The Truth About Real Estate Investing... for Canadians

We have the co-founder of Trust Your Talent, Tim Tsai returning to the show after a two year hiatus from the show. Tim’s members include 150 who have achieved some level of financial freedom, including the first level which is to have one’s monthly expenses covered by the cash flow from their investments. That’s a lot of people Tim and co-founder Rey have directly coached and mentored but he’s not alone as past guests of this show Vince Lee and Brooke Shang are past members and now coaches of Tim and Rey’s group. Tim is back this week to share what has worked for his own portfolio including what has not worked, when he saw red flags and was able to avoid damage unlike the many who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in private lending in small towns, high leveraged, too much, too fast, too complicated investments.  However Tim’s members have survived and thrived over these same times and I can’t wait to meet the dozens of award members at Tim’s InvestED gala. About Tim: After retiring himself at the age of 30, Tim began to pursue another goal and passion of his – helping those who are committed to achieving financial freedom do the same. To this day, Tim continues to be an active investor as he believes investing is a “lead by example” venture. With the investment he made in his own financial education, Tim became financially free in 2 years (25 months to be exact) after his first training. In the past few years, Tim has built cash-flowing portfolios in Canada, US and the UK, using a variety of strategies – income properties, lease options (residential and commercial), creative financing, flipping, wholesale, infill development, mobile home parks, etc. Conference details: https://trustyourtalent.ca/invested-annual-conference-2/ Website: https://trustyourtalent.ca Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetimtsai/

On to this week’s show, a topic I’m a big fan of, avoiding long-term rentals in tenant friendly provinces like Ontario hence we have Spencer and Ashley Giles back for round 2. If you didn’t already know, vacation rentals are a business, 24-7 for some like Airbnb managers like Spencer and Ashley Giles who are back to share more, dig deeper into the strategy including operating and owning in the USA.    Their management portfolio is 50 properties at time of recording spread across much of Ontario and Up State New York so they have a lot of diverse experience to share.   To follow Spencer and Ashley Giles, their website is https://spencerandashley.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/spencerandashley/ on Instagram.   Please enjoy the show!

Our guest Meghan Hubner is a real estate business consultant who helps investors run their portfolios like a business. After a 12-year career in medical and pharmaceutical sales, Meghan transitioned to entrepreneurship, using her degree in entrepreneurship to work with various businesses. About 4 years ago, she started focusing on real estate investors, helping them with accounting, finance, operations, and building systems to stabilize and grow their businesses. Meghan is also an experienced real estate investor herself, having built a portfolio in British Columbia, and a cohost of the Real Estate Reliance Summit along with fellow dynamic investors: Elizabeth Kelly and Victoria Cluney.   For information and to register go to https://realestateresilience.ca/ but don’t delay, the all virtual conference is Saturday and Sunday Sept 28th and 29th.  Cherry and I are proud speakers and SHARE and I are proud to be sponsoring quality educational content providers at affordable prices by Elizabeth, Victoria and this week’s guest Meghan Hubner.   Please enjoy the show!   Meaghan on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meghanhubner/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meghanhubner?mibextid=LQQJ4d Web: www.meghanhubner.com

On to this week’s guest! Award-Winning Real Estate Investor, Coach, Speaker, Educator & Proud Entrepreneur, my old friend Elizabeth Kelly who tells it like it is.  Elizabeth shares about her wins and losses in real estate.  She’s been an active leader in the community for nearly 20 years and is here to tell us about how we Canadian real estate investors can be resilient, what she sees for our collective futures in real estate and she’s hosting the 3rd annual Real Estate Resilience Business Edition of the summit on September 28-29th.   Myself and SHARE are proud sponsors of the summit. I will be joining an expert panel on USA investing with friend of the show Glen Sutherland.  My wife, the lovely Cherry Chan will be a speaker as well and I’m super excited for the other speakers as well. On today’s show Elizabeth shares her personal journey from mega real estate investor to entrepreneurship adjacent to real estate, the challenges of affordability for investing in local markets even after learning the hard way when back in 2010, she bought 100+ units and struggled with systems and operations. Any and all investors should give this episode a listen to learn how to both win in real estate and to avoid losing which IMHO is another way of winning. For more information on the Real Estate Resilience summit go to: https://realestateresilience.ca/   Please enjoy the show.

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/

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 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!

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.

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

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!!

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

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!

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!

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!

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

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 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 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

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!

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/