Hello Real Estate Investors!

Clockwise from Top left: Akon inviting the ladies to dance on stage, Danielle Laporte, Lewis Howes, Naveen Jain, Simon Sinek, Jason Gaignard of Mastermind Talks and I, Daymond John, Nicole Arbour

What a great weekend at the Archangel Summit!! They describe themselves as “An annual gathering of mission-driven entrepreneurs, leaders, and professionals who want to do well by doing good. 100% of the proceeds will be gifted forward to The Archangel Fund, which is used to provide micro-loans and donations to entrepreneurs and charities making the world a better place.” A business conference with a conscience.

Basically, it was a conference with speakers who help entrepreneurs and they have a social conscience. In my (Erwin) own small way, I try to do the same by giving back to the community (by the way, HamiltonBasketBrigade.com is in action again Oct 7th, delivery 300 Thanksgiving dinners to the poor). Keynote speakers include Daymond John, you know him from the TV Reality Show “Shark Tank,” and founder of the clothing brand FUBU (if you or your kids like hip hop, you know the brand); best selling author Simon Sinek, recording artist Akon, Danielle Laporte who Oprah is big fan of. Anyways, the Sony Centre was packed with 2,000 like minded folks, entrepreneurs who want to change the world for the better. After a summer of vacation, enjoying the family, letting my restrictive diet slip a bit… it’s summer, I see ice cream, I eat ice cream; same goes with burgers on a bun :). Archangel was the perfect ra ra event to get fired up again to close out 2017 on a high! On our latest podcast episode, Charles Wah and I recount our takeaways from Archangel 2017 and if you enjoy these types of events, then you’ll want to have a listen.

This week I’m excited to bring to you the return of Charles Wah, you might remember him from our land development interview six months ago and he’s fresh off the set of Scott McGilvray’s newest show to give you all an update on his land development projects and the new investments and building development projects he has on the go.  We’ll take a sneak peak at the behind the scenes of HGTV’s biggest star, how Charles spends his off time, and we will share our thought’s and lessons from the phenomenal Archangel Summit. It was so good, we already purchased our VIP tickets for the Archangel Summit in September 2018.  You want to know WHY this super successful and very young investor does what he does? Then have a listen….

Hello Real Estate Investors!

Who wants to golf?! Not me. Swinging golf clubs is tough on my shoulders as it’s repetitive, I swing way too hard, and I have no technique. It all started when John from podcast episode 6-years-part-time-and-600k-in-returns reached out asking if I wanted to golf and I responded, let’s do something fun instead. The somewhat local gun club (Silverdale Gun Club) had a special on a sniper rifle package and that’s what we did on a Friday afternoon at the gun club. We shot a couple rounds with an AR15, SKS, Remington 700, and the big daddy of them all, BMG 50 which weighed in at 34 lbs and each additional bullet would cost us $15 per. Don’t worry if the gun names mean nothing to you. I have no idea either, this was only my third time ever holding a gun in five years…. Our instructor Eric was patient and excellent and the gang agreed, it was better than playing 18 holes. We all had fun but make no mistake, the afternoon was a productive one because everyone one in attendance is an active investor with numerous properties and leaders in their fields. When you spend time with like minded people, you are guaranteed success. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

There is nothing wrong with having fun but if you can, make it a mastermind with successful folks. Talk to your Accountant too because maybe the costs are tax deductible

Speaking of masterminds…

Inaugural Halton Real Estate Investors Group Meeting

Short version:
All is the same, in our pursuit of cash flowing properties we expanded beyond Hamilton years ago and a brand change was necessary. Think of this as Microsoft Word’s “find and replace” of the words “Mr Hamilton” and replace with “Halton REI.” The same award winning service and same people but we are adding some more exceptional talent to the team.

Long version:
When I first started investing, we were breaking even on single family homes near downtown Burlington. The first property was just over $150,000 for a 2 bed, 1 bath bungalow in the downtown core of Burlington, which later became a high in demand area forcing prices up. The second property was in a bit better condition on the same street but $235,000 with not much better rents. Rents went up but did not keep pace with prices. We then directed our focus to the west in Waterdown, one of the more affluent areas of Hamilton and the same happened, real estate prices went up faster than rents then I looked to the west again to invest in west Hamilton. In 2012, again I went west and purchased several properties in St. Catharines. 2013, we purchased two investment properties in Brantford, 2014-17 I purchased more properties in Hamilton. As an investor, our objective is positive cash flow in area with strong economic fundamentals. Today, our team of real estate coaches/agents do so much business in St. Catharines and Niagara region that we often acquire more houses there than Hamilton as Hamilton prices have risen over 20% each year for the last three years. Our pursuit of cash flow has expanded our search for income properties to Brantford and Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge. Many of you know we conduct business outside of Hamilton as you have seen the invites for Street Smart Tours of St. Catharines, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, on top of Hamilton hence it is time for a change in brand from Mr. Hamilton (MrHamilton.ca) to the Halton Real Estate Investors Group (HaltonREI.ca). The name, branding and colours may be different but you can expect the same award winning service and same people lead by me (Erwin) but we are adding some more exceptional talent to the team and will make announcements when official.

We are also moving our meetings to a new location: we’ve out grown the Rock Star Office’s training room, though we loved the price and convenience, we could use more space for comfort and to allow more attendees as in the past, we’ve had to wait list and turn away people.  We want everyone to have a chance at financial freedom so we are relocating to the Sheridan College’s Conference Centre located at 1410 Trafalgar Rd, Oakville, ON, just north of the QEW.

The room can accommodate 90 people so do feel free to invite your friends, co-workers, and family if they too are interested in financial security via real estate.

Stay tuned, we’re still working out details to make registering for the event on Sept 23rd as seamless as possible.

I can’t wait to see you all again September 23rd.

~Erwin

I am super proud of my little cousin Christopher, here I am wearing his Timmy’s visor.  He’s not really little anymore as he just turned 17 but he did get a summer job at Tim Hortons. He’s still in training but the plan is he’ll keep working when he’s back to school to save up money for a car.  Christopher is crazy passionate about all vehicles: tanks, planes, trains, cars, bikes. I seriously ask for his advice when buying cars but I have to temper his preferences as he seems to think I operate without a budget.  I don’t need a BMW M3 or M5, I don’t care about the extra 2-300 horsepower, I care about my monthly payments and how much of my lease is tax deductible

I’m proud because he’ll learn hard work, team work, and eventually, how much it sucks to work for minimum wage in the service industry to motivate him to something bigger and better.  I want the same for my kids as their lives are sheltered and privileged, nothing like our parents and grandparents and great grandparents.  Both my wife and I come from extremely hard working, impoverished families.  My wife’s family are farmers who work directly on the land.  My grandfather was a labourer and his brother worked on the Canadian railway.  All back breaking work.  My back gets sore if I sit or stand for too long

But I know for a fact we investors work hard to build our real estate business and like I want my kids to learn hard work, I’d like government employees and those who think raising taxes and costs (hydro, minimum wage) on small business should start their own small business.  Based on our governments own statistics, failure is high, “In 2013, the total number of SME births was 78,430, compared with 83,240 deaths, which resulted in a net decrease of 4,810 businesses.” source: https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/h_03018.html#toc-04. Our Federal government promised us a balance budget, looks like raising taxes in the short term while hindering the growth of small business is the plan.  The same small business responsible for 8.2 million jobs in Canada (same source).

For anyone with a small to medium sized business including real estate investors who invest using corporations, you’re probably as disappointed as I am in Minister Morneau’s proposed changes to the tax benefits we small business work so hard to earn.  Here’s a great one line summary of the proposal: “income taxes are highly unfavourable to business owners and investors who, unlike consumers, pay tax twice: once when they earn their income and a second time after they invest it and pay taxes on the returns.” “These measures, contrary to much of the news coverage, aren’t just targeted at the “rich” but will also hit middle-class business owners, are expected to increase federal taxes by $250 million, and provincial revenues by roughly another half of that. This is just one more way to discourage entrepreneurship, on top of all the tax increases in the past two years. If the Republicans’ plan for tax reform happens in the U.S., even more young entrepreneurs will be looking to head south instead of here.“

source: http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/jack-mintz-morneaus-tax-changes-wont-just-hurt-the-rich-but-they-will-hurt-growth/wcm/ba296d67-6ba5-4866-969b-2a0c81541844

With these proposed new taxes going on, I caught up with real estate Accountant Cherry Chan, chartered professional Accountant.  She’s also a mom, a small business owner with employees and a real estate investor with several properties so she’s no different than you and I accept she knows a bit about tax and accounting.

In this episode, Cherry will talk about how these changes are bad for your business and what you can do about it.

Without further ado, I present to you, real estate Accountant Cherry Chan.

For a more detailed summary on how what a real estate Accountant thinks of these changes, click here: http://realestatetaxtips.ca/tax-changes-entrepreneur/

For a FREE copy of Cherry’s book: COMPLETE TAXATION GUIDE TO CANADIAN REAL ESTATE INVESTING: HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR REAL ESTATE PORTFOLIO AND MINIMIZE TAX, click here: http://realestatetaxtips.ca/book/

Google Play: http://goo.gl/CAM5Mn

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/truth-about-real-estate-investing…/id1100488294

On Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=87335&refid=stpr

Download as an MP3 by right clicking here and choosing “save as”