Hello Wealth Hackers!!
If you missed the last episode, I shared how family and I were enjoying the weather on our back deck then we stood there powerless to watch a family of five skunks scramble to hide under my shed.
I love animals as much as the next person, I’ve had two dogs before, I teach my kids to respect all life, when an electrician was upgrade the service to my home, they left a space the size of a quarter in my wall leading to mice moving into my house. We live trapped over a dozen mice. Each morning I would get the kids all excited to check the live trap, they would ask if we could keep the mouse as a pet and the answer is no. We would then release the mouse in the ravine as a family. As we kept catching mice, we got less ambitious and simply release the mice to our yard.
Anyways, to successfully get rid of the skunks, we didn’t hire professionals, if any of you are regularly having to hire folks to care for your properties, you know how the cost of labour is way up, we paid $100 for an appliance person to just look at my stove. A fridge repair was $350…
Back on topic, to get the skunks out, our fences and gates already keep out critters, it’s rare for me to find a rabbit in our rear yard but my kids left the gate open the night the skunks moved in. So step 1 was to leave the gate open so the skunks could escape.
Step 2, as shown on my instagram I ran the hose to flood the space under my shelf
Step 3, I play kids song on repeat in the shed so the skunks would have no peace. Specifically “Old Macdonald had a farm….”
Step 4, to check if the skunks were even still there, I placed a chunk of watermelon by the opening to the hole the skunks dug to see if they were still there.
Step 5, now day three, no sign or smell the skunks were still there, I blocked the opening with rocks.
It’s been a week and a half now and now sign of skunks but while I was running last night, I smelled skunk and if anyone was watching me, I looked like an idiot because I stopped cold in my tracks and ran off the sidewalk to the road to avoid the shadows and possible retribution from the skunk family. I know I would be pissed off if sprayed with cold water and forced to listen to Old Mcdonald for 24hrs straight.
On a completely unrelated topic, we have my friend Ben Oosterveld back for now a third time to the show. If you don’t know Ben, he’s previously shared how he ran away from home when very young, lived on the streets and consumed all sorts of alcohol and drugs.
He’s since gotten his life together having gone on a binge of acquiring a 50+ investment properties in a short period of time, Ben is also among the highest performing Realtors I know personally having grossed over $800,000 in a year.
What sets Ben apart from most is his ability to wow people, let people know he cares.
For those of you out there looking to raise capital or build power teams of property managers, contractors, carpenters, etc… if you have a service based business which all of you landlords do: you are all what I call home service providers. Once you make the people you care about know how much you care, that makes doing business that much easier.
For those of you looking to level up your businesses, listen to what Ben does to wow his clients to apply to your own businesses because it works for Ben.
Without further ado, I give you Ben.
On to this week’s guest!!
She is not a real estate investor yet but she really wants to be but please don’t hate on her or my this podcast as she has many dynamo investors as best friends such as guests of this show Ian Szabo and Dion Beg, and maybe one day guest Brian Scrone who is a what I call, a centurian investor have owned over 100 investment properties in Florida.
Why I brought Shauna on this show is because she is one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. It is my belief that life is all about experiences and Shauna at whatever her age she is has 10X the life experiences of most.
One week she’s having lunch and planning a women’s conference with the Dutchess of York, the next week she flies to California for a meeting and charity concert with Maclemore, then it’s off to India for another major event planning session. Shauna has hosted Gary V in front of 3,000 in Toronto, she’s hosting Sir Richard Branson in the next 12 months and expanding her events to Californation. But even more crazy is Shauna is going to 10X as she plans my event to host Grant Cardone :)
Funny enough, we investors all hustle and grind so we may one day travel more. Shauna’s Haste and Hustle is so one day she may afford a down payment on an investment property and here is her story.
Website: https://www.hasteandhustle.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hasteandhustle
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hasteandhustlers/
Onto this week’s guest, my friend, client, and my go to guy on construction.
This interview was triggered by hearing interviews on other podcast by beginner developers which is totally cool. Sharing is awesome and I wanted someone with mastery level experience to come on this show to share on developing and building houses.
That brings us to Steve Ford who has 12 years experience in construction and is a Project Supervisor for a local home builder having overseen the construction of over 800 houses.
Steve is a real estate investor as well having done rent to own and long-term buy and holds but is going next level in aggressively pursuing more active income by developing land and building houses via a strategy called in-fill development in which Steve explains on the show.
Steve is a wealth hacker and a good guy. I give you Steve Ford.
Website: https://www.infilldevelopments.com/
On to this week’s guest!
For those with sights on bigger projects, Shane Melanson does exactly that! Shane started like many investors do with single family homes, did a few flips, progressed to commercial real estate including trailer parks, developing industrial condos and retail plazas.
Other than tackling these very large and complex 7-8 figure projects is Shane’s path to become a commercial expert and he’s here to share what triggered his investing, his career path before his first commercial investment and the mentorship he received along the way.
Also fascinating is how Shane structures joint venture investments with these large scale, capital intensive projects and % splits via general partner and limited partnerships.
To connect with Shane: