Hello investor!
I hope you all had as great a weekend as I did!!! My Friday and Saturday were spent with my wife Cherry and friend James Maggs at the Archangel Summit: a business and self development conference and it was excellent!! I’m fired up to do more, be more, help more!! I will summarize my notes and present them to you all at a later time.
Happy birthday to my mom, the lovely woman who gave me life. A blessed life that I lead where I can take my mom to lunch on a Monday afternoon in a near empty restaurant as if it were a private, chefs table, just mom and I.
We had a great meal but more importantly I had time to reconnect with mom about what it was like coming to Canada.
My dad’s brother was the first to immigrate who then brought my dad to Saskatoon. Thank the powers that be he soon decided to move to Toronto as he found Saskatoon to be too cold. My mom followed on a student visa a few months later at the age of 19. For my fellow Canadians, imagine uprooting your life from a tropical climate to the frozen tundra that is Canada :P
From a language barrier standpoint, we Canadians learn French much like students from Hong Kong learn English. It’s a start but if you’ve been to Quebec, you know how challenging it is to communicate.
Anyways, thank goodness for real estate. My grandpa was able to provide my parents a downpayment on our first house in Scarborough, Ontario. The house was only $61,000 but my parents still had three mortgages. I don’t even know anyone personally who’s had a third mortgage. Seconds on primary residence are quite uncommon.
At the time, my dad was still in University, I know because I was in the family pictures at dad’s graduation. They were quite broke.
Out of necessity to pay the bills, my mom was the first real estate investor in the family. She AirBnb’d rooms in our home (before AirBnb even existed) for $50 per month plus $50 for food. Mom was cooking and cleaning for up to four house guests at a time.
My mom has sacrificed and hustled a lot resulting the blessed lives my family and my kids now lead.
Mom is now retired and can enjoy to the fruits of her labour and I get to now share my successes with her.
What greater definition of success is there than giving back to your family? This November we’re bringing mom on a Caribbean cruise with us on a brand new ship in a room with a balcony. Paid for by our real estate. Not bad for a child of immigrants.
Yes it’s actually possible and Cindy is doing it.
Cindy is a full time Real Estate Investor, Owner of Oro Properties and Consultant specializing in Toronto's South East End. With 17+ years experience in the rental and investment properties arena under her belt.
Cindy is an old friend from REIN, the Real Estate Investment Network, she’s most famous for targeting high end tenants and renovating her properties accordingly to charge precedent setting, above market rents.
We talk about how it all started, sweat equity, the Toronto market, mistakes, the earlier than expected transition from corporate to full time investor and lessons learned plus how and where she would invest today if she were to start all over.
So without further ado, I give you Cindy Wennerstrom.