** Transcript Auto-Generated**(00:00) greetings fellow Real Estate Investors seeking the truth about different strategies and markets for investing irn CTO here host of the truth about real estate investing for Canadians since 2016 my businesses and I are committed to being a beacon of excellence in the real estate investment industry because it’s dark out there thank you to everyone who’s been sending me tips and articles on who owes who people money uh it’s uh it’s a bit of a mess out there I actually had a friend messag me saying that uh she’s
(00:28) batting 1,000 investing in all the people she shouldn’t have been investing with and has hopes of regaining some of that money anyways uh that’s why the shows exists because we’re here to deliver exceptional results and pioneering investment solutions that actually work to make money to set standards new standards for performance and client satisfaction we’re here to uncover the truth on how to actually invest and make money consistently over time for anyone new here my team and I have helped Canadian Real Estate Investors complete
(00:58) close to $500 million worth of income property transactions since 2010 we’ve done next to no preconstruction condos we actually Focus mostly on small multif family and then we did a lot of student rentals and then we did a lot of basement Suite conversions then Garden Suite conversions basically we’ve done all always try to implement the best practices in order to maximize Roi on properties and this is why my clients have been overwhelmingly successful among them 45 have made a million dollars or more in their investment
(01:27) properties and many others live off of the cash flow from their rentals and that we we were able to accomplish this in Ontario it’s obviously been a fantastic run uh but what got us here won’t work for investors today personally I fear a prolonged trade war with the US uh we don’t have a proper prime minister who can lead this country um which could hurt our economy lead to further job losses and complicate an already pro-tenant environment where evictions for non-payment of rent for example our tenants lose their jobs and they can’t
(02:01) afford rent uh it could take a year or more to have them evicted if you haven’t reviewed your portfolio recently now is more the time than ever my wife and I we’ve sold off almost half of our Canadian portfolio to improve our cash position and debt position uh if you own properties with negative cash flow or you need to build up some buffer room pay off some debts I can I strongly recommend getting a professional portfolio review done my clients and I are doing the same thing and I’m reaching out to more of them to
(02:30) offer them a second set of eyes uh about 18 months ago I partnered with share uh as I was looking to diversify an American company that makes it simple for Canadians to invest in us real estate as 100% owners uh direct owners of properties in top markets that all Canadians like such as Florida Texas Arizona Ohio and more Sher is a full service asset manager as in they handle everything they Source me deals um major they they showed me every deal was actually off market for my clients about 75% of the deals are are being done off
(03:01) Market they’re providing all the underwriting from renovations to tenant placement to long-term management that’s all part of their service for fees uh the focus from this company is on single family homes and small alties which has always been how we made our money here in Ontario and in like other investment companies you uh like a Reit for example uh share only charges fees there’s no equity sharing there’s no profit splits but sh you get a perfect mix of what I consider a perfect mix of operationally passive andest investing while while the
(03:31) investor gets to Own 100% of the property and have 100% control it’s your name on title or your company’s name on title that’s it and also the morgage so I as the investor get to keep all the upside in my experience this is the dream of every part-time investor I don’t want to be a full-time investor there’s a lot more things I pref I enjoy in life uh and uh for those who looking to scale to a scale a portfolio to create a sixf figure cash flow um doing this in Canada is nearly impossible without investing a lot of time and a
(04:03) lot more money uh but in the US the yields the cash flow the financing options the mortgages and Property Management are all Superior to anything I’ve seen and again I’ve done over 300 uh interviews of this show every week since 2016 and so I’ve I’ve learned a lot I’ve seen a lot of best practices in this country and again I I can’t I can’t say I’ve seen anything that competes with what this off what I can do in the States now speaking of scaling shout out to Shane Granderson pest with the show he’s 33 years old uh mechanic from
(04:36) Montreal he already bought his second investment property a renovated TurnKey property it’s already tenanted the tent pays $1,395 per month plus utilities just outside Kansas City Missouri a great place for investment for cash flow uh for example the um the what car is manufactured there the Ford F-150 uh I think most Canadian are familiar with the Ford F-150 the number one bestselling truck in the United States for the last 46 years uh anyways just the economy should like to be stable that employer is like be stable anyways
(05:11) um so this property was bought just outside Kansas City Missouri for $175,000 so for anyone following that’s almost the 1% rule um so if you’re interested in learning more about deals like this that sh that chain just did you just simply go to I win. Shar sfr.fr you can scroll through past deals that we’ve done for clients including all the projected financials uh pictures locations uh economic stats based on the area employment employment growth price growth uh job growth population growth all those sort of wonderful
(05:47) things now why in the US for starers you can just check out the Apple’s recent announcement uh Apple announced that they’ll be investing uh 500 billion in US facilities over the next four years that investment will create 20,000 new jobs Apple’s making this investment to expand supply chain outside of China to avoid tariffs uh the investment will include a new server production facility they’re going to they’re going to manufacture Advanced servers for AI purposes in Houston Texas uh they’re creating an academy in Detroit Michigan
(06:21) to train small and Si medium-sized businesses and they’re expand their Data Center capacity in places like North Carolina Iowa Oregon Oregon sorry Arizona Nevada now I’m not a fan of anyone who promotes taxes or tariffs or anyone who wants to cause damage to our Canadian economy uh which includes my local friends with businesses and Rental portfolios and of course my tenants um but fear uh fear if it it was an acronym has two meanings forget everything and run or face everything in Rise I personally choose a ladder hence
(06:57) we’ve rebalanced my portfolio and we’re Diversified into a market and diversifying our income and portfolio and assets to be in a different Market to honestly earn US Dollars uh where in in in the US is showing exceptional economic and high paying job growth which leads to higher rents stronger C which means stronger rent cash flow for the investor and long-term price appreciation the this is this is all everything every real estate investor wants I wish this was available in Canada but it’s not not on this scale
(07:30) and that’s the truth about real estate investing now as always my team and I here are here to support our clients and our investor Community if you’re looking to network and connect with others who want to face everything in Rise I’m happy to announce that we’ll be hosting an iWin real estate event on Saturday April 26 in Oakville at our office this will be a smaller inperson event past clients will get first access to register and then we’ll open it up to those on My Weekly Newsletter if you’re subscribed to my newsletter keep an eye
(07:56) out we’ll be sending out a poll soon to see to ask you which topics you’d like to see covered here’s some potential topics off the top of my mind short-term airb be rentals basement or Garden suites selling rental properties even if they’re tenanted Property Management um filling vacant properties rent to own student rentals mortgage updates us real estate investing my personal favorite to.
(08:20) topic multif family investing uh infinite banking whatever private mortgages we’ll let you decide we’ll also be ordering lunch so that will be a small registration fee to cover seats will be Li to 30 uh we’re ordering lunch for for that many people as well because this will sell out there will be no option to pay or register at the door uh I have over 350 past clients and uh over 10,000 people uh subscribe to my email newsletter and don’t forget you my 17 listeners on this podcast you you 17 would take up half the room as yourselves now this event will sell out
(08:54) so I can’t wait to see you all live and in person as always there will be a this will be a great event focus on on making real estate profitable again on to this week’s show this week we have an amazing guest who’s been on a bumpy bumpy path uh lot of success on on both the front and the back end now I’ve known Ryan car for quite some time and uh but it was when I attended the trust your talents award Gala uh that a certain coach had been uh most had the most Award winners and thank yous and and thank you and they
(09:25) were for Ryan hence I invited Ryan Carr onto the show which he gracefully accepted now what happens when a high-powered sales executive suffers a stressinduced heart attack at the age of 38 38 for Ryan car it was a wakeup call like it would be for anyone and that transformed his life in this raw inspiring conversation Ryan opens up about how he and his wife shaali went from making nearly $400,000 a year in their corporate jobs to building a 200 door real estate portfolio all while prioritizing Health family and helping
(09:56) others Achieve Financial Independence here how Ryan overcame personal health challenges navigate an massive investment setback which included a $700,000 promissary note write off uh some of that came back uh a bunch of it was written off and became a sought after a mentor who’s helped 32 people break free from the 95 grind this episode was Master Class in resilience strategic investing uh for example uh Ryan for onario but he invested also in New Brunswick and more recently uh has been setting a SES and and implementing
(10:29) invest ing in raising capital and building properties in Edmonton Alberta and he’s creating a Life by Design please enjoy the [Music] show hi Ryan Carl what’s keeping you busy these days well uh couple of kids couple of young kids uh son age three daughter uh year old and uh you know obviously they’re a huge part of the why uh you know my wife and I were I consider ourselves fortunate that we started our business when we did we had the vision of uh raising a family but uh we were very much the the stereotypical
(11:09) story you know we uh strong income earners both of us she’s an engineer by trade way smarter than I am I will always say that she’s the brand of the operation myself I know the feeling yeah came from a background in corporate sales and you know from an Outsiders perspective everybody’s like yeah Ryan and chaali got made but this again the very stereotypical story we had sold our soul for the money and we were miserable we were stressed out burnt out and we wanted to find a different way because we knew we would have never been present
(11:35) for our kids or we would have had a nanny raising them and uh we had we had different aspirations I suppose amazing now uh I didn’t mention to you I was actually I was actually texting with Tim Sai uh the reason why I invited you on the show because Tim was so gracious to invite me to the treasure Talent award show and I got to p i personally uh judged some of the winners and so I was thoroughly impressed and then during uh award recipients when they’re giving their speeches uh anecdotally like your name probably came up the most in terms of
(12:15) the coach being thanked so I thought I need to get Ryan on the show find out what’s going on and how he’s able to produce so many happy and successful coaching clients and then just before we’re recording you told me you dropped some bombs on me too so so I’ll I’ll let you start like tell tell the audience a bit about yourself yeah um so as I kind of hinted at you know um I I had a strict upbringing and I guess that’s really what created the person I am you know my father was a mounty rcnp and although I hated it as a kid uh I truly believe
(12:52) that it made me who I am today uh I’m extra appreciative of it now uh given my father’s no longer here lost him 28 years ago to a stressinduced heart attack and um you know so I I quickly became the man of the house you know had a sister and my mother and um you know few few things that and then I watched money tear my parents apart literally it was the you know probably the biggest topic of their divorce so I I had a I still feel I have a deeply ingrained unhealthy relationship with money and um you know wanted to do everything I could
(13:24) to to work my tail off to ensure that money was never an issue and so you know got into the world corporate sales after my business degree at Lauer and uh you know worked the way up the ladder made my way into partnership at the agency I was at was making great money however you know again the the stereotypical story you know you’re you’re in the corporate world you you sell your soul for a buck and uh for a while I you know at least I was young enough I was full of piss and vinegar and and was able to kind of endure um but it gets old
(13:53) quickly you know when you’re 80 to 100 hour work weeks and 65,000 kilm a year of driving to see clients um so it was yeah it was quite an existence I I definitely earned the money I was making and uh you know when chaali and I met we were both previously divorced so we were a little bit later to the game and and and and obviously the biological clocks are ticking on both sides and but we knew we wanted a family and um so we started into the real estate game um actually kind of an interesting start because we both had homes and uh after
(14:26) we got married shaali moved in and hers became a rental and it was putting money in our pocket we thought oh well isn’t this nice and so we uh we pursued that or we explored that a little bit more and we we refinanced both places and started locally in our backyard in Kitchener water lop doing duplex conversions you know at the time you know pre pandemic it was a pretty popular strategy and you know I won’t say we necessarily did anything particularly right I like to say and I think there’s truth in it uh quite
(14:53) frankly a monkey could have made money pre pandemic with the market dynamics so we got lucky the market was going the right way and we were able to execute a few perfect burs um then we leveled up a bit uh the same realtor that we had used for those transactions we got into a big value ad triplex in Cambridge like holistic all the units the exterior facade roof Windows like big big overhaul but made out well there and although we were both strong income earners we quickly capped out in the residential space and so we wanted to
(15:26) see how we could keep going so at the time uh um we stumbled upon Legacy uh one of the old real estate investor curriculums which is now defunct in Canada um chaali honestly thought we were gonna meet Robert kosaki at the one event and I’m like well I’m not sure we will and sure enough we didn’t but anyway you know we uh I I truly do uh I’m thankful for the fact that we enrolled there I think you know the curriculum was great unfortunately I guess a poorly managed business um so they’re now defunct but uh and that’s
(15:58) where we met our Ray Salazar which U you know Tim’s uh life partner husband and um so he steered us into the commercial world and he says hey take a look here you know I think there’s an opportunity for you to keep propelling uh because mortgage ability is is kind of removed from the equation and so we jumped into the world of multif family investing and that’s really become our Jam uh over the last 5 years you know and now we have a portfolio well in access of 200 Doors um and have scaled out a business that’s uh
(16:33) you know allowed us both to retire um so you know we replaced what was effectively a almost a $400,000 household income uh through through passive income in the business and then when um know one Legacy was uh kind of going the way it was going Tim and Ray being a couple of the more prolific mentors there uh and being owed a lot of money as independent contractors by Legacy uh they um they quietly went about starting trust your talent which you you kind of mentioned there in the intro and um as as efficient and
(17:08) effective as they are you know wanting to affect as many lives as they wanted to they knew that they kind of needed a team and reached out to some of their former mentees myself being one and they said hey you know proof is in the pudding Ryan you’ve uh you’ve kind of made it happen and uh this is what we’re thinking about and honestly I did not even hesitate irn uh my my my exact answer I remember the words my answer to Ray was after what you and Tim have done for chaali and I I will follow you to the end of the Earth and back let’s go
(17:36) and um I think that the role that I came from prior I I was in B2B sales so business of business and it was very technical we did a ton of training um because we had products that were very Progressive we were in the high performance building world so energy star lead Net Zero still geek out about that stuff and and you know maybe there’s a special topic there someday for for people that like that stuff um but I always had to nurture and and educate people on on proper application and things like that and I think that
(18:11) that’s really served me well in what has become my role as a coach and Mentor at trust your talent and so my role there I uh I teach two courses for them actually I I do teach the the multif family income properties course um so how do you find them what are they you know making offers with Clauses and addendums to protect yourself cuz you know we we know that you you need to do proper due diligence you know uh looking at the numbers and the kpi conservatively underwriting I think that is crucially important we can elaborate on that
(18:42) conservatively underwriting because all too often people will stretch the numbers to try to make it work right and and I think that that has sellers don’t help but either Sellers and agents don’t help yeah yeah yeah oh wouldn’t be it wouldn’t be the first time right that a realtor would paint a property through rose-colored glasses for sure um but I think that’s that’s also what has made chaol I successful is We Are Always ultra conservative in our underwriting and when we make an ask from a perspective investor you know not only
(19:12) are we including obviously down payment closing costs uh renovation costs but we’ll often already ask for a slight top up in our contingency fees like in our slush fund and then in our in our monthly budgets before any cash flow distributions come out vacancy and maintenance is stripped off the top and socked away into the account and we never touch that you know and so as some of these more difficult times that have come about that have unfortunately you know sank some of the more amateur investors you know we have been more
(19:45) than prepared to weather the storm and uh and hang on to these properties and actually grow I think it’s been you know for those that had the proper foresight you know that operates effectively and efficiently you know it’s been a great time for growth to go back so yeah I teach the C I teach that course I teach a business fundamentals course for them as well uh being a business grad from from laor BBA because you know like we wouldn’t build a house without a proper foundation so to should you probably not build a
(20:17) business without a proper Foundation a business of a real of a real estate portfolio is that what the business looking at corporate structure looking at proper insurances to protect you looking at building out your Power Team because again I mean I don’t want to do this alone I’m not a realtor I’m not an accountant I’m not a lawyer I’m not a property manager I don’t want to try to be you’d burn yourself out right and so you know putting all of that in place and then of course my role as a mentor and I mean that has probably been the
(20:45) most fulfilling you know you know there reaches you reach a point where frankly I mean you’ve got everything you need and and and money is money is a tool money helps you buy back your time helps you have experiences and once you have enough what do you do truly what do what do you do right and so you know I I was excited to be given an opportunity to get back and and pay it forward like you know like Ray did for us and uh so I’ve been able to and and the goal with mentorship really is you know we we we ask them well we mandate we have sort of
(21:20) prerequisites you know that they make their way through the curriculum particularly this the strategy that they want to execute on and then we meet we meet them in a market well we help them prepare we help them build out an agenda you know we help them create their corporate structure but we meet them anywh in North America like I mean I’ve been into the US I did one in Cleveland last year you know uh Edmonton’s a pretty viable Market in Canada nowadays Calgary uh Ben out to St John and monton B to Saskatoon um markets really irrelevant
(21:50) right I mean what we’re ultimately trying to teach them is hey with enough diligence with enough preparation really istically in 48 to 72 hours you can parachute anywhere and and create a sustainable market right you can create a team you can have meetings with people you can turn over rocks find Opportunities we can make offers we can start doing due diligence and you know fortunately I’ve I’ve had a chance to have some success you know as I said prior to starting the show um to date my uh my Tally is I’m not saying it to beat
(22:25) my chest I’m saying it because I’m I’m proud of it quite frankly you know I’ve helped 32 people reach Financial Independence MH and um as you saw I mean as part of the Review Committee which you know I I think is is part of what makes us different right is we do have a third-party nonpartisan Review Committee for our Awards and it’s very stringent as you would know and your doc and their documents have to be submitted for proof yeah yeah an audit it’s not just like I make this much money and I think one one thing that I I
(22:57) really like to voice because it was a huge part of our conversation as part of the founding team and we see it with other coaching acmy and we won’t name names it’s not productive but we we saw that and we knew that it at least myself I I go I went and audited another curriculum after I was done with Legacy just for interest and you know they they don’t go super deep on topics they just kind of skim the surface they get you salivating and excited and then they’re like hey Ryan now that you know how to do this here’s a great deal to buy and
(23:28) it’s their deal and I’m like okay so do you have my best interest in mind or are you just trying to sell more of your stuff how it came across to me and so as we were founding tyt it was one thing we said unequivocally rule number one we will not do work with students period we will teach them to fish we will teach them to create their own sustainable business we will not hand them fish because frankly we’re in a position of power and of course they’re going to believe us right and I think I think that that’s skewed
(24:00) so you know I would take a lot of pride in in the success that we create and I think you saw that at the award ceremony I mean I don’t take that role lightly I mean I was emotionally involved with uh you know with a lot of my mentees and and I I I take I take a lot of um pride and and um you know I I really build relationships with these people so for the listener benefit I want I want to um elaborate on the uh like the coaching student doing business with their coach uh for those who don’t know the way the Securities commissions
(24:35) work is you cannot just sell uh securitized Investments to the general public so often what these companies do individuals do is they’ll sell coaching they’ll bring you in they’ll teach you something maybe teach you a lot uh and then there’s a good percentage of people who won’t don’t want to do the work and so then the coach will pitch them their own investment and so so I understand why they do it and it’s again it’s a work around for around Securities laws because now you’re coaching client you’re educating them hopefully it’s
(25:05) good quality education and that’s and I’ve been saying this a lot more has to be quality don’t just take a course take a quality course if you’re invest with someone invest for someone who has track record and has quality in a quality investment 100% right and I think you know that that’s another thing that’s foundational um with within our contract and I’ve I’ve spoken them they’re okay with me obviously toing because because it is something I think that makes us different in our IC contract or independent contractor contracts we are
(25:37) contractually obligated as coaches and mentors to continue to grow our portfolio and they have the ability to spot check at any point they’ll come and like we do for our students on Awards night submit your documents submit your title documents submit your joint venture agreements show us that you’ve grown since the last spot check M there’s danger of you being kicked off the team if you’re not growing because I think we’ve all seen that right where I know I was involved in courses over the years you mentioned quality education
(26:05) and they’re running through examples and numbers and I’m like this these numbers seem like they were from five years ago and sure enough I mean that was their last big deal so if you’re not out there as an active investor getting hit over the head and and being affected by by Law changes and and and Bank of Canada and CC policy changes and things like that effective are you realistically my view anyway and it’s a small community so this is for listeners benefit it’s a small community so it’s not hard to reference check if someone’s
(26:39) active like I literally know it’s again it’s small community so I actually I literally asked a friend of mine if they’re seeing a coach who I know is who’s who says they are very active in that market I asked a friend who I know is active in that market do you ever see them at the table offering the same buildings his answer was no I think he’s more he’s he sells courses he’s not an investor not he’s not least he’s not a practicing investor and he’s not seeing him at the deal table so then there’s nothing wrong with that it’s just and
(27:09) I’ll give you another example I saw I saw another coach Guru in his examples of deals he was saying we have this property tied up which means you have it under contract which means you don’t own it so why you marketing this as an example property like if you have it under contract you don’t even know the reality of the property true right like you haven’t seen all the units none of your team have seen all the units none of you have seen 12 months of bankroll should still be deep in due diligence at that point yeah more my
(27:42) point is if you’re going to be teaching something on multif family for example maybe use an example that you own yeah yeah because that’s a real investor and preferably have examples from you know 10 years ago on right not just a current to have things that are ongoing right because you know took go back part on my course I mean we take it stem to stern right from the basic conversations that you start having to to find Opportunities and to build your team because I mean you’re not going to find everything on MLS or Loop net right
(28:16) you want to try to find some off-market stuff so how do you do that initial due diligence making the offer you know closing stabilization refi so you know and yeah I think you’re right I mean that’s where I like to think that the right people you know like myself not that I want to toot my own horn but I mean you know we can bring value because you know we we made Acquisitions last year we’re process of currently stabilizing and then we have a large asset a 60 unit complex that the cmhc assumable debt that we took on it when
(28:50) we we we uh we closed on it in March of 22 matures in May of this coming of this year so you know we’ve started underwriting the file with our broker you know we’ve we’ve done all the capex we’ve we’ve stabilized the asset we’ve raised the noi by almost $23,000 a month you know and and we’re we’re seeing the effect of that and we get to use that as a live example you know to to help you have tied up because you can’t imp you can’t do anything to the noi when you have the property tied up sorry I’m using acronyms you can’t do
(29:25) anything you can’t improve the profitability of a property you don’t actually own it yeah 100% uh now I’ll add this other thing I’ve mentioned it many times on the show probably not enough is I don’t judge coaches on their Instagrams or their social media or what they say about themselves I judge them based on uh the results of their coaching students and before we’re recording you know I know you don’t like talking bad about people but I I’ve mentioned it before on the show I know some coaches who have uh dozens and dozens of coaching clients
(29:57) who are bankrupt right so that’s probably not someone you want to hire as your coach versus again I’ve seen your the award-winning students and I met them personally I’ve reviewed their files from trust your talent so it’s very different and that’s what that’s why I always told Tim as well that that’s and Tim always thanks me for having him on the show I say you know thank you for being one of the bright lights in our industry when there’s you know I’m always happy to shine a light on people that are going to help other people uh I
(30:27) know sounds like going ement but I get nothing for this but again I just want to see people happy and successful and I think that’s that you know we found a bit of a tribe there you know the the team you know we we we align on so many values um and and you know we all we have all reached that point I think where you know we have more than enough so then you what do we do now and and for me you know I guess especially being a father now that’s that’s my biggest goal is that you know my kids love and respect me and after I’m gone hopefully
(31:02) they speak kindly of me but maybe through these efforts there’ll be a few more people that you know my legacy lives lives on through you know they speak kindly of me after I’m gone um but I mean it’s if anything too I have found it makes me an exponentially better investor because yes being out there being active myself yeah I get I get hit over hit over the face with with issues but I I won’t I won’t pretend to know I know everything right if I think the only benefit that I may have for mentees when they come to me with some issues and and
(31:35) there have been moments where I’ve almost been a dear on headlights because I’m like H I don’t know if I have an answer for this right now but let’s work through it together and and the only Advantage I may have I always say we’re on the same path I’m just maybe two dozen steps down the path further than you are I’ve already tripped over that rock I can tell you to look out for it and perhaps I have a bigger rule of deck right because that’s that was literally my job for 17 years in corporate sales right Network like it’s your job because
(32:05) it was and so you know I I have the ability to build those relationships and you know my people are their people I always tell them that and it’s it’s interesting because I mean in some instances I also feel like I’ve bred some of my own competition but it’s it’s you know I love that because you know myself Tim Ray anybody on the team I don’t think any of us yourself incl I mean we certainly don’t have a lack mentality I’m not hey I’m going to I’m going to take Irwin’s piece of the pie I’m like I know I like pie I know you
(32:35) like pie let’s work to together and big big oh we’re in completely different markets so it doesn’t matter competition [Laughter] between now you work with your wife uh in your Investment Portfolio can you um speak to the listener on how you divide duties uh because you you come from different educational backgrounds and sounds like careers as well and how you compliment each other yeah yeah absolutely I mean it’s uh it’s always an interesting Dynamic I like to say when you’re your bedroom and business partners and and you you know sometimes
(33:10) there’s things that you yeah yeah you don’t want to bleed over into the other areas right but it’s inevitable and it’s actually it’s a really it’ll be a cool anecdote for you because we were actually seeing cherry on our mentorship with Ry when we got our first big lesson in realization so we were in there shali and I are both strong personalities she’s a she’s a very strong woman and we uh we were still newer in our relationship too like we were only together for about a year year and a bit at that point uh and we
(33:41) just decided to start growing the business um and we were talking over each other we were basically you know passively fighting with each other in in the meeting and so we get back to the car and I’m I’m driving chiali is in the front passenger seat Ray sits down behind me and he literally cuffs me in the back of the head you know gently but he says you guys look like fools in there he says I’m I’m not a marriage count so I’m not going to comment on how that can affect your relationship however from a from a professional
(34:12) perspective you guys look like fools you guys need to get your poop in a group basically and and what he encouraged us to do was you know have a candid conversation and that’s that’s carried over you know with me for for a long I love that term and I use that a lot with my my mentees now you know have a very candid conversation whether it’s with your spouse Who’s involved in the business with you whether it’s with your property manager Etc and we did we sat down and we looked at each other’s personality types we looked at each
(34:41) other’s strengths and weaknesses and we determine okay how will you best serve the business and where does the other person need to pick up the slack right so myself coming from you know the world of of business studies and and and being in corporate sales for 17 years you know I Am Naturally good at building relationships I’m you know so I I find the deals I find the money I grow I try to grow the business right and I and I create the relationships initially to build the team chaali being a textile engineer by trade with a lot of process
(35:19) refinement skills you know she’s got her lean Six Sigma Black Belt Kaizen ISO you know all about really looking at that process and how can we break it down into bite-sized chunks and refine every last piece of it you know she how she manages to find money in in some of our owner statements uh or or things that that had seemingly been done very recently and then she seems to track all of this and she’ll ask the questions hey was that toilet not replaced you know two months ago in this unit you sure that’s right or maybe that’s charged
(35:53) another unit or maybe that’s a duplicate charge and whether it’s intentional or not you never know and you never want to point fingers but who knows right I mean it’s not something that’s that’s unknown that that’s sometimes how some PMS try to make money right is by nickel and diamond with maintenance costs or they screw up or even one of their maybe even their sub screwed them over have someone like that you know um balancing you is is great you know I another anecdote or a great story we did a one of our earlier duplex conversions
(36:26) in Kitchener um if it weren’t for chaali honestly I’d probably spend like crazy often like I just hey so she keeps me in check and so this duplex conversion we went to Best Buy for our our basement suite and I bought this beautiful stainless steel appliance package frankly overspent now we now we go to scratch and D Outlets because you know who cares especially if it’s on the side you’ll never see it once it’s in love those demo models Flor models yeah I’ll take it car versus new car no one knows the differ my rent I don’t care that much she
(37:01) tracked so she had the must had the receipt I knew she had the receipt and she tracked all the model numbers and Best Buy had a 90day price match guarantee at the time and literally we were both on our day jobs at the time but day 89 and a half kid you not on her lunch she calls me we got to go back to Best Buy tonight like why she those appliances are on sale at another store plus they have free delivery and me being a sales guy like if if I perceive value in a product or a service I don’t Heckle I just pay and I
(37:35) think that’s I think that sales for the relationship yeah I think sales people make horrible customers because we you know well good for the person selling but you know bad for trying to save ourselves money and so we go back to Best Buy I’m mortified there’s no way I’m going up to the customer service desk so I go and walk off and look at some Electronics while she goes and she saved us 438 bucks and I’ll remember that story forever right because you you you need those types of people on your team and so anyway to go back it’s it’s
(38:04) yeah it’s really about candidly having a conversation with your partner and determining hey knowing what we know about each other where do we think each other is going to best serve the business and where do we think each other falls short and and and opening up that space though right because sometimes depending on your Dynamics and the relationship I mean having some of those difficult conversations and maybe pointing some fingers at each other can be hard but saying hey we’re doing this candidly we we want to be really honest
(38:34) here there’s no offense meant you know let’s just figure out how we can best Propel this business forward um and then of course you know creating some people always ask how do you get all these things done right you’re you’re a coach and Mentor you have a thriving business you have two young kids you still manage to take care of your health how what we block everything out everything everything goes in the calendar right I dropped my son off to to montor school in the morning I get back I got my first work block right 9:00 a.m. to noon my
(39:10) first work block noon to two that’s Cha’s Personal Care time she’s off to the gym the sauna whatever so it’s Daddy Daughter time for me because my daughter’s not in school yet but I love that you know we have some quality time together two so basically six is is my next block so I’ll often I’ll go to train in that block as well I train with my trainer three times a week and then the other other three days I I train on my own um so we both have time for our health and then in the evening it’s non-negotiable it’s in my calendar so
(39:39) even mentees when they’re trying to book calls 5:30 to 8:30 family time dinner together some sort of fun activity before they go to bed it’s non-negotiable it’s in there and depending on things that are going on you know if we have an opportunity we’re looking at or or or something we’re trying to do due diligence on before we close there might be a bit of an evening work block but I I try my best to be in bed by 11 so it but it’s again it’s everything is blocked out I think that’s the the the best way to to be efficient
(40:09) and to to kind of help support each other right because I mean yes you want to have time together as a family unit as husband and wife but everybody needs a little bit of their own time too I like to think right and and we managed to accomplish that Ryan I noticed um so I’ve I study both successful people and and admittedly I study business failures as well and one thing I noticed was if you take for example the folks who are in the news for going bankrupt or disappearing or whatnot uh a lot of the time they were very good at raising
(40:45) money they weren’t so great at executing the actual investment and sometimes they were just out outright lying about the investment um so what I but what I noticed with yourself and chaali is that you know like you have the sales relationship skills and chaali being a black belt which is for the listener’s benefit this is a a very high certification for process and quality um quality of process uh ge made this thing famous made that that whole concept famous Kaizen made famous by like Honda and Toyota whatnot anyways uh but yeah
(41:21) you guys compliment Each Other Well to properly execute and this is why I always preach to to to folks in general is also as well like understand who you are what you’re capable of anything you can’t do you need to find it like the concept of who not how right it’s great to know how to do it maybe you do it yourself for a little bit uh but if you get to a certain scale then you probably need to find someone else to do it and this was the Miss for a lot of these companies that went under and or like the gentleman out in Vancouver
(41:51) who ow was like 113 million of private lending again could not execute great salesperson raise money like nobody else no no one’s business but again could not execute the actual investment because um whoever know who knows what reasons why uh now I also want to bring up like you dropped the bomb on me I didn’t know about I don’t know if you’re public about it but your heart attack yeah yeah and I mean it plays into that you know bit of my intro right you know I was are you public about that do do people um not blar over your
(42:23) Instagram yeah not not not not splattered all over my my social media no but I mean those in my circle definitely no um and yeah I mean it was interesting because it was I always try to look at the Silver Lining I mean yeah obviously scared the B Jesus out of me you know could have it was October of 2022 6 about 20 after 6 in the morning I got jolted out of bed you know the sweaty Palms the pain in the chest the heavy breathing [ __ ] um and so ultimately went to the hospital you know went through the full EKG ECG went you know afterwards a
(43:00) stress test a hter monitor and yeah they found I forget the name of the the protein that secreted right during a heart attack but they found Trace Amounts of that protein which confirmed basically that that that something had happened um and then having lost my dad at 52 to a stress induced heart attack I mean it really hit home and we shaali was out of the business at that point so we really we started our journey in March of 2018 September of 2020 uh she retired from her job so we did that pretty quickly and then we had set goals
(43:32) out in place right away we said okay 10K a month she leaves 20K a month I leave and we were getting towards the 20K and I arbitrarily moved the goal poost because as I talked about before we started you know I guess frankly it was a heavy set of golden handcuffs to let go of I mean I was making great money I was making 300K plus a year and you know with what was now a young family at that point I mean that security coming in that that’s hard to let go of so I arbitrarily doubled the goal and to 40K a month and and I think that that it
(44:08) kept me in it clearly far too long and you know as we grew I mean when I joined the organization uh that I was with you know our annual sales were shy of 5 million a year when I left it was over 86 so we grew sign ific anly um over what was that 17 years um in doing that though you need to become an entirely different organization and and with that you know came unfortunately a lot more micromanagement from from the managing partners and and of course you know we attracted manufacturers that drove us harder that wanted more rep reporting
(44:50) and other metrics and so the heart attack happened and um a there were many things at play there I mean I mean you know the hours that I had to put in the the number of calls I had to make a day I mean most days I was lucky if I had time to to Quick slide through a Tim Horton’s drive-thru to grab a a coffee and a wrap between appointments so you know I probably paid for a couple employees annual salaries at Tim Horton’s every year easily um but not a healthy lifestyle whatsoever right and and very sedentary because I was either
(45:22) behind the wheel or sitting at a desk for a business meeting and uh when it happened yeah was 2 237 pounds you know nowadays I’m between 185 190 and and 12 to 14% body fat I’ve really committed to the fitness because I remember and and that comes back to to kind of some of my Reflections as a child you know my dad was was very successful as well but I looked at him and I mean he wasn’t always the picture of Health realistically and and I noticed that and I said okay what has he sacrificed and kids are a lot smarter
(45:58) than we give them credit for and I’m watching I’m starting to see that and you know as as financially successful as falling I’ve been fortunate enough to to become and create I didn’t want those questions coming up with our kids you know what did Mommy and Daddy have to sacrifice I want to show them uh and she she was another one actually that was at the annual conference if you remember Eva medc um she’s one of Brendon Bard’s high performance coaches I’ve been been working with her for a few years and one of the biggest things that she says that
(46:27) since really hit me is it can be a both end it doesn’t need to be an either or you just need to figure out how to make it happen right so like time blocking for example and so committing to my health I I want to be an example to them on all fronts right financially physically spiritually all of that you know and and I think that it’s it’s also paid dividends on the other front I mean yes obviously hopefully no more future heart attacks uh you know 53 pounds lighter than I was when I had the heart attack and you know stronger than ever and and
(47:00) confident and comfortable in my own skin um but I find it’s it’s given me other benefits like with my teaching and mentoring you know I I I I command a little bit more attention when I’m at the front of the room because of the physical stature you know my energy levels my mental Clarity my ability to cope with stress it’s all through the roof and and the interesting thing I find in our business because you know I I I try to drive the growth finding opportunities finding money in the fundraising conversations in
(47:31) particular there we go there we go yeah it was actually that was literally uh what was that the the night before my birthday so a day ago yeah yeah oh for those who are watching the YouTube for those sorry for those who aren’t watching the video version I’m on Ryan’s uh Instagram and U again he’s quite fit as as proven by the picture after moving close to 60,000 pounds over over how long uh that was about an hour and a half workout that was uh that was 10 10 by 10 so uh 10 sets of 10 squats 10 sets of 10 bench 10 sets of 10
(48:11) uh deadlifts is this daily thing that’s a lot of no no no no no that’s actually that workout now on my new program because I’m in a bit of a a shred phase um that’s actually weekly that’s every Sunday okay yeah I would I won’t be able to move till next Sunday I’m feeling it today I typically have sort of that delayed hit it’s about two days and I’m I’m uh yeah welcome to your 40s pretty much pretty much yeah some of the GM Bros there and obviously the family features quite prominently in the social media there
(48:48) you know that’s that’s a big part of why we’re doing what we’re doing too is you know we uh we want them to be students of the world right as much as formal education plays a role in in growth you know I truly think that there’s so much that can be learned from you know culture and history and so you know exposing them to to different parts of the world you know um we we were reflecting I mean every every New Year’s Day we do this exercise as a family where we uh we reflect on what our goals were for the previous year and
(49:24) we really dive deep and say okay and some some many we hit some we missed realistically some we missed and and and we need to to kind of understand why and then um we create new goals and and in reflecting on last year I real it would have never happened when I was in the corporate world like we we were fortunate enough to travel for 14 weeks last year but we created that right so you know we were we were in India for a month and we were in uh Taiwan and we were in Bali we were in Mexico on a cruise for my son’s first
(50:00) birthday or sorry third birthday I should say you know and and we uh yeah we love that we love creating the memories because you know hopefully uh when they get older and they have the ability to make their own decisions they want to come back and see Mom and Dad you know because because they’re cool we’ll see I mean time will tell on that front but um you know it’s it just it all comes together right and I mean it’s it’s such a big part of um our why for sure and why we do what we do and I think that you know if I have to say you
(50:33) know between like you said us being complimentary of each other with our skill sets but you know being family people you know when we try to search for and align with Partners on an investment front you know we always do kind of look for those values and for that ability I mean you know one of our more proud Partnerships is is a young couple that that I met met uh years ago revealing a bit of inner geek but uh I’m a competitive well I was a semi-competitive bowler 10pin and uh so I I I met some people actually met a few
(51:09) Partners there over the years and but these Investment Partners do you met Investment Partners while bowling okay and you know always you know I I find one thing I like to say is a quiet investor is a broke investor right talk to the world about what you’re doing just put it out there and and this couple I mean they have a young daughter she’s wonderful and and she really is growing and and excelling now but has a bit of a disability and in as such you know needs some needs a support worker and and needs some medications and and
(51:39) that can be pretty crippling on a young family right that gets expensive and so you know the passive income we’ve been able to help them create you know to help support those Endeavors and you know now with some of our partners them included you know we’re on round two three some four of Acquisitions you know with with the same money um because we’ve been able to to properly execute on on stabilization and refinance the I guess the the popularized bur term if you will and um you know we take a lot of pride in that because I mean it’s
(52:11) yeah not numbers and money are one thing but you know being able to help be a part in creating those stories you know whether it’s whether it’s through actively investing with them or whether it’s you know being their culture mentor to help them scale their own business out it’s so rewarding so rewarding right as we record this is January 7th so 2024 just ended and what I think is the uh the bottom the the rough cycle of the real estate cycle is probably past us uh what what are what have been the last last lessons from
(52:47) like the last two years or so it’s been a rough roughly about last two years have been a rough spot for for Real Estate Investors across Canada yeah what have what have been your observation and lessons and then after that I’ll ask you about what where you see things going forward sure yeah yeah I mean I think in the last couple of years and and we’ve seen you know a number of gurus or investors you know Fade Away in into um there’s still around that just blocked me but yeah because they know I know sorry um you know it’s it’s it’s been
(53:23) ensuring you’re always conservative like honestly real estate is not a get-rich quick scheme we both know this you know but when you do it properly with time it is a get I say get wealthy for sure right I I truly think that real estate is what helps to create long-term wealth you know to rely upon passive cash flow from properties to potentially live your life especially in your early stages as Anor I think that’s a critical mistake you know because there’s always going to be things that come up and and I think
(53:57) that that’s where conservative underwriting needs to take place from day one you know one thing we’ve always done over ask on the entry but spell it out hey Mr Mrs investor this is why we’re asking for what we’re asking for the breakdown right you’re talking a seller right no no when we’re trying to acquire a property and and enroll investors right so we say okay we need X for closing payment we need this for legal and and and all all of that uh we need this for to Kickstart some anticipated repairs and we also want to actually
(54:33) bring in a little bit to top up our flush fund to have money there and then in our monthly budget before any cash flow distributions are ever made we’re always pulling out funds for vacancy and maintenance and placing them in a joint like a corporate account that everyone has visibility on right including our partners they can see at anytime where the balance is and where it’s growing we run a a full um income and expens statement for them every month and provide that to them you know so conservative underwriting conservative
(55:02) operation but also not being a onetick pony and I think that’s where a lot of people failed in the last couple of years right we had a lot of people that were known to be flippers for example and when the market shifted and and values adjusted down in a lot of markets you know they were probably overpaying on the entry they weren’t making a lot of money in the buy they were overing and they got caught with put their pants down right so when what may be your core strategy right now is no longer viable hey where
(55:34) do you go how do you pivot right you need to be prepared to Pivot and for us for so long value ad multif family was our thing and it we still have that radar on and we’re still you know we’re still actively evaluating a couple opportunities right now for example but we pivoted because in the last couple of years in real estate in general I would say money is made when you add value I think that’s fair to say right and and the more value you add the more opportunity there is to make money so as the market became more difficult or or
(56:08) tighter we had to search on okay how do we create more value so we pivoted to purpose Bill to infills right because at that point it’s no longer an existing asset that you’re trying to stabilize you’re now creating more density which let’s be honest so many cities across the country need so we pivoted into Edmonton uh versus you know we were we were very active in in New Brunswick for quite a while um so we pivoted into Edmonton they have basically rolled out the red carpet for for small to mediumsized investors with some of the
(56:42) the rezoning um standards that were created and we started doing some infills so you know we we acquire those old well the one instance you know Granny’s old Bungalow thousand foot bungalow on a massive lot a 50 by 150 law and the city is allowing us to put up an aplex there right and so but again as we approach that we were Ultra conservative so we knew going in that on the exit with mli at a 2.
(57:12) 4 million as built uh value uh and 90% loan to value we’d be able to get our money out and then our appraisal came in at 273 right so now you know we only need about 79.3% loan to value so we’re not going to over leverage the property which is great so we get to retain some cash flow but of course we’re going to take the 50 or am why not right for us I think it’s it’s a mindset shift right I mean there’s that old dialogue a lot of people get work hard pay off your mortgage don’t get into debt yeah don’t get in the Consumer Debt you don’t
(57:46) necessarily need to pay off a mortgage depending on what your goals are right I mean we we don’t have very little interest in paying off the asset we just need to Rel leverage it so that we can get more but not to the extreme yeah okay you can get 95% with mli but do you want to take it because then you’re leaving yourself in a very dangerous position in my opinion which you know many people had yeah yeah so I mean we know okay we only need 79.
(58:13) 3% that’s all we’re GNA take no more right we want we’d like to get our money out and our investors already speaking the right language they said hey if we get it all out let’s just parlay it into another one wonderful that’s the ultimate compliment I feel as an investor when your partners say yeah you’ve done well by us let’s let it ride and so you know again so conservative in your underwriting um not counting on your cash your passive cash flow distributions to live your life um not being afraid to Pivot you know so whether that’s constantly being
(58:46) you know educating yourself and being you know going in search of new skill sets I think that’s crucial because if you’re not growing you’re dying quite frankly in my opinion um those probably be the the three biggest things that have helped us to bridge through um the most recent years yeah and also like you chose a market uh that is expected to lead the country in uh population growth as well so it’s not you’re not you know one of my criticisms of of some of these fails failed investment strategies was for
(59:19) example U one of them was that like Tim’s Ontario for example that has a shrinking population and a very small one is fact like ,000 population with like no no neighbor anywhere close to a decen sized population so like so for me off the right off the Hop like this strategy doesn’t make any sense uh versus again uh I’ve had couple quite a few guests on this show who are investing in Edmonton people I consider smart well I think there’s there’s some nice Dynamics going on there right I mean you have economic diversity I mean
(59:54) yes there’s still some natural resource ties not as heavily biased I would say as Calgary uh but you know you it’s it’s the capital so you’ve got government there’s a number of wonderful education institutions there you know you’ve got a budding Tech sector you’ve got a ton of Logistics in luk right you know so um I think there’s a lot of diversity there you know the the better balance between landlord and tenants is welcome as as someone that lives in say balance I think it seems pretty landlord friendly oh yeah no for sure I mean yeah the the
(1:00:29) fact obviously that there’s but but sorry that’s relative to like the rest of Canada like and where else do you not pay your bills and expect service only in Ontario Quebec BC you know I think the worst we’ve ever had out there and mind you we got a great PM out there um you know we had some nonay 42 days gone think a pretty good worst case scenario compared to what you see BC Ontario absolutely you know and and the fact that you know we have no interest in being slum landlords at in the least you know I owe you a couple of pictures
(1:01:07) as followup for for promotion in the end and I’ll get them to you but you know I’ll send you some of our units like we like to operate nice units we’re proud of our product and you know at least out there you can you can kind of get what’s do to you you know you can’t be an absolute cowboy in charge whatever you want because then of course Market Market stay vacant but at least it can be fair and and and we enjoy that about that market and for sure yeah hopefully I don’t know I should stop using the word hope and government in the same
(1:01:42) sentence but uh for those who don’t know like Edmonton’s a wonderful uh case study for U no rank control and having limited red tape for for developers because for like the long EST period like rents were very inexpensive in Edmonton because Builders were allowed to build with density uh without red tape and excessive charges and that was for the win of the tenants I I couldn’t believe that I mean we and we haven’t ourselves we haven’t done any development in Ontario and I don’t know if we ever will quite frankly how much further our money can
(1:02:21) go other places but I mean I I know developers here whether it was from my previous life because we played in that world dealt with some of the biggest builders in in the country like triell Dela manami guys like that um but I mean in Edmonton for our infields so the the one that we um just got all our permits on six months from closure on the property to all of our permits in hand six months and 26 Grand no way that would ever happen whoa right only 26,000 soft cause yeah well I guess sorry if we add our ASB bestus um inspection and mitigation
(1:03:03) in there we’re prob we’re in around 34 you need that much for how you’re GNA tear down so yeah that’s the they they need you to be clear even though you’re yeah even though you’re tearing it down I guess they don’t want it aspirated into the air didn’t make a lot of sense to me but whatever you know so we we had to make sure that we had the inspection and that anything that was found we had to mitigate yeah we were about about 8 Grand in for that so I guess consider 34 35k for our soft cost cuz you know in like Kitchener like
(1:03:34) the development charge for a garden Suite is over 40,000 compared to you got it done for less than 40,000 for an aplex months you know we’re we’re working with a great Builder who who currently has about 50 they build about a handful eight to 10 Custom Homes a year but their bre and butter is actually infill so they have about 50 these on the go so they have a number of plans that the city has seen een teen number of times and they’ve already basically kind of gotten the stamp a number of times over so that may help to FasTrack things but
(1:04:14) I still think it’s the culture of Edmonton I don’t yeah efficieny yeah and then again like end of the day it’s a win for the tenants because the the Brent like I know they’re are creeping up you but like the last like over 10 12 years rents were very flat thanks to Builder building right and that’s flat like real num sorry gross numbers real numbers are actually going down based on if you’re inflation adjusted yeah right and again that’s a win for the tenant where else do you find wins for the tenants in Canada well the fact I
(1:04:49) mean when you look at and and don’t get me wrong like mli when used properly mli select it’s a great program just again be careful not to lever yourself goes back to my point about quality Investments quality also means not overleveraging it makes you can actually make the affordability index their work because it’s 1663 bucks so our our basement Suites even at top of Market they’re below the affordability index makes so so we’re not sacrificing anything it you know I think you already answered my next question and what is
(1:05:21) the what is the plans for 2025 for investing what do you see going forward so &on development yeah I mean we definitely want to continue to grow there um we like the Dynamics of those those quick small little infills because I mean you’re 18 to 24 months from acquisition to to finish product realistically um we do want to explore a larger purpose buil because the the equity release we’re anticipating on our on that 60 unit that we spent the last St well almost three years stabilizing uh is going to be significant and so
(1:05:54) we’re actually looking at potential going either West or or into the US um no we can share notes yeah well um so we’re looking maybe a land assembly in Edmonton and doing like a 40 to 60 unit purpose build um we don’t we have actively always made the business decision we don’t particularly like anything high-rise uh we don’t like elevators big Capital costs they’re expensive ongoing maintenance so we’ve always liked sort of your your walkup model your three story walkup so we’d probably focus on something more like
(1:06:26) that um there’s so few contractors who do elevators so you’re really at their Mercy yeah so continuing to grow on emont for sure we have the radar on in in uh in New Brunswick which was another one of our large markets but um we’re not as active there uh but we are very much we have have yet to really invest in the US uh but that’s a big part of the goals that we’ve set forth for this year you know we knew uh We’ve we have a number of long a mid to long-term projects that are finally coming back to fruition so we’ll be pretty flushed with
(1:07:01) some Capital which will be nice and we knew that when we wanted to make that jump uh as you know I mean obviously the US very litigious they like the Su so we want to make sure like we’ve always done here in Canada we’ve all I’ve always said lawyers and accountants get great ones don’t ever gripe about paying them because they’re going to make you in the long run keep on insurance either so we wanted to make the proper investment to have not only our our corporate structure set up in the US properly but also all that crossborder
(1:07:35) money movement to avoid double Taxation and things like that um so maybe somewhere we can confair notes I’d appreciate that because Cherry’s gonna sit for a US CPA in a few weeks so she she her her firm is already taking it already has us clients the clients investing the US for doing their and she’s doing their tax returns okay okay now we’re running out of time and I asked you before according if I can ask if I could ask you your experience with Claire Dr so I can mention the name because it’s quite public it’s all in
(1:08:01) the news yeah yeah and then the show has always been like this isn’t all sunshine and rainbows you had a heart attack at 38 I didn’t know how this didn’t give you a heart attack as well oh you know it was it was interesting so I mean for those listening you know we’ve we’ve managed to recuperate some of it because there were some some people that that did the right thing um and when we started conversing with them directly you know they ultimately did pay us back but we stand at this point I mean I think it’s
(1:08:32) ultimately safe to say we’re going to write it off because you know there’s nothing left in the CCAA proceedings and we we were all promisory notes so you know we weren’t in second position we weren’t in first position um and we knew going in I guess at the time that that was a perceived risk however you know based on what we thought of Claire I mean she was an instructor at Legacy right that that gave her in our mind and so part of why we invested with her we we knew that that was ultimately worst case but we we could we stand to
(1:09:02) probably right off and lose $790,000 in that Fiasco um which hurts um however you know trying to always be The Optimist you know I I look at it and actually a conversation with Ry occurred and and it was it was a quite a perspective shift because he says Ryan think about 2018 you right as we were just starting the business if something that this had happened then I I I may very well have gone into the brokerage with a baseball bat or worse and and now yeah it hurts it’ll sting but it won’t sink us right because we’ve
(1:09:39) managed to diversify we’ve managed to create other wins um but I guess that’s another lesson learned is you know as attractive as those High returns can be you know at this point you know we were 177% because all of our notes were direct to lender um there’s always that risk versus reward and probably could have done a you know a little more due diligence a little more digging um and probably could have attempted to uh make demands for repayment much earlier on like I mean we let it go on for months and months and
(1:10:23) months of non-payment and then things ultimately went into to CCAA proceedings um and yeah I mean there was a time early on when when we first got news I I legitimately started thinking about uh interviewing I went back to some head hunters in my old industry and I had some great offers come up don’t get me wrong I had quar million dollar offers to go back into the the workforce however you know knowing what my previous life was like again I would I would be earning that I’d be 70 80 hour work weeks you know I’d be low guy on
(1:10:53) the totem pole again um and I want you know I looked at what we had so fiercely clawed and and and fought to create through our business to be present for our kids and I didn’t want to go back to that and I think you know one thing that I encourage anybody that I talk to as a student Mt I’m like truly understand the value of your time right look at what you know where you are currently in terms of passive income if there’s any or ultimately where you where you want to be with your business so on our case you know a goal we really wanted to hit
(1:11:28) was 50k a month so you metrize that 50k a month 600 Grand a year break it down right 52 weekends 104 days a reasonable job you’re going to get three weeks of vacation most of us are probably going to want more but if you use those numbers and you divide the numbers down effectively your time is worth about $400 an hour right and around that a little over $400 an hour right if we if we do that math and so let that drive your decisions right so one going back into the workforce yeah it was good money but it wasn’t that good and it was it wasn’t
(1:12:03) allowing me to any longer help Drive the growth in my business or other things you know I don’t mind Landscaping however is it in my best interest when my time is worth What It’s Worth to do that no I hire a landscaper at 180 bucks a month they come and do it once a month or once a week you know all our meals are pre-planned my wife and I you know all these things Buy back your time that’s another great book right um and so it was really that critical fork in the road that that CLA dra scenario kind of drove it’s like okay do I go left do
(1:12:37) I go back to the work world or ultimately and and thankfully looking back now you know said okay let’s just double down and find a way to grow out of it and it takes a certain mindset to do that of course uh but that’s when we decided to Pivot we said okay you know we’re no longer really finding opport unities in our other markets with the velocity we want we know there’s been a massive relaxation of the zoning standards in emont so let’s let’s get it done made made a trip out there made a couple trips out there you know interviewed
(1:13:08) some Builders interviewed some PMs and brought on a whole new strategy right and and you know by the end of the year we’ll probably have five or six of them on the go in the market um again hopefully maybe a larger one with the equity release from that other project so you know it was what was initially devastating and there was a lot of stress there was there were tears on my part on chal’s part um on her family’s part because we had drawn her parents in they had invested some money when they uh when they first came to Canada it was
(1:13:40) basically all they had they sold their house in India and they had put it in there and it’s it’s gone um so yeah don’t uh I guess looking back you know as I said I mean we we sort of automatically gave her clout because of you know where we had met her at Legacy and and being the I think she was the creative Finance um instructor the first time we took it second time we took it was with Tim and um yeah do your due diligence on people do your due diligence on the opportunities you know involve other people too because realistically I think
(1:14:20) at that point it was earlier in our career and frankly I don’t we we probably weren’t smart enough to properly you know pour over those those documents and those investment proposals we should have or drive by the property too I know a lot of people did not drive by the property and they never would have done the deal if they if they had or just have someone you know locally drive by yeah some the properties don’t even exist have been torn down there’s one torn down by the city going against the CCA order no sorry everyone just c t on the
(1:14:55) house the banks like we had a mortgage on this thanks I mean and I and I don’t want to wish ill on anyone um but I mean in my heart of hearts I guess the only the only thing I’ll say is I hope that Karma keep catches up with some of these people whether it’s the borrowers or you know other people right we’re over time so I think it’s a good place to leave it there uh where can people track you down connect with you where’s the best to connect with you uh social media I guess is is uh probably easiest nowadays um so
(1:15:31) trying to think Instagram um couple of pages uh need don’t know actually I should know my own handles shouldn’t I ranor car 5 uh is my personal and then um Sherry group uh is uh is the company um nothing special there if you actually look at it so chaali and Ryan that’s where Sherry comes from um so again she gets top billing because she’s the brains of the operation truly there she is there she is yeah yeah thanks so much for doing this although she’s tiny she’s Mighty yeah no thank you Eran I appreciate you uh having me on and uh
(1:16:13) and a great way to kick off the year I agree this is a great episode to kick off the year because uh you’ve gone through a lot and it’s not all sunshine and Roses but you’re pushing forward I’m sure many people will benefit from this message appreciate it and uh yeah there’s may maybe other things to talk about in the future but uh we certainly love to keep in touch and uh I think that there’s H probably an opportunity to chat with with yourself and Sherry on on the the the US setup so we should set that up up
(1:16:42) to all right all right friends that wraps up another episode of the truth about real estate investing show for Canadians hope you got as much out of this one as I did remember that whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned investor there’s always something new to learn and it’s always about building that practical knowledge base that gets you closer to Financial Freedom if you found value today please do us a favor and leave us a review or a rating share this episode with a friend or better yet join our community of Real Estate
(1:17:07) Investors who are taking action and making moves and hey if there’s a topic you want us to cover or have uh there’s a certain guest you’d like us to have on the show drop me a line my DMs are open on social media reply to this email let this have arrived on I’m not hard to find uh you know we’re all about getting you the unfiltered truth to help you on your journey thanks again for tuning in and we’ll see you in the next episode until then stay Smart Stay curious and keep building that future catch you later

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