**Transcripts are auto-generated.

Erwin  

Welcome to another episode The truth about real estate investing show with me Erwin Seto as your producer and host. The truth is we do have more than more than 17 listeners of the show. And I want to thank every one of you who has left a five star review on iTunes and share the show with people you care about. Davis thanks to us and our wonderful guests that we have ranked number 81 And all of iTunes in the business category. When I started this podcast in 2016, I had no idea this podcast would be a top 100 in any category in the entire world. So I’m speechless. Shout out to my friend Jay Wong, who is a mega Podcast Producer for sharing this on social media letting me know, I don’t check and ask for you my 17. Listeners, please do continue to share this podcast. And if you haven’t, please do leave a five star review. For the most reason comments as well. I do read some of them, I generally avoid them. And because I try to avoid the negativity that’s out there. But for those of you who do care about the truth about real estate investing, there are many unqualified real estate experts out there. Many of them are good people don’t realise they’re unqualified, and they have, unfortunately bad advice. And sadly, a lot of them paid a lot of money for inexperienced but charismatic coaches. I was chatting yesterday with a recently bankrupt real estate investor, who has been advised against coming on the show by their lawyer, but I’ll share my thoughts. I did bounce my thoughts off of this individual agenda and bankrupt investor owing almost owing almost 10 figures. It’s Yes, very sad. There are several real estate investors and businesses that who are going bankrupt. It’s still early. There’s many rumours out there. I haven’t seen anything like this. Since 2008. This actually, I think it’s much bigger now, because of the amount of good and bad of social media, like they think the popularity of social media. Again, more people were able to raise capital and gained fame. They social media, and then more investors have ponying up money. Hence, there’s more companies that are going bankrupt. Again, many are good people, they unfortunately just put their trust and 10s of 1000s of dollars into memberships and coaching programmes, who often did teach a lot of good stuff. But many too many investors bought too many properties too fast. Without proper systems execute. mindsets, not everything, anyone who tells you that can feel free to come hang out with my friends. Because even like Cory Lee, who was on the show, a very successful entrepreneur, we joked in the show, you know, vision might be 10%. Without execution, the other 90% You’re going bankrupt. So, and also the quality of the deal to me is everything, not mindset, quality, coaching and mentorship is everything as well. But to me, those are based on track record. And again, there are laws on successful coaches out there right now. Anyone I say so rightly or wrongly, I evaluate a coach or membership group based on their client outcomes. How are their customers? How are their coaching clients doing? I personally was lucky. My own first joint venture partner, my ex now my ex wife has a renovation business. Her father who mentored us was an office investor, but he was a very successful master plumber, I experienced firsthand how difficult renovation projects are and including staffing them. I’ve personally swung hammers removed, removed rusted out plumbing stacks from 100 year old properties, and slung paint on walls and ceilings. I didn’t do it long because I wasn’t very good at it, and was hurt myself many times. I’ve had my own burrs, mail flips, go over budget take too many months too long to complete, putting strain on budgets. For that reason, we only ever did one local project at a time. And that’s all my team did handle. It had to be local, because it needs to be close in order for time purposes. And also for staffing. We teach our clients the same again. That was how I learned how to real estate invest. It’s always worked out for me. This is the same thing we teach our clients and will only work with the best the best contractors as their there’s only so many of them. To me from my experience. Again, staffing, a renovation project is not the easiest thing to do. Hence, we are ultra conservative on how many projects we take on at a time. This may have kept us from scaling up big but also took us from being overstretched, as generally, again, we only ever had one vacancy in our own portfolio. We’ve only ever had one vacant property at a time. That was the property that’s being renovated. So we always had rental income coming in to cover everything else. And we’ve also had past guests of this show who grew really big portfolios 50 doors 100 doors 100 properties like Russell Westcott Jared hole, Ben Westerfeld. They’re all good people, but they shared on the show the lessons they’ve learned. So hopefully everyone’s had a chance to listen to those. The pursuit of a big portfolio and the rush of raising capital was not the way to necessarily build a successful investment portfolio. successful investment portfolio is one that makes money. Making money is the key performance indicator. Now how many doors are property about the properties one has, it’s making money. And that includes cash flow to cover everything. And that means different things for different people if you’re a real estate developer, and cash flow means very, very different things to versus myself as a small residential real estate investor, making money, a good return enough on your time is important. And also on your grief. That to me, that’s a sign of good investment. Joka stands who has been a client of ours, he used to drive I think about four hours each way to Sudbury. So that was his choice. I let him know my thoughts on that. But again, that was his choice. He felt it was a good return on his time, that wouldn’t have worked out for me that everyone has to make the decision for themselves. Again, while being a visionary is great. Visions great. But without execution, that business is doomed. It’s well documented that Apple would be nowhere without Steve Wozniak. And then later on Tim Cook, who is now the CEO of of Apple, Elon Musk did not do this all alone. He’s not just a great visionary. It’s my opinion that that’s one of his greatest talents is attracting top talent, right, because you still need to execute. Vision, ideas that are great, they still need to execute something that people will pay for the risk is great in every business, Apple Tesla SpaceX of all nearly gone bankrupt several times. I believe novice investors and novice coaches do not understand the risks. As these recent bankruptcies in the real estate market involve investors holding multiple flips at the same time, they’re either flips or their burrs, or their developments with no rent coming in finance with expensive private money. Right? No investments without risk. But to me, it’s all about mitigating risks through continuous improvement, implementing best practices, surrounding yourself with a quality team, a quality coach and quality mentors. None of our clients like these interest rates, from my speaking to clients. And I still, you know, I speak to clients all the time, I speak to my coaches all the time how our clients are doing. And our worst case scenario for our clients is, like the worst among story among our clients is they might have to sell a property or two, they’re taking profits, right? They’re taking profits. The funny thing, though, is that listen, these are what we’re coaching our clients to do. If you’re tight for money, sell a property or to take your profits pay off some of those debts. Right? The funny thing is that probably at least 80% My clients say no thanks. They expect their investments to improve over the medium long term range. So they’ll suffer you know cancelling Netflix or Disney plus or eating home more often, or cutting back on expenses in exchange for greater future returns. So if you do want to learn my best practices for from investing since 2005, being an investor being the original investor, specialists, realtor since 2010, my team of award winning coaches who have done 100, duplex conversions, and another 100 or so student rentals, then do make sure you’re on our email list to get our offers, including I have a free book. It’s the only real estate investing playbook. We have webinars, we have one coming up in a week or two on how to convert a house into a triplex which takes advantage which is teaching folks how to take advantage of the new Doug Ford legislation, which will allow us to do so to create triplex is by right, we have street smart property tours of Hamilton and Asha coming up where the rubber meets the road. And we actually apply our theory to looking at actual investment, income properties. You don’t want to miss it because from my experience, well, we all have to work to invest and then we invest to live. Now speaking of folks who invest to live we have client and single mom Arminda some out as our guest today. Armando is a student rental investor, who is being going benefit massively from the over 40% increase to the market rental rates for student rentals. As per the short title, her current cash flows by $1,500 per month between just two properties $1,500 per month, across those two properties, that cash flow will more than double, possibly triple with the new rental rate with the new market rental rates, the inflation on student rentals and such as the benefit of buying rate, using a fundamentally sound investment strategy, renovating with a return in mind and the importance of mentors, friends and community quality. If you’re interested investing in property investment properties, like I’m into my award winning team of investors, specialists realtors are ready to go. You can find us at www dot infinity ball.ca You can find me on social media, if not already. Give you Arminda Arminda what’s keeping you busy these days?

Arminda  

Oh, quite a bit. Actually. You know, I have two kids that are now one is in dental school. One is adventurism school. We have three dogs. I know I’m pretty busy. I actually tell my friends all the time. Now that the kids are older, I feel like I’m busier than when they were actually younger. One of my friends said is because we facilitate them in their world of trying to be adults, and we’re just facilitating and that keeps us busy. And I actually agree.

Erwin  

Oh, I wouldn’t I’d be easier like you’re not shuffling them around for like soccer and dance and all those sorts of things.

Arminda  

100% But then I have my daughter Alexia was in third year dental school and she’ll be like Mom, can you please go to such and such central office and go pick up a jar of extracted teeth? Because she has assignments? And yeah, so that’s what I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks doing it on different dental offices to go pick up jars of extracted teeth from unknown people.

Erwin  

We were in school. This sounds like real stuff.

Arminda  

Yeah, she Yeah, she’s in school. And it’s real stuff. And she’s already seen patients and a lot of her projects. Actually, she has to have real teeth to mimic a situation. So yeah, so yeah, if you saw my laundry room where we keep jars sometimes of unknown people’s teeth, it’s quite interesting.

Erwin  

I have so many questions, but I don’t think I want to know,

Arminda  

I know. Yeah.

Erwin  

So you said nothing about nothing’s off limits,

Arminda  

nothing’s off limits or when our school costs. Okay, so yeah, so school for Alexei presently, it’s $50,000 tuition a year. When that’s just tuition, tuition, along

Erwin  

with lab fees, or books or anything,

Arminda  

everything’s included in respect to that. But then there are extra things like her loops, which can cost up to $4,000. What is that? So the loops are, you know, those looks like the magnifying glasses that they were that were Yeah, with a miner’s lamp on it. There’s that? Yeah, it’s about 4000. And she has a pair and she just invested in another pair right now, a little cheaper, because the magnification is a little different. So all in you’re looking at about six or $7,000 just on lips alone. Becoming a dentist. Hopefully, it’s all gonna pay back one day, but right

Erwin  

now. Yeah, it’s expensive. And this is after four years of undergraduate

Arminda  

after four years. Yes. So she went to McMaster University for four years, she got an honours in biochemistry. And that cost about $45,000 for the four years, minus the living expenses that we were lucky enough, we’ll probably talk about a little later of owning a property. So there was no fee in terms of rental. But yeah, that was about $45,000.

Erwin  

Just tuition alone, just tuition alone. Computers and books.

Arminda  

Computers on top, give or take because we did get a new laptop when she started university. It’s pretty expensive.

Erwin  

Okay, so 50k a year for dentistry school plus other stuff. Yeah. Six to 7k for the ocular. Where but yeah, wow. Yeah. I thought there’d be some deflation there. But obviously not no, no. And then she’s lives for free.

Arminda  

And, of course, and then obviously, so we had to make the the decision. Does she commute from Toronto, or from Mississauga where we live to Toronto, or the she rent? Now dental school is not like an undergrad. So they’re in school from eight in the morning until five? Oh, yes. So the commute would have been a little bit a little bit nerve racking for her an hour each way each way. Right. And now let’s put in if there’s an accident, if you know the wintertime right road conditions, so we thought that just for her own mental health as well. It would be better to rent so she hooked up with the partner with a dental school friend. And they rented a condo in Toronto.

Erwin  

Remember, we discussed this we did. One was it?

Arminda  

This was 2020. Oh, yeah. You can’t near the bottom? Yeah, no, yeah, I actually contacted you because I thought, should we invest in Toronto. But the prices are crazy, as we all know. So we made the decision to rent. So she got into this lease with her friend. And of course COVID hit right. And well, it had hit in March of 2020. And this is now July of 2020. And everybody was still very unsure of what protocol dental school was going to take in terms would it be hybrid would it be in person online, and it was just very fluid. It kept changing. And we actually ended up paying for a year and she barely even lived in Toronto. Oh nuts. Yeah, because a lot of it was online. She would go twice a week for an in clinic lot of assignments. But she was mainly living in Toronto. So we were paying so her and her roommate have found a really nice apartment place on shooter and Jarvis more or less. It was really nice. It is really nice. They were actually the first ones to move into this this place on the sixth floor brand new brand new two bedroom. Two baths, which was very important considering they’re both dental students have the same schedule getting up at the same time of the day. So yeah, it was perfect. Until like I said, COVID hid in here. They were paying and they had to have internet so we’re paying internet, you know, hydro, at least the minimum payments for hydro because obviously they weren’t living there. So it wasn’t a lot of usage. But for that year, yeah, it basically were living at home Right. And then how much did it cost for so that when they first signed the lease was 2450. It includes the parking space.

Erwin  

Oh my God, that’s

Arminda  

yes, it is a very good deal. And you know what? So we agreed because Alexi does have a car that we would be paying a little bit more because she has a car with a parking spot. And then her roommate was had a budget of $1,100. So my daughter now we concluded that it was worth Alexa paying a little bit more because Alexa actually has the bigger room with the ensuite bathroom,

Erwin  

and probably gonna feel like they have time, but I knew you were getting a deal.

Arminda  

Yeah, I know. You seem very positive when I spoke with you. And I was like, Okay, I told Alexia we got assigned, because I’m getting good vibes from Erwin. So I think we’re on the right track.

Erwin  

Yeah, no. You’re like $1,000 in our market. Based on today’s market, today, to to bed, two bath with parking, you probably won’t be paying more than $1,000 more than the than what you paid.

Arminda  

And it’s a brand new apartment. They have a beautiful pool, they have gym, and you know what, it’s 24 hour security concert building as well. Very, very safe, which obviously, you know, dealing with my daughter for the first time. I mean, she had lived in Hamilton, but I kind of felt like it was a very safe space when she was living in Hamilton. So now here she is, for the first time, you know, raise suburban, right, going to the big city. So at her condo, it’s so secure that they have fobs. And you actually cannot go between floors. Yeah. So she currently got a dog as well. She must have, you know, the dogs that we have at home. So a year ago, she got a dog, and she has a dog sitter for her dog, nya. And actually, she’s very lucky because her dog sitter, once again due to COVID, her work change and now she works from home. And she lives on the second floor. So this is all to say that whenever Sonny takes care of Nya, she actually has to use a Lexus fob to go to Lexus floor and go pick up nya. So you cannot between floors at all.

Erwin  

Amazing. Yeah. So the reason I have you on the show is Yeah, I mean, I’ll tell you why. No, you didn’t. Okay. It was over Thanksgiving. I was talking about my clients. One of my clients is a teacher. So teachers have a pension sports, usually around, like market value for the pension is close to $2 million. And then she has a nother enormous for real estate portfolio, I think like six properties, right? So she made around $2 million, right, just with her investments. And I said to her, what was harder earning teacher’s pension or earning your real estate $2 million in net worth. Right. It was a good 10 years for the two mil as a side hustle while she was a full time teacher. Yeah. Right. And then also, she takes care of the family. Like beyond being a breadwinner, right. Also, like all the net worth for the family is from her. So she’s able to take care of extended family as well. Like all the times and stuff like that, like five 6000 a month. Right. And I said to her, I hope your family spoils you. Because you are the household hero. Yes, yes. All right. I’ve met a lot of people, and not many people can do what you do. And what I find with real estate investors, the ones who aren’t bragging on social media, is it generally incredibly humble. Very private to. And so when I thought about Wow, household heroes,

Arminda  

I thought about you and Frank. Oh, what an honour. Right.

Erwin  

But you tell me who drove the decision to start investing in real estate? Well,

Arminda  

to be honest with you, I have to think Carol Dias, our good friend, Carol Diaz. Yeah. Honestly, this, you know, we always had this vision of having more than just our own primary residence and, and not talking about financial freedom of one day, not only being able to help the kids, if we could, but even for ourselves. We have this the stream of, you know, Frank retiring, and we were going to have our primary residence, possibly either rent or buy a property in Florida. We love Miami. And we also have property in Portugal. So our plan was to couple of months here in Canada one day, couple months in Portugal, and the winter in Miami. So Kara once invited us to her cottage or beautiful cottage. And she said, Well, you know, now that Alexa is going to make mess. You should seriously think about investing in the house, the house there, right? She’s she had done the same thing for her son, Zack. And she said, it’s pretty amazing. And obviously I was like, but how do you go about it? I still have a mortgage and she said, You know what? I’m going to take you to one of my meetings and and she wanted me to meet you specifically, Mr. Hamilton. And she’s like, You know what, and I’m here and I’ll guide you through it. So that’s exactly what happened. And yeah, she was actually my motivator. I think her all the time. I still get together with her often. And I would say Kara fills in for you. She’s very Be humble person. And she’s always willing to share all the information. She actually shared with me how to write a proper receipt. I remember she’d be like, Okay, here’s my a copy of mine. I’m going to share with you. This is exactly if you ever get audited. This is what the government dinos looking for. So it’s very important to have that that network of friends who are amazing, right, Margaret was another person. Tired. She I know. I know. Right. I think she’s off to Paris right now. So I Yeah, so she helped quite a bit to I remember when we had to go through the building inspector and drawings of how we wanted the basement to look. And it was like, Oh, my goodness. And she helped me out with that as well. So was the network. Yeah, it takes it takes a village, it takes a village. It really does. And then you made it really easy to or when I remember asking you, and you probably don’t want to risk I we were at one of the first properties. And I said, Are you not afraid of having all these mortgages? And they said, No. As long as there are tenants, you’re okay.

Erwin  

Yeah. So someone else is paying for

Arminda  

right? And just the way you said it, and I remember you’re sitting at one of the sofas on one of the sofas, and it was like he made it sound really easy. I think we got it. The key is as long as we have tenants, okay, we got this.

Erwin  

Right. Yeah. Well, your daughter is moving in.

Arminda  

She was moving in. Yes. Yes. She was moving in there pay rent or you buy a house. 100% 100%. Right. And it was amazing, because she moved in, and probably jumping a little bit ahead. But you know, that house ended up having seven rooms. So for the years that she was there for three years. Yeah, it was getting rent from six rooms, which was absolutely amazing. And she was there for free. And, you know, kept an eye on on the place as well. As she enjoyed the process. She really did. She really really loved it so much so that she actually was encouraging her brother who else was now adventurism school. He’s at George Brown, in Toronto Waterfront Campus, and she actually wanted him to go away, because he also got accepted to a programme at Georgetown college. But due to our circumstances for Leandro, it just it different times, as you know, we went through lots of different times, and he made the decision to stay closer to home. It’s worked out certain colleges far, isn’t it? It’s, it’s an earlier, as far as far as I know, that’s for Carol has her beautiful cottage and she said, Well, if you need a place, you know how to reach right.

Erwin  

And you can it’s not easy to buy a house in a typical church.

Arminda  

Well, he’s got the Waterfront Campus in Toronto. Yeah.

Erwin  

So it’s crazy expensive.

Arminda  

They’re crazy expensive, right? Luckily, because Alexia is at the Faculty of dental school, at U of T, he walks 20 minutes. So on the days that he has clinic, he stays with Lexia. And he walks to school, and then that’s where her car comes into, into place. And he drives home because he’s got his licence. So he’s, he’s also my little Uber driver. Now, he drives me around everywhere, but all worked out, worked out really well, at least for now. We’re going to take it year by year because truth be told, as he gets busier with clinic isn’t really feasible that he’s sharing, you know, a room with a sister, we’re not really sure, you know, so we’re going to take it year by year and just do it that way.

Erwin  

So the decision to invest, where do you think you and Frank were like, even in your interest in doing so?

Arminda  

Percent? Percent? Yeah. 100%. And, yeah, with with Your wisdom that you provided contacts, we got in contact with, I believe, Dion. Berg about Yeah. And he, yeah. And he actually thought that we would be excellent investors. We had a plan, you drew up a plan. And our plan was to acquire five properties. He said it would be attainable within a year. And that was going to be our plan. We started off really well. We got two properties right away, literally within a month of each other. Right? Purchase the first one November of 2015. The second one came December of 2015. And then we stopped a little bit because of the renovations of both of the homes, right. They were family homes. One was actually an estate sale. One was also retired couple who had been living the same house for six years. So we had to convert it. They’re trying to speak right. Yeah, they were Yeah, just, you know, make the rooms more for students. So yeah,

Erwin  

it’s didn’t prepare us now. You know what I mean, right? Yeah. Yeah, I know. What you paid for.

Arminda  

Yes. Oh, no. Present. Yeah. Yeah. So ballcourt went for $366,000. And I know, right, and Oldfield went for 370. So yeah, they were pretty much the same price.

Erwin  

Okay. Do you want to go to work today? Yes, I’d love to. Oh, you don’t know I do.

Arminda  

Oh no. Like, is it close to a million? Possibly, or is that too much?

Erwin  

Maybe maybe like earlier this year? Okay. At the peak? Yeah, yeah. But today, I think conservative would be my beat,

Arminda  

which is amazing. Yeah, absolutely amazing. And you, you’re on our emails so

Erwin  

that we Yes, yes, I

Arminda  

just Yes. I saw that. It’s speaking up again, which is great.

Erwin  

No, I don’t. I think it’s pretty hot. Actually.

Arminda  

Is it really hot? Oh, yeah.

Erwin  

I saw two this morning. That sold, one sold done firm. It was only in the market for six days. Yes. And the other one was, has a conditional offer conditional sale. And it’s only been seven days. Wow. Yeah. So things are moving. That’s really good to know. So when people ask me about the real estate market, like it really depends, yeah. Right. Because here we’re talking about niche market. We’re talking about near McMaster University. Yes. And then I’m in malaria as well. So my experience was pandemic soccer. Yes, I think I got worse than most. Did you have any vacancy during the pandemic,

Arminda  

only for four months. So that wasn’t bad at all. Okay, it wasn’t bad. That’s not bad. Obviously, it was hard to get students and I get it because having my own daughter, having paid rent for a year and really not having used the condo, I totally interested in where they’re coming from. So I remember showing the place and they were interested. However, they didn’t want to move in until September. Right. And this is March. So we agreed halfway, and I said, Okay, possession July 1. So yeah, you know, for those months that it was vacant, although I knew there was a group coming in, but they weren’t interested in signing me first. Right. So yeah, not quite four months, but it Yeah, but it worked out. It worked out.

Erwin  

So again, the price is very, I’m gonna get your stuff probably pretty nice. One really nice house sold for missile for asking 950.

Arminda  

Wow. Yeah, that’s amazing. Full asking. That’s amazing. Yeah.

Erwin  

So again, when people ask the cup, what’s the market? Like? Do really depends. And I think one of the hardest, my opinion, I looked at a lot. So student market is possibly one of the hottest markets.

Arminda  

It’s all about supply and demand, right? supply is low, demand is high. So that’s great to know.

Erwin  

It’s actually funny, because I know that many people got out and even just talking to our clients like Evelyn and it was telling me like she saw her neighbours Yes. Convert to either a regular families, from student to regular family, or they sold during the pandemic, right. So yeah, like you said, supply demand. So there’s way less supply rentals, right. And the demand really hasn’t changed? No. And so it’s kind of like the pendulum has swung the other way,

Arminda  

which is great. Yeah, because the student numbers are still going to be the same. Right? Same. And now that everybody’s back at school, and yeah, it was that insurance as well. Student res no student res. Exactly. And so a lot of parents, like I read it, a lot of the emails are scrambling to oh my goodness, I had parents reach out to me knowing that I have rentals. And unfortunately, it’s hard to turn people away and they’re like, Do you have any friends? And I’m like, You know what? Everybody’s okay. Right now. Everybody’s got

Erwin  

students. Yeah. Yeah, this is the highest ever had people reach out to me, like from all over the city. Right. Right. People, right. Even ask them to hire a realtor to help them find a place like, wow, there’s, I’ve never Yeah, never heard of that. No, I’ve been a realtor since 2010. No one’s ever asked me for rent realtor service to find a student rental. It’s crazy, right? Oh, it’s totally crazy. And just like your experience, like, I’ve never seen so many inquiries about friends of friends looking for a place. Yes. Like they’re great, blah, blah, blah. And then we started seeing rents like skyrocket, right? Right. Yeah, yeah. So in the summer, like Jamil is on my team, like you’ve seen 800 room for vanilla hosts. Wow. Yeah. And then red panda. They rented out medicine University of Guelph. Right, but this is what we’re gonna think we’re gonna see coming. Yeah, apparently was a really nice house. Seven bedroom. Yes. 7500 a month. Wow.

Arminda  

That is yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s excellent for us to know. Yeah. The flip side is being a parent who also pays rent. It’s scary. Oh, it’s terrible. So I always tell even my student rentals, renters that I get both sides. I totally understand both sides. Right. So yeah.

Erwin  

Oh, my site is

Arminda  

no, small amount. Right. So

Erwin  

yeah, it’s the realities of inflation is is terrible. It is. It is. Right. It really is. Including my properties. And also we took a hit. We took a haircut during the pandemic as well. So this is just yeah, the belly, but I’m not gonna ask them. No, yes. Just move on. And we’re advertising for this. That’s what the market decide. Yeah. So it’s actually my opinion that the probably the most optimal investment right now is student rental. Preferably, I guess, some sort of multifamily like a duplex or triplex that’d be perfect. Right. Right. But, you know, nothing’s perfect. Nothing’s perfect, right. So I actually didn’t know that your plan was to buy five properties. It was it was just life happened. Life happened for God’s sake. Okay, I have no idea. Yeah,

Arminda  

we kept it private, I think because we ourselves had to digest the information. So life was going really, really, really good for us. We, like I said, had those two properties, Frank being in the construction industry, obviously, those houses, they do look very nice. We made them look nice. And then we thought, You know what, we needed a little break. So the students moved in, and we’re like, we’re going to take a little break, and 2017 Reach out to Orion again and see what’s out on the market. We took a nice vacation Christmas of 2016. We did a cruise. And then yeah, March of 2017. Right at the beginning, Frank was diagnosed with glioblastoma, which is the deadliest form of brain cancer. And our world just flipped completely, completely.

Erwin  

The reason why, just looking back to the fact that you guys were built buying property, I had no idea. I didn’t know what Frank was sick. Yeah. And then when Frank ideal, I actually was wondering, was this all part of the plan for his legacy?

Arminda  

Not not in terms of long term short term, right. Like I said, you know, we thought Frank was always a very healthy person. He was very proactive about his health. He was the one like, it’s time for us to go to our physicals and all that. But as we learned, glioblastoma is like playing like life played Russian Roulette on us. Honestly, there’s no rhyme or reason. As a doctor explained, he was just very unlucky. I life happens, right? And so yeah, so our plan was to have financial freedom, help with the kids, like I started telling you, you know, travel, we love to travel, we travel a lot. But yeah, I wouldn’t when life happened, it very, very happy that we have those properties, because there was a sense of, okay, you know, what, if I need to make financial changes, I do have those two properties that I could always tap into, you know, I’m happy to say it’s where we are now, almost five years since he’s passed and still have those properties and long term is to keep them, my daughter is going to have a really big debt. Once she’s she’s done with school. We don’t know what kind of help she hopes to open up from practice, obviously. So right now, I don’t know what those properties what the end goal will be. Will it be to help them? We will see, that’s pretty

Erwin  

cool, though. It is way better debit to selling one house,

Arminda  

one house, just with one house, right? Yeah, that’s pretty attractive. Is it really honestly, and I try to preach this too. I know, things are different. Now. I got into the market at the right time. I know it might be a little more complicated now with the prices. But I’m just so blessed that the universe at that time worked in our favour. It really did. Because my reality is at 45, I became a widow, my son was 13. So he was in grade eight, when his dad passed away. Alexia was a third year at McMaster. And all of a sudden, I had to be everything, right? And, you know, the interest of landlord and landlord. And, you know, the only role I really recognised within myself was the role of mom, because everything else was taken away. I mean, I remember the first time the students called me, the fridge broke down, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, can’t call Frank and say the fridge broke down. So I had to learn a lot. I had to learn how to not be afraid to sound like he knew what I was doing. Because he would always take care of that stuff. Right? I will take care of the administrative making sure, you know, everybody’s paying rent on time and in getting things ready for tax season. But anything went wrong, frankly, go to the property fix it. Right. And all of a sudden, I had to go into my rolodex, so to speak and and learn how to contact plumbers, electricians, like roofing company. And yeah, I’ve been able to do it. Thank God, I’ve been able to

Erwin  

do it. I tried out a new roofer in case you need one. Yes, you

Arminda  

did. Honestly. I’ve used them twice. Yes, yes. So and that’s what I do. I reach out to people that I know and it’s like, do you know, right? It’s all about networking. Do you know a roofing company? Do you know a plumber? Do you know an electrician? Yeah. And so yeah.

Erwin  

You random. Your landscaper referred you to like I haven’t talked to him in ages. I need some work done.

Arminda  

Robert. Robert has been my eyes don’t share his information with anyone. He’s awesome. Honestly. He’s awesome. And he? Yeah, he does. You know, by the time you factor in driving to Hamilton, great cutting bras and all that it’s not worth it. And honestly, it’s just great because I know he goes every week. And then any extra little things like I need like one of my backyards needed a little bit of decluttering and he said, You know what? I can do that for you. So it’s nice to have people that you can reach out to and help you out.

Erwin  

Ask them work for him. He probably won’t.

Arminda  

Reminded me of the one year the one that gave me his content.

Erwin  

Well, this is the job. Right? Our job is to see people successful. Yeah. And the crazy thing is a lot of people don’t know, because it’s no one’s public about social media is not real. Right? I hear every week about people going bankrupt, right? People who are just way too aggressive, trying to get rich quick. Yeah. excessive debt, expensive debt. And they paid like coaches like 15 $17,000. Yeah. And like, I’m all for coaching. But I’m also all I’m an investor, I’m all that returns, right? Whatever you paid when you invested in investing in yourself, the red one return. Now there’s all these people with massive negative returns and bankruptcies. Right, not just their own bankruptcy, but they also lost their partner’s monies. Right? Right. Terrible. Yes. There’s nothing like, you know, versus what we were teaching is very conservative, very concerned. Yep. All right. That’s a little aggressive in the student rental side. But the your daughter is in the house, you have a community of people, you’re basically your neighbours or your friends. Yes, yes, for sure. For sure.

Arminda  

You know what I’m actually I would be more afraid to be honest with you to be landlord of non student rentals. I think it’s really easy with them. I always say, you know, when I think of like renting out to families, and like I said, you know, you see a lot on social media. That scares me more than having student I always say if you’re good to them, they’re gonna be good to you. And it’s a two way street. Right. And I’ve been very lucky. I mean, obviously, after my daughter loft, I’ve had a few other groups. I have one house that actually, Oldfield is very blessed house because they find tenants for me. So I don’t even have to at least be yourself. Yeah. Because that house is actually it’s my master students, PhD students. So I just they find them each other. And it’s like, oh, I have a friend blah, blah. Okay, fine. So I haven’t advertised or field since I bought it actually didn’t even have to advertise it to me, because all field was a group that was living across the street, walked across, and they said, Oh, are you going to be renting this house? Is it Yep. And they’re like, we’re living across the street. But we like your house better. So.

Erwin  

Yeah. Yeah. Most most and rentals are not nice. Or they’re tired. Or they’re just, for example, anyone can go look, anyone go look for rental ads? Yes. Because we always got this. I don’t know if you’ve ever asked. But we got this consistently from our clients, like, Hey, I went up to GG, one on the university’s website, and the rents are much lower than the word you’re telling me. And like, Why do you think they’re not rented? Exactly. Why do you think it’s cheap? Because nobody wants it? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Versus we always priced higher. And we were never vacant. Have a good product.

Arminda  

Right? We know what you have. Yeah. So

Erwin  

I don’t know if we need to get fairly. We don’t need to get product to have to get 800 room.

Arminda  

Once again, right. Supply Demand has made people things change a bit. Yeah.

Erwin  

And that’s the nice thing about stream rentals right now is pretty much every landlord out there who’s been around for a while we have legacy rents. 356 10 year old. Yep. leases, right. So that way under market versus students will turn themselves over naturally as they graduate and move on. Yeah, right. Exactly.

Arminda  

So every two, three years, usually that’s that’s how long they stay. Then you can oppose rents. Not a problem. It’s like it starts all over again. Clean Slate.

Erwin  

Wonder if I can get 7000 for our house. Oh, my

Arminda  

goodness. Oh, my gosh, well, at this rate?

Erwin  

Well, I’ll need to talk. Make sure we got we’re on the same boat, for sure. Booking the same page in December. I hope I tend to leave.

Arminda  

I think mines are going to be staying until the end. I think they have a good deal with me. So I don’t see them

Erwin  

leaving. There’s a reason for that. Yeah, but they will leave.

Arminda  

Right? Eventually they will. They will.

Erwin  

All right. Versus I have tenants that I don’t think will ever leave. But like my regular tenants are like families, right? And that’s what I’m saying. Or even individuals, right, right, are like in their 30s or whatever. I don’t know if they’ll ever let

Arminda  

you and especially the way the market is there. Yeah. Even though it’s cheap now. I know. But who has money for down payments? That’s a problem, especially first time buyers, right?

Erwin  

So I don’t have ever told you. When you told me about Frank’s passing? Yeah. I’m a very, I don’t know how to say it. The first thing that came on my mouth was thank God they have real estate. Yeah, for sure. Thank God, you have those two properties? Because even at that time, you probably made at least 100 grand and each of them. Right. So you had immediate capital as available to you pretty quickly. Yes. Did you want to divest them, but you didn’t just stick with the plan to hold on to them? I stayed with the plan. Even thinking about selling them?

Arminda  

No, no, no, really. Luckily, we also had life insurances, so I knew if anything first I’m going to use those funds, and just let those properties keep growing. So yeah, I never and you actually you didn’t message me that he texted me and he said I’m really sorry, but I’m so happy that you have those properties. And so am I and so I realised that I was scared. I wasn’t sure what my future What’s gonna look like? But yeah, I never thought to be honest with you, I thought of investing even more I thought, okay, so I got this life insurance money, what should I do with it? Should I invest in real estate? And I almost reached out to you start looking again, what stopped me was because now I didn’t have Frank to do the construction. And I know that’s where we saved a lot of money. Right? He knew how to build stuff. And I was like, What am I getting myself into? I’m still no looking back. I think it was a mistake on my part to not have invested

Erwin  

these little accounts. I was right. I know, the pandemic renovation costs are a lot less.

Arminda  

And yeah, and now I know that I’ve had people that I could have reached out to. But all of a sudden, like I said, around, the only way that I recognised myself was I just killed myself as a mom. And slowly I had to adapt myself into all these different roles, right. And I thought, you know, what, I’m going to continue the legacy, you know, the legacy was at least five properties, right. But yeah, so we hope to continue that, once. Now. The kids fully will become my partners, as I get older. So you know, the big is still there, right? The hunger is still there. We’ll see what markets will will make sense to us as well. But yeah, I never thought about selling to be honest with you. I knew how much it was a dream of his to have, you know, we have, like I said, our principal property and then have a property for each one of the kids, you know, if we could help them that way. So it was like that was going to be and it still will be the last thing that I do to sell those properties

Erwin  

may ask how much you rent them for right now. So right

Arminda  

now, as some of them leave, I’m starting to slowly increase right. So like I told you my Oldfield health, someone that’s PhD masters students, they help bring students in. So I started that place with $530 a room, I still have one person that’s still original, believe it or not, really, because masters PhD was seven years ago. Yeah. So he’s still their career student. Yeah. Yeah. And then I slowly raised to 560. And now the new ones that have brought in I’m $600 a room.

Erwin  

Okay, so So below,

Arminda  

it is below.

Erwin  

So fantastic. It’s still dreaded right cigar when you started? Can you imagine getting 600 a room,

Arminda  

so I was already thinking asking 500 was like a lot. And so and ballcourt they’re getting a really good deal. $550. But this was during a pandemic, and I was really afraid. I thought, You know what, I’m gonna go a little bit lower guarantee your group, then ask the

Erwin  

600 they will see, yes, this happens.

Arminda  

They’re happy because they keep bringing so a three of them have for the year they have the coop, and they want to Hang Hang on to the room. So they rented to somebody else’s. They they sublet right to somebody else, so that they can come back because they know they have a good deal. And that’s including everything, right? I pay for all the bills, internet and all. So they have a really good deal.

Erwin  

That’s a really good deal. So for one, we’re releasing our properties, we actually, we usually have an idea who the captain of the house is yes. And it’s usually then that we reach out to, to to lease out our home for us, we actually usually ask we offer in the money couple $100. And then we also offer money to each of the students to compensate them for their for the disturbance, right. So basically, we let them we write the Facebook ad for them, and write them what what to put and then they go and post it on Facebook, in the students off campus housing group, right, like, Hey, I got a great place. If my family look at it, come DM me, right. And then they become our leasing agents. And it’s a fraction of the cost of hiring a leasing agent. I never sent Yeah. And then also they provide they endorse what we do, because we do good work. Yes, we’re responsive, our properties are tight. And then also we have the buy in from the whole group to you know, leave the doors available and clean. Yes. Right for showings. And again, this has worked has worked really well for us versus paying like a month’s rent or something for our leasing agent.

Arminda  

100%. So I kind of did the same thing. So I call them my PR. Like I said there is a solution. Yes, yes. So usually, I always said, You’re the first one that reached out to me when you were looking for a place where you become a PR of the group. So anything that I need, I usually reach out to the PR of the group. And I do the same thing. Like I’m I’m very blessed as well. But like I said at the beginning, if you’re good to them, they’re going to be good to us, right? So I to be honest with you, I have never really had to go and show the property because they themselves do that for me, similar to what you’re saying. So I’ll put the ad and I’ll say You know what, I have a group that’s interested Are you guys okay with showing Come the place. And they say, Yeah, not a problem. So then bring them box of doughnuts as a thank you. Gift Card or something. Yeah. And it works out.

Erwin  

I imagine masters and PhD students are pretty serious. Yes. And around.

Arminda  

No, no, they’re not very, very responsible students. I’ve never had any issues. And then your other group, do you know what programmes or any other group? So it’s a new group. And I believe they’re all in engineering programmes.

Erwin  

So typically, you don’t have much time to goof around either. Yeah, they have so many labs do they

Arminda  

do? They’re very busy. And usually the engineering programme is a five year programme. So that means usually they’re there for four years.

Erwin  

Got it? In St. Catharines. I’ve had a lot of luck with teachers, college students. Yes. That because it’s really competitive programme

Arminda  

to get into because it’s a concurrent universe. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Erwin  

It’s broken current. So my point is, this seems the heart of the programme, often the better the tenant is, for sure, like engineers difficult to get into a scene course load. And labs. Yeah, there’s no time to goof off,

Arminda  

you know, and actually, what I find interesting, they usually asked me, how quiet is the area? Right, right. And I always tell them, it’s a very quiet area, because you’re you’re out of the fray. Right. And closer to 14 knows on that side, which is perfect. Honestly, the bus Yeah. All in they have hot food. Yeah, I have to cook. Yeah, they don’t have to cook. And I always tell them actually, the way the bus erode is it’s perfect. You’ll always get it’s guaranteed you’ll get to the university as to where the closer they get sometimes sight Emerson in those areas, the buses are full. And guess what? They don’t get it. Right. So

Erwin  

yeah, yeah. And that’s something that was something that was we were it wasn’t with our strategy was to just stay out of the extremely hot area. Yes. Even though the demand was massive for like, you know, within 500 metres of the school. Yep. Often the properties were rough. Yes. Often, that’s where the most of the garbage was. Yeah, like garbage blowing around and people urinate on lawns. Versus your properties are about 15 minutes, but about 15 minutes. Yeah, yeah. That’s kind of been a pretty consistent baseline for any property that we do. Yes. For any university. 50 minutes. Walk or bus? Yes. All right. That’s it’s worked out really? Well,

Arminda  

it has, because that was my concern, to be honest with you, or even the first time when we, you know, I looked at Klein, which was like, location was perfect. But the house would have needed a lot more work. And what we the vision was different, right? It was probably

Erwin  

twice the age twice. Ch right. But 1920s versus 1960s. It’s very different. Very different.

Arminda  

Very different house. Right. And so yeah, so but I was concerned and usually their that is their number one question how far though, like, how long will it take me? And I always say no, no. Right. I know. But I always use my daughter as an example of her loving the a little bit of if you want to call it a little Kimmy. It’s not me. It’s just Yeah, it’s a little frustrating. Yes. Yeah. It’s perfect. Actually, a lot of students just love walking. They’re like, You know what, after Dave, being in school, it’s great to just walk home. So yeah, I wanted to walk in. It’s about 25 minutes if you Yeah, keep up the pace all the young people there. People, right. Yeah. So instead of going to the gym, walk home.

Erwin  

I’m not even sure back then, like 14 was had all the hot food.

Arminda  

They did, but they did. And you know why now because when we were doing the renovations, that’s where I would always go buy food. So yeah,

Erwin  

like literally you have no reason to cook breakfast or dinner. Nothing is

Arminda  

possibly get I think 10% off on Tuesdays students as well. At 14. Yeah. Board. Yeah, no. So

Erwin  

sorry for the listeners benefit other than being close to school. It’s incredibly important to be close to grocery stores. Yes. Right. Yes. Maybe less. So now with UberEATS and all that. Yeah. But it’s definitely it’s that’s a big deal. It is. Yeah. And close to transit, for sure. For sure. Which is all those all those partners made that right? Yes. Yeah, I did. I did. And also, of course, sorry, I apologise. Some people do listen to these things. We renovate to with as much life safety as we as we can. Yes. And we do our leases as one. Yes, it’s still doing that. Yes, still doing that. So we operate everything that keep the fire department and local bylaw officers happy 100% 100% Sure. Experience has been a good one.

Arminda  

It’s been awesome. It’s been awesome. And you know, I always say to them, my daughter lived in one of those houses. And the reason why we also purchased was because we knew once again through Carol, the garbage that is out there and the thought of you know, we’ve always protected our kids, right. They’re suburban, they live in homes. I mean, I grew up sharing bathrooms, right? Our kids have no concept of that. So going from homes that have everything in anything and then moving into one of these houses that you know, I mean, she had a friend that actually had mushrooms growing between the baseboards, believe it or not was in the basement. Right closer to that. Yes, it is bold.

Erwin  

closer and advanced stage a mould inside the house.

Arminda  

That’s scary. That’s terrible. Yeah. So can you imagine what’s actually going behind the walls? If you’re already starting to see that?

Coming to where that is?

Arminda  

I actually thought pictures because I couldn’t believe it myself. And it was crazy. Yeah. So I knew that we had to have standards, right. So I’m one of those people, whatever I want for my kids I going to want for other people’s kids too. So yeah, and that was the other thing too. Basement rooms, right. People are like, Oh, how many basements rooms do you have? And one house has no basement rooms. And the other one house for me like, well, I’m like, Come and check out the place. My daughter actually prefer to basement room versus an upstairs room. And here are the reasons one of the main reasons was she liked more of her privacy when you’re upstairs. It’s also the common area. So can be a little bit noisier. Yeah. So I’ve had no problems once they walk in, they’re like, Okay, yeah, we like these basement rooms.

Erwin  

I find out that boys prefer the basement because it’s cooler.

Arminda  

Yeah. I’ve had actually I’ve had groups of girls groups of mixed boys and girls, and now it’s a group of guys and no complaints whatsoever.

Erwin  

And the guys or the engineering students are Yeah. What do you think pay for frankly, think about all this.

Arminda  

I think it’d be pretty proud. Honestly, I think so. I always, you know, it’s a question that I always every decision that I’ve made since he passed, I always think, what do you have agreed with this decision? Is he okay with, you know, the things that I’m doing? But one thing for sure. I know, he wants me to hold on to these houses, not only for so that I can have some financial freedom one day, but definitely to help other kids because that was the end goal, to be honest with you was to help out our kids.

Erwin  

Okay, in that situation, do you think they’d be without these houses while they’re still in them, but I’m gonna be an option to wipe it out.

Arminda  

Like we just said, if if we decide, you know, what, Alexia, you have this big debt, she will have a big debt, and she’ll have when she’s on these for years. proximally a debt of $300,000. That’s just the reality. And then she hopes to open up her own private mortgage, mortgage writer, and it’s insane. It really is. I wish I could have helped her but obviously, with our situation now, and, and with Frank not being here, even a friend Frank was here, to be honest with you. We’ve got to be real, like it’s $50,000. That’s a lot of money. Plus my son who’s now also on denturism. School, and his tuition is $23,000 a year. So just tuition alone,

Erwin  

maybe there’s less things on YouTube. I know really enjoy school anymore. We can did you even try to save you? 23 grand a year, right?

Arminda  

Yeah, so the material, the materials are just as expensive.

Erwin  

Yeah, just go on. AliExpress. Right. For months,

Arminda  

you know what they actually do a breakdown of how much you know, the courses, just for materials. It’s over. $6,000 right. And I know with Alexis tuition to a big part of it is all because of the materials that we use.

Erwin  

So please just keep holding on to them. Yeah, that is the plan. All right. You guys gonna suck up the debt then.

Arminda  

They realise how fortunate they are. They really do.

Erwin  

Yeah, cuz the motivation for me to buy my house for my kids was I didn’t want to pay for the university. I wanted someone else to pay for. That’s what the investment properties were for, as budging for like a 70k tuition for your tuition. How many years is Landrieu have

Arminda  

three his his preps three years. And then that’s it, you’re done. And then he’s shaped be done. But Alexios route was completely different, right? So we did. She did her four year undergrad at McMaster. So that was her biochemistry degree. And that was like I said about $45,000. And now we’re looking at 300,000, another four years. Now, if she decides to specialise. We’re looking at even more, so she may not be done. So

Erwin  

here’s the other thing about why I bought the property says she’s one of my clients. His name is Rob Don’t say his last name. He made the point to me. He’s sharing me with his own experience with him. His daughter is also He also bought a house for his daughter. I bought a couple for them. First Daughter and McMaster University. Anyways, his point was he shared with me a conversation with his daughter. She was interested in potentially going to medical school, but then she thought I can’t afford it. Maybe I should work a couple years. And his point was, I think there’s too much risk that she won’t go back to school, just because it’s hard to go back. Right when to take a break. It’s hard to go back. His point was like, I don’t want her to make this decision of going to med school or not over money. Right. That’s right.

Arminda  

You know what it looks it took a year off. So I think it also depends on how motivated you are. Getting into dental school is extremely hard. I don’t know if you know a little bit about the process, but we only have two dental schools here in Ontario. We have EFT and Western, is it

Erwin  

it’s very competitive. In Canada. There’s not many periods

Arminda  

no not not many. There’s one in BC, and Dalhousie in the East Coast, we’re number four. And that’s all we have. So when you think of how many students apply, it’s a very, very competitive school. There are a lot more options for med school. But when it comes to dental school, and so she took six months to study for this big exam, which was a six hour exam, so called the debt, right, there’s the MCAT, which is for medical school, the debt for dental school. And then a series of other basically tests she had to do she had, it was really, really hard process. So she graduated in 2019. And so she took those that year, well lit six months after graduation, so from June and she wrote her debt exam in November. So you write the exam, and then you have to wait until February to know if you have been accepted for even for interview. So then she got an interview process at U of T. And then only after the interview that she got, yes, you’ve been accepted. And over 2000 apply only under 100. I think her programme has 98 per year. So it’s very competitive. And yeah, obviously, you have to have excellent grades and your perfection and your perfection. Oh yeah, your your GPA has to be a four. But they don’t longer just look at your GPA, you have literally ethnic tests that they do. They want to know where your ethics are, believe it or not yet, like where your ethics are. And then the final is imagine you’re putting in groups. So you go into different into different rooms, I should say. And they’re given questions by a professor. And it’s all based on their personality as well. So it’s a very, very long process to get into dental school. So she for her it worked out, she was going to attempt to write while she was in fourth year, but she was doing a thesis and that alone was was quite a bit. So and you know, obviously with dealing with her dad’s passing, it’s interesting, because once somebody that say that to her, Oh, you’re going to take a break, you’re never gonna go back. And I think that actually even fueled her more to say, You know what, don’t assume anything. We’re all individuals. We’re all different people. We want different things. So for her workout,

Erwin  

do you feel reassured to have a knowing that you have investments that she can go on?

Arminda  

Oh, 100% or a specialist? Yes. 100% 100%. But we’ve always Frank and I have always done investing in, in our kids futures in different ways. So real estate has just been one, but we actually invested in CST Canadian scholarship trust fund from the day they were born. I mean, what that is, okay, so that’s the private version of our ESPs. Okay. Okay. So that worked really well. That was once somebody to who said to me, your daughter’s to have you thought of an Educational Fund for her? And I was like, No, I’ve just heard of our ESPs. And, and so he said, Well, there’s a company called Canadian scholarship trust fund. And, and these, they’re really great. And you know what, that was the best thing. So yeah, when Alexei was two, we started so we would contribute $200 a month. So when she turned Oh, four, she she turned 18 Because she’s a December, baby. So when she was ready to go to university, she had $30,000 in this account that had been saving. So University costs, nothing to be honest with you, because we have this and then they the grants as well. So with the grants that she also got, every year that she was studying because of this, of this trust fund, we were lucky University costs are nothing. And the same thing now for Leandro, so Leandro because I knew what I was getting myself into. So the earlier you start, the more shares you have. So I started as soon as Leandra was 00 months, and happy to report that I just received $45,000 from this font. So what I did once, there’s a seven year difference between my kits, so when Alexia finished I call the company I said, Well, I’m used to putting in $400, because I was putting in 200 for each one. Can I now do this just for Leandro, they said absolutely. So 400 for you and a full $400 Really, because I was used to it right? It was like the little mortgage payment that we were used to doing. So yeah, so I just got $45,000 principal payment, and he just got a grant of almost shy of $10,000.

Erwin  

Now No, I want to know why I’ve never heard never heard of yeah,

Arminda  

look them up Canadian scholarship trust fund. I only have great things to say we already had. So right now, I’m okay because then that’s why maybe why I hadn’t had I didn’t have to touch or even think about selling the properties because we had we had this we also had critical illness insurance, which was amazing. So as soon as Frank pass was diagnosed, we had a critical illness insurance for $100,000. And we were able to collect that right away. And we also call Like the insurance money that we also had life insurance money. And so that has

Erwin  

helped us tremendously. Because if you had this pretty well planned, we did

Arminda  

or when honestly, we had everything really well planned, except for one thing, we only made, I think one big mistake. So when we basically got a home line equity credit line, we got that from our principal residence that we actually were able to pay off, we bought our principal residence in 1999. By 2012, we were mortgage free. So we were doubling up our mortgage payments, obviously, the property was a lot cheaper than what they are now. But in 1999, we paid $207,000 For our main residence. I know right and at the prime of the market now and I don’t live in a big home, I live in a detached semi detached it, but it’s a wide lots. So you know, it’s it’s comfortable for us. It’s funny, because every time Frank working in construction, obviously it was at every site, you can think of an every time we thought about upgrading to a bigger home. My question to him was, will it change the way we live our life, though? We love to travel, we were very blessed. My kids have seen a lot. We were travelling twice a year. So that was always my question having a bigger house, will that mean a bigger mortgage? And the answer was always yes. So I’d be like, No, I’m happy. And I was privileged because I was a stay at home mom. So for me, it was really, really important. You know, being there for my kids being the first face that they would see in the morning being the one picking them up after school being the first person to hear about how was your day at school? That was just important for me. And for Frank, we agreed. So he was the sole breadwinner of the family. And yeah, so at the peak, the houses were going for $1.2 million right now. But yeah, sorry, I kind of lost my train of thought we’re talking about so many things

Erwin  

that you had to regret. So

Arminda  

sorry. So the regret was when we took out $200,000 to invest in these properties in Hamilton, I remember vividly the bank person saying to us, do you want to get life insurance on it? Right? And I said, No, what’s $200,000? Right? We honestly thought we had a plan, we were going to do what we did before we were going to double pay, right? So we knew that one payment was all towards principle. And yeah, would you already so much money? I don’t know. 200,000? Didn’t seem like a lot to be honest with you. And he’s like, Are you sure? And we’re like, No, we’re gonna pass on that. This was 2015. And he was diagnosed in 2017. So I still have a mortgage now, because that was our only mistake was not having gotten life insurance. Now I personally have life insurance on my mortgage, God forbid something happened to me. At least the kids are okay.

Erwin  

You got insurance for that via the bank or the bank. But I also have

Arminda  

I have private life insurance. Believe it or not, my kids already have life insurance too. And critical illness. And a lot of people like they have life insurance. So yeah, because their principal will sorry, their payment will be the same for the rest of their life. And with inflation and rising costs, they have pretty good insurance, I’m paying for them. But one day, they will take over $150 a month for $350,000. In the critical illness critical illness is 100,000. So it’s 100,000 critical illness 250,000 Life insurance

Erwin  

that costs you 150 a month and 150 a month. Right?

Arminda  

That’s I think it’s pretty good. Think about it one day when they’re in their 50s. And people are paying 1000s of dollars, possibly, they’re still going to be paying 150 And the way the critical illness insurance works. If you don’t use it in 20 years, you get it

Erwin  

all back. Because you know how know how lucky they are? They do they

Arminda  

do? They really do. You know, they honestly, we are three of us were team. They know everything, every decision that we make, actually in the process of selling a property that we own in Portugal right now. So yeah, yeah, that one we are going to sell because we don’t use it. We don’t need it. And so yeah, we were in the process of taking care of that. But every decision that’s made, it’s made between the three of us. What’s the

Erwin  

process like in selling a property located very complicated. So

Arminda  

the way the law in Portugal works when a spouse passes away, so when Frank passed away, not only do I inherit property, they inherit as well, automatically. It’s just to protect yeah, see here, everything even though they’re minors, it doesn’t matter. They get their share automatically. It’s kind of to protect kids. So it complicates things, though, right? override a will if I had a will, right. But we didn’t think about a well. And so we actually were waiting for Leandro to turning teen so we can sell this property, it would have been even more complicated. You can’t sell it because he’s a minor. We could have we could have earned but the thing is, he would need to have like a sponsor. So I couldn’t be a sponsor, because of obviously conflict of interest. Oh, yeah, it’s very complicated. And even now, there’s a big possibility the three of us might actually have To file to Portugal to sign I know the sale the contract because we need power of attorney. Well, in order to have power which need to have somebody with power of attorney, we need to go through the Portuguese consulate and that is a nightmare right now even to try to get an appointment to go there. It’s months on it. So my lawyer said you might have to come here which of the worst not the worst, but right now with Alexa adjustable rate? I don’t know. But you know, right now with Alexa being in dental school, she can’t just like Leandra next week actually has the week off, it says reading week, but not Alexia. So an all three of us have to be present. But it is a very complicated process. It’s not like here at all. No, not at all.

Erwin  

That’s the thing that people need to consider. Like, for example, I see all these people and understand that the path but because I’m so risk averse. I’m not the right person to ask. I see people for like investing in Ontario, and like, oh, I can do whatever I want here. So they only go to New Brunswick. And then they Oh, I can’t do what I want to do here. Then they go to the States, and like, oh, I can’t do what I want to do here. Then they go the Caribbean, right? Yeah. We’re a property laws so different everywhere you go. Yes, it is in like, for example, my friend who has a property in Costa Rica. But you know, here like we have a legal description for our property. Yes. Very, very specific. His legal description is like how many metres away? He is from the main intersection?

Arminda  

Wow. Yeah, that’s that the sanitary every country has very different laws.

Erwin  

Yeah. Like, to me, that’s like, that’s too much. That’s I’m incredibly risk averse. There’s so I’m the person that talks about making money fast. So

Arminda  

this is always said it’s long term. Right? What’s your long term goal?

Erwin  

Yeah. Get Rich, slow. Yeah. I mean, we none of us predictably get these properties or shoot up so quickly. Nobody expected the money, governments to print so much money in their global command dynamic. But yeah, near misses don’t sound that bad. No, but I think the listeners if you are investing, if you have more than I think if you have any sort of complexity in your investments in your assets, I think wills are a thing. For sure. I’m not anyone to talk, though. Cheering I only got ours done like two years ago. So we waited.

Arminda  

Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, even when it comes to wills, and things like that, nobody really wants to talk about it. I didn’t have a will either, to be honest with you. We didn’t have we didn’t have anything until Frank was was diagnosed. And I’ll never forget the surgeon. After he Frank came out of surgery, he said to me, you know, this is fatal, you know, that he’s going to pass away. And like right now I can say these words, see, would actually understand what they mean. But at the time, you know, you always have hope. And he said, Do you have a Will you have power of attorney? Do you have medical direction. And I was like what it was, I suggest you get that done as soon as possible. While he’s still coherent, while he still understands. So imagine my position or when knowing that my husband, literally, the doctor is telling me he’s going to die he has between seven months to 14 months to live. And how do you bring up we need to get a well done. So somehow I did. I don’t even remember exactly how I started the conversation. I think we’re in the hospital. And I think I said something like, You know what, maybe this is a sign from the universe that we need to get our paperwork. And we did, he came out of the hospital. And the next day, we’re at the lawyer’s office getting it all done, because I knew I was literally racing against time. Right. And because the minute he started with radiation, which was like a month after his surgery, he changed and he just was never the same Frank and I think that’s why we kept the so private. Had you seen Frank you know, the person he became with the illness? It was just I didn’t want people to see him that way. So I I was protecting him so even though the image you have a frank as a Frank, you know, being there and so we I just wanted to protect him. I wanted to like I said, the image you had of Frank was Frank, working at the houses and being so happy. Remember, he was me wanting to make sure how the basement was and even that house on Oldfield, we, we got it because we had no conditions on it. And, you know, he just became a very different person. And they took his driver’s licence away from him automatically. Wow. And, yeah. And he had bought a new truck. He had it. He had bought a new truck. You wanted this Ford truck. He bought it January of 2017. And he was diagnosed in March. So he drove it twice. He drove it twice. And yeah, so that’s why we kept it very private. A lot of people didn’t know he was sick. And then his funeral was very private, too. We had there were 20 of us at his funeral. That was a decision my kids made especially Alexia, I remember rehearsing. I don’t want people to come and tell me. You know, your dad was a great man. I knew my dad was a great person. Right? And yeah, so those have been our choices.

Erwin  

Well, I still think you both qualify as household heroes.

Arminda  

Thank you so much. It’s honestly, we’re trying our best, right? We’re trying our best. And like I said, like, I think we did everything. You know, well, we read we prepared ourselves. We thought we were going, like I said, travel when it’s continued travelling a lot. That’s one thing too, we’ve been able to do. I mean, pandemic did what it did. But in 2018, we did go to Portugal 2019, we were very lucky. We went to Italy. We went to Greece. And we did Portugal. So we were gone for a month. So that’s something that was very, very important for the kids to, to explore the world, right? We just went to Punta Cana this summer. So we’re still continuing with a lot of them. And now we have three dogs. So that’s the biggest change that I think that’s the only thing he would not have agreed on with us. He thought dogs are cute. But you know, it just wouldn’t really fit our lifestyle because we love to travel so much. wouldn’t change them for anything right now. They’ve been they’ve been you know, part of our healing process. So but we always say it’s not an end we actually made a little another little investment you we have a little resort style cottage in Muskoka. It’s basically you know, like srixon shores or they’ve turned used to be trailer parks into trailer home parks. So, so we did that and also 2020 because of the pandemic. We’re like, where are we going to go we have the dogs we like to travel. And Alexei came across this resort called Great Blue and lantern Bay, which is in Costa Gravenhurst. And we went to go check out this place, and we fell in love with it. So my best friend and I went on in as partners and we co own this little place and it’s great. It’s like a resort style place. So we have our own private beach pools. We have you some kayaks. So if I ever post say that I’m in Muskoka, that’s where we are. There’s a marina. So whoever has a boat has the marina. And so that’s another thing we’re like, would Frank have agreed with this Muskoka lifestyle? Because he didn’t believe in always going to the same place? And that’s exactly what we’re doing. Keep going to the same place. Right. But yeah,

Erwin  

what would you tell someone who’s who’s on the fence about investing?

Arminda  

Oh, go for it. 100% 100%. I tell my best friends all the time. They never took the plunge. And I tell them, Frank, that was the biggest thing Frank wanted for them was to invest. But they’re like, well, we don’t know what university our daughter is going to she ended up going to McMaster Believe it or not. And I remember saying the same thing Karen pearls like it doesn’t matter. The rule that I’ve learned is you should be within like a certain limit, right like area, and McMaster makes perfect sense. Even if Alexia goes somewhere else in either back to subsidise for her friends like I can help you for her rent somewhere else. Because it actually ended up happening with her daughter, Nicole, who went to Laurier believe Nicole went. So she she said, you know, she’s not going to McMaster. But guess what, I have enough now coming from McMaster that I can use that to help pay her rent. So yeah, so I, I always told my best friends do it. Do it the way we did it, right. And you know what? They haven’t invested. Their house has paid off. And I’m like, What are you guys waiting for? Right now? They’re like, well, the markets different. That’s a great market. No, it is right. So I got to have the conversation with

Erwin  

Americans or Arkansas like almost 30%. It was actually in the paper this morning, they held like Toronto was down this and Hamilton is also down this. They’re only they only have space for like three cities. Like how terrible it is. So prices are down.

Arminda  

What worries them, to be honest with you is, so if I have kind of that type of mortgage, I guess they always say, well, we’ll have we’ll pay a lot more for the properties than what you paid. Yes. Our mortgage will be Yes, exactly. So how do we make the numbers work? So that’s what they always worry about. How do we make the numbers work? Because they know my situation, right? Like, is very profitable for me right now? With 12 rooms, right? I think I’m there’s like a net at the end of month of $1,500 each and both together.

Erwin  

That’s pretty good. That’s

Arminda  

really good. I know, right? It’s a lot of money. And that’s why I also had wanted to invest because I was like, oh, maybe that can actually even help cover another mortgage or you know, or eventually we’ll we’ll get there again.

Erwin  

Ya know, in turn are gonna find all the property within 12 months, are

Arminda  

you Oh, yeah. See that? Maybe that’s what we got to do. Like what

Erwin  

markets different, you know, 10 months ago prices are high interest rates are low. Yeah. Now interest rates are high prices are low. Well, would you rather have?

Arminda  

I know right, the lower price, the lower price, especially if you have tenants who are praying for your Yeah, your mortgage. Right. Yeah. Specifically student rental rentals. I love them.

Erwin  

But the rent though is wet. Well exceeded inflation. Yes. Yes. What else do you want?

Arminda  

It’s it’s a win win situation for us. No pun intended, but it’s a win win.

Erwin  

Ya know, my two cents about that no matters. But I think Frank would be incredibly, incredibly proud of you all.

Arminda  

Thank you so much. For the kids. Thank you.

Erwin  

Great. I remember Leandra would was, I think he was doing the I forget which dance you were teaching me one of the dance that the cool kids are doing? He was 11 at the time was 11. At the time. Yeah. Because we’re in a we’re in a an empty property probably was an estate sale. So it was empty, very tired, looking. Bored. And, yeah, here he is. Now He’s the mayor.

Arminda  

And honestly, I, a lot of people asked me, Are your kids closer to you now that daddy isn’t here? And I’m like, No, we were always like this, where we set a very strong foundation, strong base, we believe in doing things together. Now, they have a different appreciation for their mom, possibly, they see that no matter what we don’t quit, no matter how hard things get. We just we push through it. And we have and I think if anything, that’s the legacy that I hope to leave for them now is no matter how hard life gets, you just push through it, and everything will be okay. The Universal may not always be what you want it to be. Like, obviously, we wish Frank was here. You know, there’s always like, I wonder what life would have been like right now, like, how many more properties would we have had, but that’s going to be left in that other lifetime. And now we could only move forward right and have different dreams and continue.

Erwin  

Just not necessarily are better. Yeah. You know, having the outcomes that you have two kids in school to Happy Healthy Kids. Exactly. It’s it’s more important.

Arminda  

100% Because you know, the odds, when you think of like, all of a sudden, that could have gone the other way, right with the loss of their dad. And especially Andrew went through a lot because Alexi was away she was sheltered by being in school bully, enter was there he was my right arm taking care of daddy. So he he has, he’s, you know, he’s 18 Now, but he’s very mature, because he’s seen a lot. And yeah, like now today he came, he chose me. He’s my Uber drivers I call him.

Erwin  

So there’s different levels of like, financial, whatever. Like there’s financial security, or financial freedom, which is the other end of the scale. There’s financial, bad, dammit, if it wasn’t Tony Robbins book, how would you describe your situation like you’ve never gone back to work, I never

Arminda  

gone to back to work don’t. So we also have a little construction company as well, which my brother manages in the sense of he, so he’s doing what Frank was doing, right. He always my brother always worked for us. So right now, you know, between whatever I, whatever profits I get from the company, I have a salary from the company. And that’s that, and Frank had a pension. I forgot to mention that to you. So he worked for his union was local and 183. So because there was a 13 year difference between Frank and I are 55. He got his pension. Even though he was still working almost like a teacher’s you can still even get your pension. Because of the age difference. He didn’t get his full pension right away, which was a smart thing to do. So I will get his pension for the rest of my life. As long as I’m living. I get his pension so that that’s another source. I know no other source of income.

Erwin  

I gotta imagine French pretty proud of himself.

Arminda  

Yeah, he is honestly, like, like I told you, we did almost everything perfect. Except getting that life insurance. principal residence. But nothing’s perfect, right? Nothing’s

Erwin  

perfect. Those who wait for perfection often don’t do anything. 100%, which is way worse.

Arminda  

Yeah. So a lot of people wonder how does she do it? Well, I got to thank my husband. Obviously, it was a collaboration between both of us, where we’d be like, yeah, maybe we should get this and maybe we should get that and, and we were really prepared. In case things went bad. Not that we ever thought they would. Right. But here we are. Right.

Erwin  

I mean, thank you so much for doing this. All right. Thank you. Oh, and FYI, Margaret, and Carol is still yet to come on the podcast. You’re the first one here.

Arminda  

Really? Oh, no. They have a lot of valuable information. They don’t think so. Oh, they do. They do while they’re both travelling.

Erwin  

Before they were travelling. They were invited.

Arminda  

Yeah, you gotta get them because honestly, I owe like I said, I owe everything to Carol. Especially all her guidance, all her guidance. Even I remember the first lease before we had to use the Ontario leases. She was like, here’s a lease here’s we’re gonna do she sometimes I gave her. Okay, so. So we have to thank you. We have to thank you. Okay, it’s partly part of the job. Yeah. So yeah, but you know what, she made it easy for me. And I was willing to do the same for my best friend. I told her listen, the tools that I was given I will pass them on.

Erwin  

So you better believe I’m gonna give my least to Carol was a lawyer like free lawyer review. You get a free lawyer review to

Arminda  

honestly what having really good friends, right? This is what what? Yeah, even the first meetings that that we went to. She took me as a guest. So that’s how I learned a lot of stuff,

Erwin  

man. Please take the first step. Yeah, we thought we saw the meetings, not as frequently but we still have them. Yeah.

Arminda  

And even all the things that cherry put sell. It’s so valuable. It’s it’s absolutely amazing. So you guys are a wealth of information. We try. No, you really are you don’t try you guys work really hard. work really, really hard.

Erwin  

could work harder.

Arminda  

Oh, I know. I don’t think so. You know what you got to live life to

Erwin  

share what’s going on Portugal? We can talk to her about it. Oh,

Arminda  

and you should? Honestly obviously Portugal is such a hidden gem like people think of Italy and Spain. Portugal looks exactly the same. A lot cheaper,

Erwin  

has grown. America is not nearly as attractive with Exchange

Arminda  

right now. No. No, it’s not. It’s nice to go to Europe. Right. Have you been to that side of the world?

Erwin  

A long time. Yeah. All right, Myrna thanks so much for doing

Arminda  

this Q. Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure and an honour. Thank you so much.

Erwin  

Before you go if you’re interested in learning more about an alternative means of cash flowing like hundreds of other real estate investors have already, then sign up for my newsletter and you’ll learn of the next free demonstration webinar I’ll be delivering on the subject of stock hacking. It’s much improved demonstration over the one that I gave to my cousin chubby at Thanksgiving dinner in 2019. He now averages 1% cash flow per week, and he’s a musician by trade. As a real estate investor myself, I got into real estate for the cash flow. But with the rising costs to operate a rental business, it’s just not the same as it was five to 10 years ago when I started there. Forgive the cash flow reduces your risk. The more you have, the more lumps you can absorb. And if you have none, or limited cash flow, you’re going to be paying out of your pocket like it did on a recent basement flood at my student rental in St. Catharines. Ontario. If you’re interested in learning more, but it’s true for free for my newsletter at www dot truth about real estate investing.ca Enter your name and email address on the right side will include in the newsletter when we announce our next free stock hacker demonstration. Find out for yourself what so many real estate investors are doing to diversify and increase our cash flow. And if you can’t tell I love teaching and sharing this stuff.

 

 

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