The Commercial Real Estate Podcast

I use daily affirmations to enlarge my horizonI use daily affirmations to influence my mood and my mindsetI put myself in a frame of mind that is positive, welcomes difficulties as opportunities to grow, learn and become a better business manI frame the difficult projects I am dealing with in terms of I will overcome/succeed to remove the doubts in my mind and help me pull throughTo change the way I think, influence my thoughts, which in turn influence everything in my personal ecosystem

received:  | from a book, buy in job growth area | be customer centered in bizlife is not a dress rehearsal: make sure you have fun along the way | given: take an hour to answer triggering messages | 

their relationship with money: chill, not anxious about itwaits for checkins, doesn't reach out all the time, sticks to timeline of updates providedbusy professional who has good insights when asked and a good business acumensimilar values: not just about money but also people, communities, giving back

Not many people know what a real estate investor isPart I like least is landlord aspect so I don't discuss itI enjoy finding deals, negotiating, coming up with a business planI don't really take investors' money so I don't try to talk about what I doI am a little more excited now to talk about what I do since it has to do with development and affordable housing

The biggest mindset shift for me was moving away from secure government job to real estate investingI remember wanting to work as a civil servant for the French government, ideally at university level, job security, vacations and pay cutwhen I purchased my first property, took some mindset shift. I educated myself but also spent some time in prayer and meditation to prepare myself pssychologically for the shiftI went all in: property was 3 hour flight away in a different province, with a 1.5 hour car ride, first investment was a fourplex, put in all I had with funds for roof and 3 window renovationstoday when I want to enlarge my horizon, I use affirmations, which will be the topic of next month's episode

start off small with a simple repairincrease to bigger jobsget a contract before doing larger jobsdon't micro manage

I get that feeling sometimes, have a lot of irons in the firebreak it down! Technique I used to use as a teacher with my studentsmake a list and assign importance numbers and look at what absolutely needs to get doneotherwise make sure the important stuff doesn't get forgotten because of the whirlwind, see The Four Disciplines of Execution by by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling

Discussion about hiring a VA: create list of tasks, explained through videos and get VA to do the tasksWill allow you to scale and focus on the important tasks, decisions making, you delegate the actual work so you can focus on the business itself, working on and not in the businessVA: stay at home parent, hired for several hours a week or from a foreign countryalso to make time to experience and enjoy life, great resource: The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

Limiting beliefs - price of real estate I would look at | it takes the same amount of effort: underwriting, due diligence, capital raise: you can bring on partners for the raise | legal fees are similar | easier to manage: elect a tenant superintendant, bring in PM company, 1 roof, 1 boiler, 1 parking lot to plow | How do you push through: affirmations, take actions: look at bigger deals, surround yourself with greater numbers and create a solid legal and acounting team. | 

Overall content with where I am at and what I have done with my life so farAct faster on some dealsStart with commercial earlierStart meditation earlier to help sharpen my focusTravel more

relationship to the phone: many tools, work: text contractors and email property owners, entertainment, social media and time consuming | system, there are no true emergency where I can do something, the person needed is the contractor and worst case scenario the fire marshal or an ambulance |  | I am available between 2-5pm Mo-Th for non emergenciessometimes I crave the distraction, the stress, it is difficult to understand | 

In this last interview we dive into the portfolio of a local architect - local to South Wester Ontario, Joseph Passa, who work on grass roofs and vertical forests. Nature and construction!

intro = at the core of any business endeavour, any role with responsibilities: you solve problems. It is no different with real estateyou buy problems, problem properties in CRE and residential: vacancy, under market rents and your business plan describes how you will be fixing them | I was reprimanding my contractor recently for using the word nightmare. It is not a nightmare, it is a frozen pipe, how do we fix it in a sustainable way so it doesn't ever happen again |  | to solve problems you need an accurate perception of reality, no negativity or negative attitudemindset & positivity of pbs= welcome pbs as opportunities to learn and improve one's skills. Becoming an expert at something means that you have faced and overcome most problems, what LPs look for in GP | 

Glen's guest's idea of a project based on Glen's performance to get the family's buy-inaspiration of leading a life of service: service to the tenants, to the investors...work between 9-5 except emergency: put systems in place, some tenants are just bored

slow and steady wins the race |  |  | qualify for the initial property with your current job |  | Find private lender to continue to grow |  | Refinance with a bank |  | Quit your job once you have replaced your income | syndication |  |  | educate yourself |  | join mastermind groups |  | invest alongside someone else to learn and build a trackrecord |  | talk to people around you that are interested in real estate |  | pull your resources together and take down larger deals as you keep growing | 

100 unit multifamily portfolio and now industrial in Tulsa, OK.

affordable housinghuman: care about people and what they go throughrespect rulesforthcoming when late, we can come up with arrangementempower the people that work with mechallenge of affordable and sustainable housing in Canadian climate that I wish to take on and contribute to

opportunity to improve the property and bring it to markethave enough savings so you don't run out of cashflow with 10-15% vacancyoutrun the competitiontime to schedule viewings: I have systems in place but stay involved in screening: potential property to buy and know what questions to ask when screening a tenantI like to ask tenants what they thought of the unit and how we could improve it and what's next for them

this famous saying: "Your network is your networth"but not only from a materialistic perspective: if you have deals and connections you can find investorsthe more connections you have the more chances you have to find solutions to your problemsyou can use social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, meetups, covid is tough but it makes it eeasier to connect with others from the comfort of your officeI have a housing development project for co-living space so I have google alerts about certain topics - including sustainable housing - I read article daily and connect with the key players mentioned in the articles

invest in a province or state with no rent control to hedge against inflationlow income housing like MHPs is a safe way to investmultifamily and industrial faired well during covidin retail: make it covid/Amazon proof by focusing on neighbourhood services

Atomic habits: add habits to each other or stack them: swim, meditate for 30 min, listen to CRE podcast on the way back and forthsystem with accountability buddy: track 3 things, 1 habit 30 lengths at the pool, 1 professional task and 1 personal taskgratitude list translate goal into daily habits

Growing up in France you would be humiliated for making mistakesin entrepreneurship, failures, mistakes are the most valuable lessonswhen you make mistakes: take full responsibility, full ownership like suggested in the book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink

Real Estate Investing in Canada by Don Campbell published in 2009, found it in the office at workit explained job growth population growth and the 4 seasons of the real estate cycle: recovery, expansion, hyper supply, and recessionthat's how I decided to invest

Dan Sullivan "Who not How" I started delegating the direct interaction to be in charge of my time so I get the messages in the afternoon so I can work uninterrupted in the morningsI am still the one calling the shots and handling the contractors so that I know what's going onTenant are the front row consumers and the clients that need to be looked after and also the ones that can say when something is wrong with the propertyChallenges as a landlord = only exposed to negativity and called upon when things go wrong and not thanked when you fix them, sometimes a sense of entitlementDon't take anything personally - book The 4 Agreements by Don Miguel Ruizcommercial = tenants improve your property, share on the TIs, the tenant improvements

Consumer Price Index | hedges against inflation: gold, real estate |  | equity in a home increase as price of asset increases  | multifamily: shorter leases ie possibility to increase rents | triple net property: increases are passed on to the tenant | Oct 20: 18 year high in Canada at 4.4% | inflation - the rate at which consumer prices rise | correlation between cap rates and interest rates due to NOI keeping up with inflation, source CBRE

Multifamily & Industrial |  | information asymmetry to find deals | Increase in NOI will go way further |  |  | Expand one's horizon: CRE and other asset classes, created a group on fb and on meet up where the focus is on commercial, we have people specializing in all asset types and we talk business and are even thinking of investing together |  |  | 

Me: real estate portfolio, get paid from rent collectionHaven't monetized anything else: coaching, podcast, not really advertised but more present online so people know what I am doing in case real estate is of interest to themStarting to let people in on my deals, syndication: starting small, weekly call with a friend who had the same mentor: how do we move the needle?

BRRR buy renovate rent refinance repeatbuy with high vacancybuy with below market rentsbuy from a seller who didn't maintain the properties well and rehabbuy on a large lot and expand or redevelopbuy a large space and subdivide it into microunits

house hacking to get started in real estate investing: you buy a house and rent out bedrooms in that house so others pay down your mortgage and you live free, building equity and with a property that potentially appreciates in valuebought a house with basement unit but we now use it for family when they come to visit after bad experiences: weed delivered to the home, tenant complained they got a parking ticket and tenant couldn't get incan turn into a nightmare in a pro tenant environment if you have to live and share part of your space with tenants who are not paying or loud. I remember my parents used to rent a room to a student and we would cook for her.

lots of advantages to owning: you build up equity through mortgage pay down and appreciation in Ontario, can refinancing or take a heloc and use the funds to invest, can sell tax feepersonally, if I didn't have a family I may rent so I don't have all the upkeep to do or live in a condo where everything is taken care of for you so I can focus on my passions

With Carina we dive into land development: buying, rezoning to best and highest use and selling.

ocean of free and great resources out there: books, podcast, lots of thought leaders make knowledge available for freelimiting beliefs: think big, delegate, partner up instead of thinking small, proverb: alone we go faster, together we go furtherlack of knowledge is a big hurdle but with democratization of knowledge it is becoming easierdiscipline of saving for a downpayment (Wealthy Barber: pay yourself first), nice to own your own real estatefinancing: be creative with financing, do a few deals on your own and then talk about it with others who are interested in real estate to grow togetherhouse hacking, house flipping, BRRR strategyFind someone who is 1 year ahead of you and ask them for advice

be diligent, download an exhaustive DD checklist online and read all you need to read on the matter, CRE can be demanding with lease agreements but be thorough and look at the small print |  | what to look for = rent bumps, who pays for what, when is it renewing which will determine financing | get quotes from reputable contractors on the structural elements of the buildings + inspection, phase 1, bills, for a roof the inspector needs to walk it, not enough to use a dronelonger DD time to assess demand for the asset and test drive a property, be creative: local FB groups... | 

Respond versus reacting - wait before answering, moved to email system that allows schedule sendBe a serving leaderNever blame, refrain from using pronoun "you", everOpposite of negative thought is complete ownership

Real estate developer, author and mentor, Darcy Marler tells us about the next big thing in Canada: land development.

Second mortgage, recommendation to not approach with this right away you would lose credibility otherwise, I wouldn't look down on people who get second mortgages, better to invest some moneyBecomes easier the more you do it and invest either in a specific area or gain experience investing in an asset class"Creative financing", where numbers meet imaginationimportant to show you know what you are doing, helps to have a plan, a vision

moving forward with the end in mind: proper set up by consulting with lawyer and accountantwhat will my legacy be, how do I want to be remembereda newspaper article talking about me in the third person as an exercise to start with the end in mind

entrepreneurs tend to have lots of ideas and can be scattereda good entrepreneur is not someone who has a great idea but someone who executes well or surrounds him or herself with a team to execute welltools to stay focused:FocusmateDaily accountability coachAccountability partners for different projects: sponsor / MHP development / business growth / improve by being a mentor myself and helping someone else

$10kinvest in your education/training, take a course or hire a mentor, somebody who has walked the walk or is still walking it and sharpen your skills, network and find partners. More creative and more self-reliant: live off the $10k and work full time on your skills: look at deals in the morning, listen to podcast in the afternoon, read books at night. Pick a niche and become an expert, go to all networking events$50kbuy your first property and do some BRRRs on single family housings, turn it into a business, grow your capital base /or/ invest as an LP in someone else's deal, someone with experience to learn and watch your capital grow$100kEducate yourself, network, get a mentor, join a mastermind on real estate and do a BRRR in an asset class (buy a problem, multifamily is the most common one) and an area you have researched, scale in that area$1MSpend some money on legal and accounting to set up the proper structure, invest with someone else as an LP then invest in your own deals once you feel more confident and keep growing, leverage, create your own portfolio of properties: some value-add opportunities and hold for the long term for next generations if this is your goal

2 scenarios 1. enough for a downpayment  - research a market where the numbers make sense with job and population growth - BRRR strategy: purchase a problem/value-add, refi and repeat to slowly grow a portfolio 2. not enough for a downpayment - sharpen your skills: listen to podcasts, look at deals daily, make connections with real estate agents so they include you on their mailing list, network- find a partner: you bring the deal, sweat equity and partner on a deal: JV or other structure, get started and do a few deals that way, this will allow you to grow a capital base - better to have a small piece of something than nothing

make sure it is not a one horse townprivate sector has more jobs than public sectorgood place to start a portfolio but usually not very liquid so may be difficult to exit unless you refinance until you liquidate at the end of your investment career, accept to be creative

Logan from the True Commercial Mastermind is great at it and I learned a lot from himI was cold calling tenants to figure out phone number from landlord, soft touchcold called landlord, spoke a lot about myself and asked for authorization to call back in a year or 2Friendly calls around the holidays

red flags: want to move in right away, don't want to see the unit, mentions cash now, wants to barter, confusing information, not a good fit: too many people for the size of the unit |  |  | 3 questions: when are you looking to move, who would be living with you, where do you work |  |  | 3 step process: email then phone: try to have a long conversation, then check on Facebook and social media |  |  | references: former landlord and current employer, I have had some fake landlords who sounded more like friends so I asked some targeted questions, figure out if they paid on time and how they kept the place |  |  |  |  | employer: number of hours worked a week, how long in the position, job title and planning to keep them? | 

Key: I love holding others accountableWith no boss, being self-propelled = define your own objectives, plan to attain them and need assistance staying on track Translation = translate larger goals (quarter) into daily actionsEnjoy being held accountable: daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly even if I only do it the day prior or the day of