Gordon and I are new Canadians - originally from Scotland and Ireland respectively. We bonded instantly over a love of travel and adventure and never looked back.
Real estate kept piquing our interest. Several books and “Rich Dad Poor Dad” events later, we stumbled across Rock Star online and were hooked from the start.
After a first meeting with our coach, we were ready to go house shopping close to our home.
Our first-ever viewing came with an A+ candidate according to our coach. We were pretty terrified but figured we just needed to trust our coach. So we jumped in.
We followed the Rock Star ‘Rent to Own’ (RTO) blueprint to the letter and it served us well. After two years, the tenants pulled out and we used their $5K deposit to clear out their mess and spent a summer upgrading the house by painting, putting in new flooring and seeing to maintenance issues.
In the meantime, we purchased three more single-family homes and switched our strategy to long-term rentals. By then we were comfortable with the reality of being landlords and believed in real estate as a long-term investment.
A few years later, we were offered a private sale by a business associate and jumped at it. At the same time, we realized our dream of moving to a lovely home in a quiet rural location but still 15 minutes from our properties.
By then, we had great tenants in five great properties. Cash flow was virtually non-existent but we were ok with that as it served our long-term goal.
Fast forward, while on a trip, we were reflecting on our goals, and decided it was time to switch our focus to generating some passive income.
It was time for a change in strategy. It now made sense to sell a property. It was time to realize some of the equity gains we had made and develop our existing portfolio.
We came back and got to work, evaluating all our properties to determine the best options. We spoke with all our tenants to let them know that we were considering our options and to gauge their future plans.
We put one house on the market and the tenants ended up buying it. Two of our other tenants purchased their own homes a few months later.
By July the plan was in full swing and we had three vacant properties! Sounds scary, but it was all part of the process. To start with, we decided to duplex two of our properties - one two-storey detached home with a walkout basement and a four-level back split.
While we worked on the first duplex, we had medium-term tenants in the others - typically homeowners who were renovating their own homes and needed a stopgap.
As if that wasn’t enough, we also purchased another property - this time it was a post-war bungalow on a large lot close to the Universities in Waterloo. We knew that this would have multiple options for future development as well as tenant profiles: families, student rentals or even short-term furnished rentals. This became our third duplexing project.
We chose to take time away from our business to manage and do a lot of the work in the properties ourselves - not only to save on cost but to be able to be more in control of the project. We knew that we would be doing multiple conversions and we would be able to learn and build upon the experience along the way. In fact, it was hugely beneficial, both from an understanding of the process to the sourcing of specialists and materials.
What’s next? Another renovation project, possibly a few garden suites, definitely some adventures and lots more travel.
Choose your experts wisely and then trust their advice
Short-term pain, long-term gain - put in the work today to reap the benefits in the future
Take time to choose the right tenants - they may be in your life for years!
Be prepared to challenge your assumptions and adjust your goals over time
