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(00:00) congratulations keire judging Award winners and how slow and steady wins the race and it’s much preferable over the millions and millions of dollars being lost from being overleveraged too fast too soon wrong bad timing investing all that more on this week’s truth about real estate investing show for Canadians my name is Iran CTO host and producer of the show since 2016 i’ like to start off by apologizing to this week’s guest Tim Sai as we couldn’t get this episode uh out before the invested annual conference uh for which I was a judge I
(00:31) was the category uh for a category of War winners for investors who’ achieved a uh different levels of financial freedom fincial freedom would be defined as uh having uh at least earn earning regular cash flow above one’s monthly expenses and then enough to replace say a job and then enough to level three would be to you know never worry about money again when you’re doing all sorts of fun and crazy things uh anyways uh the event was excellent uh I was there last night that’s probably why I sound a little horse and I’m a little bit
(01:06) tired and uh again it was great uh the energy in the room was fantastic uh many of the award winners were talking about how it’s more than just a community community the trust your talent uh Community it uh is much more like a family and um yeah it really impressive um I can’t recall being in such a small room where people were so close and supportive of one another and and having reviewed uh the awardwinning criteria I reviewed again um applicants I reviewed about at least a dozen applicants who’ve achieved a level of Financial Freedom
(01:40) all very impressive um so if you haven’t checked out truster talent I definitely recommend that you do uh and if you haven’t and the listen to to this episode this week’s episode as Tim Sai one of the co-founders Will Be Our Guest of the show before we get to Tim I want to congratulate kespire for another successful event I was at the kespire summit where they had the keynote speaker of Shaquille O’Neal and he’s such a nice guy uh I always remember the words that he said he he wants to be remembered as like Shaquille O’Neal was
(02:10) a nice guy that’s how he wants to be remembered um more for me more importantly you know speakers wonderful um but you know I like to connect with people on the ground and and the one nice thing about ke members from my experien is there are so many really really nice people there the coaches the staff their partners are sponsors all so many nice people uh you know I had dinner with about 60 of them over the weekend uh the feedback on our and and then of course them being in kind uh the feedback that that key Spar members are
(02:43) giving on our uh efforts to make USA investing easy as possible we’re well recognized and received my friend Scott Dillingham uh owner of Len City USA and Len City Canada uh he’s dual citizen so he’s a mortgage brokerage both in the US and in Canada uh and he had a booth too and as you’d expect Real Estate Investors who had analyzed deals in both can in in Canada they understand uh when we show them numbers what’s available in the states they and how mortgage financing is basically infinite as long as you can find a deal you can get a
(03:13) mortgage you’re you don’t have to personally qualify anyways um yeah without folks like Scott it would not be easy without a team uh and we at share and lens City uh can combine help a lot of people buy a lot of properties in the states so uh Scott and on behalf of Sher I can say that we’re excited to help more keire members and members of any Community really we don’t discriminate we can help any investors from any Community uh and organizations invest in the USA uh speaking of investor organizations we have the
(03:48) co-founder of trust your talent Tim Sai on the show it’s been two years since been on the he’s been on the show but members of Tim people he’s personally coached and mentored uh including the 150 plus folks who’ve achieved some some level of Financial Freedom uh and uh that’s a lot of people that’s that’s that’s a that’s a really impressive track record for an organization that’s only existed for five years uh Tim and co-founder Ray have directly coached uh many these folks including past guests of the show Vince Lee and Brook Shang uh
(04:21) and now they’re both now coaches of Tim and great Tim and Ray group trust your talent so Tim’s back on this week’s show uh to to share what’s worked in his own portfolio including what has not worked in his career uh when he saw red flags and was able to avoid damage with one of the very well-known mortgage brokers out there who’s in the headlines for all the wrong reasons uh unfortunately Manny did not cash those red flags and of course many individuals have lost hundreds of thousands some millions of dollars
(04:52) private lending in small towns on high Lage Investments too much too fast too complicated Investments uh however Tim’s members have survived that’s why I’m having back on the show uh if you have successful clients during this this period of real estate winter as they call it um I want to hear how you did it and that’s why Tim’s back in the show and i’ and I met dozens of uh really happy people uh among Tim’s community at trust your talent at the invested Gala now about Tim after retiring himself at the age of 30 Tim began to
(05:25) pursue another goal and passion of his helping those who are committed to achieving Financial Freedom do the same to this day Tim continues to be an active investor as he believes in investing is a lead by example Venture with the with the investment he made in his own Financial education Tim became financially free in two years 25 months to be exact after his first training uh in the past few years Tim has built cash flowing portfolios in Canada us and UK using a variety of strategies uh income properties lease options uh for most
(05:55) that’s usually called rental own both in residential and Commercial create a financing of course flipping wholesaling infield development mobile home parks Etc now for to get a hold of Tim probably the best way place is his website treasure talent.com Tim Sai s TS AI Tim Sai you can find him on Instagram he’s got well over 10,000 followers check him out and please enjoy the show [Music] all right Tam what’s keeping you busy these days paying it forward keeps me busy traveling a lot keeps me busy and looking young no you know it’s the Asian jeans
(06:44) you can [Laughter] relate I don’t know we’re landlords in different provinces so i’ I’ve developed a lot more gray hair and I’m sure you have those conversations with your clients all the time the difference between investing in onario versus Alberta I like how you said it though and and Al also for me you know there is definitely a fundamental difference between landlording versus investing I prefer to be an investor more than being a landlord yeah okay we’re GNA say that for a little bit now yeah so for listener doesn’t know who you are can
(07:17) you tell us a bit about yourself and trust your talent yeah so um I actually started investing I was use that word very very Loosely back in 2004 because that was my very first property and I didn’t managed to keep it and became what I think a lot of people will call an accidental landlord or or or an organic landlord because when I was moving to my second property I was able to keep it and rent it out and so that started that Journey started in 2004 however the real turning point for me that I always share is that
(07:49) I started to get myself and educated on different investing strategies in real estate at the beginning of 2010 so for nearly 15 years now I become a professional investor as we call ourselves leveraging real estate and other asset classes now since then to build my portfolio my income streams and wealth and I was able to actually retire myself 25 months after I started getting myself trained and so I mean that date was July 25th 2012 and I was able to walk away from a soul sucking Health impeding j o in July 20 2012 and um and
(08:30) 2014 I was actually recruited to become a trainer and a mentor with this little organization called Rich chat education here in Canada little and uh was able to travel around the globe you know teaching people around the world on financial education leveraging real estate as the main asset class to create income and wealth and at the end of 2019 I actually came out and started my own Training Academy that is trust your Talon Academy now and we’re nearly 5 years old and uh it is a passion project for me because through my own personal
(09:05) journey and my time with Rich Dad and before they pull away from the market I realized that I have some soul searching to do because I always tell people that you know it’s great that you know you’ve achieved Financial Freedom when I did that I was so proud of myself however when I achieved Financial Freedom I what I was what was I doing I was uh watching TV watching movies playing video games with my dogs wanting to go out for lunch with my friends but they were all working going to the mall by myself I realized that within a couple of months
(09:37) of declaring Financial Freedom and not having to go to work every single day I was actually starting to get a little stifled and almost depressed because I felt like hang on a second I worked so hard to build my portfolio to free myself from a soul sucking job and now it feels like I’ve lost meaning and purpose and so I think that was a really also a turning point for me to go you know what I really enjoy sharing my experiences and teaching others and that’s why when um when the rich that opportunity came up I said yes in a
(10:15) heartbeat to continue to give back and I’ve been doing that now officially for about 10 and a half years because I started my journey with Rich Dad back in February 2014 so here we are we set a mouthful there so one the one of the reasons I reached out to you to have you back on the show is uh we’re recording this September 2024 it’s um it’s a pretty dark time for our community not so much for like your clients or my clients because we kind of kept things you know on the I like to call I get criticized for saying boring
(10:53) but I don’t know call it long-term Investing For Cash Flow yes like I call that boring versus is the folks who tried to get exciting and part of it sorry I won’t say exciting but folks who like high leverage development aggressive investing a lot of hard money borrowing a lot of hard money a lot lot of hard money loans uh in expensive rates from like you know 6 to 17 a client of mine a client mine was literally just offered a 25% interest rate on a prom note on a commercial office building in Burlington Ontario
(11:28) right wow so like uh how do you run a business when you’re paying 25% anyways my point is that uh you know I’m friends with a lot of your of your coaching students and who have now progressed on to coaches and you know I don’t know their books exactly but they’re they’re in their Investments sound very seem extremely sound right I’ve been around long enough to know what a Sound Investment looks like right yes so what has kept your community and your members out of trouble or while we are in the middle of Real Estate St winter and
(12:01) there literally some people have hundreds of people out there who’ve lost like probably six figures some even seven as you probably I’m even seven absolutely yeah yeah and uh and so what’s what’s kept our community safe and I think I really Echo with what you said I mean I don’t know if boring is the right word I think it’s just slow and steady and it really starts from our our induction process because you know we we get people to come to our 3-day master investor workshops first usually and during those three days we really
(12:33) download a lot of mindset about money because I always say we are a financial education Academy first and foremost we’ve just identified real estate as one of the best and oldest or try to intrude as a class to demonstrate the principles of what is money how money Works how to make it to work and how to make it work harder so those are usually the four different stages and the reason why we like real estate because it’s typically compared to most other asset classes it’s it’s the slowest moving asset class if you will and so that’s why you know
(13:08) the average person really if they do it right and they do it diligently I always say that it it would it would be pretty hard for you to screw it up even if you wanted to years later and so I guess we really drill that down and funny thing is I don’t I don’t think a lot of people do that when people even come to our three-day uh Workshop I think we ask people we ask people to leave uh probably five ten times during the first day because we will say this is not a get-rich quick thing if you want something get-rich
(13:40) quick you know the door’s on the way out make sure you ask for a refund this is not going to be the right path for you and throughout the entire day we just keep keep emphasizing on the fact that hey you know what we’re gonna even the case studies you know done by our existing students past students our trainers and mentors we want you to know that it all took us time to get to where we are and so the other thing is you know tyt right now is almost 5 years old and next weekend we’re running our fifth annual conference and every conference
(14:13) we have an awards night and I know you know a lot of people have Awards tonight as well and uh I can dive into you know sh sharing with a criteria but I won’t because I just want people to know that we screen every single application and we vet every single supporting document to back up their claims very diligently however the whole point behind all of that is our first year our first year as in trasure talent’s first annual conference in two in 2020 and we all remember kind of what was happening we had four Award winners and all this is
(14:48) actually on our website as well second year we had eight winners third year we have 13 last year was the fourth year we had 23 this year next weekend we’re giving away 54 different awards from volume of business different markets different strategies Financial Freedom Community leader and you know people that are leveraging creative financing strategies and yet still learn how to build in the right process and clauses to keep everybody safe like that’s what we do and so you know five years later we finally got to the 54 Awards range from
(15:27) four the first year and it took some time and honestly last year I was hoping that we would have more but the point is it’s slow and steady wins the race and at the same time though you know not everybody needs to do byy rent and hold or byy rent and Ray in the worst case scenario we always show people the different strategies depending on you know the different income buckets that they need to feed into so yeah I’m just looking at your application responses for the words and uh can’t wait to dig into it it’s long wow some of these answers
(16:01) are huge so someone else is going to proof the documents I don’t have to proof the documents no you’re there to endorse them because they’ve already been vetted so when we thank goodness yes no no no you’re not again for the honor to be a judge for your Awards yeah I plan on being there for the awards ceremony as well amazing yeah I was just talking to Francis just yesterday um our friend yeah yes yeah I plan on being there and amazing Maybe give him one I don’t know yeah good thing you left the names off because obviously I’d be
(16:36) biased yes we have to we have to now talk uh so for context for listeners benefit how big is uh the academy how many members of The Academy what what can you tell just so people have an understanding absolutely so I mean we’re still very Boutique because like I mean we are just shy of 500 total community members since day one and uh we have that includes existing students and that includes alumni as well and uh out of those almost 500 people we know we already have more than 150 people declaring Financial Freedom and
(17:15) financial Independence just because they haven’t won an award yet doesn’t mean that they are not Financial independent just so you know and so that’s the thing we do Define you know the criteria to hit to to be qualified for know what Financial Freedom is what Financial Independence is and yeah so that’s that’s our track record so far because I like to say we are quality over quantity I would rather have you know 100 students and 100 students all have some sort of results and great results rather than a thousand students and only a
(17:48) hundred of them have results right right and that’s why we’re building it again same thing our investing philosopy slow and steady yeah I’ll I’ll trade anything to have not to not have losing clients you know what I mean which I wish a lot of these other organizations who are no longer with us I wish they’re willing to trade for that yeah yeah before we’re recording you sorry did you want to say something there oh no just I was just going to say different different philosophies and that would you know that leads to
(18:20) different business decisions yeah and that actually lend to the end of some of those businesses yeah basically when word gets out that you have you know like a 100 plus failing students who are losing their shirts and it’s really hard to you know create more business uh before we recording you talked about the difference between Financial Independence and Financial Freedom can you can you elaborate or Define what you mean yeah absolutely so I think I’m gonna be kind of be using my hands because a lot of the times I usually
(18:51) have a bit of a flip chart or have a pre prepared uh PowerPoint slide if you will however that just encourages folks to go to your YouTube channel real estate investing this is also available on YouTube you see Tim’s young pretty face well I mean you know you’re married to Cherry Cherry’s an accountant and so I always tell people I mean at the end of the day it really comes down to balancing out what we call your wheel of wealth and within the wheel of wealth that wheel is composed of three different income buckets and so those
(19:25) three income buckets are number one active SL earned the second one is what we call passive residual and the third one is portfolio equity and so a lot of the times you know people are like oh how did you come up with this I’m like well I cannot take credit for it because at the end of the day this is exactly how the tax authorities tax us and so you know this is what Cherry talks about too right yeah is different tax brackets for different types of income streams and so when it comes to completing that wheel
(19:58) of wealth then we start to identify which investing strategies leveraging real estate will feed into the different buckets M and so you know let’s say for example most average Canadians and I was one for example when it first got started because I had a very very high paying six figure j o and I was one of those you know good Asian kid I would max out my rsps I would max out my tfas I would save as much money as possible I would max out my company stock options all those Frugal exactly live very frugally and um
(20:34) just yeah and so those th those are the things that that I was doing this does not sound sexy at all when do we get to Lamborghinis and private jets and Yachts yeah see I know that’s the thing right I know I get it I get I think this is why you and I are really on the same page about this it’s it’s so hard to sell the real stuff because it’s not sexy it’s not sexy and then uh the reality is people who have private jets yachts and Ferraris and Lamborghinis do not want anyone to know about them because you’re just inviting a home
(21:07) invasion right and and literally that is that is The Millionaire Next Door I’ve mentioned that many times on the show like exactly please everyone read the book Millionaire Next Door they’re generally humble and they don’t share their well off wealth public exactly exactly continue sorry continue no not at all not at all I mean I’m glad you you mentioned that because I mean yeah this is probably the biggest marketing challenge that we have as trust your talent yeah for the first three and a half years we didn’t pay for marketing
(21:35) we didn’t spend a dollar on marketing it’s not until the last year is people started to see treasure Talent you know on social media because we’re now actually paying for advertising why I kept saying I wanted to spend the first three to four years building results first and as I mentioned earlier you know the numbers in terms of Award winners and the results we have now this is when we want to really pick up the megaphone and like you know what we can prove to you now that we have solid results it doesn’t matter if you’re 18
(22:05) or if you’re 60 it doesn’t matter if you came broke or you already come with you know maybe a nice treasure chest of money you everybody’s financial goals are different and as a result your path is different and I think going back to what you were asking earlier is I really do believe that like that path needs to be highly tailored it’s not one size fits all oh absolutely yeah so and anyways so I think that was a big tangent going back to your I can’t be Vin good friend of yours I I’m not moving to Edmonton and personal training
(22:39) and having giant biceps that’s not my future like Brooke Brook who is also in the show still lives in the GTA but she seems to be traveling a lot yeah she is and that’s the thing right that was her why right her why is time money and location Freedom MH and to spend you know and having the resources to travel and with family whenever whenever and Whenever However for however long and so again coming back to your initial question is that if we go back to looking at that wheel of wealth you know the three different income buckets we
(23:13) said that Financial Independence is when you are able to basically create income within the active and passive buckets for yourself so you don’t ever have to rely on somebody else giving you a paycheck to make a living so that’s independence and So within that you have a lot of different strategies that you can use and I always say that if you do it right when you’re creating passive income leverage in real estate you should also be growing Equity or portfolio income at the same time and so that bucket in in most cases should pay
(23:51) care of itself unless you know you’re going into development or infils that kind of strategy but then again it is portfolio income until you decide on a proper exit because some people will build and hold some people will build and sell and so all of a sudden when you build and sell your Equity now turns into active income so anyways so that’s the quick highle definition and Financial Freedom means that you have enough passive income now that covers all of your basic day-to-day expenses and that’s what we call Financial
(24:22) Freedom number one actually there are a couple of different levels above that however when we say fincial Freedom number one it’s simply because most of us we go to work so we can collect a paycheck so that we can actually pay our basic expenses and those are usually housing your transportations your meals you got to look pretty you know buy some clothes keep yourself clean and for most of us devices as well as you know utilities and Wi-Fi connections of sorts these days and so those are the basics because in theory if you have enough
(24:58) money com in even if you don’t have to get up to go to work you’ve theoretically freed up your 40 hours a week I mean 40 hours a week for work that’s in my opinion that’s very less that’s very little I used to work 80 plus hours a week when I was in my CER job there and so again that is just the first goal post the second goal post for Financial Freedom for most people is what I call the income replacement because in Canada we make you know we can we can make good money if we work really hard however it’s hard to keep
(25:33) the money because of taxes and so like we all like we’ve all learned and you know what I’m I’m really jealous that you’re married to an accountant and a really really Savvy one for that matter because it’s not how much you make it’s how much you keep that really matters and so Mo and financial feom number two for us is your income replacement number for most people and that’s also why you know we call most people’s j o a bit more of a golden handcuff right they’ll pay you just enough even after taxes you not only can
(26:08) pay your basic expenses you have just a little bit of extra to maybe go shopping maybe go out for birthdays buy good Christmas presents and go on vacations and that’s why so many people just get trapped in there and it’s hard to walk away from it and then we have what I would Echo is what I think Tony Robin also says this is the Financial Freedom number three in my destination which is that do whatever you want however you want whenever you want with whoever with whomever you want for however long you want and so I think you know right
(26:41) before this we were kind of chitchatting a little bit I constantly have vacations that are only scheduled for two weeks and organically they turn into three four weeks five and in in the summer it was two weeks that turned into a six week getaway and so and and that was the freedom that I worked really hard for and the first you know six eight years were not sexy and my last episode with you was me sharing how I lost a million dollars cash overnight having to Debt Service over time while I go through the legal process but really what that was
(27:14) was I also lost $8 million in total Equity that I could have built in my wheel of wealth in my entire career and so again that is everybody kind of sees where we are at the current stage but there’s no such thing as overnight success as you know we’ve all you know eaten some dust to get to where we are today too yeah yeah there’s no those are basic definitions yes no unless you were really smart and bought Bitcoin for 30 bucks and bought a bunch of them could you imagine like hey you invested this magic money yeah magic money yeah magic inter
(27:52) well I mean wasn’t there a little uh news yesterday on efts and Justin Bieber’s 1.3 million dollar chimpanzee that is worth what 20 bucks right now maybe not 20 bucks maybe 20,000 oh is it what are those things called people don’t even talk about those things anymore what’s it called the yeah was itft ETF or some some I know exactly what you’re talking about nfts non funable Tok NS not efts nfts there we go I thought you were GNA tell me about like the newest ETF for a Bitcoin like oh n monkeys is exact opposite yeah
(28:30) it’s how you lose money at at this time this may not this may not go well who knows sorry but so yeah so you have track history of 150 somewhere around there financially independent or financially free members of trust your talent yes think that was a p on the back thank you and I’m sure I’m very happy for them because um there’s not many organizations who can say that uh yeah yeah no well I mean one of my favorite quotes of all time is muhamad Gandhi it’s be the change you want to see in the world and um I also came from a world where I
(29:09) thought I was surrounded by Elite investors turns out they were all you know people that just became really really good at standing in front of the stage and telling people what to do when they’re not doing it themselves anymore yeah and I think another differentiator really is you know the fact that my entire training team so my coaches my trainers mentors they are all chosen by myself and Ray we are the founders for Treasure talent and we were their mentors at one point in time so we follow their entire career we know their
(29:39) core values of people we know their why we know their vision and we share this we share that passion to say hey you know what we work really hard and we didn’t know that this could be could happen and we all made it happen so we know we can help more people do this and so again I’m happy for the the the results that we’ve created because the reality is if I were to be somewhat crass about it is that you know I we don’t have to be doing this none of us need to be doing this there are days where I’m like you know what life was a
(30:10) lot easier before trust Talent came along before we created it however it brings us joy brings us fulfillment and meaning knowing that we’re making a difference in people’s lives and so50 people I’m sure very thankful you keep doing [Laughter] this yeah now now tell me what strategies have worked uh like has your has your investment strategies changed through time or like like I don’t know how back do you want how far do you want to go back uh I don’t have to go very far back however I will do a bit of a a a a a mix
(30:46) just so that everybody understands because I think this really goes back to your question earlier is why is our community able to stay out of trouble when it seems like everybody is going down and real estate investing has become a bit of a dirty phrase the country right now and amongst the real estate investing Community quickly share uh for example uh a colleague of mine posted uh on his Instagram how just some simple data from K I think I believe it was kitchen or Ontario a tenanted property sold for $70,000 less than the same property on
(31:18) average than a property without a tenant the property that’s sold the tenanted property would also sell sign take significantly longer to sell yeah than the non tened non-tenant prop be vacant or or regular home home occupied So based on the market right now in Ontario is one of the worst things you can do the what well if your goal is to devalue your property is to rent it a’t that nuts unfortunately yeah that that is insane and that’s the thing because again you know anyways I mean we I think we can talk about this all day
(31:53) it’s absolutely nuts it’s absolutely nuts it is it is and how does that even make sense and so point is like what worked but in the past to get us where we are today like for the last I think about six years at least duplexing like everybody duplex like I have lots of duplexes still like my clients own like a 100 duplexes in Ontario based but based on what the Market’s telling us today the market doesn’t want it exactly yeah it’s not that the market doesn’t want the properties themselves the mark the markets don’t like to don’t
(32:22) like to deal with any tenant issues and therein lies the problem because you can buy as many properties as you want but if it’s not performing it’s not a true asset you still got to feed into it and therefore we need paying tenants and good tenants and that’s that’s the challenge and so again I think you know I I may have shared this with you is our entire training philosophy and it’s a simple process honestly it’s what we call your why your goal yourp so a lot of people talk about defining your why because this is a
(32:53) different path and it’s a very different type of mindset however I’m not going to go into that whole thing you know why and you got to find your why and the the the thing about it though is I just want to be very straight sometimes with people is that yes we know money is not everything however money is one of the greatest tools that we all have access to and can create more of equally and so it can just make life a lot easier and so that goal is usually a financial goal whatever it is you want to accomplish
(33:25) there’s a reason why money was created to help with you know facilitate transactions of services and goods in the Modern Life and so that goal is it is definitely a financial goal and through that Financial goal you need to figure out the right strategies that will help you and I know again strategy has been a word in this industry that’s also been I think bastardized a little bit over the last five six years now at this point at one point Burr was the strategy I’m like no Burr is just a simple process if you’re an
(33:54) entrepreneur regardless of asset class you want to add value because if you’re not adding value at every turn as a business person your business is not going to exist in the long term and so again SNP so strategy take your strategies that will contribute to your goal in a timely manner because a goal without a deadline is Just a Dream as we know and so the strategies need to contribute to your financial goals and then once you got your strategy solidified then you go and choose the markets and the sub areas that will contribute to that having the
(34:29) economic fundamentals the business fundamentals that demand the tency rules that are in favor of business people or investors that need to leverage real estate as an asset class and then the last thing is P P stands for properties and so even as Real Estate Investors we look at properties last so many people they look at properties first and they get emotionally involved and one of the things that I always remind my entire Community is hey are you investing to be your bank account or your ego and the funny thing is because as people you
(35:03) know we always say seeing is believing and real estate is good and bad for that same reason is that some real estate can look hot and sexy you know like the opposite of financial education and the fundamentals of money and so they get carried away they buy something because they they think it’s going to work or they hope that it’s going to work and this is why we know that a lot of undereducated or financially undereducated investors they end up doing what we call buy rent and prey they’ll buy something and they’ll just
(35:35) pray that hey the market is going to have some natural lift over time they get great tenants that don’t trash the properties and always pay rent on time and the property itself doesn’t CA them a lot of trouble in sleepless nights and we all know it’s that’s not how life works and so we completely reverse that and we say hey you know what if you got a solid goal let’s focus on the strategies that’s going to get you there first free up your time and build your Baseline that’s your safety net and then if you want to play with other
(36:03) strategies in more markets and other markets then go for it at least when a deal goes sideways you have your nesting eggs and you have your Baseline that is your financial freedom because then you don’t have to worry about oh my God now I have to go back and maybe interview for another job and you know get sucked back into that routine again and so that I think is really the core of what we do and we really drill that entire process and and the mindset behind it with our community at all turns and you know does
(36:36) everybody stick to that 100% of the times I’m gonna say no honestly and just because you know emotions get into ways from time to time and that’s okay but this is probably why at large our community is safe they continue to grow through the hard times regardless and I live in Alberta as you know and Alberta until the end of last year we’ve seen a sideway market for 10 years basically because 2014 was when the last oil crash happened and so really from 2014 all the way to now 2024 we’ve seen basically the value went this way and now we’re kind
(37:15) of back at the same point and so a lot of the economists in the province is now saying okay we have at least 36 months of this wave right now that’s going back up and we are in about months n of that 36 months Mark by the way and the point though behind that is as educated investors you know we always talk about some basic rules like making money in the buy determining your arv effectively and so when a lot of buyent and pre or undereducated investors are staying away from Alberta Ray Ray and I and our entire team were going gang busters in
(37:50) this market we were doing flips we were doing holds because arv was so predictable so it become it became a matter of really identifying the viable deals that we can add value to that so that we can e exercise our exit strategy whichever way we decide to go to either hold or sell at the end and so you know it’s it’s and so to answer your question I mean our have has have our strategies evolved I’m going to say yes we’ve tweaked our approaches but the overall big picture strategies not so much I got out of the Ontario Market as a
(38:33) hold in 2016 completely and at the same time though I have been lending into that market so as a business as an investor myself putting treasure Talent aside for now we were able to capture a lot of these ups as private lenders however at the same time not having to deal with tency rules and same thing in BC when we invested into BC during that last 10 years we didn’t hold anything in BC either because it’s also a lot more proten compared to Alberta and then we expanded back into New Brunswick I mean I started New
(39:11) Brunswick back in 2013 myself already and in between we bought and sold however we went back into New Brunswick as a market and grew in that market and whole properties in that market still I mean it’s it’s in the name of safety let’s put it that way I always say that you know when I get when I have the chance to share I know everybody likes One S word a lot and that word is scale I’m like I also like an s word a lot it’s security I want I want my portfolio I want to know that I can protect everything that I worked so hard for
(39:45) first especially having gone through the 2016 disaster that I did whenever I get a chance to teach and guide it’s okay you know what I need your foundation to be solid enough so that you don’t even lose everything that you are you’ve worked so hard for leading up to this point the point is you can only get better from here and I think it’s you know it’s a Chinese saying right the Next Generation needs to do better kind of thing yeah challenges the challenge I’ve spoken to so many people about is it’s funny with a lot of successful people I
(40:17) talked to especially first gen who are first generation successful is the there seems to be a lot of lot of talk around the third generation loses it like why you and I work so hard and then like say the second or third generation they’re the ones driving Lamborghinis and flying private voting on Yachts yep yep only to blow it all I mean yeah it’s not surprising though right I mean I guess while I eat instant toles noodles yeah well you know what like one of my one of my friends like they’re they’re uh that family they’re they’re worth
(40:58) like I don’t even know probably n 10 digits if not more because again like like you and I said they they don’t they’re not show they don’t show off however you know these are the kind of people that you know they have beautiful houses multiple houses so you kind of know where they are however they don’t wear you know designer belts and flashy things and they have decent cars but not like you know super cars all the time and these are the people that you know you can go anywhere have a simple meal together and they’ll be like oh my God
(41:29) we were in turkey last week and we score like three t-shirts for $5 us and they get excited about that and then the next day we be texting each other and be like hey so what’s new today and they’re oh no no nothing you know just closed 120 million doll commercial space in Texas again like you know like that’s the conversation and the mindset of the people that I want to surround myself with is you know they’re they’re very comfortable in their own there is no point to be like I’ve done this I’ve done that I have this I have
(42:01) that it’s just solid and that’s what Sal means to me so fabulous now let’s talk about security because you’re you invest in I don’t know how many locations can you paint some broad brushes how you how you invest in like 10 states and in all the countries in the UK are you partnered are you owning direct can what you yeah so having good accountants and lawyers to start is really really good so if you’re Canadian like me meaning Canada is your main domicile obviously having a proper structure starting as a as a Canadian company is very very
(42:47) crucial and then leverage that to own into the different countries because me personally I don’t like to own things in my personal name because you do become a Target and from an asset and income perspective there are just way way way more benefits doing it that way and so that’s how we’ve actually grown over over time as well yeah now tell me about your investments in like the 10 states or or in the UK you have houses you have commercial what is it you’re developing cool well I mean the last the last opportunity that we just actually went
(43:22) into and that we closed that at the end of April there is a 228 unit apartment uh complex right outside of Houston Texas so you were buying real estate when I was asking you what you’re doing in Houston that was no no that was April we saw each other at the lounge because we were going on a Disney cruise from Miami and the funny thing is again I am one of the partners on that deal back in April when we closed and I’m not the main one I’ll say that um quite a quite a bit of learning there too though happy to share um what happened was we were
(43:58) actually in Bali when we closed on that deal too and so that’s what’s really cool about it and uh in the UK we started out and oh you know what this might be a good time to also share that every new market that I go into I don’t go big big right off the bat even though we are we have the capacity we have the ability to look at bigger deals you know whenever is a brand brand brand new market remember that whole SNP concept any Market that I go into depending on our you know our final goal with that market regardless I will always test it out
(44:36) first with a smaller deal and so for example in 2017 when I first got into the UK Market I still went into purchasing much smaller single family properties and over there they call it buy to let so it’s not a property manager it’s a letting agent the word let like let’s go let means rent basically so basically buy to let is buy to rent meaning income properties for us effectively or rental property it’s so same language I know and lawyer is always solicitor and uh real estate agent is always estate agent which is very funny
(45:19) sounding to me it it was like Lear a learning a brand new language almost so anyways and so you know we started out still purchasing smaller prod properties in you know in Scotland cuz Scotland is like the buy to let capital in the UK and I think it’s a cultural thing over 68% of Scotti uh of the Scottish people they still rent wow and the properties are not that expensive that’s the thing I remember it was I my jaw just about dropped in 2017 I remember our very first property mhm you want to guess how much we bought it
(45:59) for no 2017 I’ll give you I’ll give timeline 2017 um two bedroom one bath about 800 square feet property good size okay yeah that’s enormous for torono yeah yeah you want to guess how much we’re talking pounds or can I give you Canadian you can give me Canadian Scotland what city glasow okay so a big city yeah just wild guess 400,000 400,000 okay for $400,000 I could have bought almost five and that’s just it it’s and this is why I always say again we go from goal P right so our goal is just to build a foundation because as we know every time
(47:02) you set up a proper structure there’s already overhead year after year between legal and accounting minimum right and so and so at the very least the portfolio needs to wash its own face and so that was the first approach and every single New Market that we go into we do that and so it’s just that you know in the US now like I said I’ve been in 10 different states so far and last deal happened in Texas however over the last few years I’ve been in Arizona Indiana Michigan uh Ohio uh we’ lent into Florida Georgia Nevada I’m missing
(47:41) couple New York missing one missing one missing one anyways it’ll come to me and I just I I’ll just blur it out in a bit but the point is it doesn’t matter which Market we go to because following the process the market is to last it always has everything to do with the business plan and again that’s the thing maybe because sh with you you guys are Real Estate Investors yourself so the way you look at things is a little bit different however most accountant they are never going to care about hey how many properties do you have or how many doors
(48:19) do you have what they will do though is when they get your reports from your bookkeepers or from you directly and your business is not performing they’re going to ask you why is it not performing what’s going on that’s dig deeper into it and that’s my entire philosophy is that at the end of the day the number that matters is that final number in your financial report now we’ve talked a lot about private lending and there’s a lot of private lending in the news for all the wrong reasons for all the WR reasons I
(48:52) don’t think there’s any positive news around private lending now uh so you probably read about this stuff like the stuff on CLA Dr is quite public now so I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just just saying that no you’ve Pro have you have you you read the stories you’re you’ve read you’ve been following the story so so I’m familiar not following anymore okay yeah what is it you because what I’d like to extract from you for the benefit of listeners is what have you done private lending wise that keeps you out
(49:21) of trouble making money hopefully uh versus how this all this financial devast station yeah so the funny thing is I mean we’ve always and in in all transpar in full transparency I’ve also lost money private lending as well and uh in the past I’ve actually lend to Claire’s organizations too however did decide to end that relationship um back in 2021 and um and I think it’s because having gone through a few losses especially the major one once again back in 2016 is that you kind of learned to how to spot the signs a little bit and obviously the
(50:00) easiest one is the lines but M how do we actually you know continue to thrive in The Lending area is the deal itself is great the real estate itself is is a good collateral as long as you know how to Crunch the numbers however you there when you said delinquency it means like you’re not getting your interest payments on time exactly or worse like when the term is over you’re not getting your money exactly lay payments delay payments of any kind principle and interest or both and and that was what was happening to you that was what was
(50:33) starting to happen yes like things were not getting delivered as promised yeah flag and yeah and it’s I mean the funny thing though sometimes not deliver as promise in terms of payments is actually a small red flag for me to you say the medium red flag now is when they miss a payment there’s zero communication zero acknowledgement on their part automatically MH and so that’s when it starts and then the bigger refle is when there’s communication once you’ve had to chase them down you come to a new agreement and they still don’t honor it then
(51:13) that’s when you really know oh that’s like that’s bloody flag yeah basically at that point and so again and and this is why I think from a lending standpoint you know we we’ve learned to just be be a lot more cautious and we always say trust and verify and so the thing about private lending is you know the bigger picture is how much in how much out how how long and how is my money secured and so the collateral is definitely definitely very important in the sense that you want to make sure that your agreement is definitely on
(51:49) Title One Way or Another depending on the instruments that you use whether it’s a mortgage document it’s a promisory note it’s it’s got a GS attached to it it’s got a ppsa attached to it or any other sort of collaterals that you can use to put against the lean and obviously again everybody everybody’s R risk tolerance is still a little bit different and so again from a loan to value standpoint you get to really decide you know how you want how you want to maneuver that however I will always say that I will not go into a
(52:18) third and I don’t encourage any of my students to consider a third position one way or another no postponement either and um it has to be just very cut and dry and obviously an educated investor is able to to look at the person asking to borrow the money on how sound their exess strategy is and their timeline is because as we know time is everything however that also means time is indeed money especially in an investment deal and so the longer it takes the more delay that it Ur it it incurs the more profit margin gets eaten
(52:56) away and if the borrower does not have other means and access to funding then it’s eating effectively into your collateral that is the protection of your money and so that still comes down to how well educated the lender is in that particular case yeah and so yeah I mean the thing about that though is whenever I’m either lending or borrowing money myself right now I I still want to just really get to know people like I like I like to say that I slow date a lot of people because I want to make sure that our values align first and
(53:34) foremost and of course you know when it comes to the actual deal itself yes your money can park can be parked against the subject property as collateral or maybe it can be parked against their another property that actually would make you feel safer and that when I say feel I don’t mean it’s a feeling I actually mean that for example if the subject property after you put in the money is 95% loans to value and you’re feeling a little iffy well then don’t do it trust your gut and then ask them do you have another property as collateral maybe
(54:06) after you’ve lent your money and the loan to value on that new subject property or the collateral is only 80% Lo to value and you can sleep better at night great and so I think a lot of people they’re very Stuck on You know it’s this deal they’re only asking money and they’re all only offering this property ask collateral well yes you know it’s just like asking price is for reference it doesn’t mean that that’s what you buy it at at the end of the day yeah what while while you’re discussing like um properties on you
(54:40) mentioned Exit Plan so one of the big stories out there is the folks who defaulted they own like 600 houses for and I’m just going to do a quick share screen so folks on YouTube can follow along as well like Exit Plan like for example like the folks who are investing up north uh one of the main markets was so was Sous St Marie again quick Google Sous St Marie today’s population is about 71,000 and it actually shrunk from 2021 so to me this is not a growing this this there’s something wrong economically fundamentally with the
(55:18) cities for investment so if you have a shrinking population that means there’s less demand for Real Estate there’s a decreasing demand for Real Estate which will hinder one’s ability to exit a property in s St Marine also it’s small City 71,000 yeah exactly I cannot believe how many people lend on these deals yeah scary right so you know I think you qualify as an expert would you land invest in a city with a shrinking population personally I would not especially if my main asset class is real estate yeah I’m not sure not sure what
(55:57) what business what business uh plan or hypothesis would would would work especially if it’s around real estate investment yeah in a shrinking population in an area of shrinking population beats me and again I mean that’s that’s the thing that you know we are constantly teaching our our students to think and the other side of all of this as I keep going back to the undereducated I I don’t want to call you know call them uneducated because you never know um undereducated investors I think they haven’t quite developed what
(56:33) we call the ROI mindset yet because a true investor a true entrepreneur the main the question that we ask ourselves is not how much it’s going to cost us but it’s how much it’s going to make us after obviously all the proper due diligence is done and I think a lot of people because they just have this blind belief like I did that that real estate in this amazing asset class and as want as I just park my money there it’s just going to grow long term and that was part of my origin story as you know because before Financial education I lost also
(57:07) every last penny in you know in my savings by putting my money into a commercial development syndication in Saskatchewan back in 09 and so that’s how I lost all my hard-earned money from my 880 hour a week job and that was really what prompted me to go to a seminar and start learning differently but that’s the thing because at the time and that’s the way we were brought up it’s not the investor mindset is okay I have this much money what can I afford to buy now if I want to buy something and so I think that also
(57:42) creates a lot of trouble and a lot of hurdles for a for many many undereducated people I mean I love the fact that they are taking action I love the fact that they do believe that real estate is a great asset class however it’s just that you know what not all of those situations work out in the long term for everyone unfortunately Timmy you’re running out of time you have time for a few more questions yeah for sure now do you does trust your talent do you help vet deals do you help your client your members V deals yeah
(58:16) absolutely I mean we do we do mentorship programs is what we call and we are very very tailored like I said it’s not one siiz fits all right and so what happens is that when the students you know get inducted we actually have an entire student Journey graph on our website as well is that people know because we have one and twoyear full immersion programs and the reason why we do that is because you know unlike you English is not my first language I’m not a CBC I’m not Canadian born you know I’m a Taiwanese boy and I came here when I was 17 years
(58:47) old basically English was a brand new language to learn however I think I learn quicker than the average person was because I move to Canada I’m now in this environment I’m immersed in it I got to go to school I got to survive I got to thrive and so it forced me to grow that way and so you know what we have a full curriculum that that basically has people doing one-onone consultations from day one and we make the recommendations based on their s SMP and they start the curriculum and then throughout the curriculum there’s you
(59:22) know the group coaching and then there’s the individual mentorship as well so once they build their foundation in terms of knowledge then they will be able to select their one-on-one mentors and the one-onone mentors work with them in their chosen markets on their chosen strategies so that they can see the proof of concept of what they’re learning and so in that process when the students are actually analyzing deals they’re able to reach out their to their mentors you know both during and after also MH yeah I think it’s one the thing
(59:56) that novices have difficulty with is um like I’m cheap so I naturally comparison shop like crazy like I’m look going to buy I’m not going to buy golf clubs for my son so I’m I’m on Facebook Marketplace I’m on Amazon I’m on teu I’ll probably look at AliExpress next the same set of clubs we’re GNA get the best deal my point is that uh some investors simply have not done the comparison shopping to compare deals because you know like if all if all else the same take the deal for example that less risk right yeah say the less return
(1:00:29) is the other one but you have to look at many of them to know what the deal looks like and I think that’s where that’s where a lot of um beginners are are short and that’s where mentorship coaching can be really helpful as long as it’s qualified coaching and mentorship exactly yeah yeah and we can probably go on forever how how people like Vince and Brooke become coaches and mentors yeah but I know you gotta go um let’s talk about you get you have a conference coming up don’t you yeah we do we do it so yeah so it’s what we call
(1:00:59) invest Ed um it’s it’s uh it’s our largest event of the year and it caters to investors from all walks of life different stages of experience and portfolio sizes so you know anybody that is still possibly living in their base uh their parents basement all the way to people that probably already have millions and millions of dollars in their portfolio whether you know they want to get started they want to scale they want to protect that’s what the um the conference is for it’s actually on our website as well and um we have our
(1:01:35) Master investor Workshop there too so if you click on invest Ed right in the middle uh next to it y there it is okay yeah with a big picture of Vince on the on the landing page who you talk too yeah so it’s next weekend now it’s happening very 4th to 6 yeah mhm and tell tell me about the conference three days holy cow yeah it’s three full days and uh this year we are actually doing a um a full conference style delivery as well so every single day in the morning there are two tracks happening at the same time because most
(1:02:18) conferences we go to it’s one giant room and then you kind of just stay there and they will rotate the speakers on the stage however what we’re doing is because like I said are catering to people that are aspiring investors all the way to very experienced and high level investors and so we have uh 11 different tracks for people to choose from and most people will walk away with six full tracks and we have subjects anywhere from you know how to invest with a significant other and that’s always a juicy one how to uh
(1:02:49) recruit and build your power team in any Market or how to continue to grow a sustainable portfolio in any market conditions or how to raise and manage other people’s money effectively those are the panel sessions however the Deep dive sessions would have subjects like you know how to make the best offers is it cash or is a term or is it both and then we also have you know how to really leverage seller financing and how to speak to it present it structure your deal that way to create win-win or one of the most popular topics that know a
(1:03:26) lot of people want to go to is how to scale your portfolio to create $50,000 a month in income and so there’s all different levels that are taken care of and as I mentioned gallon night you see the award winners from last year and and we’re feeding everyone like people don’t have to scramble and run out to grab breakfast or lunch that sort of thing because we want to make sure that you know the networking component is there so many people come to these conferences want to make new connections deep in existing relationships and we
(1:03:58) want to make sure that they’re not spending the time ordering Ubers or running out to be like hey you know I need to get a burger so that I can come back and maximize my time at the conference there so it’s we’ve thought about a lot of our own experiences attending different conferences and that’s you know that is the final decision is that they get fed also and there’s going to be some uh bonus sessions prizes and uh surprise guest speakers as well this year so yeah uh how much is how much is the conference yeah so the conference the
(1:04:38) basic seminar pass is 697 well that’s cheap three days and that’s for two people for three days exactly that’s for two people that’s for two people I thought you say that was for one no that’s for two people yep yeah my word yeah and then uh I see you have an advanced you Advan for registration oh so for for listeners benefit I’m actually on the website right now going through it with with Tim can see what I’m doing and this will all be on the YouTube of course Advanced seminar path yeah it’s for two people yes six
(1:05:23) meals yeah wow so oh okay so is more for for intermediate to experience investors exactly so the price is exactly the same oh okay it’s just two different streams but the same price exactly wow this is wild okay if listeners off the show of Link in the show notes um man it’s fantastic and uh oh and where is it yeah we haven’t talked about where yeah it’s right there actually the Sheron Toronto Airport hotel and Conference Center 801 Dixon so anybody in the GTA really really easy to get to yes just by the airport it is fabulous and uh I’ll be
(1:06:07) there Saturday night yes how do I have to dress up it is a formal night so yes I would say absolutely I know you know what it’s I am not a big fan of having to get all dressed up either however I do it I I do it for the community once a year man yeah yeah everybody comments just put on a put on a nice suit I’m sure you have one yes I have but I haven’t worn it in like years I have a couple all right all right uh trust your talent.
(1:06:56) com we’re in real estate winter not so much for your 150 really successful clients in 500 person community but yeah like I said in Ontario attendant to property sells at a discount so so I consider it real estate winter at least in my context as real estate winter do you want any final words for for The Listener out there I do um again it’s it’s not sexy however if your you know if anybody’s goal really like mine is to gain that true Freedom through getting enough financial resources to give you that then focus on financial education I
(1:07:34) mean real estate is an amazing asset class however really focus on financial Education First so that you when you actually pick an asset class you know exactly how to make it work for you much better and um yeah because I always say and this is something that I really learned when I first got started as well is that when you learn how money works you’ll know how to make it work whether the economy is going up going down or going sideways mhm and so and that’s exactly what I’ve experienced myself for the last almost 15 years now since I got
(1:08:06) since I got educated so that would be definitely my experience talk you you should have your own Ted Talk this is your audition tape for Ted Talk Tim thanks so much for doing this thank you thanks for on at the conference not the words G yeah I’ll see you soon 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.com below and I do the best to
(1:08:56) 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 next virtual class that’s at investor training.com

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