The Truth About Real Estate Investing... For Canadians

I get questions from folks on social media from time to time. I don’t mind them; I feel this is one way to give back to the community that means so much to me and has led to Cherry and I building a seven-figure real estate business and eight-figure real estate portfolio.   My real estate business, iWIN Real Estate, transacts on 100 properties per year, 90% of them are for investment purposes, and if you know us, we’re very close with our clients since we provide coaching services to ensure their success. Investing-wise, I’ve had personal interests in over 40 properties since 2005, so while I don’t know everything, I know a little enough to be dangerous and happy to share my experiences if that helps. This week we have Duncan, who asks:  “When in your real estate journey did you decide to engage a property manager to be able to focus on other aspects of the business and investing?” I hope my answer helps!

On today’s episode we have apartment building, multifamily investor Seth Ferguson who I first met back in 2019 when he invited me on to his podcast.  After the recording Seth told me about his relationship challenges with his romantic partner who was also his investment partner on several rental properties and related financial challenges as the properties were vacant and mortgage payments were being missed. Here Seth is telling me he has money problems and I suggest to him he take our beta Stock Hacker Academy course that weekend.  Seth takes me up on that offer and we’ve been friends ever since. Other than being on YouTube, podcasting, Realtor business owners, real estate investor, apartment building investor mostly in southern US, father of an energetic young boy, and being newly engaged.  Seth took on a full time job as conference host of the Multifamily Conference that is coming up soon on May 14-15, 2022 at the CAA Centre near Pearson Airport. There will be plenty of parking.  Cherry and I literally hav

Hilary is a long time client of ours who’s been on quite a journey, from growing up and immigrating from small town Kenya, Africa, coming to Canada on a student VISA as so many immigrants do, then really getting outside his comfort zone house hacking and started investing in real estate. Imagine that. Coming from a rural community with one or two tea shops to buying houses and renting them to university students and regular rentals as well.  The first property being a student rental in Thorold, Ontario in 2015 for $351,000. Hilary’s strategy for systematic, fully furnishing is a first that I’ve heard of so you’ll want to take note! He didn’t stop there as he started mentoring others in his community and even joint venturing with some of them to purchase properties in Northern Ontario.  With nickel pricings spiking, I hope that’s good news for our investor friends up north. Hilary has a full time job that he enjoys and proof that one can invest successfully for a comfortable retirement.  He has no plans to go

This week’s guest is Ben Oosterveld, a former real estate agent having sold his business, we talk about why and how he sold it. At the peak of the 2008 Alberta real estate market Ben owned 61 properties across four cities and 20+ investment partners and was living the dream till the market came tumbling down thanks to falling oil prices and the credit crisis in the financial markets. Ben is here today to share about how he coaches business owners including realtors and investors to better understand themselves, break down walls so they may find happiness, and have more energy to push towards their goals. Ben’s an old friend, we go back a ways. He’s been on the show before so help yourself, I’ve included the link on the show notes on the email alert that goes out and on my website www.truthaboutrealestateinvesting.ca https://www.truthaboutrealestateinvesting.ca/ben-oosterveld/ Make sure to sign up for my real estate newsletter and be notified via email when new podcast episodes are out! Ben also shares about a

From audience requests, one of the one or two dozen listeners of ours asks for stories from beginners early in their journey and for investors who started later in life.  Today we have both in David Rahilly who is close to retirement age, has been real estate investing for only a handful of years and recently learnt how to trade stock options. David’s full time job is that of a high school teacher in Civics of all subjects. Civics class teaches students how government works, how to be a good citizen, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, etc…  Unfortunately this episode was recorded four weeks ago and lately there’s been a lot of confusion over the freedom to protest and when a protest becomes an illegal occupation. Being as this is a sensitive subject, I think I’ll leave it as is as too much has divided our investor community and I’d like nothing more than to find common ground.  Building wealth using best practices in real estate, stocks, private equities, whole life insurance investments for comfortable reti

On to this week’s show and I’m really excited to share it with you. There are many crypto experts out there and I’ve always want to bring you my 16-17 listeners the best of the best. Like real estate, there are many experts in crypto, many have asked to come on this show to promote their book or course or coaching but something didn’t sit right with me. Maybe it’s me being too picky or analysis paralysis but being patient as it often does paid off. A more recent, good friend of mine is close personal friends with Dmitry Buterin who is a super successful tech entrepreneur in his own right having exited his last tech company for millions of dollars in his early 40’s.  For those of you who’s spent time in the crypto currency space, you’ll recognize Dmitry’s last name Buterin as it’s the same as Vitalik Buterin, the 28 year old Billionaire from Toronto and founder of Ethereum.  Ethereum is 2nd in market capitalization to only Bitcoin and then Ethereum is four times the market cap of third place Tether. Dmitry has

On to this week’s show we have Adam Kitchener, a young man with a lot of real estate experience.  Months ago I checked in on Adam after he announced he was winding down his property management company.  As someone who’s been around and hired and fired 4-5 property management companies, as a customer, I’m familiar with the challenges in running a PM business but don’t hear it from me, hear it from someone who’s done the job. Adam is here to share some crazy stories.  Property Managing for one of the richest people in the city, in one of the nicest apartment buildings in town.  Everyone in town knows this investor’s name.  The pragmatic reasons Adam started investing in real estate, managing through an active stabbing inside the building he was managing.  Adam answers the question, who’s harder to manage, the investor or the tenant.  The answer surprised me… Plus what Adam is investing his own money into these days but he does write funny posts on his facebook. https://www.facebook.com/adamrkitchener

On to this week’s show. As always, we do our best from time to time to bring you leading authorities in investing and today I wanted someone to talk to investing in Alberta who also happens to invests in apartment buildings.  His name is Pierre Paul Turgeon and he has 160 doors valued at over $22 million.  Pierre-Paul is a former CMHC underwriter so he was the financial expert who reviewed the financials of apartment buildings and apartment building investors to decide if CMHC would insure the mortgage. Pierre-Paul is very knowledgeable, he doesn’t pull any punches today so apologies in advance to anyone he offends. He shares where his research went wrong before the most recent oil crash, the challenges of operating apartment buildings during those times. Where the oil, Alberta, apartment building market is going.  The silver lining of a major fire in one of his apartment buildings where his daughter lived. How he’s renovating for the new wave of tenants moving into Alberta. Pierre-Paul has lots of tips so li

On to this week’s guest Scott Dillingham, formerly the #2 Mortgage Broker in all of Canada for one of the big banks.  Scott shares how the investor mortgage programs changed, almost overnight at the bank, the deterioration of Scott’s health leading to his exit to start Lendcity Mortgages, an independent mortgage brokerage with investor friendly lender relationships including for corporations and even commercial lending on single family rentals. Scott has grown his business pretty quick with almost 30 staff including a commercial lending department. He also has a sizable real estate portfolio so he knows first hand what we investors go through and he’s a good guy for being one of our top donors to the Hamilton Basket Brigade. Scott shares his predictions for interest rates in 2022, fixed or variable rate mortgages, where he's investing in the US. Please enjoy the show! To Follow Scott and Lendcity Mortgages: Web: https://lendcity.ca/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lendcity_mortgages/ Facebook: https://ww

On to this week’s guests! Today’s show is a treat for me as I haven’t seen Stephen Jones and Don Lewis in ages. We all got to know each other on a fabled trip down to Miami Florida for a conference in early 2019. Not much has changed since then. Don and brother Rick Lewis went from running a renovation company to a real estate company where they renovate their own properties.  They have projects and wholesaling on the go all over southern Ontario and together they own Tridium Corp. Pay particular attention to how Don and Rick compliment each other. Then there’s Stephen Jones who is well known in the Durham investor and Keyspire communities. He’s both a successful Realtor and real estate investor and owner of Bluelinerealestategroup.com. This was another fun episode for me to record and it’s really cool to see how these three including Rick work together after all meeting one another inside my AirBnb in Miami just three years ago.   Please enjoy the show!   To Follow Stephen Jones: Web: http://residential.blue

On to this week’s show! We have an action taker who didn’t like the lockdowns and restrictions, sold his house in Oshawa, Ontario and moved the whole family to Costa Rica permanently. Today we have the famous Rob Break of the Breakthrough Real Estate Investing podcast since 2014. He’s a real estate investor, entrepreneur, licensed real estate professional in both Ontario and Costa Rica.  He’s done wholesaling, flipping, buy and hold, student rentals, duplexes, buy, renovate, rent, refinance and repeats aka BRRRRs in Durham Ontario and now Costa Rica. Rob and I have been friends for years even before he joined Rock Star Real Estate Brokerage years ago.  He’s since left but we stay in touch and I finally got him back to give us all an update on investing and living somewhere where the winters aren’t trying to kill you.  Rob shares about flipping in Costa Rica, why he chose the coastal village of Playa Potrero to buy a house and settle.  How his boys are adjusting to new surroundings and private school, opportun

On to this week’s show with Kornel Szrejber!! Financial Freedom or Independence or Security or whatever your goals are, there are many ways to get there. I personally think having your home paid offer and one paid off investment property would be life changing for many.  Having ten paid off investment properties would be even more so but not everyone is that ambitious. Some are good with living a frugal lifestyle.  The two people I met who I considered financially free before the real estate boom were frugal ppl. One with a couple Brock University student rentals and the other owned two triplexes in Toronto and lived in one.  One drove a really old Mazda, the other didn’t even own a car. Today we have Kornel who has found freedom mainly through boring, buy and hold exchange traded funds (ETFs for short).  These trade like stocks and they track the movements of an index, sector, commodity, or a fund managed by professionals. But like many of you he couldn’t stay retired for long and purchased a conference call

On to this week’s show!! During the pandemic, I picked up a new hobby called golf because during the early pandemic, you couldn’t see your friends or clients unless it was on a golf course.  From there I was hooked as I personally enjoy mixing business with pleasure, playing golf and networking and doing business. While golfing, specifically dinner and drinks after golf, it was there I had a more in depth conversation with Andre Matos, a Home Financing Advisor Scotia and Stock Hacker Academy alumni.  Andre explained to me the mortgage products available only directly from Scotia include mortgages on property owned inside a corporation. This was news to me and I told Cherry about it right away as we own 11 of our 12 properties inside a corporation.  If you’re wondering if you should incorporate your investment properties, Cherry my wife of www.realestatetaxtips.ca offers a report called “7 Questions to Ask Yourself When Deciding to Incorporate” Report https://realestatetaxtips.ca/7questionsreport/ Andre is a s

On to this week’s show!! We have two regular guys, one is a mechanic, another a soon to be retired Accountant and hosts of the Financial Independence Garage Podcast.  They’ve both under 50 and have a lot of financial security thanks to their multiple streams of income, beyond just real estate and their frugal lifestyles. The Mechanic and the Accountant are pseudonyms to protect their privacy from employers and you can guess, those are the jobs for which they make a living. On this show, they share how they’ve achieved financial independence from work, details of their real estate investments including out of province investments, private lending, Stock Hacking, crypto, fractional real estate via Addy Invest.  They both share when investments did not go to plan and the lessons. You can find them on most social media platforms by searching FI Garage and of course in the show notes I post online and in my email newsletter. Quick disclaimer, we are all consuming adult beverages containing alcohol in this episode,

Onto this week’s guest, MCW, Michael Collins Williams he is a professional planner and the CEO of the West End Builders Association and previous to that spend 17 years at the Ontario Home Builders Association. He is of course an expert in Planning and Policy and he is here today to share several facts and figures to what is causing the housing crisis and where the challenges and opportunities are for the everyday investor.  I follow Mike on Twitter @mikejcw and recommend all do the same. Please enjoy the show! To Follow MCW: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-collins-williams-10ab4176/?originalSubdomain=ca Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikejcw/ and https://twitter.com/WestEndHBA Web: https://www.westendhba.ca/

We have some super successful real estate investors with us today in Stuart and Denise MacPherson.  They’re self-described “Zoomers” as in boomers with a lot of zip.  When you hear about their journey as real estate investors you’ll know how much zip they have. From starting with limited resources at retirement age including Stuart asking his dad for money for a downpayment on a home to becoming experts in borrowing and lending RSP mortgages to now giving away houses and developing and building multifamily housing. Denise and Stuart are here today to share how they did it after losing much savings in the financial credit crisis of 2007-8, we get detailed on the ins and outs of RSP mortgages and a how much of numbers on different investments they’re working on. They’re old friends of mine who’ve been super supportive to the Ottawa and Ontario real estate community so needless to say this is a pretty good show. Please enjoy!   To Follow Denise and Stuart: Instagram: @deniseandstuart Facebook: https://www.facebo

On to this week’s show!! My friend Elizabeth Kelly is joining us to share what’s she’s been up to the last two years since she was last on the show. Elizabeth was a paid instructor of real estate training and has trained hundreds if not thousands of investors in rent to own, wholesaling, buy and hold, etc… many of the influencers today have been her students. Elizabeth has done over 100 rent to owns as investments, manages over 400 doors, but most importantly she’s discovered what she enjoys most and that’s helping people via coaching. She’s on the show today to share many of the lessons and hurdles newer investors make, what market she’s selling her properties in and lesson in investing in a mining town. So get your pen out, take plenty of notes and please learn from Elizabeth’s lesson and enjoy the show! To Follow Elizabeth: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EKConsulting.ca/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-kelly-consulting/?trk=people-guest_profile-result-card_result-card_full-click&ori

On to this week’s show! We have Nick Peitsch, he’s a young, 25 year old hustler making his way investing in stocks, making 500-$1,000 per month by creating educational videos on YouTube and house hacking in Northern Alberta.   Nick shares how he was able to learn from entrepreneurial parents and grandparents to start his wealth hacking journey without fear. His favourite stock picks (his opinion, not financial advice), the effort and metrics needed to monetize a YouTube channel. To Follow Nick: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/nickpeitschinvesting Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickpeitschinvesting/ Website: https://www.nickpeitsch.com/

We have one of our real estate clients in Mike Ferreira, an admitted introvert, shy guy.  He’s full time truck driver for the Beer Store but one day something switched and Mike started making educational videos on real estate and posted regularly to his Instagram.   Then what do you know, someone approached Mike at a party, asked him for a meeting and was ready to be his joint venture, silent investment partner to buy a property together. Mike shares his journey, the numbers on his first and most recent investment property, working with Coach Tammy “the Duplex Queen” Ditomaso on my iWIN Real Estate Team.  Also as this is the Truth About Real Estate Investing Show, Mike shares about the basement from Hell… how appropriate for Hallowe’en. Please enjoy the show. And Mike, from one shy guy to another, I’m super proud of you! To Follow Mike: Web: https://www.investedwithmike.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeferreira82/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQfCWpaYZSz089NB2LQJzrQ?app=desktop

On today’s show, Anderson shares about his humble beginnings, immigrating to Canada (no one told him how much it snows here when he was recruited), how he underemployed as a Chef thanks to the pandemic but pivoted starting new businesses, the side hustle that earns him $25,000/year after expenses to fund his investing, how Anderson explains Stock Hacking to his friends and how he spends his profits on his passions. Oh yeah, and Anderson cash flows 4% per month on average.   To Follow Anderson: Bajan Kitchen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebajankitchen_ca/?hl=en Email: foodiefleet@hotmail.com Personal Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dj.gatess