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The Truth About Real Estate Investing... for Canadians

For Canadians by Canadians sharing the truths about generating wealth through real estate investing. This show is about getting rich slowly, investing is a marathon, no get rich quick methods will be discussed here hosted by award winning investor and three time Realtor of the Year Erwin Szeto aka Mr. Hamilton
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The Truth About Real Estate Investing... for Canadians
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Now displaying: March, 2019
Mar 30, 2019

On to this week’s guest!!

 

Sadly the truth is there are few people I like in the real estate industry and even fewer in the real estate investment industry.  John Bedomme is not only of the good ones, he’s one of the great ones.

 

John is a licensed real estate professionals, he listens to what his clients want and get them exactly that.  The job is to guide investors as best as possible with the highest possible return on time and investment and John delivers exactly that.

 

When I was checking John’s references (I check references for guests of the show :) I was informed the client was showed seven properties by John and the investor bought five of them because John listened and found them exactly what they wanted.

 

John is also an investor, a top 10% investor as one of the few who achieve double digit investment properties at 12 having started in 2007.  Even more important is what a good man, husband and father he is but I won’t spoil it for you here, he shares at around the midpoint of the interview that had me choked up.

 

Finally John is an original member of iWIN and member of the League of Extraordinary Real Estate Professionals that I personally endorse.  After you have a listen, you will understand how John qualifies.

 

Without further ado, John Beddome

Mar 23, 2019

On to this week’s show!!

In 1964 a comic strip called “Wizard of Id” was published

In the first panel the diminutive tyrannical King character addressed his subjects from the balcony of his castle and emphasized the need for “peace and harmony”.

In the second panel the King continued by stating “We must all live by The Golden Rule”.

Traditionally, the golden rule is to do unto others as you would have done onto you.  That’s what nice people do. The tyrannical King, the central character to the Wizard of ID is not nice so you can imagine the confusion by both the reader and the audience before the king.

In the last panel the jackass king character states “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”

In today’s real world, the banks have all the cheap money, cheap money all us investors want and on the show we have my old friend Dion Beg who specializes in mortgages for investors and he just so happens to belong to the #1 mortgage company in Canada, Butler Mortgage.

I’ve always believed in working with the best of the best and bringing you the best of the best hence I asked Dion to give us all an update on the mortgage markets specific to us investors and across multiple investment strategies.

Pay special attention near the end when Dion explains the break down of his client tell between recreational, intermediate and advanced.  I may have many super stars on this show but as Dion shares, you don’t need much to build a healthy sided retirement nest egg. If you’re new to investing, start there. Because no one else is going to give you a pension for this little effort.

Without further ado, I give you Dion Beg.

Mar 16, 2019

Do you remember your favourite experience doing charity work?

I’ll always remember my favourite moment as a Basket Brigade Volunteer.

It was Thanksgiving and jacket weather, the sun was out so it was warm enough that we didn’t need gloves.

My brother Tony was driving his company car since it’s an SUV and well, we’re doing god’s work so someone else can pay for the mileage 😛 hahaha

He pulled off the main road and into a townhouse complex right off the main road.  As it goes with affordable, high density housing, it’s often right off a busy street with four to six lanes of traffic.  The houses are close together, the lots are maybe 20 feet wide, single lane driveways. We drive slowly going over speed bumps as I’m looking for the house numbers.

We find the house and pull into the driveway, it looks like all the rest of the houses but with toys on the front lawn, the grass is that shade of yellow and green.  This complex looks to be a condominium as they all look the same and built in the 1980’s. They’ve been maintained OK but they haven’t been painted in a while and I can see some tattered window screens.

Our list of deliveries details the family as two sisters sharing a house each having kids for a total of five kids, the oldest is nine, youngest 24 months.

Single moms have a special place in my heart as statistically, single moms have the highest chance of living in poverty of any household.  I’m a parent too and know how hard it is, I couldn’t imagine being on your own with a single income.

My brother Tony and I grab boxes and bags of groceries including a turkey, fresh fruit, vegetables, bread, butter, eggs, everything you need to entertain family for Easter dinner. We carry the groceries from the trunk, walk up to the front door,  knock and are greeted by yelling children. They are excited to see who’s coming and are jumping up and down with smiles to greet us.

One of my the mom’s comes around the corner to greet us and say thank you.  She’s dressed comfortably in sweats as everyone does on weekends and she looks tired and has a kind but tired smile and says thank you.  Mom hugs both my brother and I. The kids are looking through the packages we brought. They box and bag we brought are heavy so the kids are grabbing items, lifting over their heads and yelling what it is before carrying it off to the kitchen. We inform her we still have more and need to make another trip to the car.

My brother and I return with more groceries and some used kids books that were donated by another volunteer.  One of the kids screams “pie!!” and “oh look! BOOKS!!” Two of the kids help themselves to books and go outside to read in the sun, the other kids run outside to play on the lawn too.

We exchange hugs with mom and again and wish her a Happy Thanksgiving.  Tony and I return to the car and sit in silence for 30 seconds before turning on the engine.  Taking in the experience of making a difference for a single mom and kids who are so grateful for so little.  My brother says something along the lines of how great it feels to help out this family. I say nothing as I’m not good at expressing my feelings.  I’m the passenger/navigator so I check the list and key in the GPS for our next delivery.

A simple act on a fall day with my brother and I’ll never forget it. Life is about experiences after all.

This was the moment I knew we were onto the best volunteer experience ever and I got to share it with my big brother. I knew we had to bring it back to Hamilton.

This was six years ago and with the help of many others went on from being a volunteer to building and presiding over the biggest operating budget for a Basket Brigade charity, the only Basket Brigade that operates Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas anywhere in North America.  People need help and we will be the change they need.

This Easter, 32 of Hamilton’s poorest families will have their wishes answered.  Our volunteers are sending home wish lists for the families to fill out and our volunteers will receive completed wish lists with the family’s story and contact information to go shopping, we budget $100 per family member.

On April 20th, we throw a party with pizza, hot dog cart, DJ, Batman, free giveaways, all for the families.  It is here our volunteers will arrive early to wrap presents and hand them over to the families. Those families who can’t make it in person, will have theirs delivered by volunteers but can you see many families missing out on this party??

For details, the best place to follow along is our private Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HamiltonBasketBrigade/. We are considerably slower with email 😛

April 20th, we will be the change we want to see in the world.

We will have an Easter bunny, Batman, Marvel Avengers Thor and Valkryie, pizza, hot dogs, DJ. It’s a party for 32 of Hamilton’s most impoverished families and our volunteers.

April 20th, starts at 10 am, families arrive at 11am. We are done by 1.  All in Hamilton

For privacy reasons, full details are on our private Facebook group and for registered volunteers. Go here to register (and donate): https://www.hamiltonbasketbrigade.com/

This week’s guest is an old friend who is the newest member on my team Paisley Mackenzie!!

I first met Paisley back in 2011 when I started looking into Brantford as it was and still is a top town for investment.  A best practice when learning about a new city is to meet with the Economic Development Officer and at the time it was Paisley Makenzie.

FOR FREE, I was able to bounce residential investment opportunities off a local expert with over 20 experience of business and real estate in the city.

We hit it off immediately since Paisley is kind and very helpful. In me, Paisley could tell I was not like other real estate agents as few out of town residential agents ever come to meet with her looking for the best opportunities for their clients.

Paisley is now the former Economic Development Officer with 28 years experience in that role.  Her job was to work with investors and businesses invest in Brantford and she’s now doing the same as a member of my Titan Investment Real Estate as a coach to guide and teach others to invest in Brantford, Hamilton and surrounding areas.  Her knowledge of commercial and industrial is second to none but enough from me, I’m proud to present to you Paisley Mackenzie.

 

Paisley on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paisley.mackenzie

Mar 12, 2019

Every investors greatest fear is buying a lemon of a property. A money pit if you will.

I made that mistakes way back when I started, we were offered what every investor wants, an off market deal!  We made an offer well below what the seller’s Realtor thought they could get and boom. We got ourselves a money pit.  The house had a log foundation, the driveway was sloped to direct water into the basement window and onto the dirt floor of the cellar.

The water that came out of the taps was brown time to time… I learned a lot from that house.

Mistake #1 - we didn’t get an inspection.  The brown tap water is a symptom of galvanized steel plumbing. An old type of plumbing known to leak hence today’s insurance companies I use won’t insure it, hence you find it, you better have a plan to replace.  No insurance equals no mortgage.

So if you were going to renovate a house with galvanized steel would you get permits and update the plumbing to today’s standards when renovating the bathrooms and kitchen or would you leave the old plumbing and just replace the bathroom and kitchen?

Well as mastermind member of mine, let’s call him Brian, called me and asked my opinion.  He had an accepted offer conditional on home inspection, on a nicely renovated property BUT the home inspector found some improper electrical and the bathroom and kitchen fixtures were connected to galvanized steel plumbing.  The same stuff I mentioned earlier that insurance companies will not insure. There were no permits taken out obviously.

What would you do? You bought a house you thought would not need renovation with new kitchen and bathrooms now you find out the electrical is problematic and the plumbing all has to be redone.  Doesn’t that feel like bait and switch?

I told Brian what I thought his options were:

  1. Counter with the seller agrees at their own expense to get electrical and plumber permits to fix all the problems.
  2. Get a reduction in price to reflect the cost of remediation.  Not my ideal choice because now you have to manage contractors and have a vacant property during the renovations.  This what Brian’s Realtor’s preferred option.
  3. Walk away.

A couple lessons here. Trust no ones’ renovations and workmanship, always get an inspection unless you plan on gutting the place anyways. Even brand new, I had my new construction houses in Brantford inspected, they had passed their electrical inspection but my inspector found a mistake in the arc fault circuit interrupter that should not have passed inspection.  The seller fixed it at their expense. My inspector also pointed out how the step was missing off the rear patio door, something required to obtain an occupancy permit allowing people to actually move in.

Houses are a big investment, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Get an inspection.

On the other side, when you renovate, don’t cut corners.  You don’t want that as your reputation as the investor community is a tiny one.

As Warren Buffet said, It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

Our next Infinity Wealth Investment Network, or iWIN for short, meeting is here in Toronto on March 28th. If you’d like to come, you have to act fast as these events sell out.

You can grab your ticket here: https://iwinmonthly.com/optin

On to this week’s show!!

While my wife Cherry and I were on a cruise ship in the Caribbean working the whole time, we fit in a podcast with our new friends Kristy and Brady Mcdonald.  With partners who contribute both the cash for down payment and renovation plus getting the mortgage, they have been able to acquire over 80 properties in just a few years.  Some were flips so they only still own 60+ properties depending on when you talk to them.

Pay special attention on how they are able to manage both the acquisition, renovations and all those tenants.  Also note the Mcdonalds now spend a lot of time on their 50 foot boat in Florida and the Bahamas cruising and exploring uninhabited islands.  Their boat is called living the dream.

Kristy also survived a tragic boating accident as a teenager and lost her arm in the process.  She’s no victim though as she practices a positive mindset.

Anyways, I give you Kristy and Brady Mcdonald.

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