The Truth About Real Estate Investing... For Canadians

If you need help improving your record, myself and my lovely friend, today’s guest Elizabeth Kelly loves to help too.  It’s why we get along so well. Hopefully Elizabeth Kelly does not need an introduction.  She tells it like it is. Elizabeth was a paid, professional educator for Rich Dad Canada since 2012 and taught a couple thousand investors, including many of today’s influencers, coaches, full time real estate operators.   She has own property management, Sandstone Property Management that manages hundreds of doors across multiple strategies, apartment buildings, AirBnb, Rent to own. Elizabeth has done around 100 rent to owns.  She’s the longest time investor in New Brunswick I know so before going there please listen to this show, reach out to her, she doesn’t mind. Elizabeth is hosting her 2nd conference after the highly successful, inaugural Real Estate Resilience online event she’s back again for 2023.  The price is very affordable at $74, link is in the show notes: https://www.accelevents.com/e/resil

In this episode, I am breaking down the newest updates from the Bank of Canada on what's happening with interest rates. There’s talk of a possible recession and the economy slowing down, and we're here to get to the bottom of it all.   Using fresh info from Stats Canada and the Bank of Canada, I look at how the continuous increase in interest rates is affecting not just the big picture, but our day-to-day lives too. From what we are spending at home to what's happening in the housing market, we’ll see how big world events, like China's economy slowing down and wildfires here in Canada, are having a ripple effect on our economy.   We will also go step by step through the newest facts and figures from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, all fresh from August. Whether you’re thinking of buying a condo or a standalone home, I've got the latest scoop on trends, prices, and tips for both buyers and sellers to help you make the best decision.   So sit back and enjoy the show as we unravel what’s really happening

On to this week’s show!  As always, I look to bring you a variety of guests to share their unique experiences and journeys. Today we have old friend Greg Habstritt back on the show to share what he’s up after dominating the influencer scene, owning a $100 million dollar real estate portfolio, going through dark times both economically and personally.  He invests in Calgary Alberta afterall. To his current personal interest and finally aligning his personal passion with curing mental health via medial psychedelics. Greg and I are not medical doctors so none of this should be taken as medical advice so please speak to your own health professional.  Greg does share his own out of body experience, flashing back to his childhood trauma allowing him to understand his adult insecurities. This episode is not for everyone, we have hard core real estate guests all the time, you may want to check out a past episode if that’s more your liking but if you’re into bleeding edge or want to better understand yourself how a c

If you follow the real estate news in Canada as much as I do on paid and free sources as much as I do then you will have already heard of my guest this week in Ron Butler who started in the Mortgage Brokering business just after the housing crash happened in the late 1980s and his business Butler Mortgage is one of the largest Mortgage Brokerages in Canada. Ron is known as the Angry Mortgage guy. His podcast is literally called Angry Mortgage where he rips on all the things wrong about real estate in Canada on both his podcast and to his 56,000 twitter followers where he has no filter so I’ll warn you now, there is some adult language not appropriate for the young ones during our episode. Ron is also a regular expert who is regularly interviewed on pretty much all the major, mainstream news outlets.  He’s here today to give you an insider’s view on why this current housing market is different than the crash of the late 80’s, who’s actually buying real estate today, advice to young people who don’t have rich p

On to this week’s show! The Ottawa Senators recently dominated the hockey headlines as it’s been reported they sold for around $1 billion dollars US.  While Bruce M Firestone is no longer the owner, I’m sure he’s proud that what he started has ballooned to a massive success.  Imagine if the Sens had kept future hall of famer, defenceman, Zdeno Chara then the Sens like every NHL team would have a Stanley Cup before the Leafs but I digress. As mentioned before, Bruce has built 1000s of homes, dozens of commercial plazas and office buildings. For fun and to give back, Bruce was an entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of Ottawa’s Business School, Telfer School of Management.  Per his wikipedia, Bruce was a university professor as he does have his Masters in Engineering and a Phd in Urban Economics. Bruce now focuses more on coaching real estate investors as he finds the work really rewarding so he’s here today to share the journey of his super successful career, how to be a successful leader/CEO, how he ov

On to this week’s show where we discuss deflation and how to be on the winning side of AI. Our guest Nicholas Ning likes solving complex problems making them easy to understand and creating value.  Over the last 10 years, he’s worked for Fortune 500 companies on multi-billion dollar projects around the world in strategy, finance, design, and marketing. He’s also been hired by real estate companies, big time developers to design business models using numerous AI tools to design and market real estate projects and he’s here today to share how we small investors may learn, borrow some of these ideas for our own businesses. Nicholas shares the story of using an AI tool to break into his bank account, what him and the bank’s CEO discussed, why the hype in AI is justified, tools he used to build a business a website to sell furniture in 15 mins for what a traditional Marketing firm would want $35,000 to 60,000 for. The moment Nicholas say the writing on the wall his day job was at risk to AI and resigned. What he’d

We have my friend Darvin Zurfluh who has a huge private equity brokerage called Pinnacle Wealth Brokers.  If you’ve been around the investor community, you’ve likely seen them around at events but today we have the founder of the company joining us from Calgary, Alberta. If you’re not familiar with private equities, well you need to be as good as private equities is part of the reason you’ll hear me say, it’s better than ever to be rich as the options for investing have never been so good and available. I was introduced to Darvin when I asked my own Pinnacle Wealth Broker representative Steve Blasiak for a large scale podcast guest in the recreational investment space since so many of my listeners are interested in AirBnb. Darvin having been in the investment industry since 1997 starting out at the bank, has since progressed to owning a couple hundred acres, hundreds of RV sites, cabins, campgrounds, a hotel, a golf course.  Darvin details the story behind the purchase of the golf course, the analysis, and

On to this week’s show! Tim JP Collins is an old friend of ten years or so, one of our most successful clients and has achieved the cash flow goal almost every new investor has when we first meet with them. $100,000 or more passive cash flow per year so they can vacation more, not worry about money, retire their spouse, etc… Tim is back on the show to update us on his journey from high paid, high stress Tech Sales Executive to being debt free, over $10k cash flow per month from his stock portfolio, and being a full Realtor on his terms at REAL Broker. Ever since I’ve known Tim, he’s done things differently. He invested in himself heavily by hiring a coach, getting educated, taking massive action, buying student rentals, several with joint venture partners.  As a Realtor at REAL Broker, it’s just him and his admin assistant. No team, no plans to build a team so less moving parts and people to manage.  Tim likes making money and keeping his life simple which I think we all want more of in our lives. He’s a fath

On to this week’s show! Today we have a full time real estate investor who’s really really smart. I’ve known Christian for a couple years but only in this interview do I get a better understanding of how he transitioned out of an executive position in the tech industry into a full time investor. What’s especially interesting is how Christian originally capitalised his investing and how he found a bunch of cash flow, enough to replace his job income in mixed commercial/residential real estate.  If you’re a geek like me, you’ll enjoy this episode as I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head who’s as successful in mixed use commercial/residential… the worst commercial too: retail, yuck! In my experience, financing is expensive when investing in mixed use but Christian has cracked that nut so if you want to learn the truth about how someone replaced their job income with real estate cash flow from operations you’ll want to take notes, listen to this episode more than once. You can find Christian on the web:

On this week’s show we have a very real conversation with full-time, professional investor Austin Yeh who does it all: wholesales, flips, BRRR’s, negotiates his own cash for keys, podcaster, meetup host and it’s not all pretty. Austin shares how he’s had to rebalance his portfolio, wholesaling market slow down, which are short-term problems as he’s successfully transitioned out of his corporate job in Feb 2022 to investing in Windsor, Sudbury, even downtown Toronto. Austin shares how he got started networking at local investor groups, connecting with locals to build out his teams.  We walk through the numbers of a couple deals and Austin doesn’t candy coat the challenges that come with buying ugly properties including a case of arson where his property was intentionally burnt down by criminals, the phone call his partner received from the police, the sleepless nights if the insurance would get paid out… How his target markets and properties have evolved over his career.  This is a very real, truth about real

This week we have our friends from Calvert Home Mortgage Investment Corporation back to give an update on the private lending/mortgage market including lessons from the downturn: e.g. what did in default real estate investors do wrong have in common so you the listener, my clients and I may avoid the same mistakes. Please keep in mind, real estate investing can easily be done wrong and less right.  Ask anyone who speculated on pre-construction and is negative cash flowing or does not have the means to close.  Long-term, that could be a fine investment but most can’t handle today’s interest rates and strict lending guidelines. Anyways, on today’s show we have Garret LaBarre, Underwriter at Calvert. He’s the guy who actually reviews mortgage applications from a risk perspective and determines if they’ll lend and Jesse Bobrowski, who is Vice President of Calvert. One of the magical things about real estate investing is the asset is so good that banks will lend me a lot of money which suits my objective of keepin

On to this week’s show! We have Hart Togman, owner, founder of Rent Panda who’s been helping our clients locate tenants for my clients’ investment properties. How good is Rent Panda? Hart tells me they’ve had one non-payment of rent issue among 900 to 1,000 successful leases.  That’s pretty darn amazing so if you want to know how to be a successful landlord with paying tenants you will want to listen to this episode.  Rent Panda also now offers Property Management Services and Hart shares step by step how to create a rental ad and how to automate as much as possible how to handle the deluge or responses because if you bought right like our 350+ clients, your property is in high demand. Please enjoy the show! You can find Rent Panda at their website: www.rentpanda.ca, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RentPanda/, and Instagram: www.instagram.com/rentpanda

Ming is a Toronto Real Estate Expert and head of Volition Properties’ Investment Realty Services having helped clients accumulate $200,000,000 worth of income properties in the City of Toronto from condos to mid size apartment buildings, specialising in small multifamily in top neighborhoods. Ming is here today after Olivia Chow won the Mayoral race of Toronto and vows to build a more affordable city.   To follow Ming: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/volitionproperties/?hl=en Website: https://www.volitionprop.com/

Nick Karadza is a real estate investor who discovered the power of leveraging real estate through "boot camps." Starting at 21, he bought, renovated, and flipped properties for profit but realised it wasn't generating the desired cash flow to replace his job income and it was a lot of work.  Nick shifted to rental properties, achieving monthly cash flow and recouping his investment. Nick founded Rock Star Real Estate Brokerage Inc. and the Rock Star Inner Circle with his brother to assist real estate investors. Nick publishes a newsletter, shares online articles, teaches classes, and holds events for their 1,000+ members and co hosts the Your Life, Your Terms podcast. Nick remains an active real estate investor, consumes endless economic news and collects some silver, gold and bitcoin. Please enjoy the show!   To follow Nick Karadza: Rock Star Inner Circle Website: https://rockstarinnercircle.com/  Live Class Investor Training: https://rockstarinnercircle.com/erwin/ Note, if you would like to work with Erwin’

Kellan James was recommended for this podcast by my wife’s team at Real Estate Tax Tips.  You see, Accountants know who are actually successful at making money hence Kellen is our guest today. Kellan has successfully transitioned out of his corporate job. His timing for explosive growth was well timed, his deals were profitable and well executed including his more recent deleveraging stage of consolidating his portfolio, paying off more expensive private mortgages to manage cash flow. Kellan shares how his journey started, the importance of coaching early on, his group of 13 real estate friends, and how Kellan proceeded to grow both his portfolio and coaching business too fast leading to burn out. I invited Kellan onto the show over a year ago but I caught him during his social media black out period and he’s finally here today to share the ups and downs, realities of becoming a full time real estate investor. Please enjoy the show!   You can follow Kellan at: Website: https://www.kellanjames.ca/ Instagram: h

You know about the downturn we just experienced and like many of you, I was curious how private mortgage companies fared so I reached out to Kyle Ford whose company manages $150 in private mortgages. Kyle tells it like it is, he shares how many mortgages went sideways, what the lessons were, how Kyle and his staff put time and money into taking over failed BRRR’s and flips to finish projects and sell them off and make his clients whole. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. Treat other people's money better than you treat your own. If you won’t invest your own money into your project and you can’t pay people back when deals go bad, don’t use other people's money. If you don’t believe me, ask bankrupt investors how much those other people who invested in them hate them and want their money back. Debt is cheapest like first mortgages, VTB’s, you don’t give up control hence that should be one’s first option. Back to Kyle’s interview, we journey back to when he was a alternative financing borrower investing in

Have you met Steve Phillips? He’s a member of my team, the four time award winning iWIN Real Estate. Right out of school he worked for one of the largest condo management firms in the GTA, he’s a serial entrepreneur, had a construction business, real estate runs in the family as the Mrs. is a designer. Steve is well known in the Durham region as well within the investor community having been coached by, and taken courses by Quentin D’souza.  If you know Steve like I do, he doesn’t sleep until his clients have a great deal under contract and he’ll be sharing how he’s been doing so along with the numbers behind the deals. You can reach out to steve at Steve@infinitywealth.ca if you’d like to book a call or tour.    To book a call with Steve: https://calendly.com/steve-1502iwinrealestate/30min On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iwin_on_the_eastside/

We have my old friend Aaron Moore on the show who is an extremely successful real estate investor, wholesaler and flipper. Aaron and I met monthly to mastermind for three years so I know him well and can verify he’s a nice guy and he’s much more successful than many of the real estate influencers on Instagram. Aaron is the only wholesaler I know who guarantees the purchase from the seller including the time he got caught in the downturn, knew he was going to take a loss and did it anyways. Aaron takes us back to 2008 when he would deliver hundreds of fliers and hang bandit signs, you know those unauthorised sings on traffic lights saying “I Buy Houses.” Soon after successfully cracking the Google SEO and Ads code back in 2010, Aaron’s one of the best at generating leads for off market properties.  Hence he can wholesale 66 properties in a year. Aaron walks us through how he grew his organisation, number of employees, his journey from harder deals to easier for long-term holds, what he thinks of the current ma

We have great guests who just launched their new apartment building REIT, a real estate investment trust. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like a fund where the underlying is a bunch of apartment buildings and regular investors like you and I can own shares in the fund to participate in the investment.  Mike Rockall and Mark Baltazar our guests today are the founders/owners of Peak Multifamily Investments and I’ve known Mike a long time, we met sometime around 2010 as we were members of the same real estate investing network.  I know I talk like an old person because I am but I knew Mike when he was still in college but thanks to hard work, surrounding himself with go-getters, great mentorship he’s been full time in apartment buildings for several years and now co-founder his own REIT. On the show we discuss the journey and get a bit detailed in how and the costs to start a REIT, who they have to hire and partner with to raise capital. We touch on securities regulations which anyone listening who raises c

On to this week’s guest who’s tired of the real estate craze! At least the craze has died down a little with several education companies and coaches having disappeared.  Such is the real estate cycle, weak hands get flushed. We have Dominique Chénard owner of Chenard Wealth who provides managed investments, financial planning, insurance, group benefits, and Accounting Services.  She is CFO of her four rental property business to her husband who serves as COO with a plan to stop growing the portfolio at five properties. Even though Dominique attended a weekend course years ago and hired a coach for two years… well, I’ll allow her to explain how she does not follow the hype of aggressive growth, wants to balance her life, running her own business plus all the non-real estate stuffs she invests in, plus we chat about why she hires an Accountant even though she is one, and how she’s fighting inflation.