Happy belated International Women’s Day! Shout out to all the lady investors, especially the moms, and even more so the single moms. I believe the women of real estate to be so awesome that I wrote a poem on the subject. For the first time ever on the Truth About Real Estate Investing, here we go:
In realms of brick and mortar, where dreams are built and sold,
A story of empowerment and courage does unfold.
On International Women’s Day, we raise our voice in cheer,
For the women leading boldly, year after valiant year.
Among my clients, women shine, their vision clear and bright,
Driving investments forward, with insight and foresight.
Husbands, too, in whispers confess, their admiration pure,
“The growth of our net worth,” they say, “Her genius did ensure.”
To the wives, the pillars strong, upon which futures stand,
Who with a keen eye for value, navigate the land.
Their wisdom in selecting, the right property to seize,
Shapes the fabric of success, with remarkable ease.
And let us not forget, the single mothers’ might,
Juggling life’s many roles, through day and into night.
Their resilience astounding, a beacon so profound,
In them, a well of strength and love, abundantly is found.
So here’s to you, the women, in real estate who thrive,
Your influence is boundless, helping dreams to come alive.
On this International Women’s Day, your praises we sing loud,
For in the dance of progress, you stand both strong and proud.
Your journey with these heroes, in transactions large and small,
Reveals the true essence of empowerment for all.
To every woman navigating the path of wealth and home,
May you always be celebrated, and never feel alone.
On a personal note: we spent the week of March Break up north skiing, sort of. Cherry’s injured so she worked in the chalet the whole time. I skied half the time as the ski hill is on the smaller side which is perfect for my kids. Shout out to Hidden Valley Highlands Ski camp for training and entertaining the kids. I can’t recommend it enough to any parent who wants their kids to be able to ski.
We do live in Canada hence I believe life skills include swimming, skating, and skiing. Intermediate levels are fine. I just want the kids to be safe when they’re playing with their friends. Our family friends’ teenagers has their school ski day was cut short as too many kids were getting concussions crashing into fences or trees.
I’m a hyper, over protective parent hence I’m planning ahead.
Speaking of planning ahead, I have a enough clients with adult kids where the adult kids want nothing to do with the family business or real estate investing. Vs what kids would say no to an inheritance of stocks like Microsoft and Apple.
My point is, to increase the probability of my kids wanting to learn and be investors, they’ll need something more passive than what real estate investors are doing locally to manage their portfolios.
Take Airbnb for example, earlier this week Cherry just had our worst experience with a property we booked through Airbnb.
The heat was off when we arrived so the house was freezing. Not a good first impression. No welcome email with instructions on how to operate the house, no manuals inside the house either.
I spoke to the owner’s father and he was able to walk me through how to turn on the propane furnace that was outside of the house. Even with the heat on, the radiators on the main floor and in the bedrooms weren’t heating up which stressed me out.
A fluorescent ceiling light was loose and was drooping down from it’s mount, half the closet doors were off their railings, the wood fireplace hadn’t been cleaned, the owner didn’t know how to open the flue so we weren’t going to use it.
Then at bedtime when checking the beds, two pillows, the kind for resting your head on when sleeping. They smelled like bad body odour. Some bed sheets had old blood stains. My pillow was wet so I grabbed a folded, white pillow case from the laundry room next to the folded towels and it was yellowed from out don’t know what use.
The neglect of this short term rental is as bad as I’m seen. The worst in my experience. How are we expected to relax with all these problems?
The owner came by to check on us. Her standards for operating a short rental prices at $500 per night are below mine.
We decided to cut our losses short, we didn’t feel comfortable. Once Airbnb agreed to let us cancel the remainder of the reservation but only a reduction of 30% for the terrible first day. We packed up the house which went from 15 degrees when we arrived to 26 degrees in 24 hours. The owner warned us there was no way to control the temperature hence the guests who left before we arrived shut off the furnace, I was instructed to regulate the temperature in the house by opening windows…. What a waste of propane and lack of client care.
So we packed up the house while the kids were in ski camp as the cleaner showed up to give us grief for not leaving sooner. Like it was our fault the house was gross, too hot, not maintained causing us to leave.
We drove 10 mins down the road and the view of a massive, beautiful custom home on a massive lot backing onto a pond was better than the pictures. We’ve had a wonderful remainder to our March Break. We can’t wait till next year when we upgrade to a bigger resort like Mt. St Louis, Blue Mountain or Holiday Valley. Assuming there is snow…
We hit the jackpot. An added bonus, we saved $1,700 for making the switch, though I still think our one night stay at the S-hole should have been free.
My point is, I couldn’t do what the first Airbnb owner did. Have to deal w customer complaint calls and Airbnb while the owner is probably making good money as her experience for lack of maintenance was due to the place always being booked. But to operate a like that, you have to not care about customer experience, argue with customers, and be fine as the slumlord of short term rentals. I know my kids wouldn’t do it.
Hence I choose to outsource all management of my real estate investments going forward. The heavy lifting is my due diligence which I’ve had a blast doing because I’m a real estate geek. The latest on my research is I’ve found the rental listings of one of the largest REITs in the US.
As the saying goes: R&D stands for rip off and duplicate. I have the rental listings, their addresses, pictures, I can look up what they paid and when.
Combine that with the public information of the billion dollar investments by Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments, LG, Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, TSMC, GM, Siemens, Tesla, all in the business and landlord friendly southern US States nicknamed the Battery Belt for all the green, electric, and battery manufacturing investments… all of the locations are just outside major centers like Columbus, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; Raleigh, North Carolina, Dallas and Austin Texas, etc…, all cities growing in population and identified as among the best cities for investment in the USA. So my plan is to buy houses in between the major centre and the new manufacturing company being built that will employ thousands of manufacturing employees.
I’ve mapped the new major employers out on google maps, I know my target neighborhoods, investment criteria, and I’ve partnered with SHARE the asset manager to be my one stop shop. I’ll pay them their fees to do all the landlord duties and I get to keep 100% control and 100% of the equity, this is the best joint venture setup I’ve personally seen.
If you too would like to learn how Cherry, my clients and I are investing in the USA we are hosting a How to Invest in the USA Workshop Saturday morning April 13th, we have experts in all areas including Accounting structures, Financing, Acquisitions and Management.
Note that we are keeping our investing simple and boring and only discussing single family houses at the workshop because they’re affordable: $100,000-350,000 and I can get better cap rates between 5 and 7% which beat pretty much anything here in Canada when adjusted for risk.
Link to register: https://USAworkshop.eventbrite.ca
Tom Karadza, co-founder of Rock Star R.E. on Coaching 1000+ members to Success
On to this week’s show!
On today’s show, we have one of my mentors and brokers in Tom Karadza, co-founder of Rock Star Real Estate Brokerage, Inc who in my experience is one of the best leaders and influencers in our community. If results are what matters to you like they do for me, Rock Star’s 1000+ members are well educated in investing and are among the most successful especially after you adjust for risk. No get rich quick schemes at Rock Star.
On today’s show Tom and discuss how Rock Star members have weathered the current storm, how the pandemic ruined my bitcoin gains, while Tom is laughing all the way to the bank… does that saying work when referring to Bitcoin gains?
Anyways, Tom and his brother Nick Karadza are hosting the next Your Life, Your Terms event live and in person Saturday April 6th at the International Centre near Pearson Airport.
This is likely the largest room, 1000+ attendees expected, or successful, action takers you’ve ever met where the talks are fresh, no repeats allowed, Cherry will have a booth, I’ll be networking wearing a USA Hockey jersey. If you’re a client, I have some pull so you can save the hundreds of dollars on tickets, everyone else, details and link to register in the show notes: https://www.yourlifeyourtermsevent.com/
To Listen:
** Transcript Auto-Generated**
(00:00) hello and welcome to the truth about real estate investing show my name is Erwin Szeto and I want to say Happy Belated International women’s day oddly enough uh International history of women’s month is celebrated in October in Canada versus uh the west of Russell World celebrates it in March so happy in happy women’s History Month to everyone not from Canada anyways I want to shout out all the lady investors especially the moms and even more so the single moms out there uh I believe the women of real estate are incredibly awesome I
(00:33) happen to be married to one and I wrote a poem on the subject uh from from my own experience of working with uh I’ve shared before about half my clients are women including the married couple uh half the time the wife is the driving partner of that relationship so for the first time ever on the truth about real estate investing show I’m going to read you a poem in the Realms of brick and motor where dreams are built and sold a story of empowerment encourage dozen fold on International women’s day we raise our
(01:03) voice in cheer the women leading boldly year after Valiant year among my clients women shine their Vision clear and bright during Investments forward driving Investments forward with insight and foresight husbands too in Whispers confess their admiration pure their growth of our net worth they say her genius did ensure to the wives and pillars strong upon which Futures stand with who with a Keen Eye for Value navigate the land their wisdom in selecting the right property to seize shapes the fabric of success with
(01:35) remarkable ease and let us not forget the Single mother’s might juggling life’s many roles through through day and night the resilience of astounding a beacon so profound in them a well of strength and love abundantly is found so here’s to you the women in real estate who Thrive your influence is boundless helping dreams to come alive on this International women’s day your Praises we sing loud for the dance of progress you stand both strong and proud your freedom with these heroes in transactions large and small reveals the
(02:07) true essence of empowerment of all to Every Woman navigating the path of wealth and home may you always be celebrated and never feel alone again shout out to to uh all the women in real estate investing on a personal note U my family and I including my Superstar wife Cherry we spent the week of March break up north skiing sort of uh Cherry’s got a banged at me so she worked in the Chalet pretty much the whole time while I skied half the time as the ski the ski hill it’s a it’s huntsville’s uh Hidden Valley
(02:39) Highland ski uh so it’s bit on the smaller side but it’s perfect for kids I want to shout out to uh again Hidden Valley Highland ski camp for entertaining my kids and for training them I can’t recommend it enough for any parent who wants their kids to to learn how to ski so we’ve been doing this about at least three years now where our kids spend both the Christmas holiday break and March break in ski Camp uh we do live in Canada hence I believe the life skills for a Canadian include swimming skating and skiing intermediate
(03:12) levels are just fine I just want my level kids to be safe when they’re playing with their friends uh our family friends uh their teenagers actually had their ski school day cut short as too many kids were getting concussions from crashing into fences or trees so that’s not for what I want for my kids hence uh I’m planning ahead speaking of planning I have enough clients with adult kids where their kids want nothing to do with the family business or the real estate portfolio versus what kid would say no
(03:42) to an inheritance of stock like apple or or Microsoft my point is to increase the probability of my kids wanting to learn to and be investors the need something a bit more easy a bit more passive than what Real Estate Investors are going through uh locally to manage their own port uh take Airbnb for example earlier this week cherry and I had our worst experience with the property that we booked through Airbnb uh when we showed up this is this is for our March break so when we showed up the heat was off so we when we arrived the house was
(04:14) freezing and the thermostats weren’t doing anything not a good first impression uh there was no welcome email with instructions on how to operate the house no manuals inside the house either uh so we called and I spoke to the owner’s father and he was able to walk me through how to turn the propane furnace on that was outside the house so that was the first for me I’ve never seen a furnace outside the house before but even with the heat on uh the radiators on the main floor and in the main floor bedrooms they weren’t heating
(04:41) up and that’s where I was sleeping so that’s concerning to me uh there was also a fluorescent light in the basement that was a ceiling light that was loose and it was drooping down from its Mount I’ve never seen that before uh half the closet doors were off the railings the wood fireplace hadn’t been cleaned uh the owner and the cleaner who came by to clean it up after we reported it they didn’t know how to operate it or how how to open the flu so we had no plan B either then at bedtime as we were
(05:09) getting ready to go to bed uh we actually looked at the beds and we found two bed pillows that uh the kind that you’re supposed to you know rest your head on when you’re sleeping they smell like bad body odor pretty gross some of the best then so then we looked closer pulled back some of the sheets and then we found we pulled back some blankets and we found some bed sheets that had old blood stains on them uh my pillow was wet to the touch uh so I just tossed it on the floor I wasn’t so lucky even when I went to go
(05:41) find a clean pillowcase as the next one I found was yellow U this is hardly a good experience the neglect of the short-term rental is as bad as I’ve seen the worst in my experience and uh how are how is anyone expected to relax with these sort of problems going on uh the owner did come by to check on us in the afternoon uh in her standards for operating a short-term rental with prices at $500 per night are well below my own uh and who do I criticize apparently she’s making the money hangover our fist um anyways we decided
(06:12) to cut our losses short we didn’t feel comfortable uh once Airbnb agreed agreed to cancel the remainder of our reservation uh but unfortunately we only got 30% reduction on that terrible terrible first day uh that that was the decision of the owner I don’t believe that was airbnb’s call to make anyways we pack up the house and uh mind you when I when we showed up at the house when we first checked in when the heat was off it was only 15 degrees inside according to the thermostats which seemed accurate and when we when we
(06:42) arrived to pack up the house it was 26 degrees it was only 24 only 24 hours that passed the owner had warned us there was no way to control the temperature inside the house and I’d gone through and and set the temperature at like 21 22 degrees on all the thermostats I could find yet yeah yet the uh the furnace was just on a runaway was running away I don’t know what would happen if we stayed any longer so no surprise the previous guests before us who left it before who left before we arrived that’s why they
(07:14) shut off the furnace and the owner instructed me to regulate the temperature inside the house was by opening Windows in the middle of early March there’s still it’s it’s a warm March but it’s still like cold outside what a waste of propane and lack of client care anyways so we packed up the house while the kids were in ski Camp uh a cleaner showed up and gave us grief for not leaving earlier uh like it was our fault the house is gross and that’s why we’re leaving and it was also too hot uh we
(07:43) drove 15 sorry 10 minutes down the road as we booked another airBNB uh and we were greeted with a beautiful custom home Mansion uh well there’s probably 4,000 I think it was about 4,000 square feet on a massive lot backing onto a pond it was even better than the pictures uh we had a wonderful remainder of our March break after our very bumpy start uh we honestly can’t wait to go Wai in next year uh while my kids are my kids are old enough now they don’t need to be in Camp anymore so yeah we hit the
(08:15) jackpot with that property uh with an added bonus we saved $1,700 for making the switch though I still think that first night’s day at that crap hole should have been free uh my point is I couldn’t do what the Airbnb owner did have to deal with customer complaint calls and deal with Airbnb uh and again the owner is likely making really good money um and her experience was that you know lack of Maintenance was perfectly fine she’s still making money hand over fist U she actually said she couldn’t take
(08:45) care of Maintenance because the place was always booked she never thought to you know block off some time so you can get some work done no um but to operate a business like that and not care about customer experience and argue with customers and be fine with being a SL Lord of short-term rentals uh I know my kids wouldn’t do it and I wouldn’t I definitely wouldn’t do it either hence I choose to Outsource all my management on my real estate Investments going forward uh all the heavy lifting it all the heavy lifting
(09:15) that I have to do for investing in in the states is my my due diligence and honestly I’ve had a blast doing it because I’m a real estate geek and I enjoy travel so I can’t wait to travel with cherry to Atlanta and Nashville and in between and uh yeah oh and then also recently I I stumbled upon uh trion’s website the rental listings as well so so they’re one of the largest reads larger reads in the states so again uh I’m enjoying what I what’s called in the in the in the industry any industry uh
(09:51) R&D you know most people understand R&D as being uh research and development uh I I Al it’s also known as ripoff duplicate so I have the rental listings of Trion which is uh and they own 36 or 38,000 single family homes in the states so I have the rental listings I have their addresses and pictures so I can look up what they paid for and when so anyways combine that with public knowledge of the billion dollar Investments being made by Intel Samsung T Texas Instruments LG Honda Toyota hyundai Tesla all in
(10:29) business friend friend L landlord uh landlord business landlord friendly Southern USA and it’s actually nicknamed the battery belt for their green electric and Battery manufacturing Investments all the locations are just outside major centers like Columbus Ohio Atlanta Georgia I know Columbus is a little bit on the Northern side but they’re they’re one of the anomalies of being landlord friendly in the north uh Rally North Carolina Dallas and Austin Texas these are all CI cities with growing population and growing economies
(11:00) and identified as among the best cities for investment in the USA so my plan is very simple I’m going to buy hoses in between these major centers and the new manufacturing companies being built that will employ thousands of manufacturing employees anyways I’ve mapped the new major employers out on Google Maps uh I know my target neighborhoods my investment criteria and I’ve partnered with share the asset manager to be my One-Stop shop to you know find me deals manage the managers Al all sorts of
(11:30) things uh I’ll pay them their fees and they get to do all the landlord duties while I get to keep 100% control and 100% of the equity this is the best joint venture setup I’ve personally ever seen if you two would like to learn how cherry and cherry my clients and I are investing in the USA we are hosting a how to invest in the USA Workshop Saturday morning April 13th we have experts in all areas including accounting accounting legal structures financing Acquisitions and of course management note that we are keeping our
(12:01) investing simple and boring and only discussing single family homes in at the workshop because they’re affordable at the 100 100,000 to $350,000 range and I can get cap rates between 5 and 7% which pretty much beat anything here in Canada when adjusted for risk uh links in the show notes on to this week’s show on today’s show we have one of my mentors in broker uh Tom Tom crit is the broker and Co under Rockstar real estate brokerage where I belong and have been since 2010 uh in my experience they are the best leaders and
(12:36) influencers in the community uh if results are what matters to you like they do for me Rockstar members uh their thousand plus members are very well educated and more importantly they are very successful especially when you adjust for risk no get- rich quick schemes at Rockstar and on today’s show Tom Tom discusses how Rockstar members have weathered the current storm uh spoiler alert it’s been pretty good we talk about how the pandemic ruined my Bitcoin gains while Tom has accumulated more than he will he’s willing to share and
(13:11) he’s laughing all the way to the bank and I I as I say that I I know the R I don’t know if that saying works when you’re talking about Bitcoin and Bank you know what I mean anyways Tom and his brother Nick kader are hosting the next your lifee terms event live and in person Saturday April thir April 6th at the international center near Pearson Airport this is likely the largest room uh a thousand plus attendees are expected uh and and these will be successful action takers uh and uh the talk is always the talks always fresh
(13:46) for example there’s speakers there speakers that they have out that they’ve never had before there’s no repeating content allowed uh cherio will have a brand new presentation and she’ll have a booth there as well I’ll be there of course networking I’ll be wearing my USA hockey jersey if you’re a client of mine uh and I do know someone who knows someone so I can save you the couple hundred bucks on tickets uh and for everyone else I have Link in the I have link and details and the link to
(14:15) register is in the show notes uh URL Fe if you have a pen handy it’s www.yourlifeyourtermsevent.com please enjoy the show hi Tom what’s keeping you busy these days I was just thinking about when I first met you and you decided you were going to get into real estate and for whatever reason I think it was a Greek restaurant in Burlington we had lunch was that where it was and uh Nick was saying something to me like you know we got to sit down with this guy Irwin he’s thinking of leaving his job and going
(14:52) into real estate and real estate investing full-time I’m like okay you know let’s go and uh Greek food I love so that wasn’t easy sell and I remember sitting down across and and I thought okay this guy’s pretty crazy like us so he kind of fits because uh he wants to quit his job I remember it was a decent job what was it I I worked for a company that was acquired by IBM okay yeah so you were you like a data analyst or something I was in product management so it was it was a nice position for me
(15:21) because uh my workers highly respected I worked between like clients and internal clients to help design product that would deliver what they wanted so I kind of like that intermediary between clients internal clients in our development staff and why what was what had gotten into you why did you want to quit again I forget I I always want to get rich in life it was always my always in me that just my nature I always want to be rich and after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad I realized it was not going to happen while working a job got it and you
(15:50) wanted to be rich and how do you define that rich in time rich in money Rich money I was young more money than marrier got it I was not even a point where like I didn’t want kids because they just getting the way of having makeing more money that was my mindset back then got it got it um I think I just watched is it true I watched something it was like a a Chinese comedian sing for New Year’s yeah I was talking to Tim about this briefly and is this is this a real thing so you don’t say Happy New Year to you
(16:22) know in on the Chinese New Year it’s not customed to say Happy New Year you say I hope you get rich it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s a loaded thing but it’s also rich in what though money Health okay so it means I wish you wealth in all facets of wealth yes okay okay he’s he’s taking the Liberty but yes but you know but again like generally Asians priority is money yeah yeah you get it like it’s po it was a historically very poor culture sure so like you know no money no eating
(16:51) right so you know you know you know croatians are have similar background as well you don’t have money you don’t you’re not eating yeah yeah I remember just the way my family I think would try to show wealth would be they had nothing so if you went to visit and this would be my family in Croatia they would put any P they had any cheese they had out any bread in an abundant way to kind of show that they were welcoming you to the house and to show you that they had something to offer you and they had no
(17:19) real Financial wealth but that was the way they kind of tried to show that they were welcoming you you know putting some food on the table Yeah weird times lots of different cultures have different ways to express that but I remember you you told us you were going to quit your job and then you went and did that took a lot of balls man do you looking back at that moment do you are you happy that you did that do you regret doing that uh so I don’t know if you remember it was a long time ago was 2010 we’re talking about I
(17:48) actually went on sabatical for 30 days okay and that’s and I had my license at that point so I give it a go so I give it a go and then I was doing all right right I think I did two or three Deals in that month and then if I extrapolated then that would be more money than I was getting paid at the job and I was enjoying what I was doing I knew that this would help me become a better investor as well so then there was more there’s more wins and also I could keep local right I was living in Burlington at the time so go train downtown you
(18:17) know and it was yeah hard Jam in there everybody was reading the newspaper yeah everyone’s reading the newspaper it’s and especially the ride home is packed like you I almost almost never got a seat so you for that’s usually me cuz I play basketball at work I was that guy but yeah like that was you
