a hush agreement about what happens on her episode but will share her experience auditioning, getting called back and pitching to the real life Dragons for the show.

Victoria is a returning guest of this show who’s on a great journey from small landlord of long-term rentals to short-term cottage “bunkies” to AirBnb’ing a motel to building a tiny home community, manufacturing tiny homes and being a part of the solution to solving this affordability crisis we’re having in Canada.

Victoria is also co-hosting the RE Resilience Summit (https://realestateresilience.ca/) Saturday and Sunday September 28 & 29.  Her co-hosts include Meghan Hubner and Elizabeth Kelly.  Elizabeth Kelly as you know is a regular and friend of the show, she’s one of the few good ones in our industry so if you’re new or old to real estate investing, you know the RE Resilience Summit will have something for everyone.

To follow Victoria:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoriacluney/?hl=en

WE BILD Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/webild/?_xtd=gqFyqTMzNzkwNjIyMaFwpmlwaG9uZQ%253D%253D&from=ref

Tiny Home building & community: https://www.tayridge.ca/

Please enjoy the show!!

This week we have a very special guest in Patrick Francey, CEO of the Real Estate Investment Network (REIN for short).

What makes REIN special in my experience is they’ve always been affordable, REIN has been around longer than pretty much all the other real estate education or networking organizations.  They focus on economic fundamentals and cash flow, they literally teach both subjects extensively once per year in each of the cities they operate.

As such, their members are among the most successful in the investor community and their members risk way less. Never did they teach high leverage investing or promissory notes in my experience.

OPM or joint venturing instruction was almost entirely equity based to preserve cash flow, reduces risk, allow the passive partner to participate in both upside and downside.

On the other hand, I’m having regular conversations with investors about professional coaches and small REIT owners who are behind on payments to their investors and folks are lawyering up.  Never in my experience have I seen this scale of lawsuits in my experience hence I feel the timing of this interview with Patrick and last week Tom Karadza of Rock Star real estate is timely.

We’ve had lots of experts on this show including Alberta real estate investors but I do want to highlight what makes today’s guest in Patrick Francey standout.

Patrick’s role at REIN places him at the forefront of research and education, he has thousands of REIN members to network with across the country to help him make informed and profitable decisions.  Patrick admits he’s a wee older than I am and benefits from having been both a business owner and real estate investor for several economic cycles both boom and bust.

On today’s show we reminisce about what has made REIN members successful over the decades but it’s been far from perfect, we’re talking about Alberta here who had been in economic winter for a decade, prices had crashed and the energy sector has been neglected at the federal level. As for the future, it’s bright for specific parts and strategies in Alberta which Patrick details.

• Website: reincanada.com

• Email: info@reincanada.com

Please enjoy the show!

On to this week’s show!

Tim JP Collins is an old friend of ten years or so, one of our most successful clients and has achieved the cash flow goal almost every new investor has when we first meet with them. $100,000 or more passive cash flow per year so they can vacation more, not worry about money, retire their spouse, etc…

Tim is back on the show to update us on his journey from high paid, high stress Tech Sales Executive to being debt free, over $10k cash flow per month from his stock portfolio, and being a full Realtor on his terms at REAL Broker.

Ever since I’ve known Tim, he’s done things differently. He invested in himself heavily by hiring a coach, getting educated, taking massive action, buying student rentals, several with joint venture partners.  As a Realtor at REAL Broker, it’s just him and his admin assistant. No team, no plans to build a team so less moving parts and people to manage.  Tim likes making money and keeping his life simple which I think we all want more of in our lives.

He’s a father of three boys, husband, debt free living in the lovely Nanaimo, BC, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu white belt and has much to teach us all.

If you enjoy the show you’ll want to tune in when Tim is our guest speaker at our Tues, October 17th iWIN Meeting. 7:30 pm EST. I’ve asked Tim to present on how he built his 7 figure bank roll in real estate and what he now invests in to generate that $10,000+ cash flow per month.  He’ll also share his experience belonging to REAL Broker including saving money on commission splits and their revenue sharing program. 

So save the date! 7:30pm EST, October 17th iWIN Meeting. Online only as Tim will be joining from Nanaimo, BC. Got to love technology!

Please enjoy the show!

To follow Tim JP Collins:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/timjpcollins/?hl=en

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timjpcollins/?originalSubdomain=ca

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/timjpcollins/

On to this week’s show! We have one of my oldest real estate investor friends Andy Tran who was among my first clients and home inspectors.

I’ll always remember the first deal we did together, a detached house in Hamilton for $216,000. The house had been sitting for nearly two months before we came along and during our appointment to see the property, I noticed there was something not right.  The owners listed a man and woman’s name but while inspecting in the fridge and closets, I could tell only the father and kids lived in the house.

In speaking with the listing agent to gather information for our offer, the agent informed me the sellers were divorcing and hated each other.  Knowing we had a motivated seller, our offer was a low one and was promptly accepted to our surprise.  Note that we also included our closing costs to be paid for by the sellers.  This was back in 2010 and we’ve both come a long way.

Fast forward to the present, Andy is the market leader in secondary and tertiary suite additions.  In plain language, that’s basement apartments, additions for self contained apartments and garage or garden suites which are also apartments.

Andy is a master of maximising the rental income that can be generated from one property.  Andy has consulted and designed over 100 apartment conversions between my clients and I including land severances.

If you’d like to learn more about Andy’s services available at Suite additions, simply go to www.suiteadditions.com where he has checklists and beginner guides to secondary suiting plus his in person training program Andy mentions on the show which sold out in April but expect another this fall.

Andy’s a good guy and that’s the truth about real estate investing. Please enjoy the show!

Our Market update two weeks ago with Coach Tammy DiTomaso was a hit. 

FYI to our 17 listeners, the vast majority of real estate investors are investing as a side hustle. The truth about real estate is the folks who successfully make full time careers as investors is a small minority.  I remember asking a mortgage broker friend who focuses on investors tell me only 1% reach 10 or more properties.  That number has gone up a lot since then but my point is, do what’s right for you. No need to compare yourself to folks with 100’s of doors.  The other truth is several investors are in financial distress right now who were over leveraged and had challenges executing their flips or BRRR’s of simply speculated and can no longer afford their investments at the current interest rates.

Boring, cash flowing starter homes is the bread and butter of our team since 2010.  Starter homes with renovations to increase cash flow such as basement suite conversion or student rental worked pre pandemic and still works in this declining market hence we have coach Stephen Phillips to talk to the towns east of the GTAin terms of the deals and the numbers behind the properties investors are buying right now in today’s market that make sense.

Coach Steve has extensive experience in real estate having owned and operated a kitchen and countertop business.  Their stuff was so nice they caught the attention of HGTV’s Scott McGilvray and his business was part of 20 something episodes on Scott’s shows. Steve grew up in the Durham area, East Greater Toronto Area and now focuses on the areas East in the investor friendly towns from Oshawa and Kingston but primarily the sweet spot of Belleville.

The most common request we receive from new clients is “I want a deal” so as a service to you 17 listeners, we’re here to provide context to what a deal looks like so have your pens, paper, spreadsheets ready as we’ll talk to current opportunities and the analysis behind them.

To Follow Stephen:

Email: steve@infinitywealth.ca 

In this episode, I am breaking down the newest updates from the Bank of Canada on what's happening with interest rates. There’s talk of a possible recession and the economy slowing down, and we're here to get to the bottom of it all.

Using fresh info from Stats Canada and the Bank of Canada, I look at how the continuous increase in interest rates is affecting not just the big picture, but our day-to-day lives too. From what we are spending at home to what's happening in the housing market, we’ll see how big world events, like China's economy slowing down and wildfires here in Canada, are having a ripple effect on our economy.

We will also go step by step through the newest facts and figures from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, all fresh from August. Whether you’re thinking of buying a condo or a standalone home, I've got the latest scoop on trends, prices, and tips for both buyers and sellers to help you make the best decision.

So sit back and enjoy the show as we unravel what’s really happening in the Canadian real estate market, making it simple and easy to understand for everyone.

Kellan James was recommended for this podcast by my wife’s team at Real Estate Tax Tips.  You see, Accountants know who are actually successful at making money hence Kellen is our guest today.

Kellan has successfully transitioned out of his corporate job. His timing for explosive growth was well timed, his deals were profitable and well executed including his more recent deleveraging stage of consolidating his portfolio, paying off more expensive private mortgages to manage cash flow.

Kellan shares how his journey started, the importance of coaching early on, his group of 13 real estate friends, and how Kellan proceeded to grow both his portfolio and coaching business too fast leading to burn out.

I invited Kellan onto the show over a year ago but I caught him during his social media black out period and he’s finally here today to share the ups and downs, realities of becoming a full time real estate investor.

Please enjoy the show!

You can follow Kellan at:

Website: https://www.kellanjames.ca/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellan.james/

We have a college instructor on this week’s show! Brian Gordon is an old friend of mine from years ago, he works full time for the largest appraisal company in Canada, if not North America in Management.  Prior to that he worked as a Senior Property Tax Analyst for one of Canada’s largest REITs, if not the biggest.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigor/

Brian has been methodically growing his own real estate portfolio over 7 years consisting of duplexes, a AirBnb in Blue Mountain, more recently an 11 plex development where he’s adding two additional units.

As mentioned Brian is the course creator and instructor of “Real Estate Investment Strategies” at George Brown College, a comprehensive, yet affordable course which is one of the big reasons why I wanted him on the show.  Real estate investing is largely about return on investment and that includes one’s education.  This course is only $392.24 for 20 hours including private 1 on 1 consultation time with Brian.  What an absolute steal.

Link: https://coned.georgebrown.ca/courses-and-programs/real-estate-investment-strategies-online

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed recording this episode for you all to learn Brian’s tips and tricks so we may all improve our own businesses and you’ll want to hear about where Brian’s next investments will be and his views on Canadian opportunities.

Please enjoy the show!

Follow Brian on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/acquiring_wisdom/

We have my old friend Andrew Hines and his co-author of an all new book John Schwenker!  Andrew needs no introduction and John is an everyday hero, a firefighter and recovering real estate investor.

Andrew has taken his turn sharing how he lost money investing in Ohio now it’s John’s turn to share how he made a bunch of money in Ontario, lost all his profits in the recent correction but it’s not all bad news, John’s short term rental property in the US is a winner. I’m confident you’ll agree when you hear his numbers especially when compared to his Niagara Fall, Ontario short-term rental.

In this episode, John and Andrew share their journey to writing this book so we may all learn from their mistakes and how to be successful in their book which is like Tim Ferriss’ “Tools of Titans” where other experts have contributed chapters to the book including yours truly.  

To pick up a copy of the book:

“Real Estate Titans: Tools, Tactics and Wisdom for Canadian Real Estate Wealth.”

Link: https://www.amazon.ca/Real-Estate-Titans-Tactics-Canadian-ebook/dp/B0CZZZWP3Z/

To follow Andrew and John:

@theandrewhines

@john.schwenker

One of the reasons we started Stock Hacker Academy was we knew real estate was inaccessible to many AND with cash flow so squeezed on real estate, I know many are looking for better yield after their real estate portfolios had gone up so much in value. 

At the end of the day, no matter the investor we’re all in search of a return on our time, passive investments that cash flow and Anderson Carter-Griffith has found a side hustle and investment that works for him. 

Anderson is an immigrant and a chef who was underemployed thanks to the pandemic.  He’s since pivoted to investing in stocks, trading in options, and delivers food via Door Dash, an online food delivery app.

On this show Anderson shares how he makes a couple hundred dollars combined via his side hustles and how he invests in boring stocks for the long term. 

Most importantly, thanks to Anderson’s newfound financial education he has done a 180 degree turn having previously prioritised buying luxury cars and accessories and now prefers to invest for the benefit of compounding returns. Something those who unknowingly were spinning their wheels in the rat race can understand.

If you know someone looking to make some extra money to cover rent increases or inflation, Anderson has found himself a solution in side hustles.

During the interview we mention the stock and options brokerage we use.  In the show notes I have a referral link that helps to support this show. Interactive brokers: https://ndcdyn.interactivebrokers.com/Universal/Application?employer=SHA8

Quick disclaimer, none of anything discussed should be considered advice but rather Anderson and I are sharing our experiences for educational purposes. Please seek professional advice.

This week we have a really interesting interview of a gentleman, co-worker at Rock Star Real Estate, my friend Montu Dhillon.  He has a unique background having worked his way up the corporate ladder in the financial services world, specifically compliance so he saw first hand who really makes the money in the investment services industry, hence he started buying real estate.

Montu shares how he started like most of us do, hustling hard, in search of cash flow buying houses, duplex, fourplex, Airbnb then later transitioned into new construction condos for the negative cash flow but way less headaches.  Montu is a bit of a trader as well having divested some properties near the peak and what property type he has his sights set on may surprise you.

Montu shares his experience in the current market of writing low ball offers and being on the receiving end as well.

This is definitely a story of resilience, entrepreneurship, and taking control of one’s financial future.

For Montu’s free digital book: web https://www.dhillonrealtysystems.ca/

On to this week’s show!  MacKenzie Wilson is a risk adverse, smart guy as he got into investing in Calgary real estate and wisely knew that screening for the right tenant was absolutely key and that the wrong tenant would lead to a living nightmare.  This coming from a Calgarian! Ask him what he thinks about the investing in BC or Ontario!!

MacKenzie Wilson is an advocate for affordable housing and reduces the risk for landlords and tenants across Canada. With this MacKenzie has created and manages the largest online community of 4,000+ Landlords in Alberta. His online presence allows landlords to learn key fundamental landlord practices, navigating the risks and challenges associated with being a landlord, and maintaining a mutually beneficial tenant-landlord relationship. 

If you’re a fan of development, highest and best use investing, pay special attention to Mackenzie’s current tear down, infill project in Calgary that will qualify for the in demand CHMC MLI select financing of 95% loan to value, 50 year amortization.  He’s already purchased an everyday 60’ by 100’ lot which the correct zoning for which he will intensify into eight units.  Not quite 10X but 8X the housing supply on a single lot is pretty awesome.

Mac as he’s known to his friends also works at Singlekey, Canada’s largest tenant screening service.  The online service I use and recommend my clients use to screen tenants.  I luv how far credit reports have come, they’ve gotten cheaper, faster, digital and more user friendly.  

To follow Mackenzie:

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/AlbertaLandlordCommunity

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwyyc/

Arminda is a student rental investor who’s going to benefit massively from the over 40% increase to the market’s rental rates for student rentals and her current cash flow of $1,500 per month between two properties will more than double. Maybe triple.

That’s the benefit of buying right, using a fundamentally sound investment strategy, renovating with return in mind, and the importance of mentors, friends and community.

If you’re interested in quality investment properties like Arminda, my award winning team of investor specialist Realtors are ready to go. www.infinitywealth.ca 

Private RESP CST Savings:
https://www.cstsavings.ca/

https://www.cransoncapital.com/

*** these are notes, not endorsements nor advice. Please seek professional financial advice

Today, we Kyle Pearce who’s a real estate investor with 22 doors. Kyle's been investing since the last recession being braver than many buying the dip in Florida back in 2011. He’s a Stock Hacker, an online education business side hustler as Kyle’s full time job is as a Mathematics Consultant to Kindergarten to Grade 12 teachers as his local school board. Kyle teachers the Math teachers. 

Kyle is passionate about education and lucky for us. It spills into the investments arena, he loves to share his knowledge, is always sharing his research with our community, and I selfishly had some questions for Kyle on how to teach Math and Investing to kids.  

Now that I think of it, Kyle’s method of teaching compound interest, the 8th wonder of the world would work on adults too so you want to have your pens and note taking devices ready.

Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Kyle:

Website: https://makemathmoments.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MathletePearce/

Ming is a Toronto Real Estate Expert and head of Volition Properties’ Investment Realty Services having helped clients accumulate $200,000,000 worth of income properties in the City of Toronto from condos to mid size apartment buildings, specialising in small multifamily in top neighborhoods.

Ming is here today after Olivia Chow won the Mayoral race of Toronto and vows to build a more affordable city.

To follow Ming:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/volitionproperties/?hl=en

Website: https://www.volitionprop.com/

On to this week’s show!

Today we have my Mortgage Broker Scott Dillingham from Windsor Ontario who as far as I know is the only investor specialist who can help Canadians with mortgages in both Canada and the USA. Scott while he was the #1 mortgage broker at one of Canada’s biggest banks got my clients and I many mortgages at cheap rates and I’m now selling one of them.

Scott has since opened his own mortgage brokerage called Lendcity, he shares how American debt service coverage ratio mortgages work when buying income properties in the USA. Scott is a real estate investor himself and shares some of his own challenges as a Windsor landlord and how/where he plans to buy his next investment property and why.

For long-time investors, you’ll remember the days around ten years ago when we used to negotiate seller credits to bring down our downpayments, thus improving our ROI. Well roll back the calendar as seller credits are more of a norm in the US, even more so with builders in this slow market with historically high interest rates.

Scott of course will be our mortgage expert, guest speaker at our next US Investment Workshop on the morning of Saturday April 13th at our office in Oakville broadcast live over Zoom.  I thought the last one would be our last as it’s not easy, nor cheap to have as much talent in the room that we do.

We have everyone’s favourite real estate Accountant, my wife Cherry Chan, the CEO, CIO and CFO of Share: Andrew Kim, Dmitri Bourchtein, Carmen Da Silva respectively to explain how to be a USA landlord without all the work but keep all the equity.

Link is in the show notes: simply choose between in person or virtual. https://USAworkshop.eventbrite.ca. Cost is only $30 plus tax and eventbrite fees.

You can also reach Scott and team at iwin@lendcity.ca, an a custom email address made specially for you, my 17 listeners.  

Please enjoy the show!

We have my old friend Ming Lim of Volition Properties, Toronto Realtor and investor extraordinaire and the name volition is about living your life on your own volition thanks to financial peace from a great real estate portfolio.  The nice thing about investing in Toronto is one can’t really beat the number of high quality tenants to choose from. 

In my experience, the ideal tenant is gainfully employed and optimistic about the future as their credit history is valuable to them as they want to be able to get car loans and mortgages hence they can both afford the rent AND be motivated to be a quality tenant.

But Toronto is a top two least affordable city in Canada and one of the least affordable in the world so unless you have deep pockets for negative cash flow condos, you’re going to have to adopt an investment model of intensification and densification and that’s exactly why we have Ming Lim on as today’s guest.

Ming and I go back over ten years, he’s an engineer by training so he’s a bright guy, he doesn’t hide truths hence Ming share’s how some Toronto investors are faring holding pre-condo construction condos, very sad stuff. On the positive, Ming shares how CMHC’s MLI select program (read cheap, 50 year amortization financing) can be used to optimally invest and develop into multifamily properties in and around downtown Toronto.

For all you Toronto investors, you’ve asked “when will Erwin be downtown to meetup?” well Ming has invited me to speak at his meetup. 

https://www.meetup.com/volition/events/297931009/

Tuesday, May 28, 6:00-9:00 pm

The Kingston House

(676 Kingston Rd, Toronto), google maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/VKQLkSEc5cVxoa9j8

4.6/5 Google reviews

I’ll be sharing my journey of being a landlord in Ontario for the last 20 years and how I’ve started selling properties here to diversify to the landlord friendly areas of the USA. I’ve just returned from Savannah, GA, I’m in the middle of creating my corporate structure in the States to be prepared to start writing offers in the USA this month and I can not wait!

I hope to see you there and please enjoy the show!

Ming’s Volition on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/volitionproperties/

Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Volition/

Advisory call: https://cal.com/volition-matt/30advisory?month=2024-03

We have Matthew Lee and Ming Lim, the owners of a full service real estate business called Volition Properties who happen to host the largest meetup in Toronto and if you can believe it, them and their community successfully invest in Toronto and we’re not talking about condos, we’re mostly talking about small multifamily including significant renovations to add apartments including laneway suites since 2012. 

If you’ve been investing the right way in Toronto since 2012, you’re likely rich like these guys and their clients who’ve added collectively over $100 million to their net worth.  

Volition offers advisory services, investment realty services, design & renovation AND property management services.  These both also have good size portfolios, wives and young kids.  How do they do it? Let’s find out!

If you enjoy the episode, Volition is hosting a meetup Wednesday, May 17th, doors at 6pm on the Danforth. Link in the show notes to register and the keynote speaker is one that’s not to be missed! https://www.meetup.com/volition/events/292670679/

To follow Volition Properties’ Matthew and Ming:

Meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/volition/

Website: https://www.volitionprop.com/

PHONE: 1-833-416-BRRR

EMAIL: info@volitionprop.com

We have Ken Bekendam who is up to many things to generate cash flow and build wealth in real estate.  The best part is Ken is available for hire! One can hire Ken’s company https://legalsecondsuites.com for major renos to your home or investment property including basement apartments and garden suites.

Ken and Legal Second Suites has even been in the news representing one of his clients, a mutual friend of ours Alex who happens to be Ukrainian who wants to convert his garage into a garden suite to rent to Ukrainian immigrants but the rich neighbours think the added density of tenants living in a garage will damage the neighbourhood and increase traffic.  

Thankfully, with municipalities trending in the right direction to allow for us private investors to create more housing… well I won’t spoil it and let Ken explain to you how the story ends. Rich homeowners vs. rental housing for Ukrainian immigrants….

In today’s show, Ken details what strategy makes up the majority of his portfolio and provides him with the massive cash flows. It’s not what you expect as none of the influencers out there are promoting, nor offering courses on this strategy.  

Ken shares how to invest in garden suites including build costs and rents plus some conversion projects both big and small.  This is really great episode for education purposes so do have those pens and pencils ready.

I give you my friend Ken Bekendam

Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Ken:

Web: https://legalsecondsuites.com/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/legalsecondsuites/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/people/Legal-Second-Suites/100086295136299/

With all the craziness going on it’s nice to have a palate cleanse with go getters like my old friend Amanda Bouck and Marty Gordon.

I first met Amanda around ten years ago at Rock Star Real Estate when she was running the day to day as the in house Property Management business.

Fast forward ten years she’s managed a team of coaches, created educational content at Keyspire and together with her husband Marty, a licensed carpenter who’s gone from employee in construction to general managing their own property management company and investment portfolio of small multis in Guelph to small apartment buildings in London.  Apparently Marty has free time between all that, their one year old son to coach as a Keyspire coach as well.

Hey, I’ll never fault anyone for multiple streams of income ;)

Amanda and Marty’s journey from beginner investors in their early 20s to the present, 17 years later, a fair sized portfolio and getting close to buying and building their dream home on large acreage and custom built mansion. It’s an inspiring and real journey.

Amanda and Marty share how they journey wasn’t easy and required hard work. Success is not guaranteed but with hard work, smart decisions, over a large period of time, it’s hard not to be successful.

To connect with Amanda and Marty

Email: amanda@eliterentalmanagement.ca

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martygordon-swingingthehammer/?trk=pub-pbmap&originalSubdomain=ca

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HouseHustlers

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amanda.gordon.739

This week’s guest is the lovely Kelly Caldwell, who has converted over a dozen single family houses for basement suites AND garden suites. Together with husband Jeff Caldwell, they’ve become leaders in their community, Collingwood, ON filling in the missing middle working closely with local government as such they were invited to be a part of a new HGTV inspired series called Home Suite Home where viewers can follow along as Kelly and Jeff navigate the world of accessory suite financing, design and construction.  You can catch them on Rogers Cable TV this fall as well as Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@itshomesuitehome.

Kelly’s journey is a wild one.  She was barely an adult when she was orphaned as Cancer took her father, her only parent away leaving her as the eldest sibling of two teenage brothers. 

Kelly shares about her remote investing way up north, how she managed the renovations, Kelly shares the numbers around a typical basement conversion and garden suite.  For the first time a guest talks about the benefits of polished concrete floors for both heating and finish. Fascinating stuff for real estate nerds such as myself.

If you can’t tell, Kelly is no stranger to hard work so please enjoy the show!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itshomesuitehome/, https://www.instagram.com/the_dash_investher/

Realtor website: https://caldwellrealestategroup.com/

The dash poem: https://noahwatry.medium.com/the-dash-poem-by-linda-ellis-33fe4d54a1b4

ADUSearch: https://adusearch.ca/index.html

On to this week’s show!

We have Matt Biggley who is doing some very profitable investing in the Windsor, Ontario area now with a portfolio of 31 doors and some waterfront small developments and luxury short term rentals. Key to Matt’s journey are successful partnerships so we spend some time on how to identify strategic, long term partners.

Matt Biggley describes himself as a lucky husband; a girl Dad from a family of all boys; a reluctant renovator who once had a chance at an HGTV show; a History teacher once named the Best Teacher in Ontario, but who couldn’t remember names and dates; a top Windsor-Essex based realtor who got his license as a side hustle but has quickly become a top earning agent; and an experienced investor with an Airbnb and 31 long term rental units, who hates flips but is still dumb enough to occasionally do them anyway.

Despite telling his wife prior to getting married that he didn’t like renovating, he once lived in 6 “forever” homes (aka “fornever homes”) in 8 years, taking on massive renovations, which his wife Leslie documented on her way to amassing almost 60,000 Instagram followers and appearing in Better Homes and Gardens magazine, the Toronto Star and on many top design sites.

Matt is a big believer in the power of partnerships, scaling to a 31 door portfolio with his brilliant partner Kyle Pearce and their company North Shore Properties.  In 2021, he was invited by Doris Lapico, a renowned Windsor Realtor, to partner in the creation of The Real Group, a real estate team that has quickly became one of the top teams in the region. 

Matt loves to learn, a little too much sometimes; his favourite book is called "Getting Things Done" and he prefers podcasts to the radio in the car, which his family finds incredibly boring.  In light of of grieving his youngest brother Ben’s suicide during the pandemic, Matt has awoken a renewed gratitude for life, a passion for self-improvment, and a determination to provide his family with the best life possible.

To Follow Matthew Biggley:

Instagram: mattlovesrealestate

Website: www.therealgroup.ca

Podcast: www.investedteacher.com

In this enlightening episode, Rachel, with a background in advertising managing a $65 budget and a significant journey in real estate investment from growing up in a duplex to owning investment properties in Florida, investing in duplexes and garden suites in Barrie, Ontario to now full blown cottages resort business owner and operator in Muskoka.  Rachel's story of strategic investment and personal growth. Our conversation touches on the challenges of property management, the insights gained from renovating and selling properties, and her aspirations to contribute positively to societal health through real estate.

Cottages and short term rentals are a hot topic in the community, Rachel has experience in both short and long term rentals, she’s a no BS kind of gal, she’s obviously smart, you don’t get $65 million dollar advertising budgets to manage for some of the most recognizable brands in the world at two of the top 10 advertising agencies in the world.

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chaletsmuskoka

Chalets on Muskoka: https://www.chaletsmuskoka.ca/

Property Management: https://www.caradengroup.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rmholden

On to this week’s show!

We have the lovely Lena Guirguis on the show!

Her Asset Management company NV Property Management since 2005 manages 168 units including 32 of her own. Her portfolio is incredibly diversified from owning a commercial flex space in Richmond, residential properties around the GTA and apartment buildings in Cleveland, Ohio.

Lena is the founder of Stilettos and Hammers, a networking and educational real estate investment network for investors at every stage. They’re evening hosting a Hallowe’en social on October 26th at night in Etobicoke, ON. Link in the show notes https://stilettosandhammers.com/event/halloween-social-networking-event/ or you can find details on https://stilettosandhammers.com/

On today’s show, Lena shares her journey of strategic growth of her business and portfolio in partnership with her commercial contractor husband.  We discuss the state of today’s market and how she as a professional investor with established power team will invest going forward.

Lena came to Canada as an Iranian immigrant so be prepared for an inspiring example of what dedication, knowledge, talent and hard work can achieve.

I give you Lena Guirguis

Please enjoy the show!

We have my friend Darvin Zurfluh who has a huge private equity brokerage called Pinnacle Wealth Brokers.  If you’ve been around the investor community, you’ve likely seen them around at events but today we have the founder of the company joining us from Calgary, Alberta.

If you’re not familiar with private equities, well you need to be as good as private equities is part of the reason you’ll hear me say, it’s better than ever to be rich as the options for investing have never been so good and available.

I was introduced to Darvin when I asked my own Pinnacle Wealth Broker representative Steve Blasiak for a large scale podcast guest in the recreational investment space since so many of my listeners are interested in AirBnb.

Darvin having been in the investment industry since 1997 starting out at the bank, has since progressed to owning a couple hundred acres, hundreds of RV sites, cabins, campgrounds, a hotel, a golf course.  Darvin details the story behind the purchase of the golf course, the analysis, and value add strategy which I find particularly fascinating.

This is a fascinating interview into entrepreneurship in the private equity, real estate investing space at large scale that is also available to middle class investors to participate in passively.

Active or passive investors will appreciate this interview and if you enjoy it, Darvin has confirmed as guest speaker at the online, November 21st, monthly iWIN Meeting. There Darvin will go more into detail what private equity investments are, how to start one to raise capital, and the story behind starting his recreational properties investment fund so make sure you’re on our email newsletter like the over 10,000 plus iWinningest investors in Canada at www.truthaboutrealestateinvesting.ca.

As we are discussing securitized investments please enjoy the show both the show and this legal disclaimer as required by the iWIN Legal Department.

If you’d like to learn more about investing with Darvin’s company Pinnacle Wealth Brokers:

Steven Blasiak
Dealing Rep – Exempt Market
Pinnacle Wealth Brokers Inc.

7 Kingslea Gardens

Toronto, On M8Y2A7

Phone: 416 464 3085

Steven.Blasiak@PInnacleWealth.ca

Book an appointment with Steve - https://calendly.com/steven-blasiak/30min

www.pinnaclewealth.ca

Disclaimer:

The information and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely for educational and informational purposes and should not be considered as investment advice. The hosts and guests of this podcast are not licensed financial advisors, brokers, or registered investment advisors, and their comments should not be construed as recommendations or endorsements of any specific investment, security, or strategy.

Investing involves risks, including the possible loss of principal. Before making any investment decision, you should conduct your own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor to determine the suitability of any investment for your specific financial situation and investment goals.

The hosts and guests of this podcast make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any information discussed in this podcast. The podcast is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information.

Listeners are advised to use their own judgement and seek the advice of professionals before acting on any information provided in this podcast. The podcast shall not be liable for any damages, including but not limited to direct, indirect, special, or consequential damages arising out of or related to the use, inability to use, or reliance on any information provided in this podcast.

You know about the downturn we just experienced and like many of you, I was curious how private mortgage companies fared so I reached out to Kyle Ford whose company manages $150 in private mortgages.

Kyle tells it like it is, he shares how many mortgages went sideways, what the lessons were, how Kyle and his staff put time and money into taking over failed BRRR’s and flips to finish projects and sell them off and make his clients whole.

Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. Treat other people's money better than you treat your own. If you won’t invest your own money into your project and you can’t pay people back when deals go bad, don’t use other people's money. If you don’t believe me, ask bankrupt investors how much those other people who invested in them hate them and want their money back.

Debt is cheapest like first mortgages, VTB’s, you don’t give up control hence that should be one’s first option.

Back to Kyle’s interview, we journey back to when he was a alternative financing borrower investing in value-add real estate as his deals needed short term money, taking courses on investing including buying, renovating, renting out, financing.  Then the 2017 mortgage stress test happened and Kyle had limited options for financing but he needed mortgage money.

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of all invention, Kyle found other sources of private capital, started brokering his own deals, yada yada which Kyle will explain he now manages his own fund with $150 million dollars under management.

It’s never all sunshine and rainbows as mentioned some borrowers went sideways and Kyle shares how those deals went so we may all learn from Kyle’s lessons in a downturn.

Kyle has a contrarian opinion of promissory notes as well so you don’t want to miss this episode about the truth about being a private lender.

As we are covering securitized investments here comes the disclaimer I used Ai to write and a separate Ai tool to voice all for free.  Saves you all from hearing me stumble and mumble 🙂 

To reach out to Kyle and company:

Website: www.capgapMFT.com

Email: info@kylefordmortgages.com

Please enjoy the show.

Disclaimer:

The information and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely for educational and informational purposes and should not be considered as investment advice. The hosts and guests of this podcast are not licensed financial advisors, brokers, or registered investment advisors, and their comments should not be construed as recommendations or endorsements of any specific investment, security, or strategy.

Investing involves risks, including the possible loss of principal. Before making any investment decision, you should conduct your own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor to determine the suitability of any investment for your specific financial situation and investment goals.

The hosts and guests of this podcast make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any information discussed in this podcast. The podcast is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information.

Listeners are advised to use their own judgement and seek the advice of professionals before acting on any information provided in this podcast. The podcast shall not be liable for any damages, including but not limited to direct, indirect, special, or consequential damages arising out of or related to the use, inability to use, or reliance on any information provided in this podcast.

Our guest should need no introduction, it’s my lovely wife the Real Estate Accountant Cherry Chan!

Cherry Chan is here to share about the convoluted changes by our Federal government who seem to know more about what real estate we own, they keep coming out with half baked ideas only to delay, delay, make us all jump through hoops, make busy work. It’s really complicated stuff but Cherry is a talented messenger who can explain what the Trudeau, Liberal government is doing.

We also chat about our lessons from the downturn in the real estate market, how we are refocusing on at least cash neutral properties hence the decision to diversify to the landlord friendly states of the USA.  I’m hoping Cherry and I can take a trip to the south: Georgia and Tennessee in May after tax season. Romance and cash flow. Two of my favourite things in life.  I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day and find more cash flow in your lives because never forget, cash flow is what affords you freedom.  US dollars are also worth more than Canadian dollars.

Please enjoy the show!

Greetings my fellow investors and truth seekers, this is the Truth About Real Estate Investing Show for Canadians and if you’re addicted to social media like I am, there’s not a lot of good news within our community.  It’s not all bad, we just had Kelly Caldwell, Victoria Cluney, and Milena Simsic. Spencer and Ashley with their AirBnbs, Zac Killem whose company Front Lobby will thrive.  In general those with healthier portfolios as in not over leveraged, focus on cash flow and operational execution are doing just fine like many past guests of this show. I was just speaking to one investor/Realtor while preparing this episode who did just that, he’s buying more multifamily buildings and completed two flips in the USA. 

Off the top of my head, I can think of two past guests in significant financial trouble, one has already declared bankruptcy, the others owe a lot of people a lot of money to individual investors, not just banks.  Individual investors post to social media and tell others to warn them. I know because I have friends everywhere in the community and the messages arrive in my DM’s.

Both were newer to real estate as they made the switch to full time within the last five years or so.  I’ve left the episodes up because as far as I’ve know, there was no criminal intent nor are they being accused of any.

I run a real estate investment business called iWIN Real Estate where we are always looking to learn, evolve, and adopt best practices to help our clients optimize their investments and time, the only non-renewable resource. We started investing in single family, then multifamily, then student rentals, basement suite conversions, to garden/garage suites and it’s gotten unaffordable. We use Ai all through out our businesses.

I used Chatgpt to research case law when sellers accepted a higher competing offer when we had already accepted their counter offer.  I’ve used Chatgpt to proof read my clauses for counter offers which saves everyone time: my clients, my lawyer, my broker. 

I’m working on creating a digital duplicate of myself as I’m really busy booking calls to discuss USA investing. 80-90% of the questions are the same: what is the legal structure to own US properties, how do you get a mortgage, what are the fees like, etc… all repetitive I could have an Ai twin version of myself do. 

If you think I’m crazy, check out the found of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman’s two way interview of his own Ai twin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgD2gmwCS10

For anyone in sales or customer service, if you’re not afraid for your job, I don’t know what will. This is one reason I diversify my business, use Ai tools, own cash flowing real estate.

The owner of Property Guys was on BNN talking about how 25% of Realtors in the USA will leave the industry after those historic lawsuit settlements.  This August, listings will no longer display co-operating commission for buyer agents hence buyer agents must negotiate commission from the buyer.  Property Guy mentioned there are two lawsuits in the works in Canada which confirms the rumours I’ve heard.  The implication is the public will be more aware that Realtor commissions are negotiable, they always have been and it my experience, sellers who want top dollar when selling will continue to offer co-operating commission.  Most of the professional investors do it. I do it, I actually offer above market co-operating commission and use it as a marketing tool and negotiation piece. I mean it’s worked for me, the last four houses I sold, I did so, on average in 22 days on market.

Point is, I’m a Realtor, I’ve worried for my job since 2010 and never been more worried with Ai, class action lawsuits and competition among other Realtors at their highest levels ever.  If only we had as many doctors and Realtors. Imagine how good our health care would be.

For complete business and investment sense, I of course partnered with SHARE, a tech enabled asset manager that allows Canadians to be US landlords without all the heavy lifting.  My 17 listeners know I’ve conducted well over 300, hour long interviews with successful and some no longer successful real estate investors work, invest, blood, sweat and tears.  In terms of cash flow and overall returns to effort, I haven’t seen anything before that beats SHARE’s offering.

In short, I’ve seen how the top investors implement their real estate investment business and can separate the hype from results. Those with results did not overleverage, were in control the whole time, delivered operationally to renovate and rent as fast as they could.  Those who didn’t are the ones making all the headlines in the news for declaring bankruptcy protection or bankruptcy or have their names dragged through Facebook groups for owing money. 

I had a call with a newer investor who’s got a great investment property in BC, she AirBnb’s the triplex in the summer months then rents to students during the school year.  That’s investing on steroids and she’s rewarded with six figures of rental income.

The investor asked why I call in long-term single family rentals boring?  To me it’s not exciting, there’s nothing innovative about it vs. what gets all the attention and likes on social media, note how many of those influencers have gone quiet or done major pivots. I know one big time condo agent appears to have pivoted to coaching Realtors which is going to be really tough in this market.  My clients and I’s investing is as passive as possible and we’ve done quite well. Our biggest challenge is under rented properties due to rent control but over the long-term, we’ve all done amazing with market appreciation.

Compare that to Airbnb in the summer where this newer investor does all the client interaction and only outsources the maintenance and cleaning to a property manager for 10% PM fees. Student rentals in my experience are a niche investment that is much more challenging to insure, manage, and get cheap financing.  My last student rental mortgage was with Home Trust at over 8% interest plus 1% lender fee.

Again, a wonderful business for the active investor.  Just be prepared for plans B and C and D should the municipality turn against student rentals or AirBnb.  Just last week, 10,000 protesters in Barcelona took to the streets, some even using water guns to shoot at tourists. The Mayor of Barcelona is banning 10,000 Airbnbs in the city… this makes me thing I need to buy some shares of hotels… source: https://www.ft.com/content/287c1d53-7dd0-410c-88bb-f43277c851b6

In my city, the City of Hamilton implemented rental licensing in the student neighbourhoods with plans to expand across the entire city and the mayor is former NDP leader Andrea Horwath.  To conform to licensing could costing landlords from a couple to several thousands of dollars in order to comply along with ongoing fees.  Thankfully I’ve sold my student rentals and I’m grateful for having done so as I look out the window of my office and know there are basements being flooded all over the province. There’s plenty of investors struggling out there already who don’t need this.  This widespread flooding event will push up insurance rates yet again, more housing cost inflation we can NOT pass onto the tenant in a rent controlled environment.

As someone who despises risk, I’m removing basement flood risk by divesting local houses and investing in houses in the USA that don’t have basements. I’m advising friends, family and clients to not invest in suiting their basements as it makes more sense to allocate those funds to buying a house in the USA.  To close on my house in San Antonio I need $97,000 US$ including a $10k reserve fund. A typical basement apartment conversion is $160,000 in my experience and you’re vacant six months.  How long depends on the municipality and the quality of your contractor.

My San Antonio tenants are renting the house back from me so I have zero vacancy and can defer my renovations till after they move out which I hope is never since this is Texas and there is no rent control

Only in colder climates do we need basements that go below the frost line to prevent heaving.  The same problem doesn’t happen in the southern USA making housing a lot less expensive to build, no need to ever have waterproof let alone flooding if you avoid coastal areas and Florida.

Even if you wanted to buy a turnkey duplex in Hamilton, Barrie, Oshawa, Ottawa etc… I’ve chosen those cities as prices and rents are similar there, I’ve calculated the capitalization rate = $ Net Operating Income / $ price at 4.1%. 

Compare that to what my clients are getting, low five to mid 7 cap rates in the USA.  The numbers don’t lie, the laws are landlord friendly, no rent control, and commercial style mortgages for us Canadian investors. I make way more commission selling a Canadian property than an American one but I want happy clients hence I recommend US investments over Canadian ones. Diversification and cash flow reasons alone make plain sense. The truth is also it’s way easier selling US income properties. I’ve sold way more US income properties than Canadian ones this year, never in my career since 2010 as a Realtor have I seen so little interest by investors to buy local income properties when the timing is ideal to pick up deals.

I do truly worry for my fellow real estate professionals in Realtors and mortgage agents/brokers. There’s a lot of them already and if they make a living focusing on selling local real estate investments and they not able to sell US products, I won’t be surprised to see many of them leave the industry.  

To me, it’s all a matter of education before investing in the USA via SHARE by Canadians is the norm, I honestly love my work, SHARE is the partner every lazy investor like me is looking for except they don’t take any equity share of the investment. Control and ownership remind 100% mine and Cherry’s. 

I’m going to record a video comparing a new condo investment vs. a duplex vs. my client’s property. He's from Montreal, has never seen the house that is a 7.6% cap rate that only cost him about $160,000 Canadian. 

Link is in the show notes.

There is no guest this week. I literally had invited a former coach of a defunct real estate “university” as they invest big, nice people but their name is being blasted on social media for not making payments on their private mortgages.  The coach didn’t respond which never happens as gurus generally love coming on my show.  This isn’t an indictment on the coach/investor. If they can survive they’ll come out a winner.  Even if they don’t, I believe them to be talented and will come back.  

Personally I don’t like my investments to be a roller coaster hence I choose boring as I don’t have thick enough skin to tell people I’ve lost their money or I can’t pay them back.  That’s just me. The world needs the self declared crazies like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. I just know I’m not that and stay in my boring lane.

But I do have equity in SHARE, I have some say in the company’s direction as Head of Business Development in Canada and I don’t see a more efficient path to my company’s 10 year gold: help 200 Canadians become real estate millionaires.  I’m at 45 or so now and I can see it in my mind’s eye, 10 years from now enjoying golf and dinner with 200 Canadian real estate millionaires who’ve gained a lot of financial peace via their boring real estate investments.

I can’t wait but I’m totally enjoying the journey.  iwin.sharesfr.com if you’d like to learn about the deals my clients and I are doing, from there you can book a Zoom call with me. Past clients, I’m always down for coffee, dessert, breakfast, lunch, dinner, or golf. You know where to find me.

On to this week’s show!

Today we have the host of the mega conference the Multifamily Conference, Seth Ferguson, on the show. If you were at the event headlined by Kevin O’Leary last year you know it was a really great one and this year, Seth has been inspired by 10X with headline speakers Grant Cardone and Alex Rodriguez who is best known for his successful baseball career. At one time being Baseball’s highest paid athlete, more recently on television’s Shark Tank and he’s a mega apartment building investor himself.

The event will be a big one with somewhere around 2,000 attendees from all over North America expected for a three day event.

I’ll have a booth there so please come by and say hi or I’ll see you at one of the evening events or lunch or breakfast. I do enjoy networking and if networking is your thing then you’ll likely want to be at Canada's largest investor conference of the year.

Seth here today to share about what it takes to run a successful conference, what one can expect, how there is something for everyone both beginner to mogul. There’s even a whole day dedicated to beginners on the friday and if you like VIP treatment then Seth has you covered with exclusive networking events at exclusive venues but I’ll let Seth explain them to you.

Seth is also working on some investment stuffs he’ll announce at the conference but you’ll get a sneak peek on today’s show.

Now for the disclaimer the lawyers want me to read 

The information and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely for educational and informational purposes and should not be considered as investment advice. The hosts and guests of this podcast are not licensed financial advisors, brokers, or registered investment advisors, and their comments should not be construed as recommendations or endorsements of any specific investment, security, or strategy.

Me personally, my team of coaches and I are licensed Realtors of Rock Star Real Estate Brokerage Inc., proud to be. While easy to obtain the same licence, not all are the same, our rates are inline with the market but we’re four time winners as Realtor of the year to real estate investors with 50 or so, self made millionaire and multi millionaire clients. 

Investing involves risks, including the possible loss of principal or worse. Before making any investment decision, you should conduct your own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor to determine the suitability of any investment for your specific financial situation and investment goals.

The hosts and guests of this podcast make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any information discussed in this podcast. The podcast is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information.

Listeners are advised to use their own judgement and seek the advice of professionals before acting on any information provided in this podcast. The podcast shall not be liable for any damages, including but not limited to direct, indirect, special, or consequential damages arising out of or related to the use, inability to use, or reliance on any information provided in this podcast.

To learn more about the Multifamily Conference:

Web: https://multifamilyconference.ca/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sethfergusonofficial/?hl=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sethfergusonrealestate

We have Ben Bergen who has acquired 14 properties over a short period of time and has the scars to prove it! Ben is a graduate of one of those many $13,000 per year group coaching programs, spent close to $50,000 and in his words he grew too fast, too soon, ego driven, nearly lost his shirt when he had 3.5 major renovation projects on the go.

My observation is if not for Ben’s own sweat, hard work on the tools as he is in construction, he would have ended up bankrupt like some of his coaches and fellow students. In the business world Ben filled both the visionary and integrator role. If his business was Apple, he was both Steve Jobs AND Tim Cook or Steve Wozniak.  As in Jobs could sell big dreams, raise capital but Steve Wozniak had to build the actual computers or Tim Cook had to make the Operations as smooth and efficient as possible.

In my study of failed real estate investors, they were incredible at raising capital, their influencer marketing was expert level BUT they could not execute on their vision of on time renovations, on budget in a challenging environment both in construction AND the truth about real estate that no one is talking about, there’s more folks out there than ever trying to raise capital from both veterans and weekend guru workshop graduates BUT passive investors/lenders have dried up.  

Back to Ben, if not for some prudent decisions and his skillset, Ben would be in huge trouble hence it’s best you give this episode a listen.  Ben lives and invests in Sarnia, has a construction background, has since left his six figure job and pension behind, and is starting up a property management company with the help of coach Elizabeth Kelly. 

Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Ben:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benbergen_rei/ 

PM Company: https://www.instagram.com/rsb_property_management_2021/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ben.bergen.7121

We have returning to the show my friend Seth Ferguson and I want to thank him for hosting the biggest real estate event of the year May 24-26th.  The Friday is a 101 for beginners then the main course is the Saturday and Sunday and I’m excited to see all my friends from the community, hopefully our 17 listeners and Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort.

I don’t know his full story outside of the Leonardo Dicaprio movie, he did go to jail for doing awful things with peoples’ money but I know he’s got great stories to share how he did it all wrong and if he had only played the long game and stayed legit, he would have made 10X the money.  

Robert Herjavec of Dragon’s Den and Shark Tank is the other keynote speaker along with a secret guest Seth will reveal on the show!

Seth is pretty awesome too, I can’t wait to be there to support my friend and I look forward to seeing everyone!

On today’s show Seth shares the journey to the third Multi-family conference, how and why he chose these speakers, how this year will be drastically different than years past.  We’ll discuss why Seth from Milton, Ontario owns no income properties in Canada and focusses his own efforts and capital in southern USA along with some of the numbers. 

https://multifamilyconference.ca/

Metro Toronto Convention Center

May 24-26th. 

Please enjoy the show!

On to this week’s show!

This week we have Matthew Varga who together with his wife Nikole have several six figure ventures: a YouTube Channel HealthNut Nutrition Inc. with almost 1,000,000 subscribers for which they generate ad revenue, show sponsorships, and an engaged audience to market their ecommerce store towards.  

A growing portfolio of real estate investment properties include some that are AirBnb AND Matthew is doing what’s called AirBnb arbitrage which means he’s the long term tenant to other investors then furnishes and operates an AirBnb business in the property to make money to pay the rent and keeps any remaining profits.

AirBnb arbitrage can be a great way for newer investors to break into the market but not without risk.  Matthew was kind enough to detail his wish list of features in order to command great rental rates before taking on an AirBnb arbitrage opportunity.

Matthew also recently returned from Florida as he nows spends winters there to both avoid our cold winters, goes looking for real estate opportunities, and shares how he’s able to do so.

Adam our Podcast Producer, said this is one of the best interviews I’ve done. Me, I have no clue what I’m doing hence we’re stuck at 17 listeners but Matthew is young and successful so I can’t recommend enough that you have a listen and take notes.

To Follow Matthew Varga:

Linktree:  https://linktr.ee/matthew_varga

YouTube: HealthNut Nutrition https://www.youtube.com/@HealthNutNutrition

Today we have Dalia Barsoum who’s everywhere these days and who can blame her.  She’s incredibly popular for her diligence in underwriting and guiding her clients towards quality.  Unfortunately, Dalia and Streetwise are picking up the pieces from deals gone sideways brokered by other mortgage brokers.  I know that feeling…

Today we chat about where rates are going, what private mortgages (rates and terms) are going sideways. Some tips on how to weather this rising interest rate environment including joint venturing, our favourite Economists to follow, where the challenges are in getting new financing, apartment building financing and much much more.

Cheap debt is what makes the world go around which benefits real estate investor returns so you don’t want to miss this episode. Have a pen and paper ready!

Today we have my friend Saurabh Singhal who is a real estate lawyer and litigation specialist out of Mississauga, Ontario.

Saurabh services some of our clients and a whole lot more investors from the general public so he’s seeing first hand the financial difficulties that speculators and private lenders have put themselves into. 

Saurabh himself is working on 32 files for power of sale, meaning the borrower is in default and the lender is forcing sale to repay the debt. We also discuss lessons from many 2nd mortgages gone bad.

To my 17 listeners, please do extra due diligence out there when vetting partnerships and private lending. There are exit scams going on where gurus are looking to raise capital while already bankrupt or approaching bankruptcy.  

At the same time, fear is high and the time to be greedy is good timing. As always, my preference is to invest in assets I control in the markets where I’m an expert and recommend my clients do the same. If these 32 investors in power of sale were to have followed my advice this all could have been avoided.  All they had to do was listen to this podcast which is available for free…

Unfortunately they didn’t and it will be my clients looking to buy distressed properties like we already are.

Feel free to reach out if you do enjoy working with professional service providers such as my team and we can get you investing like a professional and all we charge is Realtor commission which is paid by the sellers anyways.

Saurabh Singhal is a returning guest of the show so we did cover his journey to move his family to Canada, transition from a crown prosecutor in India to become a Canadian lawyer. I recommend checking it out as the story is an inspirational one.

Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Saurabh:

Website: https://www.singhal-law.ca/

Email: lawyers@singhal-law.ca/

On to this week’s show!

Our guest Andrew Hines I believe needs little to no introduction. He graduated from the top Business School in Canada based on my biassed opinion of also graduating from the same school. Andrew is one of the good ones in having shared his losses early on investing in Ohio early in his investor journey; he’s built townhouse complexes, invested in high end student rentals, currently he’s more focused on diversification by developing and building in Florida plus a start up, 90 acre, high end campground.

We talk about economics, where the market is going and when/where Andrew thinks there will be opportunities.

Have you pens and notepads ready!

 Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Andrew:

Website: https://youtu.be/j27DutOz8ic

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theandrewhines/

Grotto Getaway: https://www.airbnb.ca/users/461668746/listings

IG: https://www.instagram.com/thegrottogetawayglamp/

Kyle Pearce is a Math teacher and Kindergarten to Grade 12 Math consultant to his local school district in Windsor, co-founded an online learning business for Math professional development.

Kyle actively invests in real estate for value and cash flow, stocks and options trades and partners to co-own North Shore Properties that holds 30 units in and around Windsor, Ontario.  Please pay attention to how Kyle and partner Matt divide responsibilities as they have complimentary skills. 

Kyle is currently on unpaid leave from teaching to pursue the above business, investing ventures and co-hosting the Invested Teacher Podcast. We get very detailed on Kyle’s most recent acquisition of a 9 plex and the vendor financing and terms.

Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Kyle:

Podcast: Invested Teacher Podcast - InvestedTeacher.com/apple

Web: Invested Teacher Website - InvestedTeacher.com

Socials @InvestedTeacher

Cherry Chan, Real Estate Accountant will be sharing how to retire faster with corporate structures so you can pay less tax and invest more. Cherry and her Accounting partners have been consolidating lessons from their experience working with 500+ real estate investor clients.  Since no one hides anything from their Accountant, they know the truth about real estate investing returns, losses, and most importantly the path forward.

Cherry’s on the show today to share about the burning questions she’s getting from clients these days: 

• Tax implications of short term rentals & AirBNBs, especially when selling
• Where clients lost $$ by not understanding the risks
• Setting up businesses and corporations to invest in the US

Please enjoy the show!

To follow Cherry:

Phone: (416) 548-4228

Email: admin@cccpa.ca

Web: https://realestatetaxtips.ca/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateTaxTips

On to the show!

I had no idea how many new tax rules we investors have to deal with this year, the Underused Housing Tax is especially concerning as I’ve spoken to many pros out there who don’t understand it either.  What’s worse is the penalty is $5-10k for not filling and a lot of us investors have to complete and submit the Underused Housing forms even though we are an excluded owner thus having no liability. We still have to file the forms though.

I’m not an Accountant though but I did invite my lovely wife, Cherry Chan, CPA, CA who happens to be the most in demand Real Estate Accountant speaker to share some of the top tax changes we investors face for 2023.

Cherry does break down these same tax tips on her YouTube Channel Real Estate Tax Tips so make sure to subscribe to her channel along with the 10,000 other subscribers.

https://www.youtube.com/@RealEstateTaxTips

In case you’re curious, yes Cherry is still accepting new clients but not sure for how much longer. admin@cccpa.ca is the email address for your inquiries.

Please enjoy the show!

This week, we have the very successful Quentin D’Souza on the show. There are tons of coaches and Multifamily experts out there but in my experience, Quentin is one of the best. I know many of his past students including Steve Phillips on my iWIN Real Estate team and his investment partners. Not many share a track record of successful like Quentin.

He’s on today’s show with Cherry giving the interview as I was out hosting a golf event with fellow 7 figure entrepreneurs so as we sometimes do, “divide and conquer” I wrote down some questions I wanted to ask Quentin about apartment building investing, investing in US, where best to find cash flow, what the future holds. You know, same stuff you ask anyone who bought five apartment buildings or 177 units this year alone and is always looking to level up.

Quentin is an old friend, the Chief Education Office and founder of Durham REI, a really great, long running networking group that meets monthly, he’s authored four books including the most recent ”The Action Taker's Real Estate Investing Planner” link https://www.amazon.ca/Action-Takers-Estate-Investing-Planner/dp/099367173X?dplnkId=a0338035-2ffa-4400-9b24-053578dc6df7&nodl=1#aw-udpv3-customer-reviews_feature_div

Obviously a big time investor. 

Please enjoy the show!

We have great guests who just launched their new apartment building REIT, a real estate investment trust. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like a fund where the underlying is a bunch of apartment buildings and regular investors like you and I can own shares in the fund to participate in the investment. 

Mike Rockall and Mark Baltazar our guests today are the founders/owners of Peak Multifamily Investments and I’ve known Mike a long time, we met sometime around 2010 as we were members of the same real estate investing network.  I know I talk like an old person because I am but I knew Mike when he was still in college but thanks to hard work, surrounding himself with go-getters, great mentorship he’s been full time in apartment buildings for several years and now co-founder his own REIT.

On the show we discuss the journey and get a bit detailed in how and the costs to start a REIT, who they have to hire and partner with to raise capital. We touch on securities regulations which anyone listening who raises capital should pay special attention if you want to stay out of trouble with our securities commission. 

if you’re ever looking to partner as Mike and Mark share how their partnership works, roles and responsibilities, how they organise their business and of course we break down some recent deals and discuss the make up of their portfolio, cap rates how they increase value. 

Something I want folks to pay attention to is cash flow and I want to thank Mike and Mark for being transparent on where the cash flow comes from as it’s not what many people think.

You can learn more about their business, Peak Multifamily Investments at https://peakmultifamily.ca/

As we are discussing a securitized investment, here comes the legal disclaimer.

The information and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely for educational and informational purposes and should not be considered as investment advice. The hosts and guests of this podcast are not licensed financial advisors, brokers, or registered investment advisors, and their comments should not be construed as recommendations or endorsements of any specific investment, security, or strategy.

Investing involves risks, including the possible loss of principal. Before making any investment decision, you should conduct your own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor to determine the suitability of any investment for your specific financial situation and investment goals.

The hosts and guests of this podcast make no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any information discussed in this podcast. The podcast is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information.

Listeners are advised to use their own judgement and seek the advice of professionals before acting on any information provided in this podcast. The podcast shall not be liable for any damages, including but not limited to direct, indirect, special, or consequential damages arising out of or related to the use, inability to use, or reliance on any information provided in this podcast.

This is a really great episode for anyone interested in learning about large scale investing so please enjoy the show.

On today’s show, we have one of my mentors and brokers in Tom Karadza, co-founder of Rock Star Real Estate Brokerage, Inc who in my experience is one of the best leaders and influencers in our community.  If results are what matters to you like they do for me, Rock Star’s 1000+ members are well educated in investing and are among the most successful especially after you adjust for risk.  No get rich quick schemes at Rock Star.

On today’s show Tom and discuss how Rock Star members have weathered the current storm, how the pandemic ruined my bitcoin gains, while Tom is laughing all the way to the bank… does that saying work when referring to Bitcoin gains? 

Anyways, Tom and his brother Nick Karadza are hosting the next Your Life, Your Terms event live and in person Saturday April 6th at the International Centre near Pearson Airport.

This is likely the largest room, 1000+ attendees expected, or successful, action takers you’ve ever met where the talks are fresh, no repeats allowed, Cherry will have a booth, I’ll be networking wearing a USA Hockey jersey.  If you’re a client, I have some pull so you can save the hundreds of dollars on tickets, everyone else, details and link to register in the show notes: https://www.yourlifeyourtermsevent.com/

This week we have professional, full time investor Chad Urbshott who lives in near me in Oakille, Ontario but he’s been investing in the US since 2013 and doing so remotely from Canada. He’s tried pretty much all the small residential investing strategies, fix and flip, wholesale but found his niche by specializing in U.S. mortgage notes

Chad discusses his journey and strategies in the complex field of note investing. He emphasizes the importance of thorough due diligence, explains various aspects of note investing, and shares his experiences, including the challenges and rewards of this niche market.

I know I’ve talked a lot about about boring investing on this show so I wanted to offer you my listener the other extreme for those who want a full time strategy that’s worked for someone as talented as Chad.  Note his returns, risks, effort, and please take lots of notes. I’m sure for some of you, you will want to listen to this more than once.

You can find Chad on social media by searching his name Chad Urbshott or his website: https://www.equigrowth.com/

Please enjoy the show!

On to this week’s show where we discuss deflation and how to be on the winning side of AI.

Our guest Nicholas Ning likes solving complex problems making them easy to understand and creating value.  Over the last 10 years, he’s worked for Fortune 500 companies on multi-billion dollar projects around the world in strategy, finance, design, and marketing.

He’s also been hired by real estate companies, big time developers to design business models using numerous AI tools to design and market real estate projects and he’s here today to share how we small investors may learn, borrow some of these ideas for our own businesses.

Nicholas shares the story of using an AI tool to break into his bank account, what him and the bank’s CEO discussed, why the hype in AI is justified, tools he used to build a business a website to sell furniture in 15 mins for what a traditional Marketing firm would want $35,000 to 60,000 for. The moment Nicholas say the writing on the wall his day job was at risk to AI and resigned.

What he’d be teaching his children (if he had some) to prepare them for the AI revolution and the question we investors are all asking, “are real estate investors safe from Ai?”

Me personally, I’m using AI tools quite frequently these days and don’t see myself ever going back.  I can’t recommend enough that everyone pay attention to what’s going on and this episode is a great place to start your journey so feel free to share with anyone you care about. 

I’m subscribed to Nicholas’ free newsletter and you can find it at https://gptea.beehiiv.com/ and his Ai consulting firm’s website www.farpointhq.com

Please enjoy the show.

I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the human beings negatively affected by investing on pre-construction or speculation. There have been many and will be many more people losing their 15% deposits on pre-construction condos and houses and they’re on the hook for any costs and losses incurred by the builder when they resell the property.

In combination with a slowing economy and job losses it’s just awful out there.  

In a country with massive affordability issues someone was going to get burnt and let’s not forget renters who are praying to stay in their rent controlled units as a move could be a disaster in having to pay today’s outrageous market rents.

A friend of mine told me he rented out his downtown Toronto condo, two bedroom, two bath for $3,500 plus utilities and it’s still negative cash flow. Rent went up $500 over a two year period.

If the federal Liberals wonder why their polling numbers look so bad… well they didn’t have the courage to force municipalities to revise their zoning to allow for higher density and they’ve simply allowed immigration to exceed the supply of health care, education and housing.

While the Canadian economy is shrinking in real GDP terms.  The numbers are even worse when you remove the economic growth from immigration.  Housing affordability hasn’t improved much either and it’s about to get worse.

Royal LePage is forecasting Toronto housing prices to increase by 6% by end of 2024.  Between rate cuts and rising prices, this is why I’ve recommended my clients to wait for a rising market to sell to maximise their sale prices.  We investors need all the help we can get with investment properties so out of favour in the current market.

The housing crisis still exists, there are deals out there for short term gains for those with deep pockets and strong stomachs.  I still believe those who create housing, as they always have will continue to be a profitable investment business hence we have a serious expert today in Michael Collins-Williams who is the CEO of the West End Home Builders’ Association.

MCW as he’s known to his friends, has spent his entire working career in Planning and Building with a degree in such from Ryerson University, followed by 18 years at Ontario Home Builders’ Association before taking the big job as CEO almost 3 years ago at the West End Homes Builders’ Association.

I know several members of the West End Homes Builders’ Association.  They are an close knit, active community of members with the major players including folks with hundreds of millions worth of real estate.  Cool party is the crazy rich builders are approachable and humble in my experience.

With all the development craze I’m seeing on social media, if you’re one of them, I can’t recommend enough you check out your local, non-profit, Builders’ Association for low price, high value networking.

There’s a saying in Chinese, the best things are cheap and quality which is why I’m so frugal :).

You can connect with MCW on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikejcw?lang=en, website is https://www.westendhba.ca/ and Mike is happy to speak to anyone interested in joining, just reach out!  Just tell him you heard him on this show.

Please enjoy the show!

Erwin

On to this week’s show we have my old friends Mai Nguyen and Jonathan Lim who’s travel agency business was hit hard by Covid but thanks to their experience as early adopter AirBnb hosts were able to successfully pivot into short term rentals, specifically AirBnb and now own a couple and manage a total of 30 Airbnb properties.

From Muskoka Cottages two hours north of Toronto, to downtown condominiums, to recreational properties in Niagara Falls they have quite a bit of experience on what works, what doesn’t work, the good, bad and the ugly. The truth about short term rentals is they are a hospitality business: that means lots of customer service, cleaners are critical to the business, location and amenities mean the difference between success and failure.  It’s totally doable and comes down to education and execution. 

Mai and Jonathan tell it like it is, including the mistakes they made when they first listed their home on AirBnb, to how it funded their travel, what types of properties to buy, red flags for potential guests, scams, and if you should be buying a property today to AirBnb.

Before buying a recreational property or course, I highly recommend giving this episode a listen

Please enjoy the show!

To connect/follow Mai and Jonathan

www.shortstaysintl.com

info@shortstaysintl.com

Direct business line: 416-521-3141

Airbnb host referral link: www.airbnb.ca/r/main8

IG: https://www.instagram.com/mainguyenlim/ and https://www.instagram.com/shortstaysinternational/

This week is a lovely story about a young Millennial who started his journey in his passion: health and fitness, if you’ve seen Vince Lee in person, he’s jacked and looks like a personal fitness trainer.  Unfortunately for personal trainers living in Toronto, it’s hard to get by.

Thanks to his supportive partner, shout out Chewy and the Trust Your Talent community, shout out Tim Tsai, Vince has been able to create a side hustle in real estate investing, specifically rent-to-owns, scaling to larger and more projects, and moved the family from expensive Toronto to more affordable Edmonton, Alberta.

Vince’s story is a good one and reminds me of why I invest so hard, so I can afford to keep my kids close and living in Ontario.

Congrats to Vince’s success, please enjoy the show!

To follow Vince:

Web: Trustyourtalent.ca

Instagram: theonlyvincelee

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theonlyvince

If you need help improving your record, myself and my lovely friend, today’s guest Elizabeth Kelly loves to help too.  It’s why we get along so well.

Hopefully Elizabeth Kelly does not need an introduction.  She tells it like it is. Elizabeth was a paid, professional educator for Rich Dad Canada since 2012 and taught a couple thousand investors, including many of today’s influencers, coaches, full time real estate operators.  

She has own property management, Sandstone Property Management that manages hundreds of doors across multiple strategies, apartment buildings, AirBnb, Rent to own. Elizabeth has done around 100 rent to owns. 

She’s the longest time investor in New Brunswick I know so before going there please listen to this show, reach out to her, she doesn’t mind.

Elizabeth is hosting her 2nd conference after the highly successful, inaugural Real Estate Resilience online event she’s back again for 2023.  The price is very affordable at $74, link is in the show notes: https://www.accelevents.com/e/resilience2023?aff=Elizabeth

There are several friends of mine and past guests of this show and event a client on the speaker panel. If you want to go deeper into what the successful pros are doing you want to check out the Real Estate Resilience summit, a two day event, Saturday & Sunday October 14-15th.

Please enjoy the show!

On to this week’s show!

The Ottawa Senators recently dominated the hockey headlines as it’s been reported they sold for around $1 billion dollars US.  While Bruce M Firestone is no longer the owner, I’m sure he’s proud that what he started has ballooned to a massive success.  Imagine if the Sens had kept future hall of famer, defenceman, Zdeno Chara then the Sens like every NHL team would have a Stanley Cup before the Leafs but I digress.

As mentioned before, Bruce has built 1000s of homes, dozens of commercial plazas and office buildings.

For fun and to give back, Bruce was an entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of Ottawa’s Business School, Telfer School of Management.  Per his wikipedia, Bruce was a university professor as he does have his Masters in Engineering and a Phd in Urban Economics.

Bruce now focuses more on coaching real estate investors as he finds the work really rewarding so he’s here today to share the journey of his super successful career, how to be a successful leader/CEO, how he overcame much opposition to building an NHL arena on farmland, what his everyday investor coaching clients are doing to create cash flow in their portfolios.  

The industrial land, co sharing, garden shed workshop strategy is particularly fascinating.  That’s all on one property by the way. Pay particular attention to that part as that same real estate startup is now for sale for a couple million dollars.

Please enjoy the show.

To connect with Bruce you can find his information on his website: https://brucemfirestone.com/

On to this week’s guest who’s tired of the real estate craze! At least the craze has died down a little with several education companies and coaches having disappeared.  Such is the real estate cycle, weak hands get flushed.

We have Dominique Chénard owner of Chenard Wealth who provides managed investments, financial planning, insurance, group benefits, and Accounting Services.  She is CFO of her four rental property business to her husband who serves as COO with a plan to stop growing the portfolio at five properties.

Even though Dominique attended a weekend course years ago and hired a coach for two years… well, I’ll allow her to explain how she does not follow the hype of aggressive growth, wants to balance her life, running her own business plus all the non-real estate stuffs she invests in, plus we chat about why she hires an Accountant even though she is one, and how she’s fighting inflation.

On to this week’s guest Francois Lanthier has already exited his long-term rentals in Ontario a while ago and now lives in Costa Rica with his wife and teenage kids.

Francois has investments in New Brunswick, Alberta, Michigan, Florida, Dominican Republic, Dubai, with plans to find more investments in Eastern Europe and Panama. It’s like he trying to buy up all the spaces on a Monopoly board!

On this show Francois details what he thinks is an ideal investment in Costa Rica and a three day real estate investing conference that Cherry my wife is speaking at in Costa Rica.  You can learn more at www.investinpuravida.com

Francois shares a bunch of his research on where he invests and why and his path to leaving his Canadian tax residency.  His non-negotiables for choosing where to live. Also interesting is what his kids are doing for school since they’ve moved from Ottawa to Costa Rica.

I’m sure many will find this to be a fascinating episode.

Please enjoy the show!

To follow Francois:

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/wine_and_real_estate

Our guest today is Andrew Kim, with ten years of real estate experience starting in the GTA, before building a portfolio of 20, fully managed properties in the state of New York, Florida, Atlanta and Dallas.  He’s a serial tech entrepreneur who’s worked in Silicon Valley startups and is now combining his passion for real estate investing with his technology. 

Andrew’s company combines the expertise to handpick quality investment properties for Canadians in the US., writing offers to arranging ownership structuring, taxes, property management, financing partners, renovations and setting lease rates, it doesn’t get any more passive.

To me this is the dream, as the investor I’d have direct ownership and control over the house but passive as the property generates enough rent to pay for top notch management.

[iWIN Hybrid Workshop] How to Invest in the US Real Estate Market: https://iwinworkshop.eventbrite.ca

With inflation getting out of control, rent control, uncertainty of receiving rent here in Canada for mainly Ontario and BC investors, I think it’s advisable to give this episode a listen.

To follow Andrew or interested in learning more about Share go to iwin.sharesfr.com. To view current and past US deals, you do need to sign up, let them know Erwin sent you and they’ll take good care of you.

Website: www.sharefrs.com

Article in the Toronto Star: https://www.thestar.com/business/priced-out-of-your-neighbourhood-this-real-estate-investment-ceo-suggests-looking-south/article_a5704a4f-7524-5f53-a40d-fc78f477fd48.html

Today we have Jesse Bobrowski, Vice President of Business Development on to share how Calvert helps flippers and BRRRR investors, how much money down, rates, lender fees, terms on how they lend.

No, their focus is not to raise capital to lend out which is risky in this market but we talk about how Alberta stacks up against Ontario!!  Calvert Mortgages the biggest private lender I know with $330 million out there in loans.

For more information check them out at www.chmic.ca. I know several Mortgage Brokers who refer them business and past guests of this show who swear by Calvert as well.

Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Calvert:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calverthomemortgage_/

Web: www.chmic.ca

Today’s guest Michael Ponte is an old friend of mine, us old guys who’ve been buying properties and REIN members over ten years ago. We’ve known each other and run in the same circles what feels like forever and forever is the perfect time horizon to own real estate. 

Michael owns, with partners Apartment buildings across the country: BC, Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, probably Saskatchewan too.

Michael is a Savvy Investor and that’s his social media handle and name of his private Facebook Group with over 5,200 members. Michael being old school, he’s investing successfully in the multifamily apartment building space, has no trouble raising capital and educates others how to do so as well while living in BC but most of his portfolio is out of province. 

On today’s show Michael shares how he’s navigating today’s interest rates, how multifamily is fast money, i’m kidding, it’s not. He walks out through the numbers of a couple of apartment buildings including how he found the deal. The different phases and costs during the due diligence process, seller financing, screening joint venture partners, what the biggest mistake an investor can make when buying apartment buildings and if you wait till the very end, how a new investor can get started.

If you’re interested in investing in apartment buildings, this is a must listen to episode and I’m sure there’s many of you since the ticket sales to Seth’s Multifamily Conference are massive. I’ll be there at my booth if you want to come by and say hi. www.multifamilyconference.ca and my discount code for you my 17 listeners is iWIN for 10% off.  See you there!

To Follow Michael:

Private Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/341243106757064/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/savvy_investors/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaQp30lGnYUagTI77CmFKog?view_as=subscriber

Mike Beer is is an owner of a real state investment company Mike Beer Investments. They have developed an investing system that has been working for well over a decade and invest in apartment buildings in Canada. His mission is to enable each of his investors to provide their families with the financial future they truly deserve. In the past he was a professional ski instructor and scuba divemaster. Now he focuses on coaching for charity, ice water plunges, health, and loves personal self development.

Website to contact: https://www.mikebeer.ca/

If you follow the real estate news in Canada as much as I do on paid and free sources as much as I do then you will have already heard of my guest this week in Ron Butler who started in the Mortgage Brokering business just after the housing crash happened in the late 1980s and his business Butler Mortgage is one of the largest Mortgage Brokerages in Canada.

Ron is known as the Angry Mortgage guy. His podcast is literally called Angry Mortgage where he rips on all the things wrong about real estate in Canada on both his podcast and to his 56,000 twitter followers where he has no filter so I’ll warn you now, there is some adult language not appropriate for the young ones during our episode. Ron is also a regular expert who is regularly interviewed on pretty much all the major, mainstream news outlets. 

He’s here today to give you an insider’s view on why this current housing market is different than the crash of the late 80’s, who’s actually buying real estate today, advice to young people who don’t have rich parents, how he called my strategy of buying houses for my kids a sickness and ridiculous.  

But before we get to Ron, I do hope you’re all having a great summer and getting ready for what will be an opportunistic fall/winter!  For buyers, this will be as good as it gets before rates peak and the rhetoric from the Bank of Canada is pause and rate cuts.

For sellers, the smart, motivated, those who cannot hold on for the next year or two while rates are higher.  They will successfully exit or else be stuck holding the bag till the spring.

I’ll be sharing more of my research, what our clients and I are investing in including the stocks I’m buying on the cheap if there’s interest at the September iWIN Meeting Tuesday night, September 19th for those interested in the truth about what successful, everyday investors are doing with their investments.  We have a big time developer how they can still make money in this market, how folks can participate in the development and building of preconstruction without having to take possession of a property because personally, I wouldn’t want to own, rent out, pay out of my pocket massive negative cash flow.

I’d rather make money alongside the developer and only risk my investment. Unfortunately, some preconstruction investors did not realise they can lose more than their investment if the property drops more in value than their deposit.

If you’re already on our email newsletter, you’ll see we’ve already announced the event and how to register. If you’d like to be on our email newsletter like the over 10,000+ iWinningest investors in Canada are already receiving to gain that information advantage, go to www.truthaboutrealestateinvesting.ca to stay connected, be informed like a sophisticated investor should.

There’s a right way to use leverage and a wrong way and if you don’t believe me, you can hear it from the biggest real estate bear I know personally in this week’s guest, the Angry Mortgage Broker, 30+ year mortgage veteran, Ron Butler!

Again, a warning, the language used by Ron to express his opinions are not appropriate for those easily offended, nor children and they are Ron’s opinions, not mine nor that of any of my businesses.  If you do offend easily please skip this episode. 

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/ronmortgageguy

Website: https://www.butlermortgage.ca/

Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8vl-_vvvf7VZcxKPJ-v-Xg

In seeking any truth, getting opinions from several expert sources is ideal. 

Please enjoy the show!

Seeing how much folks are travelling these days, a trend I expect to continue, how do real estate investors capitalise?  Well today we just so happen to have an AirBNB expert who manages 100 doors for AirBNB use and only owns one of them, a 250 acre property he’s going to develop into a vacation resort and wait till you hear the numbers, they will astound you.

I met Avery Birch at a conference in Quebec City a few months ago, having real estate in common and 7-figure entrepreneurs, we connected right away. Do you see what extents I go to to bring you, my 17 listeners interesting guests?

Ever since covid restrictions loosened, I’ve really enjoyed getting back out there networking with like minded investors and entrepreneurs.  If you’re looking for the next can’t miss conference you’ll want to save the date, Saturday November 12th, all day for the Wealth Hacker Conference, live and in-person near the airport with plenty of free parking.  We’ve hired speakers and sponsors for all the things you need for your most efficient path to your financial goals so you may have more freedom with how you spend your time: building your own business, retirement, travel, etc…

After interviewing Avery, maybe I’ll diversify a bit into AirBNB because with all the experience Avery shares today in operating 100 AirBNB’s, we get an insider’s look into which AirBNB’s offer the highest returns and it’s not what you think. 

Please enjoy the show. 

To connect with Avery:

Web: https://www.365x.ca/

Web: https://www.porterspeak.com/

Instagram: @porterspeak

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/porterspeak/

This week’s guest Carmen Da Silva, a Canadian who lives full time in Florida who knows a lot about investing for cash flow in the USA.  Carmen Da Silva (CFO & Co-Founder of SHARE) is a CPA in both Canada and the USA. She articled with Price Waterhouse Cooper specializing in corporate and cross-border tax. Carmen built an insurance platform that allows boutique investment brokers to sell tax-sheltered insurance using Family Office Teams. She generated in excess of 500M AUM in just 5 years, sold it, and bought 25 single family homes in 2008 for early retirement.  She has significant firsthand experience in U.S. Single Family Rentals (SFR) and has always recommend direct ownership in US real estate to her Accounting clients including her own children.  Carmen’s 25 year old son already owns two rental houses in the US. 

Currently, Carmen is passionate about combining Ai, technology and real estate investing to make US income properties accessible to everyday investors, not just the ultra wealthy and multi-billion dollar institutional investors currently gobbling up all the income properties.

In my experience, it’s rare for Financial Planners and Accountants to recommend and own so much real estate so for you my 17 listeners, you’re in for a special treat.

We can only cover so much in a 60 minute interview so if you would like to learn more about US income property investing, Carmen and her team will be presenting at our US Investing Workshop on the morning of Saturday January 13th.  We will cover what the investment looks like, the numbers, corporate structures and Accounting, Financing, property management, as much as we can in a morning.

Of note, we are teaching direct investment as in the investor owns the property 100%. That is the definition of direct investment. No shares, no joint venture partners, not private lending. Good old fashioned income property ownership, in-line with how client 350+ clients and I invest in real estate.  

Link for details or to register: https://USworkshop.eventbrite.ca/?aff=iwin

To connect with SHARE: https://sharesfr.com/partners/iwin

On to this week’s show, someone polar opposite to my strategy of lazy investing: fully involved and active investing including having executed on 150 or some deals in 2023 including 50 flips.  While Luc Boiron lives in Ottawa, he has flips are far as Vancouver and while flips are sexy as people love to watch them on tv or take courses on flipping… well I’m sorry, not sorry we have Luc here to share a behind the scenes look at why he’s flipping and it’s not what you’d expect.

Luc is the founder of Bliss Realty, former lawyer, one of Canada’s leading investors.  He has a massive team and even more massive advertising budget. Luc is a legit investor and even has some stories about fake it till you make it investors failed to close on buying wholesale deals from him.

Listeners, never forget, the community is a small one and we all talk.  We know who the fake it till you make it investors and gurus are and where they learnt those strategies.

As Warren Buffet says “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”

Luc Boiron has also recently launched his podcast the Selfwealth Real Estate podcast available on Apple Podcasts and my fav platform Spotify.

Please enjoy the show.

We have Calvert Home Mortgage Investment Corporation in the house! OR Calvert for short. The specialise in short-term financing for flippers, BRRRR investors, even pre-construction investors who need short term financing to close a property so they may immediately sell said property.

As a real estate geek, I enjoy learning about what’s going on the in market, where investors are putting their money and borrowed money from Calvert to work. Where do they find deals? What cities, provinces, on or off market and I hope you the listener enjoy it too. 

I even turn the table on both Ryan and Garret who both live in Calgary and ask where they invest their own money.  For anyone who wants to lend their funds privately, I think it’s a good idea to listen to how professional lenders invest their money because if it’s good enough for an insider… well just have a listen.

For more information, their website is: www.chmic.ca and you can reach Ryan at ryan@chmic.ca.

Please like, subscribe, leave a 5 star review on iTunes or Spotify, funny enough our spotify rating is higher therefore Spotify is now my favourite podcast platform.  And please enjoy the show!

Returning to the show is Andrew Kim from Brampton who identifies as American. He used to invest locally, the return on time wasn’t there so he bought 20 houses in landlord friendly USA ten years ago now he cash flows over ten thousand US dollars per month.  His Accountant Carmen was the one who guided Andrew to invest in the USA along with several of her Accounting and Financial Planning Clients since 2008.  Since then they’ve combined forces to make the same opportunities available to everyday Canadian investors with the company they co-founded call SHARE thanks to their innovative technology and automation to bring down the costs substantially.  

Full disclosure: I am an advisor to SHARE, meaning I get paid to develop their business in Canada through Marketing and Sales. It's the most fun I've ever had in my real estate career. I wake up every morning excited to speak with investors and help them find opportunities in the USA. Active as an investor and landlord since 2005, I'm eager to share with my clients and community a simpler way to combat inflation and build their wealth with less risk and higher cash flow, in places where investors are truly welcomed.

I want to thank Andrew and SHARE for inviting me along for the ride and for helping me invest in USA.  I can’t wait to start making offers in May after my rentals here are sold and closed.

As I mentioned, Andrew’s context of real estate and investing is very American since he lived in California for five years and wants to go back. He’s here today to share what 150 Canadians interested in investing in the USA have said to him.

Please enjoy the show.

📅Join Our Upcoming Workshop: How to Invest in the U.S. Real Estate Market as a Canadian Investor! For those who’d like a deeper understanding of how to invest in the USA, we are happy to announce our next US investing workshop on Saturday, April 13th.

🔗Sign up: https://USAworkshop.eventbrite.ca/?aff=YT 

On with the show! This week we have the lovely Victoria Cluney who has a different journey than most… well at least she is the first career Canadian Armed Forces personnel to be a guest of this show.  Victoria shares her journey of how she stumbled into being a landlord by renting out her home when she was transferred by work to different bases, which made great money but it wasn’t until she developed her cottage property for short term rental income did she realise what she enjoyed most.

Victoria is now levelling up into commercial, recreational property, specifically a BRRRR motel in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia a vibrant and historic coastal town known for its unique architecture and rich maritime heritage.  The perfect location for a vacation property.

https://www.instagram.com/thebreezemotel

It hasn’t been a smooth and easy journey to success as Victoria shares on today’s episode and I do think this is a good one as more and more, Canadian investors want diversification away from long-term rentals. Commercial is one way to go!

To follow Victoria:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoriacluney/?hl=en

Ottawa InestHer Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/the-real-estate-investher-meetup-ottawa-canada/

Motel: https://thebreezemotel.com/

Please enjoy the show!

On today’s show I invited my good friend Christian Szpilfogel to discuss the sad truth about real estate in managing and recovering distressed assets, understanding the root causes and having proactive strategies.

We discussed the risks of private lending, the responsibilities of the borrowers.  Christian has the unique perspective of having worked in a heavily securities regulated environment of Mergers and Acquisitions when he was a general manager under one of Canada’s richest Canadians only to see the wild, wild west that is real estate investing where some investors openly violate securities laws in soliciting the public for capital even offering guaranteed returns.  

The last time I heard “guaranteed returns” was from the owner of a now bankrupt company and he’s on the run from the cops.

Christian being one of the good guys in real estate, I thought he was ideal to text at 9:30am to come on the show for 10:30am to talk about losing money.  Christian is the owner of the Aliferous Group where he invests his and only his family’s own money, he has no courses to sell, no coaching to sell, he’s not accepting OPM other than the bank’s, he just wants to help people.  It’s why we get along so well.

Christian is also Vice President of OREIO, the Ottawa Real Estate Investing Organization, a non-profit, membership based educational organization.  Annual membership is only $127, I’m a member too and the value is unmatched. https://www.oreio.org/Membership

I’ve included some links to news sources in the show notes as well.  Sadly, I saw investors go belly up in 2008 in the financial crisis, we’re seeing many have problems today and we’ll see this happen again because some didn’t learn from history.  So please take this chance to learn from history else be doomed to repeat it.  Also watch out for confidence artists, note that con artist is short for confidence artist.

Please keep your investments safe and enjoy the show.

From the Globe and Mail article: 

https://www.ksvadvisory.com/experience/case/SID

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/investors-bankruptcy-1.7102325

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-former-ytv-child-actors-northern-ontario-real-estate-empire-files-for/

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Truth About Real Estate, my name is Erwin Szeto, the four time award winning Realtor to investors, host of this podcast, the #81 Business podcast per iTunes, where we focus on bringing you true experts, masters of their craft and we have a great guest for you today in real estate coach and educator Elizabeth Kelly.

The term coach has been used lightly these days. I see even folks with 1-2 properties as side hustles call themselves coaches. Elizabeth Kelly has a bit more to her resume than that. Her own property management company hundreds of doors, she was a full time real estate investing educator at Rich Dad Canada having personally taught a couple thousand investors including many of the infuencers and coaches you see today on social media.

Today we touch on a couple subjects such as the investment in real estate education and some of the different options out there as there are more than ever but some offer better value than others.

Elizabeth shares about her career and investor journey to arrive at where she is today.  Her strategies when starting out investing in 2008 is very different than how she invests today and my intention for you my 17 listeners is to see for yourself how a professional investors at different stages, lessons learn so you may avoid mistakes and make more money.

Then we will offend many when we discuss what’s working and what’s not working in 2023. This may shock you, many of the fad investments getting a lot of hype won’t work in 2023. Make sure to have a listen before investing in any coaching or courses or even property.

2023 is going to be a fascinating year and here at iWIN real estate, we will be arming our community with the best information possible. Staring with our free webinar on how to sell a tenanted property for maximum return on January 17th, followed by our iWIN, in personal networking meeting on Saturday morning Jan 28th when my team and I share our bold predictions for 2023 for our target investment markets and we have at REIT in the house, Lawrence Raponi of Equiton with a brand new presentation explain how professionals buy apartment buildings, from how they find deals, to the numbers they need before even looking further into.

Learn how the professionals invest or at least learn how investing in a REIT works including cash flowing from day 1.

If you’re on my email newsletter, then you know how to register. If you don’t? Well that’s just silly, go to www.truthaboutrealestateinvesting.ca enter your name and email and you will receive an email when we have events and when new episodes of this show is available.

New to 2023 is we will be producing a lot more free educational videos and podcasts. If you have suggestions for topics you would like covered please let us know.

It’s my pleasure to introduce to you, my friend who passed our strict screening, Elizabeth Kelly.

Please enjoy the show!

To Follow Elizabeth:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-kelly-consulting

FB: https://m.facebook.com/EKConsulting.ca/

IG: https://instagram.com/elizabethkellyconsulting?igshid=MWI4MTIyMDE=

Real Estate Resilience Summit: https://realestateresilience.ca/sumreal-estate-resilience-summit-ek