Today’s guest is Dr. Wing Lim, a true renaissance man - a dedicated medical professional and serial entrepreneur who has built an impressive portfolio of healthcare facilities and senior living communities. For over 30 years, he has balanced a thriving family medicine practice with innovative real estate ventures.

Dr. Lim's impact extends far beyond the medical field. He has spearheaded the creation of the state-of-the-art Synergy Wellness Center and the award-winning Esther Gardens senior residence, providing invaluable resources and care to thousands. Beyond his professional accomplishments, he is committed to empowering the next generation through his Physician Empowerment podcast. Link: https://www.physempowerment.ca/ 

Join us as we dive into Dr. Lim's remarkable journey - from the challenges of running a medical practice to the triumphs of building a real estate and senior living empire. His story is a testament to the power of vision, perseverance, and a relentless drive to create positive change. Canada needs more investors like Dr Wing Lim and I hope this show inspires one of my 17 listeners.

Today’s guest is my good friend and past client, Adam Johnson, CPA, CA, CBV, CFA—who, at the time, was my youngest client and didn’t have as many letters behind his name. Adam’s not your average CPA. He’s also a Chartered Business Valuator CBV and Chartered Financial Analyst CFA, making him one of less than 100 people in Canada with all three designations. He even ranked #1 in the country on his CBV exam. But what really sets him apart is his hands-on experience with one of Canada’s biggest investment banks, where he analyzed stocks and worked directly with equity traders which prepared him nicely for a long-time career in business valuations.

Now, Adam’s expanded his investing to the U.S. after Ontario deals no longer made sense, and he’s the founder of Synthesis Valuations, providing top-tier valuation reports for everything from mergers to shareholder disputes. 

Note we recorded this episode before the most recent hurricanes Helen and Milton devastated Florida the deadliest since Katrina in 2005, each with a combined $100 billion is losses, $50 billion each. For context, that major storm Toronto had in the summer caused $1 billion in damage, these hurricanes were 100 times worse. My thoughts and well wishes are with Florida. Link to source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/helene-milton-losses-50-billion-each-hurricanes-rare/

For your business valuation needs, Adam’s company website: https://synthesisvaluations.com/

What’s someone with so much stock and business valuation skill and experience doing overweighted as a real estate investor? Let’s ask him!

We have the co-founder of Trust Your Talent, Tim Tsai returning to the show after a two year hiatus from the show. Tim’s members include 150 who have achieved some level of financial freedom, including the first level which is to have one’s monthly expenses covered by the cash flow from their investments.

That’s a lot of people Tim and co-founder Rey have directly coached and mentored but he’s not alone as past guests of this show Vince Lee and Brooke Shang are past members and now coaches of Tim and Rey’s group.

Tim is back this week to share what has worked for his own portfolio including what has not worked, when he saw red flags and was able to avoid damage unlike the many who have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in private lending in small towns, high leveraged, too much, too fast, too complicated investments.  However Tim’s members have survived and thrived over these same times and I can’t wait to meet the dozens of award members at Tim’s InvestED gala.

About Tim: After retiring himself at the age of 30, Tim began to 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 investing is a “lead by example” venture.

With the investment he made in his own financial education, Tim became financially free in 2 years (25 months to be exact) after his first training. In the past few years, Tim has built cash-flowing portfolios in Canada, US and the UK, using a variety of strategies – income properties, lease options (residential and commercial), creative financing, flipping, wholesale, infill development, mobile home parks, etc.

Conference details: https://trustyourtalent.ca/invested-annual-conference-2/

Website: https://trustyourtalent.ca

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thetimtsai/

On to this week’s show, a topic I’m a big fan of, avoiding long-term rentals in tenant friendly provinces like Ontario hence we have Spencer and Ashley Giles back for round 2. If you didn’t already know, vacation rentals are a business, 24-7 for some like Airbnb managers like Spencer and Ashley Giles who are back to share more, dig deeper into the strategy including operating and owning in the USA. 

Their management portfolio is 50 properties at time of recording spread across much of Ontario and Up State New York so they have a lot of diverse experience to share.

To follow Spencer and Ashley Giles, their website is https://spencerandashley.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/spencerandashley/ on Instagram.

Please enjoy the show!

Our guest Meghan Hubner is a real estate business consultant who helps investors run their portfolios like a business. After a 12-year career in medical and pharmaceutical sales, Meghan transitioned to entrepreneurship, using her degree in entrepreneurship to work with various businesses. About 4 years ago, she started focusing on real estate investors, helping them with accounting, finance, operations, and building systems to stabilize and grow their businesses. Meghan is also an experienced real estate investor herself, having built a portfolio in British Columbia, and a cohost of the Real Estate Reliance Summit along with fellow dynamic investors: Elizabeth Kelly and Victoria Cluney.

For information and to register go to https://realestateresilience.ca/ but don’t delay, the all virtual conference is Saturday and Sunday Sept 28th and 29th.  Cherry and I are proud speakers and SHARE and I are proud to be sponsoring quality educational content providers at affordable prices by Elizabeth, Victoria and this week’s guest Meghan Hubner.

Please enjoy the show!

Meaghan on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meghanhubner/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meghanhubner?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Web: www.meghanhubner.com

On to this week’s guest!

Award-Winning Real Estate Investor, Coach, Speaker, Educator & Proud Entrepreneur, my old friend Elizabeth Kelly who tells it like it is.  Elizabeth shares about her wins and losses in real estate.  She’s been an active leader in the community for nearly 20 years and is here to tell us about how we Canadian real estate investors can be resilient, what she sees for our collective futures in real estate and she’s hosting the 3rd annual Real Estate Resilience Business Edition of the summit on September 28-29th.  

Myself and SHARE are proud sponsors of the summit. I will be joining an expert panel on USA investing with friend of the show Glen Sutherland.  My wife, the lovely Cherry Chan will be a speaker as well and I’m super excited for the other speakers as well.

On today’s show Elizabeth shares her personal journey from mega real estate investor to entrepreneurship adjacent to real estate, the challenges of affordability for investing in local markets even after learning the hard way when back in 2010, she bought 100+ units and struggled with systems and operations.

Any and all investors should give this episode a listen to learn how to both win in real estate and to avoid losing which IMHO is another way of winning.

For more information on the Real Estate Resilience summit go to: https://realestateresilience.ca/

Please enjoy the show.

Mike Beer is is an owner of a real state investment company Mike Beer Investments. They have developed an investing system that has been working for well over a decade and invest in apartment buildings in Canada. His mission is to enable each of his investors to provide their families with the financial future they truly deserve. In the past he was a professional ski instructor and scuba divemaster. Now he focuses on coaching for charity, ice water plunges, health, and loves personal self development.

Website to contact: https://www.mikebeer.ca/

We have a college instructor on this week’s show! Brian Gordon is an old friend of mine from years ago, he works full time for the largest appraisal company in Canada, if not North America in Management.  Prior to that he worked as a Senior Property Tax Analyst for one of Canada’s largest REITs, if not the biggest.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigor/

Brian has been methodically growing his own real estate portfolio over 7 years consisting of duplexes, a AirBnb in Blue Mountain, more recently an 11 plex development where he’s adding two additional units.

As mentioned Brian is the course creator and instructor of “Real Estate Investment Strategies” at George Brown College, a comprehensive, yet affordable course which is one of the big reasons why I wanted him on the show.  Real estate investing is largely about return on investment and that includes one’s education.  This course is only $392.24 for 20 hours including private 1 on 1 consultation time with Brian.  What an absolute steal.

Link: https://coned.georgebrown.ca/courses-and-programs/real-estate-investment-strategies-online

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed recording this episode for you all to learn Brian’s tips and tricks so we may all improve our own businesses and you’ll want to hear about where Brian’s next investments will be and his views on Canadian opportunities.

Please enjoy the show!

Follow Brian on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/acquiring_wisdom/

We have my friends returning to the show, Marty and Amanda who’ve been renovating and investing for nearly 20 years, Amanda Bouck has managed properties for nearly 20 years, Marty her husband is a carpenter by trade and personally much of their 15+ duplex conversions in Guelph.  They are a power couple: they get numbers, execution, cash flow and hate vacancy. They drank the same Kool Aid I did. They’re reward is a country acreage and building the custom home of their dreams they’re too humble to talk about with all the gurus out there flaunting Rolex watches, Lamborghinis, private jets and yachts.

Amanda & Marty scaled up as well in small multis likes six plexes, small apartment buildings to their current project, both a REIT: real estate investment trust called Legend Real Estate Trust and a 60 unit building in Waterloo.

Amanda and Marty are here today to share their experience including coaching, retiring from coaching for possibly the biggest real estate education company in Canada.  As always, we share both the negative and positive of real estate investing including all the losses going on in the community, over leverage with expensive hard money loans and their own investment philosophies where none of their investors have lost any money.

The honest truth about real estate investing is, speculative investments can work until they don’t and also I don’t endorse any product or offering of Marty and Amanda nor do I receive any compensation from Marty and Amanda nor from their businesses. This episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

Please do your own due diligence. If you read the article about Robby Clark, you see how some of the property used to secure financing had fires and were torn down by the city. If any lender, broker, investor had simply driven by the property, they would have known the deal was no good. 

For my house in San Antonio, Texas I have a termite inspection, home inspection including pictures and video walkthrough, a quote from the property manager for renovations and maintenance. My cousin is in San Antonio next week for work and doing a drive by.

Diligence people, trust but VERIFY. That goes for all guests of this show. I do my best hence Epic Alliance and Robby Clark never made it on this show or any of my platforms.  I learnt my lesson from Paramount Equity.

Back to this week’s guests, Amanda and Marty, just to note, they have been censored on other platforms and Facebook groups for trying to warn people about gurus losing other people's money. They going to offend some so be warned.  

Links:

www.LegendRealEstateTrust.ca

[email protected]

[email protected]

Please enjoy the show!

Greetings my fellow investors and truth seekers, this is the Truth About Real Estate Investing Show for Canadians and if you’re addicted to social media like I am, there’s not a lot of good news within our community.  It’s not all bad, we just had Kelly Caldwell, Victoria Cluney, and Milena Simsic. Spencer and Ashley with their AirBnbs, Zac Killem whose company Front Lobby will thrive.  In general those with healthier portfolios as in not over leveraged, focus on cash flow and operational execution are doing just fine like many past guests of this show. I was just speaking to one investor/Realtor while preparing this episode who did just that, he’s buying more multifamily buildings and completed two flips in the USA. 

Off the top of my head, I can think of two past guests in significant financial trouble, one has already declared bankruptcy, the others owe a lot of people a lot of money to individual investors, not just banks.  Individual investors post to social media and tell others to warn them. I know because I have friends everywhere in the community and the messages arrive in my DM’s.

Both were newer to real estate as they made the switch to full time within the last five years or so.  I’ve left the episodes up because as far as I’ve know, there was no criminal intent nor are they being accused of any.

I run a real estate investment business called iWIN Real Estate where we are always looking to learn, evolve, and adopt best practices to help our clients optimize their investments and time, the only non-renewable resource. We started investing in single family, then multifamily, then student rentals, basement suite conversions, to garden/garage suites and it’s gotten unaffordable. We use Ai all through out our businesses.

I used Chatgpt to research case law when sellers accepted a higher competing offer when we had already accepted their counter offer.  I’ve used Chatgpt to proof read my clauses for counter offers which saves everyone time: my clients, my lawyer, my broker. 

I’m working on creating a digital duplicate of myself as I’m really busy booking calls to discuss USA investing. 80-90% of the questions are the same: what is the legal structure to own US properties, how do you get a mortgage, what are the fees like, etc… all repetitive I could have an Ai twin version of myself do. 

If you think I’m crazy, check out the found of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman’s two way interview of his own Ai twin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgD2gmwCS10

For anyone in sales or customer service, if you’re not afraid for your job, I don’t know what will. This is one reason I diversify my business, use Ai tools, own cash flowing real estate.

The owner of Property Guys was on BNN talking about how 25% of Realtors in the USA will leave the industry after those historic lawsuit settlements.  This August, listings will no longer display co-operating commission for buyer agents hence buyer agents must negotiate commission from the buyer.  Property Guy mentioned there are two lawsuits in the works in Canada which confirms the rumours I’ve heard.  The implication is the public will be more aware that Realtor commissions are negotiable, they always have been and it my experience, sellers who want top dollar when selling will continue to offer co-operating commission.  Most of the professional investors do it. I do it, I actually offer above market co-operating commission and use it as a marketing tool and negotiation piece. I mean it’s worked for me, the last four houses I sold, I did so, on average in 22 days on market.

Point is, I’m a Realtor, I’ve worried for my job since 2010 and never been more worried with Ai, class action lawsuits and competition among other Realtors at their highest levels ever.  If only we had as many doctors and Realtors. Imagine how good our health care would be.

For complete business and investment sense, I of course partnered with SHARE, a tech enabled asset manager that allows Canadians to be US landlords without all the heavy lifting.  My 17 listeners know I’ve conducted well over 300, hour long interviews with successful and some no longer successful real estate investors work, invest, blood, sweat and tears.  In terms of cash flow and overall returns to effort, I haven’t seen anything before that beats SHARE’s offering.

In short, I’ve seen how the top investors implement their real estate investment business and can separate the hype from results. Those with results did not overleverage, were in control the whole time, delivered operationally to renovate and rent as fast as they could.  Those who didn’t are the ones making all the headlines in the news for declaring bankruptcy protection or bankruptcy or have their names dragged through Facebook groups for owing money. 

I had a call with a newer investor who’s got a great investment property in BC, she AirBnb’s the triplex in the summer months then rents to students during the school year.  That’s investing on steroids and she’s rewarded with six figures of rental income.

The investor asked why I call in long-term single family rentals boring?  To me it’s not exciting, there’s nothing innovative about it vs. what gets all the attention and likes on social media, note how many of those influencers have gone quiet or done major pivots. I know one big time condo agent appears to have pivoted to coaching Realtors which is going to be really tough in this market.  My clients and I’s investing is as passive as possible and we’ve done quite well. Our biggest challenge is under rented properties due to rent control but over the long-term, we’ve all done amazing with market appreciation.

Compare that to Airbnb in the summer where this newer investor does all the client interaction and only outsources the maintenance and cleaning to a property manager for 10% PM fees. Student rentals in my experience are a niche investment that is much more challenging to insure, manage, and get cheap financing.  My last student rental mortgage was with Home Trust at over 8% interest plus 1% lender fee.

Again, a wonderful business for the active investor.  Just be prepared for plans B and C and D should the municipality turn against student rentals or AirBnb.  Just last week, 10,000 protesters in Barcelona took to the streets, some even using water guns to shoot at tourists. The Mayor of Barcelona is banning 10,000 Airbnbs in the city… this makes me thing I need to buy some shares of hotels… source: https://www.ft.com/content/287c1d53-7dd0-410c-88bb-f43277c851b6

In my city, the City of Hamilton implemented rental licensing in the student neighbourhoods with plans to expand across the entire city and the mayor is former NDP leader Andrea Horwath.  To conform to licensing could costing landlords from a couple to several thousands of dollars in order to comply along with ongoing fees.  Thankfully I’ve sold my student rentals and I’m grateful for having done so as I look out the window of my office and know there are basements being flooded all over the province. There’s plenty of investors struggling out there already who don’t need this.  This widespread flooding event will push up insurance rates yet again, more housing cost inflation we can NOT pass onto the tenant in a rent controlled environment.

As someone who despises risk, I’m removing basement flood risk by divesting local houses and investing in houses in the USA that don’t have basements. I’m advising friends, family and clients to not invest in suiting their basements as it makes more sense to allocate those funds to buying a house in the USA.  To close on my house in San Antonio I need $97,000 US$ including a $10k reserve fund. A typical basement apartment conversion is $160,000 in my experience and you’re vacant six months.  How long depends on the municipality and the quality of your contractor.

My San Antonio tenants are renting the house back from me so I have zero vacancy and can defer my renovations till after they move out which I hope is never since this is Texas and there is no rent control

Only in colder climates do we need basements that go below the frost line to prevent heaving.  The same problem doesn’t happen in the southern USA making housing a lot less expensive to build, no need to ever have waterproof let alone flooding if you avoid coastal areas and Florida.

Even if you wanted to buy a turnkey duplex in Hamilton, Barrie, Oshawa, Ottawa etc… I’ve chosen those cities as prices and rents are similar there, I’ve calculated the capitalization rate = $ Net Operating Income / $ price at 4.1%. 

Compare that to what my clients are getting, low five to mid 7 cap rates in the USA.  The numbers don’t lie, the laws are landlord friendly, no rent control, and commercial style mortgages for us Canadian investors. I make way more commission selling a Canadian property than an American one but I want happy clients hence I recommend US investments over Canadian ones. Diversification and cash flow reasons alone make plain sense. The truth is also it’s way easier selling US income properties. I’ve sold way more US income properties than Canadian ones this year, never in my career since 2010 as a Realtor have I seen so little interest by investors to buy local income properties when the timing is ideal to pick up deals.

I do truly worry for my fellow real estate professionals in Realtors and mortgage agents/brokers. There’s a lot of them already and if they make a living focusing on selling local real estate investments and they not able to sell US products, I won’t be surprised to see many of them leave the industry.  

To me, it’s all a matter of education before investing in the USA via SHARE by Canadians is the norm, I honestly love my work, SHARE is the partner every lazy investor like me is looking for except they don’t take any equity share of the investment. Control and ownership remind 100% mine and Cherry’s. 

I’m going to record a video comparing a new condo investment vs. a duplex vs. my client’s property. He's from Montreal, has never seen the house that is a 7.6% cap rate that only cost him about $160,000 Canadian. 

Link is in the show notes.

There is no guest this week. I literally had invited a former coach of a defunct real estate “university” as they invest big, nice people but their name is being blasted on social media for not making payments on their private mortgages.  The coach didn’t respond which never happens as gurus generally love coming on my show.  This isn’t an indictment on the coach/investor. If they can survive they’ll come out a winner.  Even if they don’t, I believe them to be talented and will come back.  

Personally I don’t like my investments to be a roller coaster hence I choose boring as I don’t have thick enough skin to tell people I’ve lost their money or I can’t pay them back.  That’s just me. The world needs the self declared crazies like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. I just know I’m not that and stay in my boring lane.

But I do have equity in SHARE, I have some say in the company’s direction as Head of Business Development in Canada and I don’t see a more efficient path to my company’s 10 year gold: help 200 Canadians become real estate millionaires.  I’m at 45 or so now and I can see it in my mind’s eye, 10 years from now enjoying golf and dinner with 200 Canadian real estate millionaires who’ve gained a lot of financial peace via their boring real estate investments.

I can’t wait but I’m totally enjoying the journey.  iwin.sharesfr.com if you’d like to learn about the deals my clients and I are doing, from there you can book a Zoom call with me. Past clients, I’m always down for coffee, dessert, breakfast, lunch, dinner, or golf. You know where to find me.

This week’s guest is the lovely Kelly Caldwell, who has converted over a dozen single family houses for basement suites AND garden suites. Together with husband Jeff Caldwell, they’ve become leaders in their community, Collingwood, ON filling in the missing middle working closely with local government as such they were invited to be a part of a new HGTV inspired series called Home Suite Home where viewers can follow along as Kelly and Jeff navigate the world of accessory suite financing, design and construction.  You can catch them on Rogers Cable TV this fall as well as Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@itshomesuitehome.

Kelly’s journey is a wild one.  She was barely an adult when she was orphaned as Cancer took her father, her only parent away leaving her as the eldest sibling of two teenage brothers. 

Kelly shares about her remote investing way up north, how she managed the renovations, Kelly shares the numbers around a typical basement conversion and garden suite.  For the first time a guest talks about the benefits of polished concrete floors for both heating and finish. Fascinating stuff for real estate nerds such as myself.

If you can’t tell, Kelly is no stranger to hard work so please enjoy the show!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itshomesuitehome/, https://www.instagram.com/the_dash_investher/

Realtor website: https://caldwellrealestategroup.com/

The dash poem: https://noahwatry.medium.com/the-dash-poem-by-linda-ellis-33fe4d54a1b4

ADUSearch: https://adusearch.ca/index.html