Andre Hart is someone who is carving out his own path in life and we admire him for it. He did a year’s worth of research and due diligence on Rock Star before jumping in to actually buy properties but once he did there was no holding him back. He started only four years ago, but he’s built a team and has some amazing real estate stories already. On this episode of The Your Life! Your Terms! Show Andre shares his story of being a Toronto Police Officer, moving from Montreal to Toronto and now to Ottawa, buying income properties, handling students, converting a property and more! Andre has an amazing attitude, nothing gets in his way and we feel grateful to have crossed paths with him. Enjoy the show!
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Transcript
Hey everyone, it’s Tom Karadza or with another episode of the your life, you’re a term show. And you know what’s hilarious? About four years ago we met, I mean every year we meet people that tell us this, but about four years ago we met people who told us the real estate market is either too high, too low, like everyone has their opinion, right? It’s, it’s too expensive, it’s about to crash, it’s going to go up or whatever, or now’s not the right time to buy properties. We get that a lot. And the really interesting thing is four years ago, Andre Hart, who you’re going to hear on this episode of the your life, your term show started getting into real estate and he’s done really well in that last four years. So well that he’s actually changing his entire life. He’s moving from Milton, Ontario, uh, over to Ottawa to be closer to his children.
Um, he’s, he’s leaving his job as a Toronto police officer and moving over to Ottawa. And you hear what he’s doing now in Ottawa. So this is someone who just started in the real estate game for years ago and is already making a big impact on his own life with the power of properties and income properties in your life, and this isn’t to say that it’s all easy and it’s all roses and stuff. He deals with stuff. Absolutely. But the perspective on life and the perspective on investing that Andre Heart has is incredible. We are pumped to share his story. This is a Canadian right here. Actually there is Andrea. If you’re listening to this, there’s only one negative. He’s, he’s a certain hockey fan that you, he’ll explain all that on this podcast, but this is someone who’s just like all of us who’s trying to make his own path in life and trying to figure things out.
I love his approach. I love the way he researches things. We’re a huge fan of his. We’re absolutely thrilled to bring this story onto the podcast so we can all learn from other people going through their own journey. That’s what we’re trying to do with this podcast. That’s what living life on your terms is about. Mastering your own journey through life, living it on your terms, getting up on the mall in the morning and doing what you want to do on your own terms, so pumped to have him and listen. If you are listening to this and you like some of the things that you’re hearing from Andre, he started with us at our introductory training class. That’s a 90 minute class that we do. He checked us out that way, came in and met us through that vehicle, that training class that we do here in our OAKVILLE officers. So if that’s something you want to check out, you can register yourself. Start Your own journey@canadianrealestatetraining.com that’s www.canadianrealestatetraining.com when you register for the next class and those, these classes are packed. We just had one last night. Every seat is taken. So you do have to register Jenny or Anthony in our office will confirm your seat, confirm the date and time details and all that wonderful stuff. But you can grab a seat@canadianrealestatetraining.com and with that, let’s get on with the show.
Are you ready to live life on your terms? Is it time to take charge real estate business building the economy, health and nutrition. And it’s the your life, your terms show with Tom and Nick Karadza are you ready? Let’s go!
nick. We are recording. Nick, can you hear me over there? Yeah. Okay, great. Are you, are you there? I am here. I’m just checking. Say someone’s listening to this and I need to see the little waves on the screen go up and down so that I know that everyone’s getting their voice recorded. We are on, we are on. So Andre, people might like a Dj voice on this thing. Do I keep them nice and close? Way Closer. Yeah, there we go. Yes, right in from your mouth. Now say something. Hello. There we go. That’s perfect. Oh yeah. He used to work in the nightclub somewhere. Somewhere down the line. Yeah. Were you a DJ in Montreal? Some are you sure? Absolutely. I wish maybe I can get in my twenties. Um, yeah, when I was, um, listen, we have a lot of things to talk to you about.
First of all, we’re going to open some Tequila. Um, I’m going to have some Chaga mushroom tea because I’ve had a long two days and I can’t do the Tequila because right after this I’ll be speaking for another, probably at 90 minutes or so. Okay. So I don’t know if is appropriate, although this Tequila that you’re about to enjoy is don Julio 1942. I don’t even think you can buy this in the country of Canada right now because they’ll, Cbo seems to carry about 10 bottles in the country total at a time. And I don’t think they’ve had it for a long time. It feels like I haven’t seen it used to stock their, they’re kind of stock online stock their stock and uh, yeah, best of my understanding is they don’t have to be carrying it anymore cause it’s just, it’s off the site completely.
It used to be there by, so when, when some bottles came in, took a couple of schools around here we went and we kind of cleared them out cause we, uh, I never was, we’re huge Tequila fans but it’s just a little fad that we’re on. But it’s pretty good. It is good stuff. Are you nice and warm though? Yeah. Yeah. That is big. It really is a little smoother when it’s chilled. Okay. This is good, but it’s still good. I met a Tequila Expo. This is great listening to you talk about your Tequila for so long that I’m gonna enjoy this. Tequila is some of the best to queue. I mean, when you in downtown Toronto for restaurant has it, you’re paying at least 20 bucks, usually 30 bucks I think. Yeah. Say 25 to 30 minutes village in Manhattan. We paid like, I think we paid 30 us or 50 us something ridiculous.
We got there, we were in New York and we looked at the menu and we said, oh my gosh, they have don Julio 1942 and then we looked at the price like our, I forget it, we’re not going to pay that. And then we had a couple other, I think Margarita [inaudible] bottle. So, uh, there you go. You know what? I didn’t have, you don’t have a chaser of any sort? No, no, no. Just sit. But you don’t have to, it’s not like you have to take that as a shot. You could just sip it. Let’s see if you survive here. He goes, he’s having it. He’s having it. Oh well there we go. Oh you took that pretty easy. Very smooth. I expect it to kill it to be like, you know, normally it is like grab bat it cause you’re trying to, you’re trying to drink the worm.
It’s gone. He’s got is serious. So listen really good. Actually. It’s smooth. It, usually it’s if it’s, if it’s cold, if I serve that to you, cold teddy dryness cause then you’re just like wow, this is really good. And it’s because of the problem or to get back home. Yeah. Yeah. Actually if you’re taking goober we get, you could just keep drinking the bottle. No, no, listen, thank you. I know you just cracked this bottle open, so thank you very much for letting me be the first one to try it. You know, now that you had that one so quicker, we’re going to have to pour you another one in a second. But listen, this, this Don Julio, some people will think it’s blast for me if we serve it to you cold cause that quality of Tequila people think you know, you should be just drinking that nice straight, just like it is room temperature and enjoy the flavor.
Okay. With a chill like even in Mexico’s group cause we were just there for someone’s wedding. Yeah. And uh, I think they’re okay with it. Chilled. But if you’re like freeze it, it just takes away all the flavors. So they’re like, whoa, whoa. No, no, no. It was just bitter. You know like that after taste. No chaser needed. I knew I liked you and now that you share this and this about the Tequila, I’m just liking you even more for fun. Listen, why don’t you make him a coffee and see what he says. What’s your call us one step at a time because we don’t have the good coffee machine in the office. We have an espresso machine which I figure I figure it’s tainted with I think still some opioids of some sort. Anyway, I’ll have to come back to the new office and try it.
Yes, because we’re going to have a proper machine but there’s something I wanted to mention that we like you but then then on the flip side there’s another side to the coin because you walked in here and you kind of, you kind of laughed a little bit and you said, oh how about those leaves say and he said I was, I was going to come in wearing my lead, my habs Jersey on, but I thought that would not be appropriate. He thought because they didn’t make it because offs just have guys, your team lost last night. But because my team did not make the playoff either, obviously I can’t laugh. I uh, yeah, I’m just getting over it now. Ask Nick. I was fuming last night. I was 45 straight text messages. I was losing my mind. I was losing my mind. I was losing it with like 11 minutes left when Babcock didn’t do certain things on the ice there.
I was losing it. I was out of control. I think I can be neutral on this. I think the leash might be good in a few years. They’re still young and they need defensemen. I need, he just sucked. If we’re missing a bunch of money because it’s two weeks ago, if you know everyone is expected them to get crushed and four, nine called beliefs in six. But everyone was saying they’ll get crushed in four games and everyone’s had resigned themselves to that I’m losing. Then they make it to a game seven and they got beat pretty handedly few giveaway. It was the worst defensive performance of the series. Right. And, um, and, but then everyone’s like, oh, you know, I can’t believe it, this and that. I’m like, well, four weeks ago, no one gave them a shot to win one of the Games. They said, Bruins, we’re just going to beat them up the whole time. Right. And they, and they gave away two games at home. They all sorts of problems that giveaway and not just lose them. They actually beat themselves and gave those ones away. So, but last night they lost fair and square. Look at the first round though. All those guys, all those crazy like I know. So Tampa was telling me, how does, sorry, I’m just starting up interrupting. How does somebody become a habs friend? Because you’re obviously born in Montreal. Yes. I’m born and raised in Montreal. I moved to Toronto
to Toronto 14 years ago. Just short of 14. I got a job here. I was 23 I hadn’t nothing. So, uh, I was looking for some action. I was a police officer in Toronto for 14 years. Toronto Police Force, the police force for the Toronto Police Force from Montreal. Why we were living in Montreal. Yeah. Why, like why not apply there. So before all of this, I used to be a hockey player and I was not naturally good, but it was good enough to make it to the Qa checks and that kind of caliber. You’re better than the men’s league, see division that we could go to hockey. It was a good time. Uh, but the problem with hockey is that if you make it to that level, your school goes down the drain. And I couldn’t get into police foundation in Quebec anymore because of that college hockey couple of years that I had gone through.
So a friend of mine had gone to Ottawa and study police foundation at Algonquin College. So I followed suit. I did two years there and then Toronto was starting to see huge hiring process. 23 is really young to usually to be hired as a police. Sounds like it. Yeah, super young. I was one of the youngest, super lucky and yeah, it’s been, uh, quite the 14 years. I’m not going to lie. Yeah. So you can straight to Toronto into the Toronto Police Force right away. Yeah. Like I like I moved in with my backpack and they gave me, uh, there’s one thing before we go further on that you said your middle name’s Thomas, which made me pause for a second year because Thomas is not a French name. Then you went on to say that your father is English. Correct. So my dad’s English. So he is yams fan while yeah.
Oh, okay. Yeah. He, yeah, I know. Okay. He’s probably one of the reason why I cannot cheer for the least. Correct. He’ll take me off the wheel. We don’t want to that no leaves. That is English. My mom is French. Uh, grew up in a French environment, went to French school on my life. My Dad was the only English aspect, huge one of my life, which allowed me to come to Ontario wood, a really thicker French Jackson 14 years ago. I didn’t know how to write properly. I still kind of don’t write that well. No Way. And that would have never thought that about, you know, good for you if you manage to buy a bunch of real estate without writing, so that’s good for you. I pay people to do stuff. So we’re talking about in a second. So you go, you come here at 23, you come in to the Toronto Police Force.
Um, the, the core part is, I don’t think we’ve been at a TFC game together. No. You said you were at some TFC games. Yeah, we’re BTFC fans. That would have been cool if we had been trying to look for you folks, but we got drunk enough and maybe they did something that you had to come kick us out. That’d be fun. How we’re looked after you folks should be a good story. Yeah. So I transferred and I used to work that area where the TFC plays the CNE grounds. Before that, I was northwest of Toronto, uh, just south of Jane and finch. Super Fun. Uh, I mean busy though. No, there’s activity going on. I had a blast. I would treat my policing career at all. Uh, and then, you know, policing brought me into buying a house when I was 25 to live in, who brought to the next house.
And then I found you guys when you were doing police. Uh, police work? Mostly domestic calls. Like what’s the number of call? One call for police force domestic disputes? No. Well there is a lot of domestics but I don’t know if there’s like one called more. There’s a lot of a mentally ill person type of card, like crisis calls. Uh, the last probably five years. Mental health was really subject of society I think. Okay. Got It. So you’re getting that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I got into this the last year I was a mobile crisis. I used to work with a nurse mental health nurse and we would just do crisis. Oh yeah. That’s tough work, man. That’s good for, I mean, you’re serving the community like, no, listen, you’re about to brush it off. That’s tough work. Somebody, um, between fire. I just think if you’re a fireman, a police officer, those types of paramedical, these types of roles, when you’re a first responder like that, that’s tough work.
It just after a while, I find it gets to you after, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m still young, but the 14 years kind of, you know, it changes the way you think, how you see people a lot of the time it makes work. Some, I’ve heard some stories from other police officers that have worked in, um, in Toronto and it’s the, the couple of stories that, you know, I’m like, it’s always the stories involving kids that really broke my heart and, and they told me a couple stories and yeah, it’s a deal with that type of stuff is that doesn’t happen too often. And like, you know, I’ve, uh, you know, did they mark you for life? Like I can tell you every dead child, I’ve have to imagine, but it’s not, you know, a monthly basis. They kind of like, you can pull it around if you want to sit sideways, he can.
So, so yeah. So it’s not an every day now. There you go. It’s not an everyday kind of thing. So, uh, no, it’s, it’s well balanced policing is great. Really self rewarding. It just takes a toll on your mental health as well. So yeah, so that’s why I, at some point I wanted to do something else and discovered you folks through what, four years ago now I’ve been part of registered spamming your email address until you know never. When did you, how did you find us at Google? Google. Then I, you know, when you started, I was that guy. As I see everybody here, how would they start? They were overly excited. They read everything. They absorb everything. I was on podcasts like name it, I was reading it, but it was all US base mainly or country ride a wide, correct. I always looking for something more specific to what I wanted to do in my community will say and Rocky’s type pop top on one of my search and then I came to your fast start or, or introduce introduction class.
I actually remember talking to you, nick, because you’re big. You’re your intro was like the Rto and I want it to do everything but the Rto like, like I read your book obviously like I downloaded the Bartow meaning rent to own. You want it to do everything except rent. So because when you read your book, if you change the word rent to own, to buy and hold or 30 minutes and I’ll apply it all. And I remember I had like, listen, I want to do this, but I don’t want to do an Rto. Can I still join rockstar if I’m just going to buy and hold? And you’re like, yeah. I’m like, okay. So I went to the corner, got money and pay my membership. No, that’s right. You told me that again. You went outside and you’ve got some bs in there at the corner store and it was only four years ago.
Yeah. I’m curious, why were you thinking about real estate? Like were you thinking about it like what’s the frame or raw or were you thinking this is going to be some quick and easy money? No, no. What was your frame of mind when you thought about real estate? So five years ago, I separated from my first, well I was never married, but for my first common law I had an, I have a child with her. And when we separated, I was living in my house here in Milton and I was, there was equity that had been built in it just by fluke really. And, and I started looking into it and I’m a bit OCD where I, once I get into something like I’m, I’m all in Tom’s not.
So I started looking and I went through a bit of a process to open a Tim Horton’s cause I thought I had a bit of that equity to do it. Uh, I met somebody and I needed a partner. You can’t open a Timmies by yourself. I was told. So that idea went on the, you know, that was gone. So I, I was looking for something to do long term for my kid cause I’m always worried something’s got to happen. This job, I’ve been injured, I’ve had like seven surgeries, no way from the police force, no, four from the force and three from hockey. Holy smokes all over your body. Yeah. So, so I, you know, I get those moments where I get worried for my kids and I’m like, if something happens, you know, I want to make sure my kids are well provided for us. So I went from the Timmies, I met a farmer, I thought maybe I go buy some farmland.
I didn’t want to be a farmer, but I wanted to own flag. No idea. We all have those ideas. Yeah. So I actually, I drove to Morrisburg and I met a farmer. I sat down, I buy my bottle, I just just talk to me for an hour. I, like I said, I grew up in the city. So farming for me, just not in my alley. Uh, it didn’t make sense financially. Like if, from my understanding, if you’re not born and you’re like a multigenerational into farming, you know, you’re not, you’re not making money into this. So, uh, I was still stuck. You know, I had a bit of equity and I didn’t know what to do and I was looking for security for my kids. And then, you know, I met you guys, my coach, I actually, I worked with mark or an edge on our march.
I’ve known since grade one. Yes. The age we met later on in life. And I was with him a full year before I bought my first property. And I told him, I said, listen, this is a one year I get to, I can need to study it all. I need to understand that. Like for me, that kind of money was all, everything I own that much, but it was everything I own. So, uh, so, so that’s how it started. And, and mark was amazing. He guided me. We did a full year and then boom, I bought my first house. Where did you buy that one? Hamilton Mountain. It was not a rent to own or it wasn’t rent to own? No. So we didn’t convince you to do around? No, no, no. What did you get a straight rental? Kind of know their student rentals by Mohawk. Yeah. So I picked my first one. I mean, we’re going back 2016 multiple or multiple offers. You overpaid. Absolutely. Of course.
Everybody who buys, thinks they overpay. There was 13 of us bidding on it and I remember they were asking three 60 and at the end, you know you go over and over and we’re like, I’m like mark, we are like, we going to argue for 10 g’s. So I’m like, just go for 30 because everybody’s gonna stop at four four 30 and obviously we got it. So I obviously, do you know how rare you are? No, but I, I know you just, what you just said, you obviously overpaid is what you just said. But in my life, I believe if you know how to make money with an asset, when other people don’t know how to make money with that asset, you can afford to pay more. But I would’ve never done that without my year here listening to the rock star in the conferences and all that.
And I know some people listening to this is going to think that’s crazy what I just said and what you did. Probably we’ve been there ourselves, somebody got me in. Correct. So there’s probably still people trying to get in and they’re not in. I was just going to say that like the thing, like why are we going to argue over 10 g’s that that one is because the tee, it’s not like 10 g’s out of your pocket. No, exactly. You’re paying a per small sliver of that as a down payment. And if the numbers still work right, but so many people emotionally, they’ll get caught up over that 10th. And I’m not saying $10,000. There’s no money, but when you amortize $10,000 over 25 or 30 years, it’s nothing. It’s, it is, uh, it’s, it’s peanuts every month. So it’s, um, but it got you into the game and I, I mean, I don’t even know how this one’s worked out for you, but I still hold it.
Yeah. I’m actually going through a random, I’m going to make a duplex using people from rocks. I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention people. Yeah, of course. I’ll get to Andy’s team. Uh, so you’re going to duplex it for students or now? Oh, no, no. You’re going to go single family, kind of like a family upstairs in the family gangsters. Correct. We’re just back to this point though, for a second. The opportunity costs like that 10 grand if you’re like, yeah, like you said, maybe something changed the week later and you couldn’t get a chance to look at properties and you didn’t get into the market. What was the opportunity cost? If it was that 10 grand over of that 10 grand amortized over 25 years if you didn’t get it right. And that’s how I saw it. Like, like, like, like you were saying like 10 g’s over 30 years is what, 20 bucks a month. So people are losing, you know, like, like, like I’m not seeing the difference. And I got my first house and it was impossible. We went through, especially the [inaudible] 16 [inaudible] 17 properties to find maybe two that looked okay to, you know, it’s funny
because some investors when we, when they meet us and they say, okay, let’s go to property. If we tell them to go over price, which we don’t tell them at the beginning because we, they always think, oh, you’re those people, you’re just trying to get an email you, oh no, we’re trying to get you into the market because we know how to make money with this particular asset. We just want you to get in. Right. People are worried about like me, like I’m not born in this environment is just until we get to know people we work with, which is normal, you know, you do think like maybe they are trying to sell me something. You know, like, I mean it took me four months to look into you guys before. I’m like, I was fully convinced and then I had convinced my dad, my father came to the last event actually.
That’s right. I remember that was so cool. Super impressed. So you know how many times we used to look up, uh, Tom Occur adds a Nica creds, a scam, you know, to like we were like, we’re, because people were searching us and we used to do our own search engine optimization work on our websites and we would see that term come up with nick. Remember way back on one of our websites. I’m like Nick, how many times people searched it firsthand this month. But it was normal because people are checking us out. I would’ve done the same thing if I, if you were doing this and I was checking you out for sure. Right. For sure.
Best thing you guys were, and this is why I stick to you folks, you guys were super honest, super open and I was willing to join the VIP on my second day in my Google, which goes, you’re late, you’re late, you know like buy a house.
Yeah,
buy a house. And then the next year I bought my house in boom. Then I joined the VIP because it made more sense, you know, like it was a lot of money in the first year would I had no revenue. Uh, so I knew there it wasn’t a scam. Correct. See, could’ve scanned me in for the extra, you know, and, and, and not at all. So,
and then, uh, so we do the opposite. We actually don’t even talk about that most of the time that when people meet us, we don’t even talk about the other VIP program. And people eventually come to us. They’re like, Hey, what does this VIP thing where like, Oh yeah, that’s what I did. I’m like, you know, why can’t be program was started by a member. One of the first members came to us and said, hey, you guys are growing a little bit. I want to hang out with other people who are taking action. Can you organize some events and dinners and stuff where we all get to meet each other and can you guys just put it together, tell me how much it’s going to cost. And then we’re like, okay, I guess this is what we could do. And that’s how it was born. It was born from a rock star members saying my best, it’s become a really good room. It’s become a really good, just chatting the best. The best group. Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay, so then you get that property. Do you go, I don’t even know your whole story. You told me and I guess I’m getting really old at 46 but uh, you go on to buy another property.
Correct. So my goal was to buy, so I bought my first property technique. It’s inside a corporation. So again, I use cherry and everybody. Everybody rocks. I related, I’ve used them, I still use them. So I’ve incorporated myself. They went inside a corporation. Technically that’s my oldest son’s home. So I bought him a house, took a picture. He owns his house. I had a second kid, bought a second house,
take a picture with him. This is what new girl. Now you girl, are you a married to this common law? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Got It. Got It. Bad. If I’m asking too much, you said shut up. You know, I’m always, I’m not always politically correct. I’m always worried I’m going to say something I shouldn’t go. You gotta be careful sometimes. So how does the second now?
Uh, just short of three years old. Awesome. So I got a six at two and three quarter
and uh, maybe a new one on the coming. Yeah, we’ll cool. Shit. Very cool. We found out like two days ago so maybe I shouldn’t say you’re saying it. So you bought the next property. Is this for your next child then? Is that, did you do the same thing? Take a picture of the house? Well No, cause that was mine when I bought the third one. So I closed last December
on my third one. It’s a straight duplex. It can, they read sweet whatever in Saint Catherine’s, no students. Uh, that was ours. Like a kids are good. What about us and yeah, no, I don’t have a house anymore. I guess that’s
you said was your second one. I missed what you said there was a second property. A student rental property, correct. The second just beside it, like you could almost throw a stone down. Are you keeping as a student rental property that when you are so that one will stay a student. Okay. How many bedrooms in that one? Six, six bedrooms you’re renting them out for? Probably around what? 400 505 plus utilities. Five plus utilities. That’s what rack I by Mohawk. Five plus utilities. 500 beds
the best. I got the best students. They look after my house. They have a garden in the back. They’ve painted the awesome number one. Uh, my first property, the one that I’m converting right now. I also has a detached garage that I’m renting 200 a month apart from the sixth bedroom. Who’s parking there? Sorry. I storage or is actually for a car? No, it’s for a car. Uh, somebody who has a summer car putting a Subaru Sti in there. He works down at this Saint Joe’s health care center. Awesome. So same thing. I brought him a bottle as a thank you cause he’s been there for three years. Uh, I’ve never $200 away. I’ve never raised them. He’s never asked for anything. So a couple months ago in November, I just bought him a bottle. That’s what I do. I bring bottled to people. I say thank you, leave. They’re making me so much like good money. Like what’s a, what’s a thank you bottle? Uh, so, so yeah, that’s really good deal. So third property and then you stop now. Well the last one was in December. Uh, I’m not going to lie. It’s getting harder and harder to get mortgages.
You know, I just want to address this for anyone listening to this. Cause you’re right, you’re right. It is. And it’s like, I think when you get started, you don’t know, um, you have no past history, so you have no past context of how it was before. So you just think it is what it is. Yeah. Oh, here’s what I have to do to buy a property. And it doesn’t look, it might look hard, but because you don’t have that context of historical, you don’t think it’s really hard to just like, oh, this kind of sucks. I have to save up for a down payment or have, you know, and you just go and do it. But then after you’re in it for a little while and the game changes on you, maybe prices change, mortgage rules changed. You now have contexts where you reflect back on what you used to do and you’re like, it’s so much harder now because people that we’ve been working with since 2006 I want to, I’ll tell you, 2006 2007 and nick and I were working with some people who bought properties in the Hamilton Mountain for zero down, zero down at $195,000 can you believe that for zero down?
And so they reflect back, wait a second, before my telling me someone’s buying a property. So your example, what did you pay for that first property on the Hamilton? Menteith 60 44 30 you’re telling me someone’s buying a property up on the Hamilton Mountain by Mohawk for 430 I remember when those properties or $192,000. Everyone has that context and I’m, I’m calling that out on you just because you should know. That’s something that can hold you back to going forward. Yeah.
Time. You know, you’re the magic number’s five, you know, up to five, you’re good after five, good luck. I’m like, I mean me and my w you know like we make good money, we make a good salary to officers. Yeah. But that, how does the people making minimum, like I don’t understand how they buy a house cause if I’m having a hard time with our income, like you’re right, it has to be super high. Like all those rules that are supposed to be helping people are really making it hard for the first time by like I’m not suffering, but you know, but you’re destroying the first time we’ve seen the tenant pool. I think I was just, was it just writing about this someplace? For some reason I feel like I’m repeating myself, but I just, we, we were the tenant pool in the last two years since they started this or last year and a half.
The number of tenants that demand for rentals and the quality of tenants has dramatically increased across the board. Like we’re seeing all sorts of investors we work with. We have investors that are taking people out in interviewing them. They, they’ve, they have the people come to the house, they see the ones they like. Then they set up an interview with them, they meet them or Tim Horton’s back to back interviews. Then they decide based on the interview who they’re going to select. Yeah. Five years ago that type of stuff didn’t happen cause you’re just like, hey, you know, I need a tenant. Like right. It wasn’t like you put it anywhere in the house, but the demand wasn’t as high as it is because mortgage qualification was easier. So the the flip side isn’t it? Is that, and then he was a, yeah, it was, it was another member actually.
Um, uh, I won’t mention his name because I don’t if you might know him from past VIP VIP stuff, but he, uh, uh, he’s like, yeah, my house is now. He goes, I’m just looking at liquidating a couple properties. He’s retired and he’s like, yeah, I think we’re going to sell off a couple of [inaudible] now. Cash out and take his money and enjoy retirement a little bit. So that’s his plan. Right. But he’s like, how do you sell off assets when like your tenants are good, they pay on time, this money keeps coming in. He goes, it’s kind of hard to get rid of one. Have you convinced yourself like, yeah, in the past I had said a little bit of tenant issues. Now they’re just, they, they’re thankful that they have a place,
especially after years, your mortgage might be paid down on these assets. Kind of like the rent you’re getting is almost all cashflow.
And if you push out, even if the mortgage is paid on a percentage, and if you push off the amortization back to what it was. Yeah, the cat, you can jump the cash phone numbers are pretty big. And if you treat your tenants like the, the, the, the House that I’m going through, the Renno, three of my six students actually want to stay because they want first dip once it’s renovated was renovated because they really liked the landlording we’ll say. And the, you know, just how things were done. So, you know, they’re going to carry over my mortgage while the rhinos are happening. I agree with that. Completely. Like to treat your tenants w you know, when we see some of us shoot themselves in the foot because they are so set in stone with the way they’re going to do things. Yeah. Not really in time.
Sometimes just not true in my opinion. Not Treating people very well, you know, like just not really treating oh spot. I go to those calls, I listened to you guys and I’m like, I just want to answer those police questions. And these all have. But yeah, I see it all the time. You see this slum lords and you see the, the 2% of bad people that all you hear about it. And I’m like, you know, and those people like, yeah, they deserve the bad things that are happening to them, you know? But yeah, for the most part, when you treat people right, I generally find it makes a difference. We’ve always tried to take that approach and we’ve never really had any major problems on, knock on wood, of course. Hey look, sooner or later at any business that you’re in, whether it’s real estate investing, any business, there’s going to be ups and downs.
There’s gonna be problems that come your way. So you’re going to have to deal with some of them. Right. But nothing’s perfect. But I mean, yeah, overall and you can mitigate those problems and purse. There’s a perception or perspective in perspective. Oh, like life, you know, like that’s how I see what to the work that I used to do or I’m about to go back to. Uh, it’s not that bad, you know, like taking calls because of whatever. No, it’s kind of comical. It’s just at the time, if you’re in an emotional state, when that call comes in, I get it. I got the call where the leak is happening and I’m like, oh my God, why the heck am I dealing with this? Once you do it a few times still, you know, like it comes with time. You’re like, okay, well I got this, I got my system in place. It’s been tested a million times because you know, it breaks all the time. The cortisol levels don’t shoot up as much, you know,
number one property. I think, uh, I was at boxing day and it was at my son’s hockey tournament in Niagara on the lake somewhere and they called nick. There’s an Oakville rental and they called because there was the, the Wa water tank dump or no sewage was backing up in that house. And on Boxing Day, I’ve now learned you can’t call any rotor rooter placing like boxing of all days to get somebody guess Christmas Day, Boxing Day. No one’s around. And that was a little bit of like, you know, oh here I am at a hockey rink wanting to watch my son, but I’m on the phone dealing with this kind of thing. 10 years ago that would probably threw me for a loop for days, but now it’s just like you almost are like, Yup, Yup. Just put to deal with this. Yeah. Unless you’re the handy person anyways that’s going there to fix it.
Which I’m not. No. Well, why am I being no. I Remember One dad was walking into the arena, he’s like, hey, how’s it going? And I was on hold and like me just dealing with, there’s a bunch of shit back up and one of my properties over here just dealing with that right now, it looks at me like, well, I mean I got to hear his story. I think it was unique from your early career in this real estate where you had to like jump and the Tom Story, but it’s about as Tom Story about, Tom’s got all sorts of stories about me. Correct his version. Then I’ll tell you a little bit of a watered down one that’s more accurate. Now my versions on perspective, you know like my little water leak ain’t that bad compared to you jumping in to grab the crap, you know, like perspective and that’s how I convinced myself that it’s not that bad.
And then you keep listening. To this day, I don’t know anyone who has owned property for over 10 years and regrets it. Haven’t met that person. I literally have none. That’s true. A person who’s won, Bro, I’ve met people who’ve owned property for like two years and they’re like, I sold it. I lost some money. Worst thing I ever did. I’ve met those people and they’re usually trying to flip a property or time. The market doesn’t go their way. They’re all upset, but if they go in with the right perspective, I’ve literally never met a personnel who after 10 years, yeah, 10 years or longer, who said that was actually a really bad move? It’s usually the opposite does usually like, yeah, that’s actually the best thing I did was like 10 years ago. I should about mold. But to your, I just want to address something that you’re saying.
To your point, the way that the Canadian government is changing the mortgage qualification rules that are making it harder for all of us to buy properties as investments. It’s as painful as it is for yourself and our us to do that. Just think of the first time home buyer who has to qualify now at much harder circumstances than we had to. I mean, when I bought my first home, I don’t know, I felt like I just walked into the bank and said, I dunno, here’s like my pants that halls. Yeah, can you get me something? And they’re like, oh sure. Do you want to use your RSPs? And I was like, I guess my first house was a 40 year mortgage. So like you know your amortization that in my, it was 40 years ago,
two years later they stopped and they brought it down to 35 30 25 now if you don’t have a 20% down, but 40 years. Crazy.
And then, so I just want to go continue on your story because you then did have you, did you do some airbnb stuff as well? For Small? Correct. So I,
I had my house in Milton, I was living in it by myself. Uh, it was a nice place, brand new. So I think it was, was it last fall? I believe you had somebody at the conference or the VA? I’m not sure which event, but somebody there was talking about Airbnb, so I give it a try. But I was in Milton so I didn’t expect much traffic. Yeah. Uh, I was booked 95% of the time I would say,
uh, for your home. Where you, so you, were you renting out space in your home? Like, so I had, so when I was like, let’s say I was in Toronto, when I was working, I was traveling back to Montreal or Ottawa.
So when I was working, I was renting the room. Uh, when I was away, let’s say for a weekend, I was renting the whole house. Got It. Uh, I had no kids living there anymore. They had moved away. I wouldn’t have not done that with my family inside the house but with no kids. Yeah, it worked perfectly. We had a 95% of the time that you are allowing it to be rented out. Yeah. Yeah, all the time. And like who who rented a place up in Milton? Like for what do you know? That was my question. Who’s coming here? But you know what rent. Like I right now I’m staying at a hotel in Milton cause I drove from Ottawa. Who might be the person? Well the hotel is Arjun, 50 bucks a night. You know like I wish only charging 30 40 50 bucks a night and maybe, and I had a hot tub.
I mean the house was like fantastic. Like you charge 30 40 bucks a night for the whole house for that one room in the house was a hundred bucks at night. You got it. It was a good deal for them. But it was a good deal for me. We work both ways. So I had a kid from Ukraine crane that came for a month and a half. It was a kid from Ukraine doing here, uh, studies work visa. He was in between, uh, residents of school and find and getting his apartment with his buddy. So he needed two months of, and it’s cheaper to come to my house. Then going to a hotel, I guess you have the hot tub and I have a, that was a big selling point for sure. And then I had the lady coming from, well, from here had a dude from Germany. I had a couple from Montreal.
I had ultra Milton, Ontario. This is the shocking thing because we hear the stories about Airbnb when we thought it was a Toronto condo thing. Me Too. We literally hear it all the way to Welland, Ontario again. PERSPEC fifth, correct. Like Milton literally sits though between Toronto and Niagara Falls or st Catharines or the wine country. So that’s how I was selling my property. He said, I’m literally 45 minutes one way or 45 minutes to the other way because people are visiting that. You were selling Milton as central. I know central in melted you are central Garger falls the order, the CN tower. If you’re not from a year, it looks central, you go down to Oakville, hit the QEW and boom, you’re either, when you describe it that way, you’re right. I just am always shocked to this day we have people coming in and talking to us about airbnb and it just kind of surprises us.
We bought the new house in Ottawa. And so you now move to, okay, so you moved to Ottawa. We moved to Ottawa and the house is set up to have a near B and B part in it. It has like an in law suite, a huge close to a thousand square foot apartment attached to the house. Okay. So now you’ve got to tell me this transition because you gave up being a Toronto police officer. Right? Right. Okay. So why the, why the transition? Thank you. Uh, well when I separated, my first lady was from Montreal, so she moved back to Montreal with my son, which was kind of an issue. Okay, so you want it to be close. So I want to be close and correct. So this is what I’ve been working for for the last four years is to give back closer to my case. So this is all a goal to get you saw all this rock style. Everything here is because of my son. My oldest had that time. Now I got two but I looked at the second one. I’m going to see your crazy cause it’s a good job. Well some people might argue if it’s a good job, but at Toronto Police officer, I know people want I know babies too who want to become
police officers. Yeah, absolutely. Giving up seniority now to right, which matters when you’re on the police force. I think. Great for different your holidays. Mainly just your holiday. Okay.
Uh, I’ve, I, I mean when we last spoke, I had retired, I gave my resume
yeah. That day and spoke to you. We’re going next to your bed. So that was a tough day. I’m not going to lie
Tom. So I did that. I went and dropped my gun off, uh, my badge, my uniform and, and I like, I can show you my wallet’s empty right now. Like there’s a space where the bad used to be that it’s just empty.
Keep that though, because if you get pulled over for speeding, oh, I still use that wallet. I used to look, I wasn’t a cop, so, so that was a tough day. Am I going to lie
like a bit emotional and again, putting back in perspective, a month ago I went on holidays. I haven’t worked since March 1st. So I took all my holidays. I went to Jamaica. I just didn’t want to go back to work. Uh, I spent the first week of March or the second week of March in Montreal volunteering at my son’s school and bringing classes, skating. So I would have never been able to do that as a fulltime officer in Toronto. Um, and it just convinced me that that was it because I hadn’t been resolved. I hadn’t resigned yet and I’ve been struggling. I had struggled with this for six months. Like, Zion, I need my job. I need my tea, forced to buy houses. It’s like, so yeah. So finally I pulled the plug, I pulled my pension, uh, just cashed out my 14 years that I have accumulated.
But the good news is that last Thursday Ottawa police called me and offered me a position. So I’m going to take it crazy. So I’m going to go back to policing. But in Ottawa it’s going to work out just almost like you planned it. Exactly like I was planning things for the worst. I’m a worst case scenario kind of guy. So having a job is not easy, but like life is, you know, you got a job, you get your steady paycheck, you’re good to go. Not having a job was my struggle. Like what was I going to do? And that’s why I started doing all this surrounding myself. Like I don’t understand yet how you live your life through a business and like pay yourself.
It’s weird. Yeah. Now it’s normal. But at first it was first. Yeah. It’s just this weird thing. So we didn’t, but for the record, we’d even pair ourselves through the business. We paid ourselves through a credit line that we had on my personal residence. How much money do you need it you’re lucky you’re still married. He got married. Wife or wives are, yes. I, I tell Carol that repeatedly now cause I look back, I’m like Holy Shit. Like you really put up with a lot but it’s a huge source of info of a
not influence of motivation because you know your story of, well you’re both story of quitting the, the corporation. Well, um, you had a kid you are about, no,
I know you had a kid. You are about to get one. I was married at uh yeah I was just want to get married. It’s such a tough time
in your life to quit it all correctly. At least my, you know I got, I got security and I got houses quitting. My job is stressful but not as stressful. That’s probably when you have a brand new kid. It was definitely more stressful for him than me because worst case scenario with no kids, I was like well whatever, if I need to work at the gas at the corner gas station, I’ll just get a job that, you know, if I need. I was like, well bodied male, you know, strong enough than I could do like laborers. I need to go do landscaping and like you can provide to me if I need to do it. And I, I have work ethics so we’ll see. I don’t mind, like I’ll do labor, right? So I’m like worst case scenario, if I have to get one of those jobs, I’ll, I’ll make things will work out.
But with the kids, knowing what I know now, because now I have kids. Yeah, Tom, you’re crazy. What’s wrong with you? I, the weird part is, but you know that it helped me because when I was going through this last couple of months of like, I’m like, you know what? Tom Did it. We’re good. Like literally and then nothing to say that, you know, it’s easy. You should have done it in bringing you down and just like, it’s my motivation. If you’re able to, I’m going to follow suit. Who’s quitting a six figure job. You know who they know Tom. And if he was able to do it, how could you not this guy, listen man, if anyone’s listening to this and I can do it, then you can do it. But, but that’s how I see it and it’s not, it’s a good thing, you know? So I took that very highly and I look at what you did and I’m like, I’m going to try the same thing not to descale like I wouldn’t be interested in running a rockstar.
I think this is too much work. Oh look what you’ve done. I mean you’ve gone out, you didn’t know anything about real estate investing. No, you did all the due diligence. You even join up with us, but you spend a year figuring things out to get comfortable with it. That lasts. You probably got to yourself to 80% comfort level. The last 20% mark vintage on our team probably have to push you a little bit. And so for sure. Got You. I got my stress was to tenants like I’m like, what if I don’t find tenants vacancy number one. What if I know I couldn’t get over that the next week he would mark like, how am I, what if they’re like three months and I was white hat. How’s your worry now about finding tenants? It’s you’re renting our garage. I know. Um, yeah, so that and then damage, that’s another thing.
What if people move in and I’m like, look, listen, if someone takes a sledgehammer and starts going through your property, that’s actually like a criminal offense now at this point, you know, like they’re damaging this thing and it’s your property that their damages and there’s insurance policies that you can get if you’re really super like that’s you’re like, look, I just can’t get over this. It’s not much more, there’s certain insurance companies that will cover damages by the tenant and like now there’s a deductible. It can’t be like, Hey, they made one hole in my wall. You call insurance and they come and patch it up. Right. But if you have a good relationship, like I have my students that they broke stuff, but we have this really like they tell me they fix it or totally that’s how we should be. And it’s okay.
Like I don’t get mad. They’re students, they’re going to drink, you know, as long as there’s no bounce or in front of the door, no party crazy. Like it’s okay, you know they’re going to smoke dope. It is what it is. Like what am I going to say now in Canada especially, but let’s say seven months ago it wasn’t, they were smoking dope like, so you could try to control it instead of, you know, I listened to people that like, they tried to be very strict and obviously like go back to when I was 20. You told me not to [inaudible] problems actually by Mohawk. I’m one of the places by Mohawk. And, um, they were partying a little bit and, but they weren’t really damaging the house and it was dirty but, but nothing that like a set of cleaners through for one day when wouldn’t fix, you know what I want when I went in and I was like, this is kind of gross.
Like I wouldn’t want, I want to live there. Um, but then eventually we got a call from one of the neighbors. This was pretty much the only kind of issue we’ve had to deal with an all the years. And did we got a call from one of the neighbors? I’m just saying they like it was regular and they were just being loud. So we have to kind of have one guy like Kearney need on the neighbor’s car. No, I don’t think that rings a bell, but I don’t think it was a to your twenties I can’t tell you. A lot of those stories are ourselves. Correct. That’s why I’ve tried to be cool. Like I treat the twenties like, uh, like an adult because I didn’t like, I did not like to be treated like a 20 year old. I agree. Can I give them respect? And so when this particular example, we spoke to them so I wouldn’t spice when it spoke to them or I mean it just email them.
I don’t even think I spoke to them. I think when I was down there, something else that I mentioned and again, and they turned it down, these type of people over, they turned it down. That was pretty much the end of it. I think it might’ve, I managed to actually got two calls from the neighbors and I talked to them and that was the end of it. It wasn’t a big deal. It didn’t end up being a big deal at all. Because I agree with you. Like I, you know, if you treat them like they’re like, you know, if you try to lock them into all these rules, I agree completely. Because when I was at age, I’m like, yeah, we’re thinking of to hold me down. All right, out of spite, I’m going to do something else, you know, so absent, so you control, I control it instead.
You know? So let’s say prior to the dope smoking, they were smoking. It’s a control. Do it there I created the little overhang porch for them so it wasn’t inside, but now they have protection outside. Correct. So I know they’ve got to do it because they know you were a police officer. Oh yeah, you got it. Correct. But I mean, no, no, it’s just funny to me. Nobody has cared about weed. I know, I know. I just funny that’s all. But uh, driving maybe, but that’s, yeah, that’s definitely, other than that, I rather deal with potheads then drunks. Yeah, totally. One thing that I’ll purposely do when I’m showing to new set of kids all make comments like, Oh yes, there’s a portrait here. So yeah, I don’t know if you guys, if you do smoke any weed or something that you can cause then they’ll, they’ll tell them now they’ll volunteer it up, but they’ll be like, oh, okay, cool.
Cause then they’ll tell me because then they think they can talk to him about it and it gives me a heads up. I’m like, okay. So now I know that they, their pot smokers or bar or party cause I’ll be like, yeah guys, last set of girls had all these vodka bottles all ended up here. I don’t know if you’re into the vodka or something else. And some of them are like, oh I know we’re not really a drinker somewhere. I was like, oh no, it’s rye for me. And I’m like, the last thing I want is a bunch of guys are pounding back. Ryan, that’s dangerous. Drinking Rye and university. Yay. That’s bad. So yeah, so I’ll purposely drop lines when showing the properties to try to get some cocaine. When you said that, I’ll purposely drop some lights
and I want to be very clear. No, nobody. It’s a good way
me worked out. You treat them with respect. Uh, and through my job, that’s what I’ve learned. Correct. Like I deal with people from the street homeless, I mean named them and that’s how they want, they just want to be treated with respect and respect. Interesting. So much results. Correct. Because I could go on for my job. I couldn’t go on the street and you know, cracks call and be rough. But you’re not going anywhere with that. Where if you treat that for, I mean, you know, I look at those people I got to deal with. I don’t envy anybody, you know, like, and again, that little respect brings me so much information back like the Intel in this, in that world. And it’s the same thing for real estate that that respect in my young students has paid back. Uh, I have a set of students which is rare for college. This is the third years they’re inside the same house. That is rare for college. It is. And they’re not moving in, you know, they don’t want to go and they’re done college right now actually in there.
So they want to stay. Yeah. Cause I want to go listen, we know someone on our own team is looking to a rented place and yeah, it’s hard to find. It is. You mentioned something earlier and I wanted to smell a little bit of a myth. You said, you know how do people investors by all these properties because the bank start making it really difficult for you and stuff and you’re a hundred percent accurate. When you see people who are buying a ton of properties, they usually are getting someone else to go on title, so like a uncle, cousin, best friend and then they advertise it out and there’s, this is not wrong so I’m not saying anything, but they’ll, they’ll say, hey, I’m buying all these properties, but really behind the scenes there typically is some other money that now, because I’m like, how do you own 25 properties there?
And there was a second phase is a real estate investor which will hit you at some points are really good phase it’s at, and it’s a frustrating phase at first because once you buy a bit of property and then you cap out whatever you’re capping out at, you want to buy more but you can’t do anything because you don’t have the down payments. You will qualify anymore but over some period of time and it usually happens faster than you think. You forget about your properties a little bit and then you realize, oh my gosh, I have some equity in here. And then you can tap into those properties as the down payment and you can usually navigate around the income requirements in some way, shape or form with some, okay, this bank is now giving me more recognition of my leases and looking not at 50% of the value of the leases but more so this is where I wished they would have that one set of rules for every beach because I’m so tired of shocking like
banks looks at out my houses and don’t recognize any of them as rentals. So my ratio obviously makes no sense. Like according to that bank
during dinner there’s four more inches. Makes Sense, have so much, but then the next bag is fine and I’m like just working with one set of rules so I can understand that. But the only, the only upside to that that I try to tell myself because we go through the same frustration is that I look at it as a competitive advantage because I’m like, you know what? No one else is going to quarterback, like all quarterback. So all make the effort. I will call, I’ll find the mortgage brokers, I’ll find the bankers, I’ll find the network of people who know what’s going on. Right. And it will give, if I bust through it, no one else is going to do it. So I will competitively have an advantage because I’m going to put in the effort to figure out this banking situation and no one’s going to quarter, listen, no one’s going to quarterback at for you and the, the Canadian banking rules change.
It feels like almost a, yeah, it feels like it’s constant. So it’s a real pain. But there is going to be that point when you’ve owned real estate for some time where the world opens up because RBC, I’ll never forget for a long time told us six properties, guys, sorry, six properties with us. Anyway, I think it was with RBC or whatever their rule was. And uh, then after a while, I guess 10, 15 years go by, we have some property, our financial statement looks a little different, right? And then one RBC guys like oh that’s not a problem. Six properties. Who told you that? You know with your financial stuff we can make an accent, we can make an exceptions. But for that particular rule we can make an exception. So they’re always willing to like we’ll, we’ll, we’ll hold on a second. So this rule is really only just Kinda sorta and then you know, if you want to make an exception, somebody to navigate that I’ve met through you or Pete true this group, cause I don’t want to dis headache.
Like it’s literally my only anxiety from real estate is applying for a mortgage. All of us. That’s it. The banks, I couldn’t care less. I could do a tenant’s issues closing because sometimes they’re closing. The banks were like, oh we now want this, nevermind, we want this. And one time we had to get on there, forget we had to get a phone statement this when we first started we, and we’re using some voiceover IP line when those were out and we needed something specific to a specific phone number for one of the businesses, a bill with that specific phone number and this specific business name, but it didn’t really exist that way because it was under someone else’s name and for some reason without that we couldn’t close it. I remember having to like call people. I had to drive it to Brent for it to the lawyer.
That day goes crazy and I’m like, for what? For a bill to the phone number to show that it’s under the company. Like why are you even talking about ridiculous stuff? That’s the only portion I really dislike about real estate. Other than that, everything else I can deal with and the lawyers, no, I’m joking. I’m joking. We have good lawyer friends. I’m totally joking. I just like making fun of lawyers. Lawyers too. It’s okay. Oh my God. In your line of work, I can only imagine. I deal with lawyers all that. Do you know what and all, all joking aside, the lawyers we met over the years, I’ve been really, really good and you do need good lawyers. You know you need to be good banking people. And I like, I see, I knew I, I knew we would get long. He make fun of all the habs thing we can work on that we’ll work on. We can work on the house that you know. So are you going to shoot for the senators now? No, no, no, no, no. If you had to choose, if you had to cheer for the senators or the leafs, who would you choose?
There’s only one right answer. Well I know you’re not going to like my aunts. So senators. Yeah, my nephew live there. They’re like party cat. Oh God. They’re horrible. I mean they make the habs look like a Stanley Cup team right now. It’s a pretty decent some manager and lessons from the leafs 10 years ago. It looks like a pretty dysfunctional teams. So now you’re out in Ottawa. What’s next? You have some, you’re going to keep your properties out
here. I assume my properties. Yes. I’m just learning, not learning, but I’m, I’m continuing my education about running my own pro, the Rodney, my properties, myself. A Super Fun. You’re going to manage the renovations I guess a bit remotely. Exactly. Know all the people I met everybody I had to in the last four years. That was my goal. I just have to meet all my net. So you have your teeth basically? Uh, yeah. So I have my team and it’s managed from a distance. Uh, uh, like I said, I have pulled out my pension that I’ve accumulated. I’m going to start a new one when I start back next month and I’m going to do something with that. I’ve met a couple of people I’d like to get into like private money lending maybe or something like that. That’s another thing that nick and I didn’t hear about for many years until one lawyer or accountant told us.
Oh yeah. Like all lawyers and accountants are lending out money privately to people. That’s basically how they all make their money. They are more private money lenders and I was like really like no one. I thought it was just the public stock market that people, it sounds like a shark. What’s a word? Starts to look a bit of a scam. Really. It’s really not like some of the examples I’ve used it. I’ve used lot money and we were one of the examples, one lawyer was telling me, he’s like, look, I had a dentist who the bank thinks he’s overleveraged because he started a new practice. He signed a commercial lease, he bought a bunch of equipment. He’s growing rapidly. He could use some more expansion, some more chairs. He can’t get the funding for it. I lend him a bunch of money, secure it against some equity in his home.
No risk really for the lender. The dentist is really happy to be able to extend his, extend the business. Yeah, and I thought, oh my gosh. Like yeah, there’s a whole world I didn’t even know about. No, I mean I’m, I’m just discovering this one, so I’m reading a lot of people. I’ve met a few rock star members that have gone through this before me and they’re helping me out. I’m just waiting for my paperwork. Right. And the next journey begins. When you buy, did you buy an Ottawa? You renting it or what are you doing in Ottawa? No, I bought just outside, uh, east maybe 30 minutes. Uh, there’s a huge waterpark named Calypso waterpark. Uh, I’m four kilometers from that. Cool. The house sits on one acre of land. It’s like, it’s got the airbnb second sweet. I’m not airbnb being, it’s really major for guests.
We just want gas. I left, we love having people over. We have the property to all we do. There’s a pool there. We have the fireplace, there’s a wooded area at the end of my immediate 30 feet of wooded area. And then there’s a cornfield behind. So a, no, just gas, family, friends. Awesome. Good for you. And what a journey. And now now joining up with the Ottawa police force. Yeah. So I’m actually in town for that. I had to go see my doctor, do my physical, uh, they gave me enough for four days ago, five days ago, and I should actually be starting made 13. Cool. You’re closer to your son. Yes. That’s how I really, that’s all I cared about. Like my, I have a great relationship with my ex, my new girl. Like everybody finally a workshop. That’s nice. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
It is. It’s kind of the hard work in progress, but after all those years, it paid off finally. So I’m super happy and a testament to you folks. Even though I’m six hours away, I’m still a rock star guy. I’m not going anywhere. You’re here for the VIP client here for the VIP tomorrow. But this is, this is fun because I, you know, I’ve never been this business guy. So now I actually came, I rented a hotel room and I’m here for business. I’m going to do your thing tomorrow and then I’m going to shoot back home. Awesome. And I’ll come back the next event. I can’t make it the May event cause I start the Monday. Uh, so unfortunately I can’t be there for that. Okay. We’re going to be around, you know where to find us. All of your place in Milton too, or did you sell that one?
That’s how I made it. Yeah. That’s how I’m making the, uh, the transition. But the reason I was asking, I was like, isn’t that going to go full time airbnb or not? That’s what it was. Thought about it. I want, you know, every time you sell a house kept it. I know I should’ve kept, like I told myself a year ago, I’m going to sell it to kept it. But that’s your family to move forward as a lifestyle decision. Like in the decisions we make for our investing too, with there’s a lifestyle factor that we take into account as well. Yeah. Long time ago we found someone that the numbers on this property were great. It was a building and he was renting it out by the room and the numbers on it looked at trauma, Mississauga on lake shore. It was like a rooming house. But we’re like, man, like we just don’t, first of all, who are you going to find to manage that?
I, I don’t even know. Right. And then what lifestyle do you have to lead to manage a rooming house in a multiunit built? Like it’s just like there was a launch, it was like eight stories with like 12 units a floor all by the room. It was crazy. Crazy. I work Parkdale to last four years. I mean that’s cc all sorts of everywhere and we’re like, you know, so, so the lifestyle decision for us, it’s like, well we don’t want, we want to be investors but we don’t want to invest in that particular asset because we our lives, we don’t want to lead the lifestyle that takes to manage that asset. Right. Which is, which is something to be said. So like if you’re selling it because of your, you’re like, well, the life I want to leave with my family and that’s going to get me there.
That’s, that makes perfect sense. Right. I’ve always used my personal home to just bring me to the next personal whole title and use it for my business. Everything else is, you know, I have three house I can still refi. Like the business is fine. My personal house, I was thinking about it and the guy was like, I was making, you know, you play with the numbers. I’m like, if I fail it only 70% I’ll make x amount, but then how do I buy the next house to go live in? Because you need the down payment and that’s qualifying now as harder everything. Right. Because that’s when extra house onto your ratio. So I had to sell it. I know in the long term I’m going to lose, you know? I should’ve kept it. Yeah. But we can all we all say, I mean that’s what price do you pay?
I’m putting a nice home closer to your son. Do you know what I mean? There’s not much, there’s not a price there. Right. That’s what I mean. Nothing. He was over for the weekend. It’s literally an hour and I’m on in Montreal. That’s an hour. It’s like going to work and coming back to get my son now in four years you’ve done a man, so congratulations you guys. Yeah. Thank you very much for you folks. I pre totally are. We appreciate that, but you were crazy enough to take the risk and to go into this world come every time. I’m all in. That’s a, that’s the best thing. So grateful that we’ve crossed paths and thanks for sharing your story. Like no, thank you very much for having me. This is actually an honor. I was telling you I think before the show, I just like when you first started this podcast, the podcast, I was talking to my coach.
I’m like, one day I’m going to, this is it. Like this was my, to make it the disastrous interview. So thank you very much for having me. This has been the best four years of my life. My Dad loved it when he came. He wished he cool. She had this when he was younger. Just to finish off, we used to live in a triplex. He had a triplex all his life. Wow. It’s just not the mindset, you know, finance the nineties the eighties all those years. So that got sold. My grandmother just hold her fourplex that my grandfather built in the forties or something like that. Oh Wow. Yeah. And that’s true all that’s how she lived because he died 25 years ago. She lived off that. She lived off that and but nobody in the family followed suit. Like that’s where it blows my mind. Wow. That’s incredible.
Yeah. She’s 95 she’s still alive. She just sold it. She cashed in, paid for grandfather built it. I have the blueprints of the house and it was built in the forties yeah. Wow. Good for her on the island and adding it. It opens up your mind. I’m like what is this lady’s living till 95 off of those rare. That’s the, that’s the crazy thing. But you know how we talked to them, you know one, I know we want to wrap up but he said no one regrets it in 10 years. You know we have this one slide that I go over in the fastener class and select the power of one property cause I don’t really talk about properties to my friends and stuff. When they ask me now I’m like guys look one if like, because of the amount of time if you hold onto one the difference it can make in the retirement years or whatever.
Is that last? That’s really interesting man. One problem my grandmother opened my eyes to that including, I mean she’s still there. 95 just kicking. Listen to wrap this up. Your grandmother and your father are allowed to be hubs fans. You we have to work [inaudible] I I’ll work on it. I won’t become a sense fan. I know you guys and Ottawa and Toronto are like big, you know yeas like each other. So I’ll stick to Montreal. I’ll take auto over Montreal just like Yo take Ottawa or Toronto. I’m actually surprised you were saying that cause you guys hate Ottawa hubs. My, my, you know what my high school and grade school friends have scores scarred. My soul was. So when I get my seasons tickets, I will to the Bell Center. Welcome. [inaudible]. Thank you.
Hey everyone. It’s Tom. So hopefully you enjoyed that. Andre. Just a great guy. Um, we enjoyed a little bit of Tequila on that upset or he did, I was having a mushroom Chaga tea while he was drinking some Tequila. Um, in any way, if you are listening to this and you want to reach out to Andre, you can reach him. He was gracious enough to share his Facebook. I think it’s a public profile. I’m not sure. Um, I’ll just say it. It’s Andre Thomas is a Andre on Facebook, so you can reach out to him that way if you’d like to communicate. Um, that’s it for us. If you’re listening to this and you want to start your own journey and you come out, come out to our free introductory training class, you can register and grab yourself a seat@canadianrealestatetraining.com. That’s Canadian real estate training.com. Until next time, your life, your terms.