** Transcript Auto-Generated**

Erwin 0:00
Losing 175,000 land, private funding, accidental long term landlord, finding joy and a cottage short term rental scaling to a motel Grossing over $100,000 in 90 days so far, and you’ll never guess where that motel is. All this and more on this week’s Truth about real estate investing show for Canadians Konichiwa. My friends from Osaka, Japan. Hello my fellow wealth hackers cerwin cedary here, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to produce this episode this week because the jetlag has been a bit of a B. Japan standard time is 14 hours ahead of Toronto time. So that’s 17 hours ahead of Vancouver time. It’s actually easier to book a call with one in Vancouver. For some I can do call someone in Vancouver at like four therefore pm and it’d be like my 9am this time. So it’s yeah, it’s better than Toronto time. A friend of mine asked me if I was looking at real estate while here in Japan. And while we’re having a blast here, this is my second visit to Japan, first with chariot kids. What I love about this country is how polite and respectful the people are, how dedicated the Japanese are to their craft and how they go outside the job description to deliver value. First off, there is no tipping here in Japan. Excellent service is part of the standard inclusion in the price that one pays, including taxi drivers to waitresses, taxi, taxi drivers here will even wear suit and tie as well. One waitress even tracked down my daughter’s e meter. Long story short, long story short, my daughter left her Kobo e reader in the bathroom of a kabuki theater. We thought she left the restaurant so charity called the restaurant. They didn’t have it but the waitress took down chairs email, she on her own volition she contacted security. It’s a big business big building. So check the security. Luckily someone turned it in in the waitress and we got Sherry to let her know that to go where to go pick it up the next day. And we did. Awesome. Oh, that’s interesting. What’s interesting here is the streets and subways are spotless. There are no public trash cans. It there is no litter. Everyone’s expect to consume their own food and drink. Take a container and take it back or just consume it where they bought it or take it take it home to to take it home and put it in their own garbage. Personally, I’m a big fan of being organized efficient manners and kindness. Japan has it all in spades. But that’s not enough. Benefit. You’ll know I’m big on studying economics, Japan leads the g7 nations in GDP per capita Well, ahead of even the Americans. While we in Canada, we’re second last only to Italy in Russia projected to fall behind Italy pretty soon. So we will be last among among g7 nations are also lacking in kindness these days. As hate crimes are skyrocketing back home. Since October 7, hate crimes have doubled. So just in a month and a half, hate crimes in Toronto have doubled the entire totals from last year and 2022. I don’t know what my Canada is coming to will invest in China. Sorry, in Japan. Japan’s been up in China. No, I haven’t considered it because like many developed countries, Japan is dying. Their birth rate is among the lowest at 1.3 per woman, according to the World Bank data, which is well below the 2.2 required to maintain a population. And so we’re stuck here in Japan. Also in Canada, we’re stuck with a declining population. I don’t know. Short term rentals or hotels seem to make more sense here in Japan. Partly because tourism is extremely hot here. It helps that the yen super cheap. There are and I’ve noticed in just walking around town, both in Tokyo in here in Osaka. There are a ton of boutique hotels and a ton of tourists. It also looks like all the newer buildings are happening the hotel condos for for regular residential use. Where the Americans do you have the Japanese beat is there cheap, affordable real estate all over the country. Outside of California and New York, they have a culture versus compared to the Asian culture. American culture is the men in American culture are more likely to raise help raise kids. And then that when you combine those two things, along with many other things, they have more kids. The Americans have a higher actually have among the highest birth rates among the g7. So as I do research all the time on this sort of stuff, I enjoy keeping you enjoy understanding how to how to optimize my in be efficient with my real estate portfolio. So I’ve done a lot of research on the Americans on markets where to invest. So I’ll put together work to aggregate all my research so in to share with the community will charge so whenever you might activist so that can stop repeating myself why places like Texas is a better investment than Alberta? Yes and that burning US dollars is better than Canadian dollars. If you don’t believe me ask any Japanese bank which currency they prefer to, to convert currency for or have a relationship with a bank with Right? Or really you can ask any bank in the world which they prefer which currency they prefer. Which country do they have more relationships with banks. Now the frequently frequently asked question is am I investing in Florida? No. I do love Disneyworld. I do enjoy my trips to Fort Lauderdale. I love Florida big fan of visiting there. But I despise risk with my investments. And that includes inflating insurance costs anchor a case, I just want boring, uneventful cash flow. And I want to make money in US dollars in our spend US dollars when I travel. And I can’t wait to do more site visits, like in places like Memphis, Tennessee, Las Vegas, Nevada, Phoenix, Arizona, all some places to visit, I could argue that are much more fun places to visit, then Edmonton, Alberta. And again, they all have great economic fundamentals, with each with 1000s of manufacturing jobs on the way the Americans are investing. I think three quarters of a trillion dollars Americans are investing in bringing in reshoring manufacturing back back to the US. Go ahead and try finding those kind of numbers in Canada or anywhere else in the world. Again, I’ll work with you on that US research report so that you may compare any of these landlord friendly markets have no real control no LTB against whatever city or province that you’re looking at. My agent Dad always raised me to look out for what is the best the best is usually the let me to humble me. And let me know that there was always someone better and a no different real estate in my investments. Which means again, finding the most effective investment that will get you the listener and myself towards our goal of early retirement or financial peace as fast as possible. My research says for most people, most of the time, it’s boring cash flowing properties in the sunbelt states, if you buy it right and managed by top tier property management, proper above board financing, and that’s all possible. And six months ago, this wasn’t possible. As far as I knew. This is exactly what we’ll be teaching on Saturday Jay with their team in partnership with share single family rentals and lens city with Scott doing them at our island offices in Oakville which will be available via virtual zoom as well. We’ll have about 40 seats in person. Those sold out within the first two weeks last time. So the details are in the newsletter, in our email newsletter in the show notes so make sure you get make sure you purchase especially if you want in person a spot in person. Please book that ASAP. On with this week’s show. This week we have the lovely Victoria Clooney on the show who has a very different journey will be very different journey but she is the first on this show. For in understand we’ve had somewhere on 330 episodes to interpret the episodes. She’s the first career Canadian versus fourth personnel to be on on the show. Victoria shares her journey of how she stumbled upon being a landlord by renting her home when she was transferred for work worked in different phases, which is common among among among military personnel. Apparently, she while she made great money. It wasn’t until she discovered or she developed her cottage property. She built additional

additional cabins on our cottage property for short term rental purposes during the pandemic. And that was when she what she realized that she enjoyed most about investing in real estate returns now has since leveled up in her into commercial recreational property. Specifically, she’s bought, renovated, rented sort of and she’s about to refinance a motel in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, which is a vibrant and historical coastal town known for its unique architecture and rich maritime heritage. If you if you’re from out east, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s the perfect location for a vacation property. And could you do yourself a favor, check out the breeze motel on Instagram. I got the link in the show notes as well as pictures. It’s stunning. So also understand it has a little bit of sweet, smooth and easy journey from for Victoria. And she shares on today’s episode, including the she’s owed $175,000 from a private borrower. She hasn’t heard back from them in a year. Unfortunately, this is someone that I’ve always known as a bad operator. Always do reference checks people. Again, I do think this is a good episode. And as more and more best shooters, especially specifically Canadian veterans want to precipitation away from long term rentals. Commercial is one way to go. So in Spa Victoria Chikara on Instagram, Victoria Cooney, that’s one word. She has her own meetup called invest her in Ottawa. And please know the show.

Hi, Victoria, happy Halloween. I know this office, this office will be released in about three weeks time, but Happy Halloween to you and what’s keeping you busy these days other than dressing up.

Speaker 1 10:48
I do have my costume fear. I opted not to just because it will be presented later on. But keeping me busy. I’m juggling a lot. I Yeah. What am I working on. So we’re just closing up a very, very busy season with our motel it was was our first season that we opened our motel going through some refinances right now on a couple of properties, working on a development project with some partners. And I’m starting a partnership with the tiny homes company. So those are some big things keeping me busy. Also my family, we’re going to be doing trick or treating tonight. Work.

Erwin 11:35
Okay, where do we start? How long? How long have you been? How long has your military career been?

Unknown Speaker 11:40
I joined in 2001. So we’re just over 2022

Speaker 1 11:45
years of service, it’s you know, it’s it’s even hard for me to believe that it’s been that long. I really do. I can remember the first day that I joined and the feelings that I had. And now to look back of a full career. It’s just amazing.

Erwin 12:06
My cousin joined DISA, he works on the electronics in your in your your large shipping airplanes. Okay, all right. What are the big ones? The ones that deliver tanks, for example?

Speaker 1 12:20
Okay, great. So I also saw Navy, that’s the uniform that I wear. But I actually work the Air Force right now and have been working for the Air Force for quite some time. Fabulous.

Erwin 12:31
So you might want to, and I was super excited for him because it’s a wonderful career. It’s amazing person. It’s fantastic. Yeah, pension. Training. Wasn’t that hard for tolls? No.

Speaker 1 12:47
Overtime, that’s for sure it. And it is the military is I joined when I was 18 years old. And so it was a big shock for me. And 2001 is a lot different than 2023 type of service. But you know, what you learn from it is incredible. Anybody in the military, you can just tell the difference in the way that they carry themselves the way that they can adapt and overcome and the organizational side of things and just the push through things like there’s a different way I’d hire somebody from the military any day.

Erwin 13:29
My cousin told me he’s also when he was roughly 18. Great. And it’s like he’s making money while he’s getting his training. While his friends are all paying money to be in college and university.

Speaker 1 13:41
You don’t even want to know like I just came out of two years of a master’s program that was fully sponsored by the military. So I just completed my master’s of organizational psychology that I did full time at Carleton.

Erwin 13:54
Okay, and then what do you got to do with that degree?

Speaker 1 13:57
So now I’m working for the forces and the position that I’m in right now is specific to the degree so really, they pre posted me so I came from Nova Scotia about two and a half years ago to go to Carleton and then when I finished then I was then posted to work for the Air Force on the selection side. Alright, I know you’ve more Scotia. I am well okay, I should say. That’s where I spent probably the most chunk of time in my life but my dad was also military. So I was born into the military. We lived in Germany. We lived in southern Ontario for a while. Cambridge, Guelph, and then I moved to Nova Scotia when I joined the forces because I went navy.

Erwin 14:47
Fascinating. And then how long you plan on staying there? You’d like it sounds in Ottawa. We land in part of the armed forces. Oh

Speaker 1 14:58
armed forces. So I’m under obligatory service for three years because of the school program. And that does get me to my 25th year of service. And at that time, I’m going to be fully pension. But I do love what I do. There’s a real sense of pride, loyalty, of course, with the military. And so I don’t want to just walk away, but you know, from an investing side have been investing for a long time as well. And that’s going really well for me, and I have a real passion for that. And so I’m thinking that I might just transfer into the reserves. So I’m Reg force, which means full time. And we want to put our roots down here in Ottawa for the first time, I want to finally, you know, secure myself somewhere, and not always have that in the back of my mind that I’m going to be moving. And also for our sons really important. So my, my plan, and that can always change, but is to transfer into the reserves, when my obligatory service is done.

Erwin 16:04
Super cool.

Unknown Speaker 16:06
contracts.

Erwin 16:06
How is how’s the pension work? This is an investing show. Is it like teachers like what is like 60 70% of your last five years pay typing? So

Speaker 1 16:16
it is five years last five years pay. And if I get to 20 years, or sorry, 25 years, it’ll be 50%. Fabulous. And I’m under the, this whole lamb I’m under the grandfather clause. So I’m actually at 20 years I was pensionable. So now, I’m going past my 20 years. And I can become an immediate annuity, which means that I would then start to collect my pension right away, if I retired.

Erwin 16:45
That’s awesome. It’s pretty good.

Speaker 1 16:47
Um, it’s, you know, at 18, I would look back, and I’m just so grateful that I started when I did, because now I can, you know, live another life after this. Why I’m still

Erwin 16:59
young. Exactly. You know, what it is today, if someone joins today is the pension different. So

Speaker 1 17:05
the pension, now you have to go to 25 years where before it used to be, they take you on shorter contracts. So you can do each occupation would have their own length of time, but it’s typically about three years that you would sign for, and then you would get offered another contract. And then basically, another one that would take you to 25 years. And you can continue, we’ve got some people I ran into somebody yesterday, who’s at 39 years of service right now.

Erwin 17:36
They enjoy that much. They do. So for example, like my cousin’s housing costs are like a joke. Is that pretty much true, if you want, if you wanted to, like the your whole,

Speaker 1 17:47
depends where you live. So certain areas will have, they call them pm cues. I think its primary military quarters, and so are personal military quarters, one or the other. But then you can have, it’s like rentals, and you get on a waitlist, and depending on the area will be how available that they are. But they’re quite affordable compared to what it would be like, I don’t know what autos are, but the options are there. And so because you’re being told to move, really sometimes at a moment’s notice, it’s out of your control, you’re going into areas that you might not know, there’s two sides of the military, there’s going to be somebody who will go into pm cues their whole career, and never buy a property. Or there’s people like me that every time you get posted, you’re accumulating properties, and you’re investing in those areas.

Erwin 18:44
That’s awesome. Yeah, Mike, like, I’ll get off this topic soon because his listeners bored. But I think it’s important for young people, there’s a lot of young people listen to the show like this is an option. And the pension is incredibly important, because I think the statistic is somewhere around 50%. If you do not have a pension for those Canadians, the average Canadian 50% of them will not who do not have a pension will never be able to retire. So here’s why I think it’s incredibly important. And in the Canadian Armed Forces pension is likely one of the good ones. This is like unfortunately, fight for Sears employees like their pensions gone. Good job

Speaker 1 19:19
security that you have current and then afterwards and knowing that I remember 2008 I was posted to Virginia. I was actually in Norfolk, Virginia, during the crash of oh eight and, you know, you look around and people were losing jobs, banks were just shutting down, they’re open one day closed another the housing crisis that was going on, and I remember just feeling so secure. And I had properties then too, and I knew that I could still pay my mortgage. I knew that regardless of what was going to happen, that all those bills were still going to be covered. You get that job security, you are able to be banks love me, because both my husband and I are military. And so having that is also just great for credit. Great for lending. Financing.

Erwin 20:11
Yeah, I’m like other gurus out there. I’m not anti job. No, no, I’m pro highest and best use 100%. You know for like, I talk to people about active real estate investing all the time. And I let them know what the risks are and what the pay can be. But if someone’s highest and best, it’s hard for, for most people to make five figures as a real estate investor. versus you know, in a job, it’s pretty easy. And you don’t want to risk your own capital.

Speaker 1 20:41
Absolutely, we’ve got a great quality of life that’s important to us. And so we were not eating, you know, ramen noodles every night. Like we live in a nice home, we use a lot of our, what we earn for with our paychecks, our salary affords our lifestyle, and then my investments, I just keep regenerating it back into what I’m doing. And so I’m able to almost live these two streams, and it gives me a lot of comfort and happiness. And I also know that we’re setting ourselves up for the future.

Erwin 21:14
So let’s talk about real estate investing. So how did you start as a real estate investor was it just due to just kept properties whenever you moved, you bought something when you moved to a city kept it, rented it out, and you just kept going that way.

Speaker 1 21:24
Like it really started to unintentionally I was very young. So I was getting posted from Ontario to Nova Scotia, I was about 20 years old. And that was 2004 and decided to have a pre construction townhouse. And so I went through the process of picking out the flooring, picking out the cabinets, you know, the contractors would give me samples, and I would choose them. And I felt really out of my element because I was about 20 and lived in it for the first year saw the market what was happening with the properties around it was a brand new subdivision, and then sold it and did it again. So I made profit for that first one, and then move to a bigger one, which was a house. And so now I have allowances that I’m dealing with. And so I’m just starting to, I remember thinking like where’s the sockets, light sockets, gonna go in the rooms like picking the colors of the roof and the siding and all of that. And then from there, saved up enough to buy a bungalow. And then I got posted to the US. And at that time, I needed to rent out the bungalow, because I was going to lose a lot of money if I went and sold it three months later. And so then I put tenants in that bungalow. And I remember I was looking back through my emails, I don’t know, like a month ago, and actually found my old emails where I was putting ads out and I’m talking to my friends, having them. So that’s one benefit of the military is that you’ve got all these, you know, brothers and sisters, family members, essentially. And so we’re kids, I’m in the US. And then I have my friends are now looking out for my bungalow with tenants, I put tenants in it. I returned a year later, and I didn’t have the heart to ask the tenants to leave to move out. And so I again had saved up enough money and I purchased a condo, lived in that and then saved up enough money just outgrew the condo and then moved into a bigger house. And so really, I started to like leapfrog my way through and there was about a 10 year period. So I’m going through all of this and I’m accumulating and every property I’m making some returns on and I’m just slowly getting through everything. But I’m not savvy, whatsoever. There’s not really any social media, I don’t think to look into investing, I’m no intention, I’m just figuring it out. And then I got so resentful of being a landlord. I also was not. I was too cheap to hire property managers. I was never raising rents. I was just maintaining and but still just in that mindset that I didn’t want to pay for property manager. So as a result, I decided to sell everything. And by that time I’d met my husband and I had convinced him to rent out his condo in BC. And so we had, you know, properties all over, decided to sell everything. And then we saw the money. It was the first time that I that actually tapped into the returns and saw the funds and we knew right then in there that all that resentment all of the headaches or fearing the phone calls from the tenants was worth it. We just need to be strategic about it. And so that was where that was a big shift for me. And so we took our funds and we went right back into the market, but this time now purchasing duplexes. Smaller multifamily Lise, and then I even purchased some monkeys on a lake. And I turned that into a glamping retreat. And so once I decided to become intentional, things just like opened up, I started to research, I started to educate myself and look for the opportunities instead of just getting by.

Erwin 25:23
Fantastic. Yeah,

Speaker 1 25:24
it was really, I mean, I look back, and I’m really proud of the the young girl that was figuring it out, obviously, I wish that she knew she had somebody in her life to say like, No, this is, this is the direction because there was nobody in my life that was doing what I was doing. And so I was just figuring that out. But now, now that I know to be intentional, and look at everything, strategically, sky’s the limits. You know, I’m almost like a kid in the candy store. Now I’m just making up for all this time, and I’m just trying to absorb and, and just grow.

Erwin 26:04
I remember those days, early those days, like early 2000s, there wasn’t much real estate education or meetings or networking. Rain was by far the biggest outfit. They were fantastic. But if you didn’t know about them, really, there was only the rich dad, then back back in the early days a rich dad in Canada, it was largely American stuff.

Speaker 1 26:22
Yeah, yeah. And so that just wasn’t my scene. And I wasn’t social media. To me, again, when you’re in the military, you’re not very drawn to social media. It’s not something that especially in the early days, nobody really knew how to handle it. And so for me, I was never on it. And I never really had it. I mean, you had your normal just like Facebook for your family. But up to very minimal. It wasn’t until I had the glamping retreat. And it was beautiful location that I didn’t want to inundate my family with all these pictures of but I wanted to take pictures all the time. And I posted it on Airbnb. So I decided to create an Instagram account. And I called it bunkies on the lake and it blew up like this account all of a sudden, we’re getting so much attention from guests people who want to stay now we’re converting these people into guests. We had the the news reached out to me to do a segment we had photographers wanting to come. And it was that time I dislike I realized the power of social media for business.

Erwin 27:33
Okay, how do I find it? Or what do I pay? So

Speaker 1 27:35
now so I’ve sold it? And so it’s owned it but you can I believe I changed. So I kept the account. And I just love the pictures. I think if you look up Clooney, STR, you can find them? If not, I’ll send you the link to it. George Clooney. Yeah, I know, spelt a little different. But I wish we had those connections.

Erwin 27:57
Okay, we want to promote them necessary. Because I know you have a motel business,

Speaker 1 28:01
I do have a motel. So really, it’s, you know, that transition constantly just growing and using the skills and knowledge that I’ve developed throughout this whole life in this journey. And just being able to maximize it. It’s been the theme.

Erwin 28:19
So I want to I want to spend some time on this. So you went from single family, long term and some small multi residential long term rentals. Right? And just from your energy pickup, you’re more excited about the recreational property? Very

Speaker 1 28:35
much. So it’s no, I still have the long term like a really I like having a diversified portfolio. And for me, it’s pretty uncomfortable with the long term rentals. I’m not comfortable with the short term. But yeah, long term is fine. You know, it’s there’s a lot not keen on what’s going on right now between the landlords and the tenants. I talked about feel good investing a lot. And so when I’m looking to purchase and the rates are the the price that sellers wants today does not reflect what the revenue is coming in. But there’s nothing that we can do about it. And I’m not, I don’t feel good about coming in and clean, sweeping tenants. If tenants you know, that’s the worst thing that they’re doing is paying under market value. I wish that there was a mechanism in place where we can balance it, I think that there’s it should be fair, but that’s not where we’re at right now. So I’m not going to purchase a property to intentionally remove good tenants out of that property. But I was seeing a lot of that happening around me I’ve seen that that was a lot of the messaging going on. And for me, I just like came to a day and I remember it very vividly and just said like I’m only going to focus on feel good investing. I’m not doing this because I have to invest in Real Estate like I like the returns, obviously, I see the end result, and I have that vision. But there’s other ways to make money. And so I have these standards that I maintain in my life, and I need it to feel good to me. And so yeah, the motel was a big part of that feel good. Investing A, I can choose the revenue. So the effort that I put into that motel is really the results that we’ll get back. And we can change our pricing every day if we wanted to. We don’t, but we have the control. So it’s just like taking back control of my investments in my assets and business.

Erwin 30:43
Okay, you bring up the like the moral and ethical side of real estate investing, because it’s one of the reasons why this show exists. And I’ve had guests on, like Austin, yeah, it was extremely transparent about the Cash for Keys process on the show. And the reason why I asked I asked Austin, if you can share it, so people can learn the truth about what the process is like? And then make a decision for themselves if that’s right or not, right or not for them. Yeah. And he was explicit that the property manager won’t do it. So he has to do it himself. And that’s generally the case, it’s hard to hire someone else to do it for you. You can’t just delegate this. Yeah. And again, people have to decide like, you know, decide what investments right for you what fit does it fit your values? Does it fit your time schedule? Does it fit your capital, your risk, your risk, and all those sorts of parameters?

Speaker 1 31:29
Absolutely. And if somebody wants to do a Cash for Keys, and they have that conversation with the tenant, and the tenant willingly wants to take the money, okay,

Erwin 31:38
you’re compensating them for their for their trouble. Right? It’s,

Speaker 1 31:43
it’s where you’re buying these properties on under those pretenses. And that’s the only way that that is going to be able to service the debt. A lot of people are getting in trouble with that, and then they’re resulted they’re resorting to measures that are not what I would consider ethical. And so for me, it just doesn’t align, it doesn’t align with my values, it doesn’t feel good. I have tenants right now that are under market value for a duplex, I bought it in like 2018. So that duplex has gone up quite significantly in value. And instead of refinancing and pulling all the money out, I’ve just done a HELOC. So I’ve been able to maintain the mortgage low, I’ve not touched the the rents more than what I’m allowed to do and those tenants in there for like 2025 years. You know, I know that like it is what it is. But it’s a great duplex and it cash flows. And then it gives me a nice chunk of change on the HELOC side.

Erwin 32:45
Super cool. And so I’m familiar with it with the groups that you’ve actually, let’s touch on that a bit. So you’ve taken a lot of educational courses as well, because that’s my understanding. Yes,

Speaker 1 32:56
and no, to be honest, like I have done more what I would call experiential education than what I’ve actually paid for education. And my background is research. And so I have a very strong sense of what it takes to research information. And so I have taken educational courses. But I’d certainly not as much as I would like to like I am looking for educational courses that I would want to take that I’d want to invest my time and money into. Got it.

Erwin 33:32
And can you were these courses good value. And that’s part of I think people get it. I’ve had some people stop me and say, Hey, I know what you were saying without saying yeah, thank you. Yeah, stop me about my show.

Speaker 1 33:45
So I start so here’s what I’ve started educational courses, and I have not completed them because my time did not feel like it was got the values that I was looking for, you know, and I’ve been, I’m very I’m a straight shooter. You know, I’m very diplomatic and polite, but I’m also very direct and so I asked those questions up front to say to see if it is going to meet my needs because I’m not looking for mindset. I’m good on the mindset front I’m not looking for foundational level information. What I am looking at now is business I’m looking for that higher level business scaling operational side of things which is very challenging defined and what I don’t I don’t appreciate when, you know, you talk to people that are providing educational programs and you’re very upfront about what you’re looking for and they just kind of whitewash it and just say like oh this is for you

Erwin 34:52
what’s interesting because you know I’ve I definitely show like like for example like Alex holder that Uppsala never air but the biggest lesson And none of that was like I said to him, so for those who don’t Alex, he’s, he’s a he’s one of the owners of Clydesdale capital. And they’ve he’s bankrupt personally in Britain in business. And he took, you know, some very expensive masterminds and whatnot. And, you know, within 15 minutes, I said to him, hey, you’d be probably fine. Only our small portfolio, small Maltese, maybe like a 10 Plex to approximately be fine. But for the scale that we’re doing with, with all the money you guys had, and expensive money to like, paying like 15 17%, or whatever, like, that’s really hard and complicated, right? So like, mindset won’t save you from difficult operations, and expensive money. Not

Speaker 1 35:43
at all. And that’s, it’s why I think I’m certainly coachable. And I’m somebody who is a life learner. But I’m also have very high standards. And what I’m looking for is a level, when I think about the, the experience that I’ve had in the military, you know, the leadership, the instructional techniques, the ability to go into circumstances, and adapt and overcome, like all of those problem solving. It gets you to a level in your life, where you can really go into situations and feel confident that in your ability to be able to pivot to be able to recognize at what point do you need to back out what point you need to keep pushing through. But the the other side of it too, and understanding like from an educational standpoint, that I have organizational psychology. And so, again, that is on the human behavior side of things. That’s the structure of employment, it’s workplace behavior, it’s team building, all of that stuff is there. I need like the entrepreneur side of things like the, you know, really, which is tough to find.

Erwin 37:00
You should ask me,

Speaker 1 37:00
I Well, I think we might have talked about it that for sure. For sure. So that’s where there’s a lot of information out there. And I tell people that you don’t necessarily need to have coaching. I think that mentorship is good when you have the right fit, who your mentor is, surrounding yourself with a network of people, individuals that you look up to who have the same morals, the same values is going to open so many doors for you that you don’t necessarily have to go and pay for somebody to do that.

Erwin 37:38
Oh, no problem paying. It’s just there’s lots of options that are not expensive. No, it’s such great value,

Speaker 1 37:47
and amazing value, and it’s every single month, it’s you know, I walk into that room and you just feel uplifted the way that people are and the sophistication that Oreo brings. And and that’s a big reason why I’m part of that community is because of the integrity and the ethics and the education that it brings.

Erwin 38:07
And the the one day workshop, you guys are hosting the underwriting, the underwriting, the fundamentals of underwriting is that right?

Speaker 1 38:18
Yeah, I’m super excited about that. I think it’s going to be a educational and just the fact that it’s going to be real life case studies here in Ottawa. So you can relate it, you can actually relate it and they’re going to be recent case studies too. So we can actually look at what the rates are and be able to apply that to day to day.

Erwin 38:43
folks listening, you’ll likely hear this after the course. But I apologize to Christian as well. I wish I had more lead time to help guests promote this. But I told them let’s do it again. And let’s open up to make it hybrid as well. I said I saw him like you guys can post your pardon oak in Ottawa. I’m happy to host part of it here in Oakville. Because I’ve seen the comments on on social media, like Will this be hybrid? Will this be online, like will just be in Toronto?

Speaker 1 39:14
We’ll call this the pilot project and we’ll get all the kinks out for this one and then open it up because I mean, once you do, do it, then it’s easy to duplicate it.

Erwin 39:24
And the price is the choke, it’s 150 bucks and the money goes to kinetic food bank.

Unknown Speaker 39:28
A tax receipt for

Erwin 39:30
it. Do you Okay?

Speaker 1 39:34
Proceed. So it’s a it’s gonna be a great event. So it’s really it’s, that’s the that’s the good stuff, right? Like that’s the stuff that I am willing to pay for a good. Exactly, exactly. So it’s just about being wary, I suppose. And I always just go back to the standards being able to go with Your gut asked the questions be very clear with your expectations. And sometimes you’re gonna get disappointed too, like, anything that I go into if I get if I pay money for, I think about that worst case scenario, and I think, Okay, well, if I don’t get the value, it’s a lesson learned and my eyes are open, and I just won’t repeat with that stream.

Erwin 40:22
I’m cheap. So I comparison shop everything in my real estate, including the courses I take, and memberships.

Speaker 1 40:32
Well, then I’ll just go direct to you because the time and but I need the good quality. And

Erwin 40:39
we can talk about offline, but I’d suggest Entrepreneurs Organization for the operational stuff. I love that. Yeah, it’s a nonprofit. So it’s stupid, cheap. Lots of I have lots of friends. I’ve referred to them. They all love it. Like Melissa deplete who I believe you know,

Speaker 1 40:54
I think I saw a post on that. So I think she was just starting out. That’s awesome. Yeah, I’ll look at that for sure. Because it’s that’s the thing. It’s like where there are so many groups, there’s so many events and activities and networking opportunity. And it’s finding again, that right fit to put your time and cheap.

Erwin 41:13
Like Gloriosa nonprofit, entrepreneurs, organizations, nonprofits, so it’s like stupid, cheap. And for tremendous value. You’ll like it just for the networking alone. Alright, let’s move on. Let’s get back to the motel. Yeah. Tell me about the motel. How did you get into it?

Speaker 1 41:29
So feel good investing. And then literally, I had my property manager. So when I owned the bunkies on on the lake, I worked it for a year. So I ran the whole thing myself, figured out Airbnb communicational. That

Erwin 41:46
decided there’s this this is early days, Airbnb. 2018.

That’s, that’s that’s pretty early. Pretty

Unknown Speaker 41:55
early days. Yeah. So

Erwin 41:57
because I had an Airbnb and I was like one of three on Hamilton Mountain, which is a suburb of I don’t even know how much. That’s called 160,000. Population. Today, it’s flooded.

Unknown Speaker 42:10
I bet. So

Erwin 42:11
yeah, so I would guess you’re pretty early adopter, at least specially compared to today, because it just exploded. Oh, yeah. So Oh, yeah. So you had to figure it on your own? There were no courses back then. No.

Speaker 1 42:23
All right. And I didn’t know about them if because back then I wasn’t on social media. And I wasn’t really like understanding the whole I didn’t know that. There were people like me that were out there, which is very ignorant. Like, I can’t even believe that I didn’t even think that there were more investors, but I didn’t even call myself and investor. And so just did it. Just figured it out. Got great. Like everything was great super hosts right away. But it was a lot of work. And so also decided, okay, well, I’m not going to do this for life, hired a property manager.

Erwin 42:57
So before we get to that, let’s talk about the monkeys. How many were there? And then like, what, what, what was this? Was it like a bachelor was there bathrooms for Season? Like what was it?

Speaker 1 43:06
So we wanted a family cottage for probably about two years. And it was Mother’s Day, and I was on Kijiji, and this ad came up for unique cottages. And right away, I was like, I need to go see these and I could tell that they were special. And so I made my husband drive me in a snowstorm.

Erwin 43:26
I got permission of a ton of selling colleges.

Speaker 1 43:30
I know right? Exactly like they. There was a snowstorm on Mother’s Day. And I remember messaging the owners right away, it was a private sale and said, Can I just walk the property? And they said, Yeah, no problem.

Erwin 43:44
And snowshoes. It

Speaker 1 43:46
was it was from the minute and I wasn’t tracking Airbnb, I wasn’t thinking about that. Of course I always try to monetize and I thought well, we would Airbnb our cottage when we’re not using it. But we got on there and there was a cottage down this lane. And then on the other side of the lane quite quite a distance. There’s these three bunkies And so what the story was, it was owned by three families. Each one had a bunkie it was electric. So they were power there was power but there was no running water. But they were done beautifully. So each bunkie had a queen bed and then two singles up top and so they were to level bunkies Each, no bathrooms and the cottage was where it also had like a second level and this was their congregation area. So this is where they cook their dinners and and slept or they did have extra sleeping there. So

Erwin 44:48
so there’s like the inlog have recovered. Then tiny homes then garden suite. Yeah, essentially it’s a garden suite for better yeah, no bathroom. It’s just a bedroom. That’s pretty

Speaker 1 45:00
much pretty much exactly. And so they had an outhouse on the property and you had so we I walked it and it was

Erwin 45:10
I know. Sorry, hang on, where? Where is this cottage and then what years this? I don’t know the last time I saw an outhouse.

Speaker 1 45:17
I know that there was a legit outhouse. So this was in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, Lunenburg. It’s beautiful, beautiful, and it was only 30 minutes from where we lived. So for us, we could just like scoot down, it was direct on the lake, little lake Cove, Butler’s Lake, and I just You just, you know, when you know, I’d seen enough cottages, asking 160,000 for this. Okay. So right away, I messaged them, and I said, We’ll take it. And I found out shortly after that there was they received 70 other messages from people. But I was like, Quick Draw quick decision. And they stuck with me. So there’s a lot. Yeah, it was, especially for 2018 we hadn’t like hit the big COVID bubble or anything like that. We were just entering into it. And we ended up putting septic in, in the ground. And we actually think the outhouse did operate it with an outhouse. So for the first season because, and that’s where the glamping came into my mind because there was no running water. So I couldn’t market this as like a luxury cottage, but I, I really beautified them, and so people could have it was you know, glamping so you had the luxury of really nice inside. And they had the lake view so they were direct on the lake. We were able to use our cottage on a regular basis and then the bunkies were the rental side of the house.

Erwin 46:59
So just just to film the listener like I’ve been to Lindenberg, the the top snow for tall ships. It’s like a recreational area of Nova Scotia. It’s tiny but beautiful food’s fantastic. Yes,

Speaker 1 47:11
very touristy, South Shore. It’s just gorgeous to go to Lunenburg and

Erwin 47:18
the Bluenose visits there Yes, yes. For listeners benefit if you remember what a dime looks like I know we have some young people on the show don’t carry cash. But on the dime is the blue nose so the replica blue nose so the famous ship that one Canada and some big race against Americans that it does dock in Lunenburg? Yes, yeah. And I believe I saw it there and I believe I went on board a long time ago. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 47:43
Is a very so

Erwin 47:47
super hot area. Super hot.

Speaker 1 47:49
So the bunk is in Lunenburg, which is the South Shore and then I know we’ll talk about the motel but the motel is in like the second area. Arguably, I mean, equally, very touristy will will fill Nova Scotia. So the Annapolis Valley which is also quite close to Lunenburg, fancy,

Erwin 48:08
especially with a monkey why decision to sell.

Speaker 1 48:13
We got posted to Ottawa and we wanted to keep it because we this was our forever cottage in our mind. And literally a week before we got our a week before we had to move, a giant tree fell down a hairline away from our main cottage. And we were actually we started gutting the cottage, we are fully renovating it, we put a septic into the because we wanted to have the water hookup, we were going to actually do like a bath house for the guests. So instead of outfitting each bunkie with a bathroom, we’re going to have one bath house. And so we put a septic system in that could house enough for all of the rooms with the cottage and the bunkies. So we had all these plans, but then this tree fell down. And the tree was almost the size of our cottage. It was giant. And in fact what had happened was when they were putting the septic system in, they ran over the root of the tree. And it was just like one storm and it went down.

Erwin 49:15
Right It was that ready to fall over. Just run over. Wow,

Speaker 1 49:19
it must have been and so to us that was a sign because we were still feeling uneasy about managing the bunkies the Airbnb even though we had a property manager, the lake is a family friendly lake. So we were very careful about making sure that the guests were not there to party that this was supposed to be a getaway like a very nice, serene, quiet type. And it just takes extra management and so again, going with what felt good at that time when the tree fell that was assigned to sell it. I put it up I sold it privately. I did the same thing as what the sellers did for me, you know Oh, I got so much interest in this, these bunkies because again, it’s unique and we’ve fixed it up. We’ve now made it. What years?

Erwin 50:08
Are you selling it? 2020? Okay.

Unknown Speaker 50:15
No 2021 2020 Harder.

Erwin 50:18
Yeah, harder. COVID Things were hot for cottage property. Exactly,

Speaker 1 50:22
exactly. So it was a good fit for us anyways to sell it at that time. And then, funnily enough, the woman lived in Ottawa. And she actually, she attends my meetups now, which is, okay, here’s the thing. All world talk about integrity. And I love this because I at the time did not know the investor world. I was not part of the scene wasn’t, you know, didn’t know anybody. We did a private sale. And I stayed true to her as well. And I helped them get through and get the financing. We did a assumable mortgage. So they assumed our mortgage, which was great, because we didn’t have to break it. And then they got, they got to mortgage a property that was torn apart. Because we got it the inside cottage, because we were going to renovate it. So I was aboveboard with everything I showed her the good, the bad, the ugly, I was just very open and upfront, and I stuck with her. And what I love now, I didn’t know that she was going to start attending my meetups. But what she does, and she comes to the meetups, and when people ask her how she knows me, she explains that how the way that I was back then is exactly how I am today. In throughout the wholesale process, and it just really solidifies integrity. It solidifies being honest, being upfront, because you never know. You never know.

Erwin 51:51
Yeah, versus we have people share on the show a nightmare stories with realtors and wholesalers.

Speaker 1 51:59
It’s a small world as much as you think you’re anonymous. Not anymore. Not today.

Erwin 52:05
Especially social media. But I will say that I find Canadians are maybe I don’t know, I don’t know how other people are. But I’ll just say that I find a lot of victims are very quiet about it. Not quiet to me. They’ll tell me in private, but then they won’t do anything legally. So it’s actually so the damages that are out there or not are much worse than then than what spoke talked about. Alright, that actually brings me to something before we talk about the new hotel. Like, can you share that you’ve lost money? Yeah, because we’ve all lost money. Anyone says we haven’t lost money, the line

Speaker 1 52:36
100% 100%. And it’s a it’s a hard lesson to learn. And for me, it’s something that I am, I’ve resigned to like, you know, there’s still a little hope that that comes back. You’re always hopeful at the end of the day, but it’s been a year now. And so I’m resigned to the fact that it has gone.

Erwin 53:00
Can you other lessons, or their lesson to impart on the listener on?

Speaker 1 53:07
Yeah, for sure. I mean, when I look back, I did not do the due diligence. And I invested based on a person and an organization that I thought had a good reputation, because they were well known. They were doing a lot of this. And so for me, that gave me more security than what I should have, which is like the actual due diligence of where that money was going. And understanding well, what’s the plans with it? What are the how are they mitigating any of the risks, and what’s going to happen if it doesn’t, you know, if it doesn’t go to the plan, the original plan, and so there was no specific property that it was attached to. And so for me, like I take that blame that. And that was a big lesson that I learned. I also have that mindset that if if you know how to make it once, you can do it again. And so when you’re going into private lending, there are risks there. And that’s the hardest part. And so don’t give everything that you have during that. And luckily, that wasn’t everything that we have. It was a big chunk of money. It was 105,000. And so that’s a lot of money. But the sad part is there’s a lot of people that gave a lot more. It’s really sad. It’s really sad, like my heart actually breaks for them for us. We know how to make that back, you know, and it’s, it happens in life in entrepreneurship. I’ve talked to a lot of entrepreneurs who are just like we’ve lost weight in our time. And it’s not something that you want to have happen but you have to have the stomach for it. But that It’s not the case for everybody, not everybody who does. Mundane is an entrepreneur. Yeah,

Erwin 55:04
back to, like, vision in sales is a lot easier than execution. You’ve owned property, you executed a pretty deep not easy strategy with bunkie. Airbnb. So it’s not easy. No, it’s not easy. It was local, it was in front of you. Right? Like, Nothing’s easy for them to pull the scale up, taxing and stuff. That’s another thing about mindset. But again, you need to take your eye off the operations. No,

Speaker 1 55:31
you have to be capable, you have to be able to, I was talking to somebody the other day, right? Who’s trying to market their Airbnb right now their short term rental. And they’re doing everything like they’re doing all the angles, and I was explaining to them that that’s the difference between people who are successful and not successful, the ones who are successful will continue to try, they don’t stay down, and where other people might try. And if it doesn’t work out, then they just kind of put their hands up and say it didn’t work for me. Where you have to have that perseverance, perseverance, you have to have the resiliency to be able to just keep going

Erwin 56:12
in for everything got into it. Or that was like one of the messages from Jesse Itzler. Just yeah. Yeah, that was presentation he gave, you know, he poured everything you had into it this evening. And

Speaker 1 56:26
you know, he’s given that I don’t know how many times but he does it almost anytime.

Erwin 56:30
Many times. No, no, no. Any real evening is always improving it to. I’ve seen a recorded version of it, he did better for us. You

Speaker 1 56:41
know, it was like I was tears in my eyes. I was trying so hard not to cry. And I mean, it was just such an emotional, but uplifting. And I’m a big fan. after that. I wasn’t I didn’t really know him much after before that. But even like back to the lending. I’ve talked to three lawyers on that. And

Erwin 57:02
I know I was making some introductions for some friends. Yes, I did. douchebags. Yeah, I say that.

Speaker 1 57:10
Thank you can it’s It’s a scary world out there. And so if if I have to learn these lessons, so be it like that’s the risk that I take, but also I want to talk about it so that other people can learn as well. And if you do have that inkling, then you have to go and you have to make sure that you’re asking the questions and not to be afraid to ask questions that you’re going to upset it or upset them. Oh, yeah,

Erwin 57:37
like I do, just to get ready to screw my tenants. I know who people have done business with in the past, I just go directly to them and ask. So actually, my digital does is actually very simple. Again, I know who people have done business with in the past, I just go straight to them without asking any without asking permission, nothing because they already know who I am. Perhaps most people will take my phone call. And and the thing about real estate investing is that there’s so many good operators, there’s so many good ones. So my policy is I just need one flag red flag, and then I’m not interested in doing business with them. They might like in business. But again, like there’s so many people who have zero red flags. So then, so when there’s when there’s like an ocean of people, maybe not ocean, let’s see a lake, whatever. I’m so sure full of great operators, but no red flags, I’ll just focus on that. Right, versus operators with plenty of red flags. Or even just

Speaker 1 58:29
I think that, you know, for us in this world, we know a lot of people and we have access to a lot of people. The challenge is for the you know, the normal people that are big investors that just want to get that passive income. They don’t think that they have that type of access. But these types of podcasts are great because this is opening those doors for people to say no you do. Even if you can’t like name people right now the access is there. You just have to seek it.

Erwin 59:04
And everyone likes passive but in my experience, direct ownership, educate yourself for everything got into it hungry these days a lot easier. But active on act like direct ownership is still and having control is still the best in my opinion. I

Speaker 1 59:19
agree. I’m, I’m an active investor. And I need the control because I trust myself I trust like I need to know what’s going on, to be able to have the pivot and be able to problem solve. And we just work through things like we’re relentless in pursuit.

Erwin 59:38
So tell me about the motel. Yeah, why why this isn’t get back into into recreational short term rentals. Whatever category this is in

Speaker 1 59:48
the motel again, had that epiphany feel good investing, and I hosted a virtual kitchen party for Nova Scotia because I was homesick And just like listening to the good music and and I still invest in Nova Scotia. So I invited my property manager to come and talk about short term rentals. And that kind of reinvigorated our connection again. And we started chit chatting. And so she really kind of came to me and said, I’d love to own properties, and not just manage them without the ownership. And I need property managers. And so for us, it was a great fit. She owned a short term rental company that really kind of blew up COVID had 30 Airbnbs that she was managing at whole business. And she has a good ear to the ground. She’s local. And so I said, you know, if you want, we can start looking at properties that would be more like the bunkies, like a glamping, or a retreat type space. And we did look at a motel in Lunenburg, there was one I think it was a 20 unit. And she called me up one day and she said, Hey, there’s a motel that’s coming for sale. It’s a pocket listing right now, do you want to go and look at it. So they brought me FaceTime. And just like the bunkies, as soon as we got there, it was 100%. Yes, we want this motel. Wow, that cookie, when you know the area, it’s incredible. Like you didn’t even matter if the motel was needing to be torn to the ground, we wanted this location. And the funny thing is, we did not have the highest bid. So by that time, I think about four people had seen the motel. We had the best reputation. They already knew Noel as my business partner for that. So they already knew well in the area. And all the realtors knew me in the area because I was a buyer, I was an investor for that area. So they knew that we would close that property, and they knew that we would operate it well. But we didn’t come in at the highest bid. And I’m pretty stubborn when I do my numbers. And I ran them very conservatively. They asked if we would go up and I said no, that was my top. And so they chose another bidder. And I asked if we would be the backup. And so when I found out the condition timeline was three weeks for this property, I knew we had it in the bag.

Erwin 1:02:23
Okay. I want to hear the full story. Why were they selling? Do you know?

Speaker 1 1:02:27
It retired? So it was a an older mom and pop operation and they were ready to retire?

Erwin 1:02:36
What was the asking? Eight?

Speaker 1 1:02:38
What was he asking a million? No, that’s that’s the thing. So seven, I want to say 799.

Erwin 1:02:48
Wow. And did you know them? Did you get a chance to talk to them during the process? We tried,

Speaker 1 1:02:55
but not as friendly people? Oh, so we did event

Erwin 1:03:02
North Nova Scotian. stereotyping, maybe it’s such a small town, Nova Scotia

Speaker 1 1:03:11
reputation was not great for this property. And so even they had very low stars. And I read the reviews as part of our due diligence. And a lot of the complaints were quite unfavorable. Not a very nice person to deal with. So that was part of the what I had to understand working with the seller in order to go through this whole process. We ended up getting it for a 35. So that’s what went to eventually. So the first piece the first buyers that got accepted, they put a three week condition for financing. And what we found out in the negotiations was it wasn’t actually just a purchase and sale an asset sale it was a share sale. Okay, so we purchased it we purchased the business entirely and what the land which came with the land to vacant lots actually so came off. So three, three lights altogether. One had the motel on it and then two vacant ones right beside it all waterfront. Oh my god. It’s really nice. Like that’s why you, you would do the same thing as soon as you would see it’s on Evangelium Beach, Nova Scotia. So it’s direct waterfront overlooks blomidon It’s like the view of the valley.

Erwin 1:04:40
So then what’s the plan? What was your plan going in?

Speaker 1 1:04:44
To be ready, and so to make it as easy as possible, so when I knew that I wouldn’t budge on my price because I really didn’t even know how to run the numbers for a motel. So I did my best from like a short term rental perspective, and I wasn’t comfortable to go up higher than what we were doing 725 or 825 was my max and I went 10 More 1000. That was my, my max. When we found out the three week condition, I knew that they were overzealous buyers. Because again, this was still COVID by this that was going on, we’re just kind of coming into the, the downside of it. But people were coming in hot. And so we, as soon as I heard that, we’re going to go back up, I made our condition deadline, a day after their condition to say that like we would not continue our backup offer past it, because I didn’t want the seller to extend anything with the first and I got all my people ready. I have I purchased quite a bit in Nova Scotia. So I already had an appraiser, commercial appraiser, the inspector ready to go, I had the credit union, that’s who we work with. So they were all ready to go. And the environmental. So we basically went and we told the seller that everybody is booked and ready to go as of I think it was like five days after the condition deadline. And all of them knew it, too. I was very upfront. And I said, Listen, we’re back up, I just want to book you for this date. And I’ll let you know if if if we don’t get this. So it really helped the seller and the seller did not extend when the original buyers wanted an extension and then came to us and accepted our 835.

Erwin 1:06:28
And then I’m sorry, what kind of how long were your conditions. So

Speaker 1 1:06:32
we put in, it ended up being just over 30 days conditions. So I put in like three weeks I knew would take to get the environmental, I knew an appraisal would take about three weeks. But what had to happen was because it was a share sale, I worked it in two phases, I did the due diligence as if it was a purchase and sale agreement for the asset. So I looked at just the asset itself. And then we did the due diligence for the business. And so as soon as the conditions were met for the asset, we moved into a share Sale Agreement. Fascinating. Yeah, I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing. So again, it was just you figure it out, the information is there, I talked to the right people. And it was not too bad. I mean, once you learn, the due diligence needs to happen legally and why it needs to happen. And then as well as financially and why that needs to happen then. Then it’s a you know, it’s a fairly straightforward process in the end.

Erwin 1:07:37
Okay, glad you think so. We purchased a company shares as well.

Speaker 1 1:07:43
Straightforward. You know, it’s kind of like taking over somebody’s house, I guess, like, and all of their passwords and all of their programs and what they’re doing. And so that’s been the hardest part because now we rebranded it and trying to take over the accounts and really just like change the, the perception of this property. So we went big.

Erwin 1:08:15
So who looked over their books, for example, we

Speaker 1 1:08:17
had an accountant in Nova Scotia. And it was really important to because, you know, our accountant is here with with cherry. But it was really important for us to have a local connect, because again, you’re dealing with local accountants, and so it was easier for them to be local to local, we

Erwin 1:08:37
really tried to bring your context, especially if they’re used to having more tell clients. Exactly.

Speaker 1 1:08:41
So everything was just like, Okay, what’s the easiest way to navigate this and so that everybody is communicating together and that they understand that we are going to close this property. But there were of course, delays. Not as many I think we actually ended up closing about 30 days after.

Erwin 1:09:00
Fantastic. So for listeners benefit, like people’s businesses records, a lot of them are good. No, all right. But a lot of sellers fudge things, or at least or accidentally think leave things out. So the classic real estate examples are like, you know, maintenance costs, or pm fees, or what they self manage those leave those costs out completely. Leave a vacancy allowance, all those sorts of things. My point is that it’s not always easiest to review someone’s books if you’re not from that industry. You know, so when Sherry bought when we bought our business, Terry’s reviewing the books of another accounting firm, so at least there’s been chairs done audit before. So, you know, we got lucky that way. Because you pay for that?

Speaker 1 1:09:43
Well, you know, it didn’t end up as much like the way that they were describing it that it was going to be an extra 25,000 for fees in order to get the ShareASale agreement and all of the due diligence costs. Okay, I think it really only cost us about five grand on the Counting side and maybe like six on the legal side? That’s

Erwin 1:10:05
incredible.

Speaker 1 1:10:06
Yeah, it. Again, these are people that I’ve used on a regular basis. And we also so my concern was more okay. Is there any legal liability? Like, is there any issues that might pop up over the past years that we might be liable for? Are there any contracts anything that they’re not paying? on the tax side? Have they been doing their taxes aboveboard? Are we gonna get hooked for that? Because when we bought the business, we assume all of the liability, when it came to the actual numbers of the revenue that they were generating, we, we knew that we would have a completely different approach. So we wanted to know, okay, are people staying at the motel? And what does it look like, at worst case scenario, if we were to rent it, or set the price at what they’re pricing it but we increased our price right away, and we fully renovated and completely just got it the place?

Erwin 1:11:06
Were there any staff? Did you take over any staff? So we

Unknown Speaker 1:11:11
did not take over any staff and enough staff?

Erwin 1:11:14
to contract? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:11:16
So there was no staff, which was great. The owner was the one that would be on site, then he had some cleaners. And we did take on one cleaner, but they weren’t full time employees. So it’s more contract right now. And our motel is fully automated. So we actually have no staff.

Erwin 1:11:37
That does this for listeners benefit. When you inherit employees? It’s somewhat it’s almost like inheriting a tenant. Yes. Don’t have to, but you have a contract with them.

Speaker 1 1:11:46
actly. Exactly. It’s, you know, that was, we were very happy to see that there were no employees. And our Lord was happy to

Erwin 1:11:55
write, especially with Noel, like, she’s gonna run things. So she’d like the team. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. All right. All right. Tell me tell me about automation. Talking about automation. So like, when someone checks in, there’s nobody there type thing. Nobody there. And so, like, so like, similar experience to most people’s Airbnb experience?

Speaker 1 1:12:12
Exactly. So we run it like an Airbnb. And we set things up in in just in case. And so there’s been a lot of lessons learned, even just from the platform itself. We decided not to put it on Airbnb at the beginning, because the platform that we were using was not integrating with Airbnb, and it was causing too much confusion. So we just wanted to keep things simple. We had one platform, we use the check front, at first. And I wish we would have done more research before jumping the check front, but at the time, going through the rebrand the renovations trying to open. It’s almost like that became low on the priority list, which it shouldn’t have been it just ended up that way. So last minute, we decided to go with check front. It was good. It was just it wasn’t able to expand, so it couldn’t integrate to any other platform. And then halfway through the season, which I also don’t recommend, but we then transferred to web res Pro, which is what we’re using today. And that platform is great because it automates or integrates with Expedia booking.com, Airbnb. And so now what’s happening is we’re getting bookings from everywhere.

Erwin 1:13:35
That’s awesome. I probably am using

Unknown Speaker 1:13:39
web res, web res Pro.

Erwin 1:13:41
I’m probably using it unknowingly. Because it does I when I’m shopping for a rental. I won’t say when and where. But I noticed it on different platforms. Okay.

Speaker 1 1:13:51
Yeah, yeah, I said, and that’s why we went with it. And so it’s, it’s solid. I haven’t found it as you as user friendly for myself as check front. But again, that’s not really the area that I get into the weeds with but I still like to be involved with that my husband actually become a an expert with it. So he helps the background but

Erwin 1:14:14
are very nice.

Speaker 1 1:14:16
Very, yeah. Yeah, he’s, he, again, the military side of him is just like, pushed through, he gets the job done, no matter what. And I need somebody like that. And so we operate so well.

Erwin 1:14:31
Nice. Nice. entrepreneurs find a lot of entrepreneurs. We joke about it and private, we say like visions are great. You can’t execute you’re dead.

Speaker 1 1:14:41
Right? Right. Yeah. He, he’s, if you’ve read traction, like I’m the visionary in the relationship, and he’s the integrator. He’s the guy that is like gathering all the He’s much better technically than I am to and he just, he does it so Much easier. So

Erwin 1:15:00
it works. Yeah, we have EOS and all of our businesses. Yes, I love it. I learned from you. Organization, complete different, unrelated acronyms are similar for no coincidence. But it’s funny because the military

Speaker 1 1:15:15
really kind of operates EOS style as well, once I started to really learn the lingo, and it’s been a very natural progression for me to implement in my business to just because that’s what we’re used to. So,

Erwin 1:15:28
yeah, the structure, the structure that makes sense structure, do

Speaker 1 1:15:32
like structure. But But yeah, so we’re fully automated guest will reserve. And then they get, like a little message that will go to them. And then the day prior to their check in, they will get their specialized code, the codes are generated each time for every new guest. And then they get a nice big welcome message very similar to how Airbnb is operated. And we have security cameras all over the place, we make it very clear that there’s nobody on site per se. But we, if anybody messages us on email, like that’s one of our right away, we’re monitoring the email to make sure that somebody is responded to, we have somebody who lives in a cottage that’s like two cottages down, so we call him our concierge Newfoundlander name is John. And he’s awesome. Like if we need wood, or if the guest needs anything, John will come and bring it. We also will let guests go into get extra coffee if they want. And so we have all that monitored. And then of course, we’ve got the cleaners on site between like 10 o’clock and four o’clock during the day. And then Noel is 10 minutes away.

Erwin 1:16:47
And then has the financial performance been?

Speaker 1 1:16:49
Great? Yeah, it’s been like, better than I expected. And so that’s been I mean, the obviously, the biggest and best outcome of all of this is realizing the potential that you can have to earn revenue when you move into something like this. And so even from like a tax perspective, being taxed as an active income instead of passive because it’s a business is just like, very exciting for us. So from a and I can even like and I’ve shared this on I think I was at the summit and I shared that within the first 90 days, we brought in 100,000. Gross. And our mortgages again, around 500,000. It’s it’s pretty good. We’ve now gone yeah, now it’s the mean people are booking into next year. Weddings are sold out every single weekend. So a weekend for us is about 2600 bucks for a night actually, I should say just for a night.

Erwin 1:17:58
Sorry, it was 2600 you get a room but he had

Speaker 1 1:18:00
nine rooms. So if we book out all nine rooms, then that’s I think around 2600 I’d have to redo the math but it’s just over two grand for

Erwin 1:18:10
the listeners education benefit, like what kind of what’s the what’s the the term that all Airbnb hosts use? Like? What like percentage occupancy? Like what do you what’s your percentage occupancy for the year? And

Speaker 1 1:18:23
so when I was running the numbers, I have it at 40%. And so during that time, we’ve been even at around like 35% occupancy, and we’re making Wow, 100 grand every 90 days. So just over 30

Erwin 1:18:43
and that’s good enough for Yeah, I’m

Speaker 1 1:18:47
Oh, yeah. Once we and like, you know, this is just our first we just opened may 27. So we missed better this spring, we came in hot. We had one booking mechanism. And so now that we’ve been able to expand, we are very excited about what the outcomes gonna look like. I mean, even if we could get up to 50% occupancy would be amazing.

Erwin 1:19:11
What am I google? What’s the what’s the website? The breeze

Speaker 1 1:19:14
motel So www dot the breeze motel.com

Erwin 1:19:23
Are you at the breeze motel on Instagram? Yeah. INNOPOLIS Yeah, you got found you online. That’s pretty easy. You’re here you’re now on Annapolis Valley tourism site as well.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:36
Okay. Excellent. Good. The only job

Erwin 1:19:42
you don’t know every birch by chance to you. Avery birch. He was on my show us a no he’s got 100 Airbnbs under management mostly in a Halifax Okay, interesting. Yeah, let’s do this episode. I can introduce you if you like. Yeah, I’d love to as well. Yeah super cool so it’s on Instagram the breeze motel the breach motel.com Is your website that right? Yes, yeah. I was looking for the views. I found your your shorts. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:20:12
Okay good. Sorry, I’m shorts. You have Instagram and what I’ve actually found so we have a social media team. They do all of the videography and manage it for us. But tick tock has been our alias. I will put up a thing on the motel and tick tock goes crazy. We get up to like anywhere between 200 to 400,000 views of me talking about the motel It’s nuts.

Erwin 1:20:42
Okay, Tik Tok the breeze I don’t have an account Okay, delete

Speaker 1 1:20:47
have to talk. So you have to look at me so Victoria Clooney because I don’t even have a breeze account on Tik Tok and I will talk about it and people are just absolutely love it. And tick tock is tick tock can be pretty brutal. Sometimes, like people are not the nicest, but we have got nothing but love for the motel. And it’s almost like all of Nova Scotia has just like swarmed this motel. They love it. And we get a ton of business from it. How

Erwin 1:21:18
come you don’t do the same? You know, if we don’t repost on Instagram?

Speaker 1 1:21:21
Um, I do sometimes. But again, like, I’m tired.

Erwin 1:21:32
I’m listening to your tick tock or Yes. Your voice in both my ears.

Speaker 1 1:21:38
Yeah, it’s, it’s really just user generated content. So what I try to do is I just talk about my experience. I don’t really, you know, I just tried to be like a real person, because that’s what I am buying hotel, trying to figure it out. And people love it. Like some people will even put in comments like I’m at the motel right now watching. Where we get a lot of hits on the website, we get a lot of lot of bookings are going to come through tick tock, which has been again, another eye opening experience.

Erwin 1:22:15
I’ve seen the comments, and has been going to the yacht motel since a young boy. Aren’t

Speaker 1 1:22:20
they nice to know while? Yeah, they had been there a long time. I think it’s about 60 years old. I

Erwin 1:22:26
stayed there two summers ago. The views are unbeatable. Can’t wait to visit once the rent is complete. Nice messages.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:32
They are really nice messages. Sounds

Erwin 1:22:34
bad. Where do you find the bad ones? I know your social media guy Ryan is awesome.

Speaker 1 1:22:43
He would eat that up. Love that. Again, good. Nova Scotian. Like we we hired Nova Scotia social media company, because we really wanted the voice of the breeze to be that East Coast vibe. The hospitality with like, you know, little bit. Alright. Swag,

Erwin 1:23:02
you’d likely have left less joke with Avery as well, because our context is different. I’m from you know, I’m from the GTA. He’s from Halifax. And he told me, he told me how he broke up. They broke up a bachelor party. And they, their guests apologize that you’re right, we should leave some left in a five star review.

Speaker 1 1:23:22
We just had, we actually called the cops for the first time. They’re not paying. So my husband. So we’ve had some issues with the media because you don’t in Expedia. We anybody who books with us pays up front. So that’s one of the that’s been amazing for us from a revenue standpoint, because even if they’re booking next summer, they’re paying right now. So we’re able to generate revenue, even if we’re not going to be in our high season, if people are still booking. But Expedia, what we’re learning is that they don’t collect the funds. So there was like a big about $11,000 gap of funds that we found was missing. And so it was because anybody booking with Expedia was not getting charged. So we had to go back after the fact. And long story short, but there was this gentleman that booked with us. I got a complaint from one of the guests of noise and it sounded like it was getting aggressive. So we don’t mess around like we call the police right away. They came out and did a check. And then we found out that he didn’t pay. Then my husband went direct to him. My husband is military police as well. So he’s connected and he knows you know what the rules are and where they can go. And the guy gave us a five star review.

Erwin 1:24:47
Too funny. Unknowingly not pay. No, he doesn’t have money on the credit card. Oh, that’s that’s what we’re being told about us. allowed?

Speaker 1 1:25:01
Well, that’s the that’s the funny thing. So I don’t know how that happens. And that’s part of the growing pains when you go through all of this. It’s like, what you think is logical that that’s great, is not and the fact that we have to then go back and charge people and so that was that was complex. We’re having issues like Airbnb is declining requests before even us getting to like as soon as somebody wants to book with us even though we that turned the instant book turned on Airbnb will decline it. So now we have to figure out why algorithm.

Erwin 1:25:42
And then what did your investigation show was it was a valid was a valid rejection? Because I know I know lots of Airbnb investors have criteria. Didn’t know if the algorithm accurate and like was it reasonable in decline? Oh,

Speaker 1 1:25:55
no. And we keep it all very open. Because you know, being a motel we’re not really checking people’s backgrounds like you would normally for any type of Airbnb, as long as they pay. We’re, we’re pretty good. Like we have all of these policies in place. And we are very clear with that. But no, it was Airbnb was saying that it was web res pro integration. And whereas Pro is saying that it’s Airbnb, so then you have to, you just gotta go through all the channels to figure out okay, where is the actual problem? And so that’s, that’s the challenge that you just have to get through. But once you get through it, then then you’re good for the next one.

Erwin 1:26:37
Speaking next one, are you looking for our next one?

Unknown Speaker 1:26:39
Yeah, absolutely.

Erwin 1:26:41
How is the market now? Because it’s all over the news like Muskoka, and like, swarthy cottages are just hammered right now.

Speaker 1 1:26:49
And that’s why I love motels is because with everything that’s happening with Airbnb, it’s almost in our benefit, because as soon as regulations come in, and bylaws were commercial, so they can’t touch us. We also we get commercial appraisals. So the motel just recently got appraised. And so after 10 months, it came in at 1.7. So we’re, you know, quite happy with that. And double. Oh, exactly. And that was just 10 months, like we’re getting that appraised much earlier than I was expecting to do it. But yeah, we it cost us nothing really, we just need an update letter from our appraiser. So I was like, Okay, well, I’m so curious, how do I not?

Erwin 1:27:36
Why don’t the sellers think about that, if you just ran a tight ship, I should have done that.

Speaker 1 1:27:42
But that’s why. So the location is obviously very important. We’re thinking of, we’re not thinking I will develop the two vacant lots that came with the motel as well, like, we’ll expand. And then yeah, we’re looking for the next one, that’s going to be good. And again, want to be conservative, want to feel good about my purchase, and want to know the pits in an area that the location is not the draw. And so it’s just a matter of making it stand out and have good operations.

Erwin 1:28:12
How big are these lots? And would the plan be to put additions on the motel or just standalone motels?

Speaker 1 1:28:18
Well, that’s why we left them vacant. And because we really just wanted to focus on customer service and feel it out to see what would be a good fit before we go and invest any money in making plans. But the whole three, three parcels is an acre. So we have about an acre for the whole thing. And so we’ve talked about putting like, more like modular type cabins on there. We could build another motel if we wanted to. Some type of wedding type venue, you know, making, trying to think about like, what’s the highest and best use, we haven’t even we’ve just we’re in the brainstorming stage right now. But we know that people want to come. And if we have wedding parties, it’d be great to have cottages for the bride for the family. And then the guests can stay in the motel.

Erwin 1:29:13
Tasha so your experience. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 1:29:18
I wrote her name. So it’s, it’s fun. We’re having a lot. That’s again, back to the field good investing. It’s so fun. When we meet when my business partner and I have our meetings. We can’t help it just daydream about all of the things that we want to do. And it’s hard to actually get to the specifics because we’re just thinking about packages that we can offer. We want to collaborate with businesses, we want to really incorporate that local feel.

Erwin 1:29:47
My good friend that does that does that host that short term rentals that focus on weddings, which she tells me is that you know, it’s not like long term tenants are usually there’s bring your problem ones versus like when couples getting married. It’s just pure happiness. Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:30:05
exactly. And if you can, we want to keep things simple. People are splurging. And we have a range of prices. So we’ve got like two oceanfront suites, and those are going to be the highest price. They’ve got, you know, an extra room, they’ve got a full kitchenette in there. And so they’re the much more nicer ones. And then we’ve got everyone has a view of the water, which is the nice part about this motel. But just I guess he was, as you start to go back towards the back part, we just tried to offer different price points for people.

Erwin 1:30:46
My friend, I have another friend that also offers because if someone’s hosting a wedding, many chairs, just so happens to rent chairs by the chair. That’s another as another income stream. That’s

Speaker 1 1:30:58
it like, you know, food trucks. There’s lots of stuff. There’s a community center right beside us. So, you know, we’ve been just trying to trying to get over to be able to either rent that or acquire it somehow. Because it’s this. It’s untapped

Erwin 1:31:16
this area. And there’s so much mushrooms is awesome for like an automatic.

Speaker 1 1:31:22
Stay in one venue. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because most of the rooms that we have either doubles to double beds, or queens or kings. So we have a variety.

Erwin 1:31:33
Amazing. I mean, can we talk about your networking, your Meetup groups?

Unknown Speaker 1:31:37
Sure. Love to

Erwin 1:31:39
tell me about them? What are they called? Where do you meet? So I’m,

Speaker 1 1:31:42
I run a women’s networking group called invest her. It’s the Ottawa chapter. And it’s part of a larger group that’s based out of Ottawa, or, sorry, Ottawa, it’s based out of the US. And we meet the first Wednesday of every month, I tried to keep it very regular, so people can plan around it. And yeah, we average between 3550 women come out every single month, and we tend to go, it’s completely. So it’s not, the nonprofit is just completely free for women to show up and be surrounded by women that are doing things and it was a big gateway for me. Like I went to my first investor meeting here in Ottawa. And that was what opened my eyes to oh my gosh, there’s people like me doing this and doing even bigger things than me. And so it’s just encouraging women of all levels. If you’re interested in real estate, or you’re, you know, building multi families and subdivisions, you’re welcome to come and people come in and they might feel timid at first, or they might not think that they are ready for this, but they leave just feeling so good. It’s just such a welcoming space. And then of course, I’m also involved with Oreo, so I’m on the board for Oreo, and we meet on the second Wednesday of the month, and my Wednesdays are busy. And Oreos, amazing Oreos, a non at the membership is 127 annual, which is ridiculous because we bring in speakers, two speakers every single month, and the quality is impeccable, like the amount of energy the board that we spend to vet these speakers and it’s, it’s almost a it’s a job. So there’s about I think six of us on the board and each one of us have different roles, but we all come together and we make the decisions together and it’s a it’s an amazing community and so that one I think we have up to like 200 people come monthly for that one we’re at the Infinity center so it’s nice because we have a regular spot so everybody knows where to go and for a nice place always trickle out somewhere afterwards for good networking. Fabulous.

Erwin 1:34:05
And then where where can people learn more about investor and Oreo?

Speaker 1 1:34:11
In Oreo is WWW dot Oreo. So sounds like the cookie but it’s spelt o r e i o so Ottawa real estate investors organization.org That’s our website there and we always post we also have an Instagram account Oreo instant dot Oreo think that’s it? And then yeah, okay, perfect. And for me Victoria Clooney, if you find me I’m on all the social media platforms. Clooney is spelt CLU and E y. So sounds like the actor just spelled different. And then same so for investor that I just have that in my LinkedIn bio and it were on meetup.com which is nice because then if you read you stir or you sign up, it’s a free membership. And then you just get notified where the events are when they’re taking place.

Erwin 1:35:06
Amazing. All right, we try to thanks so much for doing this. It’s amazing. Thanks for having to learn a bunch. Both both loss and wins. That’s how she goes, Hey, how long have you been in business? How long has the motel been running?

Speaker 1 1:35:23
So since we’ve acquired it, we’re at actually, it’s gonna be one year in November. So are we oh my gosh, tomorrow is our one year anniversary of owning owned

Erwin 1:35:33
it since it’s been open for business or owned it. Since

Speaker 1 1:35:36
it’s, since we’ve owned it, the motel prior to us. People are talking about like back 50 years, which is not like some people have mentioned on Tik Tok. I think I did one video asking for people to respond with like connections that they had to the motel. And we had people saying that they had been there as a child, or that their parents went their grandparents like it’s a staple. And people are just so happy that it’s been revived. Amazing. Yeah, yeah, I’m really excited for this.

Erwin 1:36:10
So you’re making people happy, it feels good. And you’re making money,

Speaker 1 1:36:15
which feels even better. You know? That’s the that’s the point. You can do all of this. And you can find ways to match your passion. And you can make profit because making money is good. You just need to figure out how to do it. And I love doing it. Yeah.

Erwin 1:36:32
And you live in Ottawa, Ontario, yet you’re in your investment is not purview to Residential Tenancy Act, or LTV or the equivalent out there because your commercial, right? Correct. Amazing. Yeah. It’s attached to real estate to

Speaker 1 1:36:44
cool, exactly. So it’s in the world. It’s all very, we’re just building on the skills that we’ve developed throughout our experience with real estate. And now, it hones even more skills like now I’m looking at businesses, I love the idea of businesses. So when you know, Jerry was talking about hers, I was a champion for that, because I was like, I am very invested in learning more about buying business. I see the value in that.

Erwin 1:37:12
Yeah, especially with with investors struggling for cash flow, and like residential real estate in Ontario and BC, like, people need to expand their church. Exactly.

Speaker 1 1:37:20
So if you have the skills, and you can do it, which we do, we feel very comfortable in that world. Great. What’s next?

Erwin 1:37:31
passive, passive, you have a partner, you have a partner who’s your boots on the ground, day to day operational.

Speaker 1 1:37:36
And I would continue that model, like I was looking at a painting company the other day just for fun and think, who would be good to manage a painting company, and I can just keep doing what I’m doing from the business side of things. The same with the tiny homes, like I’m acting with partnering with a business that owns tiny homes that makes tiny homes and so I will have a role in that that is comfortable for me that, you know, expands on the skills that I have, but you find the people to do the work that they are.

Erwin 1:38:10
Is this house painting a residential painting?

Speaker 1 1:38:13
No, well, the tiny homes is there here local here in Ottawa. And so they actually build tiny homes and they’re expanding. And they also want to do good in the community. And they’re actually building like a tiny home community in Perth, which I’m super excited about. And so it’s just opening more doors to people when it comes to affordable, investing.

Erwin 1:38:35
Amazing in the wild, to have you back on the show and you’re more ready to talk to it.

Speaker 1 1:38:39
I would love to I would love to yeah, stay tuned for that. That’s exciting. Amazing.

Erwin 1:38:43
All right, Victoria. Thanks for doing this.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:45
Thanks, everyone.

Erwin 1:38:48
Thank you for watching. If you want to learn how to invest in real estate from scratch, my team teaches beginners how to use the number one investment strategy that I personally use in a virtual free training class every month. Go to investor training.ca/youtube. To register for next class. That link is also in the description as well. I publish at least two to three videos a week here. So subscribe if you want to keep learning from seasoned investors like myself and my guests. And if you’re just starting out, feel free to ask questions and comment below. And I do the best to answer each of those comments and questions myself. Again, if you’re ready to learn the nitty gritty about real estate investing from a professional investor register for our next virtual class at that investor training.ca/youtube Thanks again for watching. See you in the next video.

 

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