The Big Opportunity in Small Infill Developments with Andy Tran, Charles Wah & Steve Ford

Every single time someone tells us that the opportunity in real estate is over we know that the person speaking those words just doesn’t know where to find it. There is opportunity everywhere, always. And that’s exactly what these three amazing guys have found. Together they have not only formed an incredible power team between themselves they’re literally tripping over opportunity with small infill development projects. Andy Tran, Charles Wah and Steve Ford are on this episode of The Your Life! Your Terms! Show to share their stories and we’re very grateful. You can learn more about what they’re doing at www.InfillDevelopments.com and they have a 2-Day Workshop coming up www.InfillDevelopments.com/training and you can use the code: ROCKSTAR to save $700 off the price.

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Transcript 

Hello, can you hear me it’s Tom Karadza. And on this episode of The your life your term show we have Andy trend Steve Ford and Charles while these are great guys, they met each other through the Rockstar community. They Andy actually gives a class here at Rockstar. His background is helping people legally set up second suites right across the GTA. So he’s been sharing his knowledge through a class to Rockstar members here. Just a great group of guys. We’ve known Charles wall for a long time now he was going to the gym with us for for a while he stopped going now so we’re giving him a little hard time over that. And Steve Ford we have met I guess it’s been a couple years now we’ve known Steve just a great guy together. They’ve made a great team, a little Power Team between themselves that have really gone on to do some great stuff. So wait to hear some of the big opportunities they’re able to create for themselves with small infill projects, right around the Golden Horseshoe. They’re going to share some of the projects they’re working on and not only the projects, they’re going to share some of the insights on How they evaluate a potential project some of the tools that they use before they dive into a project. And the thing that we love about real estate is that every single time someone tells me the game is over in real estate and you can no longer make money in real estate for whatever reason, the price the cash flow, whatever they decide their reason is, there is an always away, I want to share with you something one of the first properties Nick and I bought was a rental property on in Hamilton, we bought it off a guy, we paid. I think at that point, this particular property was $250,000. And we thought we were a little scared. We thought we had slightly overpaid, I still blame Nick for that one. And the guy explained to us that he was selling his property because nobody in his family wanted the property they had decided they didn’t want to get into real estate that the money had already been made in real estate. And he explained how he bought that property for $50,000 in the 1970s. And now he was shocked that he was selling it to us. This was about 20 years ago, for about $250,000 that property today is worth probably around $750,000 dollars Nick and I have refinance that individual property property multiple times, to pay for improvements on itself and to use the money to buy other properties. So real estate is just a beautiful game, there is multiple ways to make money in it. We love it because the big money doesn’t play in some of the markets and in some of the property types and using some of the strategies that we can all use. And the reason I’m so grateful that Amy, Steve and Charles are here on this episode sharing their story is that we all get to learn from each other. That’s why we created Rockstar this whole thing is like a dream. So we feel grateful to be able to bring you some of this information on the your life your term show. So thank you for listening. And look, if you are looking for detailed real estate information, we just came up with a brand new report called the four key factors every investor should know to understand where the real estate market is headed. This is stuff that we how we look at the real estate market and stuff that we’re always analyzing. We broke out some of these things into a new report. You can get access to all the reports including this one at Rock Rockstar inner circle.com forward slash reports. So if you want to look at how we look at the real estate market and some of the factors that we are constantly analyzing, you can get access to our latest report the four key factors every investor should know to understand where the real estate market is headed at Rockstar inner circle.com forward slash reports. And with that,

let’s get on with the show. Are you ready to live life on your terms? Is it time did take charge, real estate, business building the economy, health and nutrition and more. It’s the your life

your term show

with Tom and Nick Karadza. Are you ready? Let’s go.

We are live with Andy Tran, Steven Ford and Charles wall. This is Tom Karadza. Well, that sounds like a very professional intro. So yeah, no really for Yeah, really grateful that you guys are here. And you know what, let’s have a I didn’t even have a little bit of my tequila jumped ahead, Charles, you’re deep into the tequila. So we have some Don Julio 1942. It’s a nice tequila. It’s at room temperature. So I don’t know if you guys can handle that. Or licious,

lovely, great way to get started.

So I don’t know who’s going to lead us off. But I just want to explain I’ve watched these guys have known each of them for different periods of time. But I think it’s rare that you come across good people who are doing stuff in the real estate industry. My lot to say that I guess there’s a lot of shit people. But my point is that you guys have good hearts, you help people you offer so much value. And all of you are bringing so many different things to the table and you all have different stories. So just to kick us off a little bit. How did you how do you guys all know each other? And what what specifically are you bringing to the relationship between you three? Andy, do we start with you?

Yeah, sure. Let’s do it. So I’ve been with rock star for probably over a decade now. hasn’t been that long. Yeah. 2010 first.

What’s that? Oh my god. Yeah, the old rolexes in the mail dude, the gold Rolex is in the mail.

Has it been 20 years? It’s been 10 years. Yeah,

yeah. Holy smokes. Yeah.

So I’ve been part of Irwin’s team, you know, doing a few of the field deal deals there and with with Charles and Steve Charles, I met here at Rockstar at a VIP event. And we just got together and said, Hey, you know, we got it. We got to do a project together. Actually, all three of us met

through Rockstar, right? Yeah. So the first time I did a presentation through Rockstar, I think Andy came up to me afterwards and said, Dude, we got to work together. And then that’s when shortly after that, we picked up the St. Catherine’s project. Yep. And then with you guys met a different way of actually I

went to Andy’s class at Rockstar. I was in the car with him. And this is maybe like, sorry, and it was about four or five years ago, and I’m in Eddie’s in my car. He starts talking about wanting to development and I never thought I was, say, big enough to be the person that does development. But about two years past, I finally connected with Andy again. And I sat down for dinner with Andy Charles. That’s when I was first introduced to Charles. And it was one of those things were within that first five minutes we kind of meshed so well together. Were three, four projects. And now

what’s funny for that dinner, and he said, I know a guy that knows a couple of investors and they want invest in your projects. So Steve connected us with two of his friends. But we ended up working with Steve. I was supposed to be the first we’ll match A with B and we left that dinner ending up basically these guys were saying you have to work with us. We’re like a perfect complement. So I bring the development experience. Steve, the construction side. And then Andy with the the secondary suites. So between the three of us it’s the perfect team to build these. These purpose built homes that would secondary suites.

Because any year are you doing design work on some of this stuff? Are you outsourcing some of that stuff? How does that work?

Well, because most of the projects involve new builds. That’s not the stuff that I do. Oh, yeah,

you’re doing more conversions to legal second suites. Yeah,

so we hire a BCM designer and then once we get that the stuff that needs to be done inside like will do purpose built second suites that’s the stuff that I will take on so the the purpose built new second suites, they’re actually really different from the existing principles. Just because the building codes different so got it. Okay. Yeah, so it’s a new house. It’s a new on a new house, the the the fire separation requirements, all that stuff is way more stringent compared to a an old house, for example, right. And so I’ll still take that on just because, you know, those are the kind of rules and things that I see all day every day. So I think

you guys are fortunate. I mean, Steve to have your kind of background in construction, right building, Andy to have your design experience. And I know it’s a little different on the new build, as you’re saying, but you still

kind of know. Yeah, exactly. We need dry startup. It’s your not calling you’re calling. Yeah, he’s flipping you to the fire separation. Yeah. an hour. And then your

real negative here is you guys somehow joking. I’m joking. Oh, Charles brings to the

talking for both

channels bring to the table is the development experience. And I know your family’s been in commercial real estate for a long time. So just together you guys are like this really cool, powerful team. It’s awesome. And we all talk about building your power team to see you guys working together as one is completely freaky. So let’s let’s cut to the chase a little bit. What did you guys do in let’s start with St. Catherine’s? What did you guys do in St. Catherine

St. Catherine’s. We found two parcels on a corner lot. And they had two rental properties on them. They were the ugliest properties on the street which we like to buy it because it can only go up from there. And at night we renovated them and rented them out one was a duplex was a single family home. We already cash flowing like $1,000 a month as is with the rental properties. But the true value for that was the corner the regards These two houses, we separate those two lots and built a brand new semi. That was actually the where Scott mcgilvery came and did the show he missed that was on that property. Yeah, that’s right. Scott, you missed out on.

TV famous Charles the wait, weren’t you on the episode a little bit was Yeah, aren’t you? Were you? Was it a smelly fridge or something? Yeah.

Sally phase the season premiere I was set up or no, that was real. That was Yeah, got it. So but with that project, that’s when we met Steve was just perfect timing. Perfect timing. We were

to build on this.

While the three of us built together. Steve brought the expertise to kind of guide us over Steve as a full time job. Right. I

do always forget that. Right?

Yeah. He was working on evenings and weekends to guide us while we’re on site and whatnot.

And because it’s new build, it’s more on the trade lift up a little

bit. Just Just angle it up higher there you go there, because it’s

a new build. It’s more on the trades than yourself. So a lot of the time is just making sure that you have Someone on site to know what’s going on. If there is a question you have somebody there, but that’s why I knew what to do all I had to do is have to show Andy and Charles what to do and that’s set up the the trades set up the schedule, basically week by week I would give them a to do list and we would just follow that item by item and that’s we were very successful at it. And that’s what’s led me to be a little more confident in being able to do this part time rather than having to be there full time.

You got it. So you so the two lots of purchase you’re renting them out you sever one of the lots we suffer to survive to the oh you separate the backyards of both of these and then you built on that separate piece of both of those backyard right. Okay, the financing you got to buy the two lots to begin with regular bank financing.

Yeah, so that’s the thing about this strategy, the small scale infill developments like you can go through traditional financing. So for both those rental properties, we went through like Scotiabank in the banks and you get the traditional at percent loan to value mortgages under under our names. And then when you do the severance, you do a partial discharge. So they typically value the land. And they’ll do partial discharge of that about now because we renovated those properties. So we added a lot more value, the partial discharge was for zero dollars. So we did the severance, we did the discharge, we’d have to put up any money,

because the bank felt even though that you were going to sever some of the land, the value is still there on those two law exact Yeah.

and and the the objective also is to improve improve the value of that existing property. So if it’s in bad condition, or it needs to add an extra suite, we want to improve the value of that. So that, you know, hopefully, worst case scenario, it’s going to be a zero discharge, but maybe we might even increase the value. And that’s why infill developments on a small scale.

Same is your increase the value sorry,

yeah. So I don’t know if maybe this is a good time to introduce kind of the Integral Development concept, which is, you know, buying existing property, improving that and then doing a seven because a lot of people will come to us and they’ll say, I want to buy this place. I want to tear it down. I want to build something. And there’s two really big reasons why that might not go as planned. One is what Charles had mentioned the partial discharge, she’s not gonna be able to get the traditional financing because down because

if you do a partial discharge, if you tear it down, now the property’s lost value, the bank’s not

gonna want to do it. Unless mortgage,

unless you got a private money, then then that’s, that’s going to be hard to do. And then the second thing is, you know, in the markets that we’re looking at, you know, the the Niagara region or Hamilton or let’s say, Kitchener Waterloo, the value of the property is probably anywhere between 25%. So sorry, the property value, compared to the land value is actually a lot higher. It’s a higher ratio, right? So the land value may be 25% to a third of the whole value. So if you tear that house down, you’re losing, I don’t know, 200,200 50,000. You got to be able to crawl out of that and then make money on top of that. So that’s why a lot of people that come to us, they say, you know, I have this house, I want to tear it down. I want to build a semi. The numbers all almost always don’t make sense when you don’t have that scale.

And even when you do tear down, you’re losing that cash flowing asset to cover you through the whole development process. So that’s such a key factor in these infill developments, is having that existing home that you can renovate, rent out to hold you through.

I feel like this is a massive opportunity in the GTA over the next 10 and 20 years. And it’s funny, I just want to pause you guys because what you guys are sharing right now is such a big opportunity to me, because most people go real estate go through the goes through phases, right? People think oh my gosh, I’m going to buy a property like when I was younger, I’ll buy a property on the outskirts of Mississauga because that’s in the middle of nowhere. You know, I’ll buy like my first four bedroom. madami home was $268,000. My wife, kind of I shouldn’t say this, but she kind of forced me to buy it. So I still wanted to live in my parents house to save more money, but I listened to her because I’m a smart, smart husband. And I said I literally told the sales guy I said, well, somebody’s got to buy at the top of the market might as well be me. 268,004 bedroom, two Car Garage at night line and pretend suck if you know where that is. And I thought I bought at the top because about a year earlier friends of mine bought it for 225,229 something like that. And and then you think you’re you’re in the middle of nowhere but then things go on and then we Nick and I discovered Hamilton like you guys we discover Kitchener we discover barrier we discover our show on Isa and then everyone thinks oh my gosh I’ll buy like single family homes and all I’ll rent them out or I’ll do student rentals there. And then when that becomes expensive people are like, Oh, the game is over. Right? I can’t buy in Mississauga anymore The game’s over. But then you opportunities pop up around the more more of the outskirts. And now as the outskirts are spreading so wide. People are saying Well, I guess the game’s over. But then guys like you show up. And you’re like, you know what guys game’s not over. We’re going to buy two lots, we’re going to increase the value we’re going to several we’re going to build and it’s like the best thing I’ve ever heard. That’s what is amazing about the opportunity right now in Canada. I feel like meeting guys like us just like it’s all it’s like light bulb moments. Like I think we’re just gonna see more and more of what you guys are doing

there. opportunities everywhere everywhere we go. And that’s why we love like talking about the strategy. We walk down the street and there’s there’s tons, even the St. Catherine’s project, there’s about five and feels right on that street, where we built in Hamilton, which we’ll talk about later on. There’s like

a whole bunch of infills all of the large the large lots with the small houses, they have a lot of land small. So what

So what do you guys have like a rule of thumb you’re looking for when you look at lots to say, Okay, I think this might be an opportunity

like for like a semi, we’re going to be looking for at least 50 foot along the frontage. 55 ideally, and then along the depth we want. Ideally, you want at least 80 feet. We’ll talk about another project we have in St. Catherine’s, we’re at 70 feet, and it’s limited our building envelope and it was it was a bit trickier. So we’d like to have at least 55 by 80 for a semi let’s say.

And

yeah if it’s 55 by 80 on a corner locked Oh do you need to have those or one on a corner lot you can severan build because now I’m only 55 deep so you do need to sign

a court. You probably need to Okay. Now if you have enough side yard, your lot area you might be okay. We always it’s kind of case by case because you have to closer to them because you have to look at what variances you require in that mentality for that zoning, and obviously, the least number of minor variances and the more minor advances you’re requesting, the more chances of being approved it goes higher,

but it really comes down to your corner lots, your double lot single family homes, just with that extra large lot.

I would say there’s probably a lot of investors who have a property that you know, existing that they can probably

one of them. Yeah, please enameled and Nick and I’ve looked at it for like, I think 10 years at least now thinking you know what, I’m pretty sure we can build on this thing. And we’ve never gotten to it because we’ve been busy with other stuff yet but which makes me excited because I see you guys I’m like, Okay, perfect. We’re gonna have the expertise and

you’re never gonna get anything by right which is, which means you’re never going to be doing exactly by the rules to as it stands right now. You’re gonna have to push a little bit through minor variances and reconsent applications because, you know if it was that easy, everybody would be doing it. So there’s there’s a little bit of a process, but we’re saying that the risk profile of that is low compared to the reward right now that we’re seeing.

So the St. Catherine’s project was overall a success. Did you guys sell for what you were hoping to sell, so

we end up holding on to them after we completed the bill. Okay, we refinanced and held on to them. And now they’re great cash flowing assets, we own the entire corner there. We went from three units like the duplex and a single to seven units, because our new builds both of legal secondary suites that are completely separate. And those semies we get almost $7,000 in rent, plus utilities, including the basement, it’s flushed. It’s all separate utilities because we

all started smiling and saying, Well,

yeah, they’re just purpose built. So you’re able to put in the the sub meter for the the water, you’re able to put separate hydro meters. We had two gas meters on each side the build so everything’s individually Which as a landlord, everyone appreciates not having to ask for the 6040 split. My rentals that I have done and thorough is all inclusive. So when I’m paying that $300 water bill every few months I kind of wish I had the the opportunity to do that

was that so? Okay, so you refinance that pulled out the money, but you’re happy with how that all went down? Very happy. I mean, you’re pulling out the money then just rolling it forward to the next time.

Exactly. Exactly. Now going through the bill, that was the first time actually building ourselves. Fortunately, we had Steve’s help but it was very intense. That’s why you don’t see me at the gym. That’s been feel like

I can appreciate but you’re learning something that you basically got a PhD developments here, right?

Yeah. Right. And he learned by boots on the ground is the way to do it. So you, you got training and you made money,

right? But it was smooth, a very smooth process. We got it done in I think six months. Our

goal is between the six and seven month mark. And again, that’s based off my experience of building all my background is production building. So it’s all methodical, it’s all plot out and it’s just one trade after the next House is never sitting. So that’s I was able to take that procedure, bring it into these infills you can call it almost like a semi custom because we’re trying to do more purpose built material. So it’s a little bit more durable than a production home. But we were able to punch it out in that six, seven month period.

And if you’re if you’re listening to this, I just want to stop everybody here because you guys sound very knowledgeable and you guys know what you’re doing. You bring a lot to the table. I have seen people we have rock star members, there’s this I won’t say her name. I don’t think I have permission. I don’t think she would mind. I’ll just say her first name. Vanessa has been a longtime member. She literally buys homes in Hamilton’s, I don’t know if you guys know what I’m talking she’ll pick them up with cranes and twist build extensions and stuff on the back. So if you were This is a lady, you know, great lady, but she’s I feel like she’s four foot five. Kind of tiny lady but like with a huge kind of ability to accomplish anything. She sets her mind to it. And then Spencer brown we interviewed here he’s up in Orangeville area and Another area is now doing the same kind of thing. So if you’re listening to this thinking, Oh my gosh, this might be too advanced. It is a learning curve. Absolutely. But don’t think listening to these three guys that like you can’t do it yourself. You absolutely can.

Well, we should definitely talk about some of the the folks where we we spoke to them and they had a property and and then we refer them to our planner, we walk them through the process, and they’ve done exactly the same thing. So our friend, coach, Christian,

with their existing properties.

They had big enough logs where they were able to do it,

they have the lots, but you don’t have to be a builder. You have a lot, a lot of different opportunities. You can sell a lot off, you can do the paperwork, go through the planning process, get the variances, get the severance, and then sell that lot. That’s money that you had sitting there.

That’s money you created out of thin air. Like I tell anyone, you can pay more for a property who cares a property prices are going up if I know how to make money on a property as property prices increase, I can pay more than all my competition and still make money right? It’s the knowledge that’s the most important thing, which is kind of that’s why I thank you guys for talking about this. That’s one of the main want to get to your other projects that want to share.

That’s one of the main benefits of the small scale, infill developed strategy is that the land cost is low, you have to drive that cost low. And when you’re severan, creating lots from your existing properties, your lands, basically free free cost of the applications, maybe 50 grand, it’s like doing a flip. If you buy the house super cheap, you have tons of margin, you’re going to make money. And so like you can sell a lot you could you could build yourself, or what most people probably do, they might hire a builder. Then you can make money on the development side. The build, you might you might pay a premium for but then when you’re renting it out, you hold it long term, you’re gonna make money on the on the hold as well.

Yeah, cool. So okay, so St. Catherine’s finished. What about what did you I know you’ve done some Hamilton stuff? Yes. Is that recent?

Yeah, we started excavation. I think mid September. Okay. Yeah,

we Charles is smiling. I don’t know why.

I’m trying to get some content

Serious podcast and you guys.

I just look at and he’s like,

Listen, this is a serious operation. Okay, we don’t need this. Oh, yeah, yeah. So yeah, if you’re listening to this and he broke out his phone and he’s speaking but sorry, go

ahead, basically, yeah, we we had an opportunity or a friend had a piece of land that he actually accidentally bought at a tax sale. He beat the previous the guy who built across the street by about 1000 bucks, so close, but he had no idea what he was doing. And he just kind of accidentally bought himself a parcel of land downtown Hamilton. He part took it partially through the process of development, you got all the variances, and at that point, it was kind of not necessarily the the path you wanted to go down. He wanted to push multifamily. So this is a perfect opportunity for us to jump in. We were able to finish the the severance process, we were able to get the building permit so

you bought it off him.

They can land a different strategy. Okay,

so we had to make money off the build here. But we started in September, actually, that was at a full delay of about two months. We hope to get going in July and we started we started doing the site servicing so bringing the sewers from the road to the property line are the gentleman doing the work about two days in, he managed to hit 127,000 volt hydro ducked, thankfully nobody was hurt. That was the exact same day that he official the title of the property transferred over to first day, first day. Charles was out there till about 2am holding a street sign Yep,

just full a fire truck please.

Every time it’s such high voltage, these transmission lines that they have oil inside them to cool down and when he nicked it, oil was spilling down. They had to bring an environmental vac truck to because now the source contaminated. It was an It was a nightmare. And that was a

that was but it ended up working out in the end.

Remember I said had full confidence and

due diligence Make sure your contractors have insurance.

That is did your contractors. Okay so

his insurance premiums have definitely gone up but for now we’ve been okay. But yeah, it actually ended up we’re starting in July it pushed us back two months, but it actually helped us in the sale. We instead of finishing at Christmas, or around New Year’s, it’s pushed us into we have for sale I guess officially mid February.

We started September 2019. Finished February 20 20th.

So about 889 months before we got it up for sale and sold in two days. But started excavation September we got the exterior shell done before the winter. That’s you want to you don’t really want to start digging after November. Builders do it all day but you’re just paying more expenses first. heating the concrete for the straw for all the labor, but we stuck it in before the winter came. We got it all finished up basically end of January and got it on the market.

And that was what was the building in Sorry, that was a semi detached that was also a semi is this. Both both of them? Correct. Okay, so

this one, it didn’t have an opportunity to have a bit secondary suite. It was only parking for one car. We knew we wanted to get in and out of this very quickly. So we didn’t want to go through the variance for the parking. It was a tall skinny three story build. The lot was only 56 feet wide by 40 feet deep. Oh, wow. It’s tight. But it works for downtown. Yeah, totally.

That’s in Hamilton center. Fix existing character the neighborhood Yeah. And we got really lucky with that two month delay in hindsight now, because the markets going crazy and Hamilton

I ever seen it right. It was crazy. We saw go crazy right around late November. Everything was kind of calm, kind of calm down late November, just fire and it’s been crazy. I I don’t know if you guys know this but we had a property that somebody on the team here was selling with in Kitchener 51 offers for and it was priced undervalued to try to attract offers, but they weren’t trying to attract 51 when you get to that many offers to disaster. So 51 offers even we’re starting to see movement on the real estate market because we saw no movement in the Mississauga Oakville kind of Burlington area in the 1.5 million to like 2.1 million because that in this little corridor, that’s, that’s this weird, like, you’re not, you’re clearly not starter home, but you’re not like in a $3 million dollar property where you don’t care about what you’re paying for necessarily. I shouldn’t say that you care, but like you can spend the money you’re in that kind of mid. I know this sounds crazy at that price point that I call it a minimum income. I understand. I understand how ludicrous that sounds, but for that this area that kind of is like a mid market. It was quiet, but even in the last 30 days, so we’re recording this now, March 2020. In the last 30 days, even the activity there has started to pick back up. So it’s interesting to see It’s not multiple offer situations but things are moving again whereas before it was crickets like nothing was happening. So it’s interesting to see with 51 offers that’s why we have to jump to other strategies because I don’t want to have to battle with 50 other people trying to to buy a rental to buy

another house. I’m gonna just try to buy something with land I can build my own investment property.

So you sold those ones in Hamilton. That’s a recent Those are probably not closed yet. We’re so recent

so your firm I know this month end of this month Tom like one week before we weren’t sure and the pricing strategy because the we did the comps and like it would be lower because it’s all older stock. And he’s a new belt in the area and we were going to list that for 95. And then the day after all house like really close a silver for 99

firm five days I might have seen pictures of what you guys are building you guys are building beautiful stuff.

I call Steve ago Steve we better revisit our pricing. we bumped it up to 525 and sold that weekend. Super quick Got it. Got it. Maybe

five if an old thing sold it for 99 you guys probably. You’re happy you’re happy. Yeah, cool. Cool. Awesome. Okay, so that’s so that’s happening and then now there’s another St. Catherine’s project coming down the pipe. Is that what’s happening? Yeah.

So that one’s interesting. We’ve been delayed almost a year. We bought that in

New Year’s Eve New Year’s yet 20

well which put in Yeah, I like I like to work when everyone’s playing so like during Christmas and we’re looking for deals and I remember Tammy sent me this deal to me due to muscle on like Boxing Day or something that we put an offer on December 28. In New York, we put

the offer a New Year’s Eve because there is a I think

we went back and forth but anyways, New Year’s Eve we picked up the property and we closed in February of 2018. And we go worst house you can think of like the floors are not level and small little bungalow, our tenants or tenants don’t have teeth. That kind of your kind

of property intro Yeah,

but members we we see the value in Orlando and so we were okay with the house we rented out we I think we’re negative like $100 a month they’re not bad at all for development. We did a traditional mortgage on the on that property rented out. And we had full putting support and everything from the city. And we will go to committee adjustment for the variances and one gentleman just says he’s feels uncomfortable. He’s

direct neighbor or no, no, I mean that

everything was supporting, but one of the committee member all five to only five committee members in St. Catherine’s and one just says he feels uncomfortable and before we can even say anything, he puts a motion to reject and somehow two other two other people agreed put their hand up and that was it.

Did you just not like you guys? I don’t know.

We don’t know. We don’t know that the Yeah, so he was sort of the top dog and that’s why when he said he didn’t feel comfortable the other two sort of yellow suit right now the the infuriating thing about that one was you know, we talked a lot about nimbyism? Have you? Have you? I guess I don’t know if your listeners are not in my backyard so

I don’t I don’t even think I’ve heard that term. Yeah.

So in NB stands for not in my backyard so people who are just kind of against development and we see a lot of that with any sort of development now the frustrating thing about this project was there wasn’t even any any any of that it was it was a really bad property. We’re gonna make it really nice. Moving the area.

Tom it’s also in the western Hill neighborhood right by the go train. Walk.

Yeah, a 15 minute walk to the Go. Go train station, daily service to downtown Toronto Union Station. And this guy did not like did not feel comfortable. I’m on an air quotes right now. I did not feel comfortable. And then that I’ll let you continue with what happened after that. So after that, we’re like, Okay, this is

this bullshit. We’re gonna we’re gonna

we’re just gonna peel Charles we have to know edit that we don’t. I’m joking.

So we go, we appealed it. We and how you do is you said it appeal to the elpac which is the local planning Appeal Tribunal. It’s the old OMB Okay, got it. It took forever because they’re backed up. They took maybe say, I think it took six months to schedule the hearing with the elpac. BOARD MEMBER and the tribunal member. And we held that in January. And where was

that held that you went? It’s

held at St. Catherine City Hall.

Okay. The same place you were at before and got rejected in their council chambers exactly the exact

same spot. Exactly. Now, here’s an interesting, though. Yeah.

Because the city of St. Catherine’s actually supported our proposal. They didn’t show up. There was no one to defend. It was just us. It was think of a big room council chambers, and we’re the only ones that not even the

guys who voted you down. It was not worth their time to go in

there. They’re not there. So it’s just one way now. So you want with elpac though it’s not for sure. You still have to provide sound justification planning justification of why your proposal makes sense, and why it’s better for the neighborhood and whatnot to pay for all this between lawyers and plants. And all the prep. So all in like it cost us about 20 grand extra. We got the approvals though so now we’re moving forward towards

funding that 20 grand because I know people are going to be thinking where’s this money coming so just from your other projects that you’ve been able to do in between each other when we do have to give me all the details but just you’re you’re pulling out money so

when we first analyze a property if it makes sense we do a proform on it, we see what kind of projected return there is. And then we may we may do a full budget and in our budget we leave a contingency for for stuff like this. Just in case

development there is always the option of you’re not going to get approved,

but not the other beauty of having that rental property on there because we feel not rushed to go forward with go through with the developers holding costs or making exactly

sure I just build on Tom’s iPhone.

Or waterproof me

another drink water.

That was water. That was

more tequila, Charles. More tequila, more tequila.

He’s a hand talker. Oh god.

You’re good. Don’t worry. We’re gonna Okay, okay, good. But so yeah, so go on. So you funded it. You had that in a performer, you were budgeted for that, then you’re where you get you get approved, because you’re prepared.

And so now we’re real time now in terms of going through that process, we have options. And that’s the thing that we love about this strategy as well. Maybe not every single build, or every single lot that we create. We might we may not build, we could sell it.

It’s funny. You guys are like, you guys are full on developers like you’re playing at a level now. You’re not truly, you’re not the Daniels group. But like I grew up. My father was a drywall company, a subcontractor. He did work for the Daniels group and stuff. Sometimes I had to go to their fancy offices to pick up checks because we basically couldn’t pay anybody unless we got to check that day. So like, I would go as this kid, my dad instructed me to go pick up a check, like, top floor of some building in Mississauga, if I remember trying to get a check from the Daniels group or something. And they paid like we got it. But I mean, so I’ve seen all this exact, like literally exactly when big condominiums and subdivisions, what you what you guys are discussing is all the same things that the big developers do. It’s exactly the same stuff, you’re just playing at your level right now. And that’s a great level, that’s a great level. But I can just map out the next 10 years of your lives. And I’m like, Oh, these guys are in a really nice trajectory. Like, it’s

gonna be cool. We’re playing in a sandbox that the those big developers are not interested in at all. Right, so things the big developers, they have the, their, their middle parcels of land in between the developed parts and the greenbelt that they’re going to develop their for the next coming decades, right? What they’re not interested in is going into a corner lot and trying to figure out, you know, I’m going to put two extra properties here. But when we do them, we try to do them in a way where we can figure out a system that we can scale. And and this is the opportunity we see it as an opportunity we we see for others that are in our position where you know, we started out doing investment and sort of this is the next step. Right. So, you know, that’s, that’s why it’s so good because we don’t have the competition of those big developers in these areas. And anybody can do it. If you have some experience in real estate, you can definitely do it right

and it allows you to pay a little A bit more for that bungalow that some people aren’t willing to pay that sale price. If you can see that future potential for development, you’re going to maybe spend that little bit of extra money to buy it, knowing.

It’s kind of why that’s why I love real estate so much as I always tell her when it’s a very illiquid market. And that’s a good thing, because big players can’t play in it. So although we’re talking about you guys have found this beautiful little niche still, for the kind of everyday person is getting started, you can go and buy a property still. And I know the market can be crazy and all that kind of stuff. But you’re not competing against the big financial institutions because they’re not going to Barrie Ontario to buy like a duplex right even the reeds even though they’ve come down a little bit lower than they used to play. They’re still playing usually in multi units and that kind of stuff. It leaves a huge opportunity for you and I and Canadians wrote to me right across the country to get into an asset class that if you’re smart with it, you’re going to do well what you guys have so that’s why I like real estate in general, right? It’s not liquid, the big guys don’t get into it. So you’re not competing against What you guys have done is you’ve done the you’ve taken it kind of to the next step and done it in development game in real estate. And it’s, it’s, that’s why I just think the world’s your oyster, you know, like you’re you can take this wherever you want to go, like, you’re not gonna be able to build as many of you can build as much as this as you want the demand for it’s going to be insatiable, it’s almost

like it’s for a real estate investor. If you start going more and more and more, you start with one, go two, three, go to five. It’s almost the next logical step is to go from just being a real estate investor to becoming a real estate developer. So it’s just one of those things that I think as you get experienced in the real estate investment game, it’s just a jump that you want to take.

And it’s funny because at rock star, we see different pockets of people doing what you at different levels and different speeds. You guys are moving pretty fast. And it’s funny because I think in the next five and 10 years, we’re going to see a lot of stuff where the US the you know, the Rockstar community and beyond will be doing these kinds of things and feeding good properties back into the community. We have investors who’s buying properties like it’s this weird and awesome self sustaining thing that’s happening and like I just feel grateful to witness it you know it’s so cool but on the on the St. Catherine’s to prod The next thing Catherine’s project where I got off track we love Where did we leave off you got to prove all we got to prove and then where are you guys

going towards building permit now okay then after we create the lots we’re going to decide what to do do we want to sell off the lots? Do we want to build ourselves or potentially even get a modular build or hire a builder if we don’t want to go to St. Catherine so we do have a lot of options there

because now this is going to be what did you buy one into two lights? 123 this 123123 and this is a corner lot is exactly so a corner that was big enough and where are the other two lots did you cut the backyard off? And yes side lot.

Yeah. This one had a 70 foot say frontage on the corner of the house where you pull in what should be cut that backyard. That’s where we get the 70 feet deep of the new lot faces. The other street, and this is where it got very tight. 70 feet is kind of the minimum minimum, just with the front yard setbacks and the rear yard setbacks, you’re very limited, but I think one semi is 20 feet wide and the other semi is 17 feet wide. So still large enough for these two story I

would say the 70 feet is a minimum for what we’re trying to do because reading the semies but for a lot of investors who let’s say they have a corner lot and they want to build just one house for example, I don’t think you need to 73 you can do a side yard where that’s possible because having a 70 foot wide corner lot frontage is going to be rare in general. So you can probably still do it with 50 or 55. Again, you’re going to have to push with the with the minor variances, right. But again, this is sort of the direction the city’s headed. They want you to do these things.

Got it and then do you have a timeline now for this one or get you’re just deciding so you’re going to see what you guys do?

Yeah, we’ll probably get building permit about a few months in St. Catherine’s, you need to go through a development agreement and the city takes a while. There. get that done.

So how do you had to come to this point? And there’s one more thing I want to talk to you so that’s the St. Catherine’s but you have this one sewage situate? Is that a different property? What remind me what happens with this one? I like no bits and pieces. story I know is that Charles wall bought a property. The sewage is all messed up. This is what I know. And it’s like, pretty big problem, but he seems to be handling it. This is

one thing you would never even think of.

Yeah. So on the Hamilton mountain. This is in the West Mountain. Okay, we bought a property that was so this is all of you guys again. together like Kevin.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah. And bit massive land. small house on the on the corner like we’re on the side. Exactly. By the sideline. Exactly.

You’re winning.

This is winning. Now. One thing I mean, I guess we didn’t notice was that there’s septic and I mean, we had inspectors come through and everything and and I don’t know how we all just kind of missed it. But there’s a septic system there. So we had to decommission the septic to so there’s a single family home. That was small With Andy’s help, we are legalizing the basis with their got it oh by for capacity and whatnot we had to decommission the septic system and connect the municipal services. Okay, so that’s pretty cheap. That was $50,000. Yeah, God, what city charge. Now one tip there, though, is that you can defer that you could defer that onto your property taxes for up to 15.

Sorry, what? So walk me through this.

So to connect, you know, the sanitary Yeah. services from municipal to your house, you can actually finance that through the city, through your property taxes ruled for 15 years, and they have a calculation of how they are they do the percentages. But what happened was, this whole subdivision was serviced by the city like 2022 years ago or 23 years ago. And what they do is they offer the residents Do you want to connect at this point? A lot of them say no, it costs a lot of money. And what they do is from that point to today, they index It so back then it would have cost like 15 grand assign that. And now it’s because the index is gone up to like it was like 40 grand and then we had to hire contract or whatnot. So yeah, then the the 40 grand By the way, it was just a permit. That was no work that was just for us to be able to connect in.

Yeah. Holy smokes you guys I don’t know who had the heart attack that day but I mean, you’re all smiling now and yeah, all of you are smiling now but it’s one of those smiles like yeah, we barely survived. Well,

we try to think of the big picture. It’s like okay, well, you know, we’re going to cash flow on on the on the rental with the secondary suite. We have future potential to sever on the side which we’re leaving for now. So we again, we try to think big picture and in the grand scheme of things like it’s

it’s not a rental right now.

Exactly. Who has the heavy who has the I guess the maybe that’s a wrong question to ask. As far as limiting beliefs go. How have you guys handled that is everyone in your family’s fully support Enough talking about families, family, friends, fully support what you’re doing? what you guys are doing for most people sounds complete, like, completely insane. Like if you’re listening to this and you have a kind of a corporate job nine to five, and you hear what you guys are doing this sounds like superhero work, quite frankly. Right? So like, are you guys battling internal demons? Or do you feel like you’re you know, this is like easy business for you.

So I want to first say is that with the small scale, it is a lot simpler than then what’s perceived. We have a lot of people come through site tours or talk to us, and they think is rocket science. I’m talking to people who are like engineering backgrounds and really smart people. And they don’t think they can do development. But

this is the process the process and the process is kind of like cloudy, exact a confused mind will always say no, right? That’s right. It’s confusing, you don’t know. So it sounds complicated, but

you guys have done is mapped it other larger developments they’re doing due to subdivision whatnot, there’s a lot more risk there. You have to go through like environmental rules and all these different kinds of studies. With a small scale, we’re just selling one or two lots, and you just go through variances and go higher.

If you also do it for you

Exactly. It’s not as scary or as risky. So for me personally, because I’ve gone through it, I feel very comfortable with it. And I know going through the process with Andy and Steve, I know they feel a lot more comfortable once they’ve understood the process and gone through it even just one time.

And I would say that’s where I kind of stand in the sense of I’ve been building houses for 14 years, I can build a house, no problem with my eyes closed, while the other people build it, but I like to organize it. But it was meeting me and Charles that kind of gave me the belief that holy smokes, I can be a developer to I can build a house. I now know how to analyze a property. I know what a pro forma is. I know how to fill it in. And I know how to scout these opportunities. So for me, it was meeting people that had the confidence that had somewhat of the ability and understanding of how to do it that kind of gave me the confidence to do this.

So even the three of us we have different risks. profiles. Yeah, look, I think I’m crazy.

But go back to your question. Like my my mom still thinks like, we’re gonna lose it like she’s still thinks that I should have kept that engineering job six seven years ago and that was more secure

I don’t know why normal but your parents your parents are immigrants to this country who risked everything to come here what they

so Isn’t that fascinating it is but what they say is they risked all that did all that hard work so that I could have a better life and they view the at least my mother she thinks that like the professional path you know, Doctor engineer is the is a safer way.

Yeah, I have this image of your father. I don’t know why killing a snake and eating it. Is this a true story? Why do I have this someone’s told me this is

from Malaysia and he Yeah, he’s kids had to kill Python. Growing up as a child. He grew up in a family of 10 and food wasn’t guaranteed. He grew up as a very poor chicken farmer from Malaysia. So better eat whatever they could kill survive. They hadn’t they killed a 30 foot Python with a stick. crazy stories I can’t eat. Yeah, no, that’s what he says.

And you and he, you can eat Python, I guess I guess so.

Okay, cool,

I think for confidence and even for myself is I with I’m recently married about a year and a half ago, but we have no kids yet. So I figured when I was about 2526, I said, I’m going to try to crush it. From 30 to 40 is gonna might be my like wheelhouse. I’m going to set myself up. So I am working basically two full time jobs. Great only because of the happy that you’re doing that right. It’s only because of the scale. I’m doing it. Not everyone’s gonna want to do it as much as I’m doing. But because I keep signing up for projects. I don’t know if I just can’t say no to any. How’s your wife handling this? I it’s nice and peaceful at home for her. Yeah. I tell I just I just paced around the condo. So she knows I love it. I know I love it too and that’s why I do it but it’s the the enthusiasm I have especially with this this team that just keeps me going

and for what you guys are doing now are you working with other I know you guys are going to have a class or something coming up that I want to talk about kind of in a second but I just don’t want to hit there yet because I know you’re kind of assembling some of this information. But for investors who are kind of looking to do this for themselves walk me through the thing it’s finding doing a circle or setting up first

off look at your own properties. Are you sitting on land that you can separate?

Yeah, got it. Okay. So look on so look for land that can be severed. Do you have a property existing that should you can sever? Yep. Then after that going to the city?

No. We do everything is from the computer. A lot of things we can do now just online and cost no money. So the next step after your identify a parcel of land is to review the zoning and the official planners destination. You can do that all online also there’s a lot of free tools online as we use as well so Google Earth like Google Earth pro you can see the the grading the elevations on street view, obviously you can see what’s in the around the neighborhood, but even to

just to find the opportunity. You don’t have to leave your house. No, not at all. Go on Google Map, go into Street View. Go down the street up the street. You can look for those corner lots, double lots.

And on Google Earth Pro, you can also measure you can measure how far is the house to the the spotlight. Yeah,

it’s really cool. I can remember when we did that. I did that recently. is Google Earth Pro, something we pay for? It’s free now.

Oh, is it? Yes. It’s free like 15 years ago. It’s amazing. Amazing tool.

Yeah. And you can draw your little lines.

If you’re finding the lots you go into check the zoning online to see like what’s possible on these kind of properties and what’s not possible that’s city by city, I guess Exactly. He’s gonna have different rules the

other section of the website Well, the other thing I want to say is most was it was about these have their own interactive mapping tool. You can go in there, it’ll show you the zoning, it’ll show you the lot lines, you can

usually measure on Hamilton’s website where they have that

not.hamilton.ca Yeah. Aggregation. It’s Nagar navigator. So he has these interactive maps

to us. You can just google the city name and then Google interactive zoning map and you’ll get something that pops up and

the zoning gonna tell me in plain English, what I can do and what I can. Yeah,

so if you go into your property, you scroll in and you can click on it. Sometimes you can just click on the property and something else will pop up to say what the zoning is there. And I’ll tell you, Hey, you know what, you can do a secondary sweetener, you can do a triplex here. A lot of people come to me and they say, you know, I’m in the single family zone. And I say, guess what, you’re actually in the r two zone. You can do a triplex if you wanted to. But you’re going to have to get variances, but then at least you’re sort of at that first step. And these are tools that it’s free. Everybody can access it, but most people just don’t think about, you know,

I find a lot I go to the city’s tool, then I can go to the Google Earth pro I can kind of check out just how much space Do I really have I can measure even on the on on some of these things from the Google’s pictures then my next step for you guys would be running the number was checking

code going to the bylaws because you want to see Is it big enough to do another unit on so you want to check with your setbacks

so going to the minimum lot area middle of frontier

and the setbacks are going to be published on the different websites on

the zoning bylaw could be written there okay God depending

what zoning you are, you’ll have certain setbacks

so then using my setbacks, I can see how much space I have Can I really build if so even if I’m zone I might not have enough space. Once I understand this.

I did it about a week ago and I sent it to Charles just to kind of double check my work, but I just got a piece of graph paper. Draw your six meter rear yard setback, draw your three meter front yard setback, usually you can do your your 1.2 meter side yards, and that’s going to give you a square

give you a building envelope, right and that’s what we want to see as of right, what do we have

And then for things like I don’t know, parking spaces and that kind of stuff, I’ll

all be on there as well. Okay.

And then after I do so I make it through this. I’m like, Yeah, I think I’m on the right path here, then you’re making the offer on the property. Are you doing some more detailed number crunching? Before you go there

heading on your experience? You might be talking to a planner next. Okay. Yes, you want to write it by a professional to make sure there is that potential. based on our experience we can make that offer just knowing what we know because the planner is going to do what for me?

Well, the biggest step for this one and this is like huge in terms of dictates your pro forma would be determining the highest and best use of that parcel. And if you don’t have the experience in developments, then I highly recommend that you talk to a private urban planner. there they’re all over the place, call them up urban high, we can provide recommendations to okay, but some of them offer free consultations or some of them for a nominal fee they’ll do a full

out detailed report and are you worried when you’re presenting this to them that you’re kind of spilling the beans on like an opportunity cuz you haven’t locked up this property yet.

You know, you have to try Yeah,

but we’re not we’re not too concerned of abundance. I think there’s so many opportunities if it happens, and there’s not a big deal, but with with in conversation with the planner, they’ll help you determine the highest and best use. And from there we will set what’s your plan a plan B. So some of those st Catherine’s properties, we went for semies. But if we knew if we didn’t get proof for those, we can always go for a single or whatnot. We always want to have backup and if you even get tonight there, will it sell as a flip or is it just a buy and hold? Right Okay, got it. So passes

that stage and then you’re making the offer?

No, then from there, we create that, Oh,

I just want to buy the property. Is that the difference between me and this is how we got this is how we bought this that we’re in the rock stars. I drove by. I saw the sign spiking a lot. I’m like, Nick, that’s the Homer rock. We got it. We gotta move. And we were busy with stuff. I’m like, we got to get in there. Now they’re going to sell these corn lots we gotta go. And he was like, Tom, I think we should look over the numbers. We should analyze this. I’m like, No, this is the opportunity. We gotta move now. So I go on feel he goes on data. So we cross a lot,

Tom, I do a lot like you and these guys will know. I’m trying to tell the right

now I find myself like you, Charles. I’m like, listen to quanta here right now. Okay, Nick, I really think we could change with the cash flow opportunity here.

Ask him the question. Well, have you done this? What is this?

Okay, so Charles and I should never work exactly the same,

I don’t know. Just buy it. So the last step before you putting the offer that we recommend would be like, you could put an offer conditional, and you could put a due diligence class, so you could have done at the very beginning. Sure, okay. But we don’t want to waste anyone’s time and we want to have a good sense. So the last step after you determine the highest best use is to create that pro forma. The pro forma is what shows your projected financial return. And for us, I mean, they are happy with it, then we move forward with the offer.

And then so in that process, are you talking to a bank somewhere on construction loans, something we didn’t talk about before, like once you sever out, then the money to fund The actual build,

we will talk to the consumer about construction financing, once we have building permit will get stuff ready and we’ll give them a heads up. We don’t want to waste it. We don’t. Yeah, we have those relationships but you don’t want to waste their time until you have building

because things can change. So you’re coming to the bank with the building permit and the plan

you don’t want to see your budgets they want to see a lot of I don’t know that you know what you’re doing? or Are you hiring a builder that can provide this information

yet got it and that we’ve had, we have great relationship with meridian credit union, for our construction financing.

You’ll walk in with them, you kind of have an outline now how you’re going to deal with those guys. Exactly. And

the more you do, like if you were to do multiple eventually they get to know you as a trust they know you’re gonna do good work, and then they might drop rates and help you help out with with the bills

got it and the construction loans coming to piecemeal by different milestones.

It’s based on cost incurred approach so as we spend money so typically the beginning we had to put up maybe 20% to put in the do the excavation the site site servicing the found And then as we incur costs, we can go to them withdraws. Now the thing is that draws cost money from both the institutions I’m reading credit union, as well as the lawyer. So for us and everyone’s going to have different circumstance, we try to limit the number of draws we take through the six month build. So first of all, Wilson, we took three drugs. That’s all we took. where someone if they didn’t have the capital, they might take a draw every single month. That’s up to you. And then is there a penalty if you don’t take the full draw

you no offense?

No, there’s no okay.

No, okay, great. Okay. And then you guys are managing the whole project. So you feel like it’s gonna stay on schedule. You got that whole day? That’s where

I micromanage the whole Yeah,

yeah. benefit of having guy like, Steve, he really pushes the schedule, right?

Yeah, Alyssa house, which is huge, because Nick and I know someone who fell way behind where the bank just stopped funding the deal. They had to go to private money to borrow when you’re buying private money on a kind of an infill project where it’s just like foundation poured the interest rate your chart, you’re getting charged a high rate, right. So cool. So you’re driving that whole bit,

but we’re very hands on in our projects from start to finish. I think most investors that go through this, they’ll probably consider hiring a builder instead of doing it themselves. Yeah. It’s It’s intense. And it’s a lot of work and like we talk every day and there’s a lot to do. So even for ourselves, and we’re like, okay, St. Catherine’s, is it worth the drive? You know, Stephen, Andy live in GTA. I’m in Hamilton. Do we want to spend the time to drive all the way to St. Catherine’s do go through a build? Or maybe for ourselves, we’ve even considered for the new project coming up. We we may hire a builder, maybe it was worth it. And why are you okay, driving to St. Catherine’s right now.

Opportunity. It’s an opportunity and

we’re investors. I know we’re talking about development right now. But ultimately, we’re looking for the return

ultimate. I mean, if we could buy in Toronto, we’d probably end up buying in Toronto. But these are the markets were able to purchase these lots in

because they end up on the other side of the GTA now. You’re in Scarborough so you guys are making a trip.

It’s been an hour and a half to full respect man full respect for you. Or

not averse to GTA it’s like for so I’m responsible in the developed side for most of the acquisition and because my networks is I’m born and raised in Hamilton come to the Hamilton it’s in Catherine’s like I could learn other markets but right now that’s kind of our bread and butter.

I tell everyone if you can’t make money directly in your backyard and I don’t mean driving st Catherine’s from a GT I mean like here where you don’t where you going to make money exactly this is your network this you know the ins and outs you know the legal aspects you know the bylaws you know design stuff you know, builders you know bankers you know lawyers like make your money here I find sometimes investors are always thinking the grass is greener somewhere else like you know when I heard you can make a lot of money over there on the East Coast the West Coast down the some state in the US and you absolutely can but you can make money right here

Yeah, exactly.

It’s been now ology to that’s actually allowed us to be a little bit more off site is by having cameras set up to know when the guys are on site.

I saw that time lapse you guys. Super cool. Yeah. Just like nest cameras just

got it. Currently. We have a setup on the neighbor across the street he let us plug it in he let us connect to the Wi Fi

I’m sure he did either because he wanted he liked that you guys would he likes the project yeah

right but it allows us to know when people are on site or when they’re off site did this get done or what God does

the live view through the mess Exactly.

So now there’s some nitty gritty stuff you might not be able to see on that camera but for to save you that our trip for just to know whether or not the plumber showed up. We can tell within the look on our phone.

Where were you guys going to take this

like what’s what’s up with you guys? Where is this going to

head? What do you think Matt? Me out the next five or 10 years do you have a plan? Are you just letting it happen organically you’re all looking at each other shifty. I right.

We keep buying opportunities. So there’s a lot of work in the pipeline.

Yeah, so and there’s no shortage of demand. We haven’t talked about the GTA the fundamentals of the

GTA, but there’s no shortage we see we see the opportunities just within GTA like you said, you know, in our backyards, right with the with the popular Hundred 50,000 people moving into Ontario, the greenbelt. So the opportunities are an intensification they are infill. So the way we see it and where we want to be in the next 10 years is really just doing the work in the projects right here in the GTA, whether it’s Hamilton, whether it’s Niagara, whether it’s the GTA, we want to do those. And then at the same time, we want to educate other people to do it. And it’s not that, you know, we’re bringing people and we’re bringing competition, we feel that the more people that are going to do it, it becomes more of a paradigm shift from the status quo. So the more people that are going to say, I’m going to do this lots of fronts and build two lots, we’re going to get less resistance from the cities we’re going to get less resistance from neighbors and and then I think it’s just going to be better for you know, all of the people that need to live in in a place because we need we need the housing.

Yeah, yeah, I’m going to sound like a broken record. But guys, that’s what makes you so cool is that you’re willing to share this information that you’re sharing now that you have an abundance mentality. So many people that we meet are, you know, they’re they’re scarce with their knowledge, sharing their scarce with what their what they think is possible for their lives, and I just think the world and all of wristers man just look like a Charles, I think you said it earlier. There’s opportunity. You’re tripping over opportunity down this everybody’s everywhere. And I think for whatever reason I’ve been fortunate where Nick and I are my our mindsets. I’ve always been like that. I guess I have to thank my parents for that. But I’m learning that a whole bunch of people really need to be told that. So to hear your story of like, you guys are finding opportunity everywhere. If you’re listening to this, just remember, there’s opportunity at your fingertips. I remember when I was driving in my corporate job eastbound on the 40322 when I was working at NetSuite, and I was telling the guy that I was in the car with him, like all the money’s that way and by the way, I grew up in Mississauga, I was pointing to Hamilton. I’m like, why am I driving eastbound and bumper to bumper traffic, all the money’s in that way. And it was, you know, and the lanes going down. We were clear, like nobody was going that way. And I remember thinking this is all wrong. Because Nick and I already own rental properties in Hamilton, and I’m like, I’m doing everything wrong. I’m going with glasses like and we live by this principle that if we do what everyone else is doing it’s always wrong. Yeah. So like, if I look around and everyone else is doing something, I’m

always I’m 100% I think it’s a great way to, you know,

yeah. And this was like the perfect physical illustration and representation of that I was in the bumper to bumper traffic with everybody else. I’m like, this is all wrong. It finally drove me crazy. I think it took me like two years of going crazy. So that’s when I just gave up and I’m like, I’m quitting. I’m out of here. And then to your your point, Steve, I quit. I know, you’re thinking of it. I quit, you know, with a mortgage on my house for a 10 month old daughter and a four year old son and my spouse was not working. I was well, well into a six figure salary. But for me, it was risk. Just like you guys have. For me. It was risk mitigation. And my risk mitigation was Nick and I didn’t think of the development angle if we did this, we could have been in a whole different situation. We thought of using the real estate licenses that we got to basically bypass realtors. Truth be told, right now we have a brokerage. It’s all but but but we thought if we can learn how to Get a customer for ourselves with no dependence on anyone else, no referrals, nothing, we can learn that our risk is reduced. And then that’s that became the study of like marketing and sales and the whole thing. And we reduce that risk low enough that we thought, Okay, I think we have a handle on this. Let’s pull us at your So when you’re looking to pull the trigger, if you ever gotten if you want to talk about this or not Steve, but if you’re ever looking about going full time into this kind of stuff, you just want to look at like, Hey, what’s our pipeline of business? How much is coming down the pipe? How am I going to replenish that pipeline of projects where the buyers for the properties I’m building, once you cross all those things off the list? It’s really not that big of a deal, right? Like we going on your own. It’s not that big of a deal. And it’s awesome. I’ll tell you, it’s awesome. I don’t have to ask anyone to go on vacation. I can go away. I can work as hard as I want. I can. I can drink tequila. Yeah, we can drink tequila. Yeah,

I see the directory going that way.

Yeah, again, not trying to force you to quit your job, by the way. I just mean it’s really just risk analysis. Entrepreneurs are actually risk averse like when Charles is talking about he goes on feel but he’s he also is trusting your opinions on stuff. And if I know Charles he thinks he already knows the answer. I know I’m right but you guys just crunch your numbers and dumb but he’s also mitigating his risk right he’s reducing the risk where possible so it’s not like you’re jumping into the unknown Yep. Right You have to break out what your your factor what the things are important to you are and see if you can kind of reduce that risk right for me it was the ability to get a customer if I could, if I could figure out how to do that and I figured out the rest Yeah, I’ll figure out the rest like it’s real estate we’ve been done done this a long time you by the I feel like you guys like not on development but on rental properties for like, I close my eyes. Just touch the side of a wall blindfolded and say okay, what city I’m in. What what price point is it okay, yeah, by, you know what I

joined Rockstar, like three and a half, four years ago with that feeling. And now I’m sitting here in this office.

Yeah, cool. Awesome. And

then it’s cool to have your easy path. I been on?

Yeah. And you know what? Yeah, we feel grateful man. So, so what? Tell me what you guys are up to now because I know you’re doing something pretty cool that I’ve never heard of before. But you guys are going to do something? Yeah, around this.

Yeah. So before I get into that, we talked about a lot of those tools that you can access for free. So we actually have a report a tools guide on our website. So those six or seven things like the Google pro or Google Earth, and a bunch of other kind of maps and tools and things like that you can use for free online, we have those things listed. So you can download that report on our website. Okay,

and I’ll link to that too. So what’s the URL for that? infill developments, calm? Okay, infill developments. calm. Yeah. infill two L’s on two L’s. Yeah. Phil, thank you.

developments within sci fi calm and you can just download that for free. And in that, yeah, we have a we have a training coming up. At the end of May.

This is the first time you guys are doing this right first time. So what’s your

story? What’s happening? We

just had a lot of people asking about this strategy. They’ve seen our success and we keep telling People, hey, this is something you can do. So we’re just kind of trying to avoid telling 100 people individually, let’s gather them up in one room and let’s share what we know.

Okay, so we’re going to be doing a full weekend bootcamp in depth thing of everything that we’ve learned in the past several years in development, infill development, home building, purpose, built second suites going through the whole process, running the pro formas one of the big things that people get is they get a lot of offers from realtors, to say, you know, you can you can buy this piece of land and it will cost you $200. And, excuse me, $200 a square foot. And you know, this is sort of the back back of the envelope calculation. And then what we do is, you know, we’ll run the proform and say, Well, this is this is the cost for site servicing. This is the cost for urban planner fee. This is development costs. Based on the numbers You’re giving me, we’re going to lose $200,000 on this project. So then we want to teach people the ways so that you can analyze those performers accurately so that you can make educated decisions when you’re when you’re gonna buy the property, how much it’s worth based on the risk. So we’re going to cover all that sort of stuff, how to unlock potentially 10s or hundreds of thousand dollars on land you currently own. And if you’re going to be buying them what sort of things to look for, to kind of unlock that value? So that’s gonna be part of our training. end of May, May 23, and 24th it’s actually a week after Victoria Day.

I have to I have to say that because as soon as it’s not a

long weekend, yeah, as soon as I say may 2324, they think may two, four, it’s actually the week after May two, four, we’re limiting to 25 people and I think we have seven or eight seats left,

something like that. Okay, and where do you Where can someone go to find information about that? or?

Yeah, so it’s basically right on the website, infill development, development, comm slash training, it’s

training, yes. Okay. And then is there we were talking about it briefly before we started. I don’t know if that was just to off the cuff. Do you have a code or something or no?

Yes, we do. Okay, well, the price there. You’ll see there. We will have a $700 off prices. If you use the code Rockstar, one word, all caps,

okay, so Rockstar one word, all caps gives you a discount on the training. Yes. Oh $700. Okay, cool, awesome. So we’ll link to that was willing to the URL. So if you’re listening to this and you’re driving or something, you can go to Rockstar inner circle calm forward slash podcast, you can find this episode and we’ll have the URLs and the discount code listed there. Correct. So thank you guys for doing that. totally appreciate doing that for listeners. And I think what you guys are doing like it’s hugely valuable information, you’re unlocking like a totally untapped opportunity,

especially for investors, they can totally do it, they might already have the land. The other thing about new builds that investors may not be aware of, is that there’s no rent control. Anything built after November 2018. There’s no rent control, which is a big thing for for real estate investor. And

how did that so how did that impact you guys in St. Catherine’s, when you’re renting? Well,

it hasn’t yet. But like if we if our tenants were to leave then like, or not even bother. Yeah, well, they’re staying Actually, we could we could give them a rent increase and there’d be no limit.

And that’s what’s happening right across the GTA. You I’ve noticed rentals. Well, yeah, and we know tenants who have a great rent somewhere and they’re like we are not leaving. We also have landlords coming to us here are rock stars and Tom, how do I get people out of my property? Because rents are going up so much. I’m like, well, you kind of have to play by the rules, you really can’t get it out of the rule. So this is a this is a good piece of information, right?

You go with market rent based on whatever whatever it is on a new build, you go with market rents, even after year they stay. You can increase I

mean, these new bills they command like premium rents anyways, people love their

nice houses in these decent areas that people want this everything fresh. They want new. Imagine me the retro moving into the new build.

Yeah, totally. Of course. We would love it. Guys. Think anything else we want to be sharing? Cool. Thank you guys, for sure. We didn’t talk about the UFC event that some things don’t need to be discussed. But you know what, thank you for doing this. I’m going to put you guys on the hook to come back again in the next three months, four months, five months, six months. I know your schedules are busy. Come on and share your journey because I think We can all learn from each other in this way. That’s why I like doing this podcast because we can all learn from each other. Even if you’re not ready to do this now, you know, you now know there’s an opportunity out there. And we’re just all doing this together figuring it out. None of us really, I shouldn’t say this, but we all know what we’re doing. But we’re all just kind of learning as we go. Now. That’s the beautiful thing. So guys grateful thank you so much for doing

it. Totally. Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Hey, everyone, it’s Tom crowds again. So hopefully you enjoyed that episode. Those are a bunch of great guys will definitely have them back to chat about all this stuff. Again, we will link out to their URL at Rockstar inner circle calm forward slash podcasts. If you find this episode, the links will be in there, including the code that they shared, which was Rockstar all capital letters. So if you’re looking for their link, you can get it at Rockstar inner circle.com forward slash podcast find their episode it’ll be linked for you there. And if you are looking for some real estate information for yourself to better understand the real estate market. Our newest report is available at Rockstar Inner Circle comm forward slash reports. So that’s Rockstar inner circle, calm forward slash reports, or go right to our homepage and hit the reports button and you’ll find it there. It’s the four key factors every investor should know to understand where the real estate market is headed, that’s now available for you. You can download it as a PDF off that website. Thank you so much for listening. If you’ve given us a rating on iTunes, we really appreciate or anywhere that you’re listening to this if you think we’ve earned some good feedback, we would definitely like to ask for it. It’s kind of the fuel that keeps us going with this kind of thing. So thank you to everyone who has done that. If you think we’ve earned it, and we can ask for that from you. We that would be greatly appreciated. That’s it for now. Until next time, remember, always be living life on your terms.