The Truth About Real Estate Investing... For Canadians

On to this week’s guest!!   Sadly the truth is there are few people I like in the real estate industry and even fewer in the real estate investment industry.  John Bedomme is not only of the good ones, he’s one of the great ones.   John is a licensed real estate professionals, he listens to what his clients want and get them exactly that.  The job is to guide investors as best as possible with the highest possible return on time and investment and John delivers exactly that.   When I was checking John’s references (I check references for guests of the show :) I was informed the client was showed seven properties by John and the investor bought five of them because John listened and found them exactly what they wanted.   John is also an investor, a top 10% investor as one of the few who achieve double digit investment properties at 12 having started in 2007.  Even more important is what a good man, husband and father he is but I won’t spoil it for you here, he shares at around the midpoint of the interview tha

On to this week’s show!! In 1964 a comic strip called “Wizard of Id” was published In the first panel the diminutive tyrannical King character addressed his subjects from the balcony of his castle and emphasized the need for “peace and harmony”. In the second panel the King continued by stating “We must all live by The Golden Rule”. Traditionally, the golden rule is to do unto others as you would have done onto you.  That’s what nice people do. The tyrannical King, the central character to the Wizard of ID is not nice so you can imagine the confusion by both the reader and the audience before the king. In the last panel the jackass king character states “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.” In today’s real world, the banks have all the cheap money, cheap money all us investors want and on the show we have my old friend Dion Beg who specializes in mortgages for investors and he just so happens to belong to the #1 mortgage company in Canada, Butler Mortgage. I’ve always believed in working with the best of th

Do you remember your favourite experience doing charity work? I’ll always remember my favourite moment as a Basket Brigade Volunteer. It was Thanksgiving and jacket weather, the sun was out so it was warm enough that we didn’t need gloves. My brother Tony was driving his company car since it’s an SUV and well, we’re doing god’s work so someone else can pay for the mileage

Every investors greatest fear is buying a lemon of a property. A money pit if you will. I made that mistakes way back when I started, we were offered what every investor wants, an off market deal!  We made an offer well below what the seller’s Realtor thought they could get and boom. We got ourselves a money pit.  The house had a log foundation, the driveway was sloped to direct water into the basement window and onto the dirt floor of the cellar. The water that came out of the taps was brown time to time… I learned a lot from that house. Mistake #1 - we didn’t get an inspection.  The brown tap water is a symptom of galvanized steel plumbing. An old type of plumbing known to leak hence today’s insurance companies I use won’t insure it, hence you find it, you better have a plan to replace.  No insurance equals no mortgage. So if you were going to renovate a house with galvanized steel would you get permits and update the plumbing to today’s standards when renovating the bathrooms and kitchen or would you leave

What can I say, as any of you regular listeners know I’m far from normal but you know what I’ve learnt about spending time around successful people?  We’re all sort of crazy. Anyways, Cherry had a glass of wine, a shot of tequila, loosened up and felt like asking me whatever she wanted. If you still trust me afterwards to help you build your wealth through real estate, I’ll be at the next monthly #iWIN meeting on Feb 28th near Pearson Airport.  We have two of the nicest people in Stuart and Denise MacPherson coming all the way from Ottawa to share how to raise money with RSP’s and master of raising capital, Russell Westcott will be in the house answering your toughest questions on the subject. Russell walks the walk too having raised 7 figures just last week and that’s capital, not mortgage money as some people on the social media are including in their definition of other people’s money.  We only bring the best of the best guests speakers to #iWIN and Russell qualifies as the best selling co-author of Real E

I get this question a lot from recent graduates and folks switching careers. “I want to be an investors, should I become a Realtor?” I get it so often, I invited a young gentleman named Tim to ask me his questions and record it so I may share this for anyone in the same boat as Tim. For those wanted to get a real estate license to get access to the data available to Realtors, over 50% of agents do 0-1 transactions per year.  Don’t you think you could hire one as your assistant to send you reports on the data you need? That would be considerably less expensive than the hundreds of study needed to obtain your license plus the couple thousand dollars per year in fees to maintain your license. Food for thought and by the way, don’t listen to me for career advice or legal advice, these are merely my two cents on the subject. Secondly, I learned in the methods of business, not following one’s passions.  The market does not care if you’re passionate about real estate. I got my real estate license back in 2010 becaus

This week’s guest is excellent as always, he’s a coach, a real estate business owner with both property management, home construction businesses with 18 staff, and he’s transacted on over 200+ properties since 2003.  His name is Jared Hope of Tilt Property Group and he’s seen it all, from boom, to bust and 18.5% vacancy rates in the Alberta real estate market. Jared even shares the moment where he almost lost it all to bankruptcy, having to rely on a stranger to pay for his family’s grocery bill. Listeners, especially those in Ontario and BC, we’ve been on a very good run since 2008, there will be a downturn and Jared is here to share lessons on where he went wrong in the early days building a massive portfolio, what he would do different to insulate himself from six figure cash calls, what experts to listen to… i have five pages on notes and know I would have 10X that if I were listening and not interviewing. Enough from me, I give you Jared Hope.

On to this week’s guest who is NOT a real estate investor but a remarkable human being nonetheless. Not all lessons are learnt in the world of investing and my conversation with Dan Thiessen, owner of RAdix Performance Centre in Oakville, Ontario, my Crossfit gym has parallels to the business/investing world. You want to be elite? The path is quite similar in athletics when compared to investing and Dan is an elite athlete.  He’s grown up playing sports at the triple A level, he’s competed at the provincial and national level in different sports, fast forward to today, he can handstand walk for 100 feet and lift a 280 lbs barbell from the floor to over his head in one movement.    In this episode, Dan has advice for how to get started and many best practices to maintain health, fitness and performance.  The perfect thing to listen to right now if you’re suffering from the winter blahs and need motivation. Personally, I’m near the best shape of my life.  The best was a few months ago before my November holiday

Before our interview, I invited Steve to lunch at a fabulous restaurant on King William St, they just so happen to be one of Steve’s tenants. I also invited along with Luke Wywrot who is building a 30 storey apartment building around the corner as Luke and Steve have never met before.  Luke will be by the show when’s he’s less busy. We had an awesome lunch, I was the old guy among the three of us, lots of ideas were shared on advanced real estate topics and that’s what cool about so many investors I know. Many are open to sharing how to. Just like this episode, Steve shares what motivates him, tips and strategies to attract commercial tenants, a Field of Dreams strategy if you will in a market with double digit commercial vacancy and low rents, going from residential to commercial and on and on.  Hopefully we can get Steve to give a talk at the April iWIN Meeting.   To follow Steve: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coreurbaninc/ Website: http://www.coreurban.ca/  

I first met Anna after seeing a piece by CTV Barrie on how an area student landlord was switching gears and renting to seniors instead, link below.  Anna has been in the student rental business for 25 years and after the straw that broke the camel’s back, another abused rental property by the student tenants and thousands of repairs and clean up bills, she switched gears in renting to seniors. As a student rental investor myself, I immediately reached out to AMR Property Management to speak to owner Anna Moore and here is our recorded discussion. Anna is a veteran business owner with a successful printing company, she currently manages 200 doors, many are her own investments, and she vacations much of the winter in the Bahamas and Europe in the summer. Yet another lifestyle success story for you listeners as it’s not about the investment, it’s about what our investments afford us in lifestyles and Anna is living the dream plus her business is every improving as she goes from five senior rentals to offering as

Craig Ballantyne is the first influencer I followed back in early 2000’s before influencer was a term to describe some with a significant following. I knew Craig, he didn’t know me from his highly successful online fitness training program.  Craig’s clients would sign up online to learn how to exercise and diet to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. Craig also taught his business and marketing methods and produced many other successful online fitness entrepreneurs.  He is the real deal. Fast forward to 2019 and Craig is still crushing it, two personal friends of mine are enjoying his personal coaching and I’m enjoying Craig’s Perfect Day Formula as seen below. Here’s the link if you want to check it out: https://perfectdayformula.com/ Craig Ballantyne is the first influencer I followed back in early 2000’s before influencer was a term to describe some with a significant following. I knew Craig, he didn’t know me from his highly successful online fitness training program.  Craig’s clients would sign up

On to this week’s guest, Tom Sullivan, he is a Cancer survivor and when he learned of his Cancer, it served as a reminder how short and precious life is and went on a tear to acquire over 10 investment properties and earn him the Real Estate Investment Network’s award for Rookie of the Year in 2015. Tom is a smart guy holding his Masters in Business and Chartered Professional Accountant designation, investing in the Durham Regions and places east of Toronto.  He’s also one of the nicest, most sharing people you’ll ever meet which is why it’s awful how another investor did not live up to their contractual, joint venture obligations when the partner profited so massively above projections from the deal. As always, this is the Truth About Real Estate Investing show so we bring you real stories including those of headaches and financial losses so you may learn how to avoid similar mistakes. As the saying goes, a fool learns from their own mistakes, a smart person learns from someone else’s mistakes. Do have your

Our keynote speakers Andy Tran, Charles Wah and Construction Manager Steve Ford are currently building two houses from the ground up on a lot they already own and had severed. Basically they got free so the returns are quite significant when you have next to zero land acquisition costs, especially the cash flow once the basements are legally suited.  Andy Tran knows a thing or two about that too. Two houses >> four units, brand new. This is an ideal strategy for investors new to developing and we are very lucky to have Charles Wah and Andy Tran to share how they are doing it. To get on the invite list: http://www.truthaboutrealestateinvesting.ca/meeting

Hello investors!! What a great time it is to be alive!! One of the secrets of happiness is the practice gratitude and I do this a couple times a week in my journal.  One of the secrets of motivation is to have a purpose beyond just you. I bring this up today because I received a rather nasty email from someone I know.  He challenged the purpose of why I post what I do, saying it’s for self affirmation, states my humility is false, and are making assumptions about me. As someone who has done a lot of self introspection and studied human psychology, I have learnt a few things.  Among them is we are all human, we are all flawed, there is no such thing as normal. I am no different, I knowingly admit I am crazy in many ways.  Just this morning I signed up for a martial arts tournament to fight other adult men. I am scared, scared of losing, scared of being embarrassed. I have been choked unconscious before in competition in front of my teammates and coaches. I am crazy. I do chase excitement. I am not normal. Many

The DOW plunged 800 points yesterday so I asked Invest Like Mike's Mike Iuliano what's going on in the markets, how he's investing (since he consistently beats the markets) and how it relates to real estate. I hope you enjoy! If you do, please like and share so I know you want to hear more of these interviews with Mike! To follow Mike, his group on Facebook is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/InvestLikeMike

I’m back from vacation!! Yes I know, I was back like two weeks ago from Hong Kong, China but this time I’m back from our cruise trip we had booked before our Hong Kong trip!! We took a Norwegian Bliss cruise out of Miami with stops in St. Thomas USVI, Tortola BVI (my personal favourite for the lovely views of rainforest and coast line, and one of the nicest beaches I’ve been too), and Bahamas. We did some amazing snorkeling right off the beach in Magens Bay, St Thomas. I was snorkeling with land developer Charles’ Wah’s dad, he goes by Wah and my brother Tony.  My brother is an advanced diver, I’m a recreational diver, we both like to dive but when travelling with kids, snorkelling will have to do. We saw lots of tropical fish, some the size of my forearm, a school of cuttlefish and the highlight was an octopus.  We hung out with our eight legged friend for a bit and were treated to a show as it changed colours to an almost white. Snorkelling brought back memories of my brother and I snorkelling in Bahamas as

While on vacation, I didn’t get much work done, just a little bit of emails and communicating with my team over instant messaging. I’m on vacation with my kids so no hard core work was getting done but I did do some light thinking. Such as how so many people are working for the weekend.  My family and I were in Hong Kong for my brother in law’s wedding so there was sufficient notice to all we were coming.  This is partly cultural and partly being an entrepreneur as both of my wife Cherry’s parents have their own businesses but they each took maybe one or two days off during our two week stay. My in laws only see their daughter and grandkids once per year but could only afford 1-2 days off between the wedding of their son and visit from their grandkids. They did not join us for any of our activities site seeing or the two days we spent at Disney. On the flip side, my cousin’s wife who retired a year ago from her executive position at one of the big banks.  She spent a whole day driving us around, sight seeing,

I’m back!! My family and I landed back in Canada 12 hours ago after a two week vacation in Hong Kong to witness the marriage of my brother in law Vick to his lovely bride Kitty.  Hong Kong in the real estate world is known as the least affordable real estate in the world and as a real estate nerd, it was fascinating to me to be able to witness it first hand. I know Hong Kong is not Canada but as a real estate nerd, I’m always interested in how real estate markets behave, both for sale and rent for ideas how my tribe and I may too invest to capitalize.  For many of you listeners, you may recall the massive influx of Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong in the 90’s and today it’s more the mandarin speaking folks. I hear it all the time from my friends in Vancouver and around Toronto. If you’ve spent any time in China like Hong Kong you’ll understand why and it starts with prices.  The condo I stayed at, only a few years old, on the suburban, terminal end of the train line to the north East.  The GTA equivalent, th

Driving down country roads near Hamilton Mountain, top down, in a 600 horsepower, v10, 5.something litre engine in a Lamborghini Huracan Spyder.  They cost around $350,000 to own but I’m no investor of cars therefore we rented :P The experience was amazing, the handling, braking and acceleration is unreal.  The experience was made better by sharing it with my fellow real estate entrepreneurs and my new Marketing person Darren Cabral.  He knows cars like I know houses. Darren would buy one of these if he was in my financial situation which I think is interesting.  Whenever Cherry and I have capital available, it gets invested. I do drive a decent German sedan but that’s the norm for my line of work.   To me, I would much rather vacation with the kids and acquire a vacation property. One idea is to buy one of those Pier 8 condos in Hamilton as it will be quiet with no major roads nearby and we will be on the water yet close to a mid sized city with all the hottest cafes and restaurants. It’s just one idea but I

Never stop learning, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with so I choose to be with these top real estate entrepreneurs who are all on track to do big things. #mastermind I shared with them my big ideas and they encouraged me to keep going. I’ll of course need their help and I’ll be there for them when they need mine. So many big things coming in 2019 and I can’t wait to share them all with you in due time!!!! Halloween Special - Scary Investor Stories After lunch at my mastermind meeting, I passed my phone around for a casual conversation about everyone’s nightmare investor story.  I know some of the stories are really scary but we all survived and the returns were more than enough to compensate us for our efforts. Just this week I was speaking to a client looking to exit their investment where their capital return is around $200,000 for one property.  Just think how many hours per day, per week, per year it takes for you to earn that kind of money they decide if investing is wort