April 22, 2025 • 22 mins
Paul D'Abruzzo shares his remarkable journey from Toronto firefighter to successful real estate investor with a $45 million portfolio built over 15 years through strategic property acquisition and management.
• Balancing firefighting career with family life and real estate investing became unsustainable, leading to a focus on "Return on Lifestyle" (ROL) beyond just ROI
• Learned three key principles during the 2009 financial crisis: passive income streams, real estate investments, and cash flow
• Navigated rising mortgage costs by improving tenant relationships, reevaluating underperforming properties, and enhancing income on existing properties
• Built portfolio success by finding effective strategies and scaling them rather than chasing "shiny objects" or speculative investments
• Recommends starting real estate investing as a side business while maintaining stable employment initially
• Emphasizes the importance of having clear, emotionally meaningful goals and surrounding yourself with experienced mentors
• Advises taking a step-by-step approach: perfect one property before expanding
Download Paul's book about navigating the Canadian real estate market at http://expertinvestoracademy.com/playbook/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's a get-rich-slow kind of game.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast, where we
unlock real estate and businessinsights one question at a time.
Welcome to the 5 QuestionsPodcast.
My name is Mario Lamar, I amthe host of the show and today
(00:27):
our guest on the show is aformer Toronto firefighter who
turned his passion for realestate into a highly successful
investment career.
His journey is one ofresilience and innovation,
showing us how strategicthinking and adaptability can
lead to immense success, even involatile markets.
(00:49):
I present to you Paul D'Abruzzo.
Paul, welcome to the show,welcome, thanks for the great
intro.
Paul, the concept of the podcastis very simple Five questions
about either real estate orbusiness and we get straight to
the point.
You ready, yes, sir.
So, as mentioned in the intro,you transitioned from a stable
(01:14):
career in firefighting to realestate investing.
What inspired that leap andmaybe, how did you prepare
yourself for that change?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, it wasn't easy.
I started investing in realestate 15 years ago, right about
2010, and I was actually justgetting hired to the fire
department at the same time.
Okay, so I mean, I was thefireman and the firefighter for
about a decade and you know wasbuilding my portfolio the whole
time.
You know firefighters like tohave side gigs.
You know a lot of them arepolicemen or carpenters and I
(01:53):
know guys who set up movie setslike crazy stuff and car
mechanics.
And you know my side gig, youcould say, was real estate
investing.
But it grew and you know,thankfully, thank God it grew.
And you know, thankfully, thankGod it grew.
And you know it did well for us.
We worked really hard to grow aportfolio that had a positive
(02:13):
impact on our lifestyle, but wegot to a point where it was
large.
You know large enough that itwas taking up a lot of time.
You know, plus, I needed todedicate myself to becoming, to
being you, to being a goodfirefighter.
Plus, I had a family, a wife,three kids and on top of that,
believe it or not, I had gottenmy real estate license shortly
(02:38):
after I started investing andwas specialized in only working
with other investors, helpingthem acquire more investment
properties, the same way that Iwas doing.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
So I was doing all those things at the same time
and my health started todeteriorate near the end.
Just a lot of stress, too muchwork, not enough hall time.
Something I had to give it waseither give up my family, give
up real estate, give up mybusiness or give up firefighting
.
So it took me about a year ofyou should say healing and to
(03:14):
get the mental clarity tofinally let it go, and I guess I
had to come to the conclusionthat enough was enough, right?
You know, trying to do allthose things at the same time,
although it was getting me aheadfor so many years, was actually
having a negative return on mylifestyle after a certain amount
(03:34):
of time.
So it took me some time torealize that, but that was the
origin of how I started and howI left the fire department.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
This is a great story and sometimes you're right.
You know we try to juggle abunch of different balls at the
same time and sometimes, whenit's too many, we're going to
drop some right.
So it's better to take a stepback and do the things that we
love and the things that bringsus fulfillment, as at the same
(04:06):
time.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
That's right.
Right around that time I coinedthe new term, you know.
After coming to all theseconclusions, we've all heard the
term return on investment, youknow ROI.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So I I coined this term uh, rol, return on
lifestyle, oh yeah.
So what I mean by that is you.
That is, the bigger decisions Imake and the bigger investments
I make have to have a good ROI.
Of course, they have to makemoney, but they also have to
have a good positive impact onmy lifestyle also, and I find
(04:38):
that's something we don't lookat very often and we don't
measure it.
It's easy to say, yes, I'll buythis property and it'll help me
in my retirement later, butthat's not good enough.
We have to dive deeper, andmaybe that's for another podcast
, but the ROL calculation isimportant.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Absolutely.
I want to go to the secondquestion because it's a little
bit interesting.
When you decided to startinvesting in real estate, you
started during the 2009financial crisis, 2009, 2010.
What lessons from that time didyou carry forward into now,
(05:18):
your more recent investments?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, an interesting time.
At the time I was young andstupid.
I, you know, was 23, 24 yearsold.
You know, you're kind of inthat stage you don't know what
you don't know, right?
Yeah, yeah, you haven't, youhaven't even had time to make
mistakes.
So, you know, I was readinglots of books, like I'm sure
many of you have, or you andyour audience has reading lots
(05:46):
of books, like I'm sure many ofyou have, or you and your
audience has.
Excuse me, and, um, I attendeda, a conference in toronto.
It was, uh, you know, hosted byone of these kind of guru,
mastermind kind of guys.
His name is, uh, t t harv ecker.
He wrote this book calledmillionaire mind something, and
then his whole thing was to getyou into this conference and at
(06:07):
this conference he would sellyou like a big ticket conference
somewhere else.
So I remember being young andstupid and, or I guess say,
young and naive, and he wasselling this conference there
called Never Work Again.
You know all about how to buildpassive income streams so you
never have to work again yeah soI attended this conference in
(06:27):
california by myself, um 23years old, and, uh, you know,
quick, quick story.
You know we're there and theydid this.
You know, big energy thing.
You know, like a tony robbinsstyle, get everyone fired up and
then at the end of that they'relike okay, everybody under 30s,
you know, stay standing.
You know, 29, 28, 27, 26, 24,25, and by the time they got to
(06:51):
23, it was me and one other guyin the corner and I'm praying
like, please, buddy, pleasedon't let it be me, right.
So the guy goes 22 and I satdown and the guy, the guy in the
front there was 22 and he gaveme some award.
Anyways, when I was there againyoung and naive, it was just as
the financial crisis wasstarting to happen and they were
(07:13):
talking about it like crazy,right.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
But the one thing I noticed, three things.
One, the people who had passiveincome were okay.
Okay, and how do you getpassive income?
Well, there's a milliondifferent ways, because this
conference had all these things,but I noticed that more than
half of them were somewhat realestate related Rental properties
(07:38):
, buying tax liens, americans,they have all these creative
things mortgages, anyway.
And then the last thing Ilearned was cash flow, and I'd
never heard this word before.
I'm like, well, what the helldoes that mean?
It just stuck in my mind.
When I came home, I was like,okay, passive income, real
estate, cash flow.
You know what I mean.
(08:01):
I guess back to your originalquestion.
The lessons about the financialcrisis came after, after after
it was, after all, the smartpeople had a chance to dissect
it all yeah but in the middle ofit, what made me decide to
invest was those three things.
I figure from all these peoplewho are getting killed, all the
(08:24):
ones who are doing well, we'redoing those three things, and if
I can do those three things,I'll be okay too and that's what
made you continue, that's whatmade me continue to carry
forward till uh, yourinvestments today yeah, I uh, I
mean we pretty boring, I.
(08:45):
You know we started with singlefamily stuff.
We did rent to owns, we didstudent rental, we did smaller
multifamily, we did duplexconversions and larger
multifamily conversions.
We've done development projects, both to sell for profit and to
keep for more rental income andI would say nowadays we're
(09:05):
basically in that small tomedium-sized multifamily range.
We find that's the best bangfor your buck.
It gives you the best of allworlds in terms of investment
and ROL and that's what wecontinue to do.
We've been developing andbuilding our own brand new.
That's where we've kind ofshifted, with some of the
(09:28):
advantages that CMHC and theirprograms offer.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that brings us to a thirdquestion.
And now let's not go back toofar, maybe around three years
ago, Navigating the 2022 surgein mortgage payments.
There must have been achallenge, because you know you
have a lot of properties.
How did you adjust to thoserising costs and still keep the
(09:54):
portfolio growing?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, three things really.
And at the same time as thishappened for me, it's happening
to all the investors that I workwith, I consult with coach you
could say work with more than200 investors here in ontario,
you know helping them acquire,buy, sell and figure out their
portfolios.
So everyone was going throughthis at the same time, yeah.
So I look directly at myselfand I'm saying, okay, if I can
(10:20):
figure this out, then I can helpeverybody else.
I can continue to be valuablefor everyone in my business.
So what we did is, you know,establish or improve
relationships with our currenttenants.
What we didn't want to happenis for them to see us as the
evil landlord Right and createthat rift, and just that
(10:46):
eliminated a lot more risk ofthem not paying or trying to
find clever ways to not pay andusing the system kind of against
us.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Right.
So that was, I don't want tosay an easy one, but an obvious
one.
Number two we had to sort ofrelook at our portfolio and go
through this process of you knowthe same way at the end of the
season, you know you're going topick all the fruit from your
(11:15):
fruit trees and cut off all thedead branches, right, that's
what we had to do to ourportfolio.
We spent, you know, the betterpart of 15 years, basically in
an acquisition phase just buy,buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy.
It was never a reason to sellunless you were selling to go
get something bigger.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Excuse me, but in this stage I mean for for myself
and many other investors we hadwe've had accumulated so much
equity we got to relook at theportfolio and say where are the
spots or the properties that aredoing the best and which ones
are not performing anymore.
So we went through that processand decided to sell a few
(11:54):
properties Some we refinancedand able to put cash on the
table and get rid of someproperties that were just not
cash flowing enough to managethe higher interest bills.
And the third thing we did wasof the properties we were
keeping, which of thoseproperties could we improve to
(12:17):
dramatically increase income?
Which properties could I add abasement apartment?
Which properties could I builda what do you call it a garden
suite?
Which properties had really lowpaying rents, et cetera, et
cetera.
So those three things we did.
We dramatically improved ourportfolio and then used the CMXC
program, which sort of came outat the same time, to continue
(12:39):
to grow and play offense.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's all great points and sometimes, when you're
pushed against a wall, it forcesyou to reevaluate.
It forces you to get out of thecomfort zone of having your
portfolio the way it is, andsometimes we need to reevaluate
what we're doing with ourproperties.
That's right.
(13:04):
That's right.
Fourth question talking about alot of properties, you've
amassed $45 million in assets.
What strategies did youattribute to achieving such an
impressive growth and arelatively short amount of time?
We're talking about 10-ishyears, 10, 12 years.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, I would say about 15 to be fair.
But yeah, at its peak it wasclose to $45 million worth of
assets.
Some of those assets were landassets that had grown
significant value, especially ifyou're under developing
projects.
As you're developing andgetting to the point of
(13:45):
completion, your asset values goreally high If you sell them
the asset of asset, the books,right.
So it's sort of a fluctuatingnumber, but that was our peak,
let's say, and it's really justdoing what works.
How we got there is just to dowhat works and not be distracted
by shiny objects, right, youknow it's okay to speculate.
(14:10):
You know, for example, we Inever really got involved here
in, especially the greatertoronto area, in the whole condo
thing you know, buy it fromreconstruction, sell it later
and yeah and I'm not judging.
I know a lot of guys who mademoney.
Uh, I was in gals who mademoney and you know some people
now are losing money.
So it's a very speculative gameand, although it's profitable
(14:34):
if you do it right, it didn'tfit my ROL calculation.
I can make money, but itdoesn't help me achieve the
goals what kind of goals Iwanted to achieve.
So we found what worked and wejust put it on repeat and, in
order to increase the results,we just did what we did, but did
it bigger instead of one unit,two units instead of two, four
instead of four, eight or 10 or12.
(14:56):
And now we're building, youknow, nine and 10 and 12 units
from scratch.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Right, so yeah, so you know, like you said, there's
a lot of shiny objects outthere, different strategies that
sometimes are good for a shortamount of time and you can make
money or you can lose money.
But using the strategies thathave been working for a long
(15:22):
period of time, like multifamily, this, it might be a more
stable route to choose.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, I, I, I agree, I agree.
I think those who are maybeattracted to the shiny object,
they, they see real estate aslike a a get in, make my money
and get out, kind of you know,venture, you know, whereas me
and I guess the clients that Icoach you know we see it as
(15:50):
building a portfolio thatcontinues to have an impact on
your lifestyle for basicallyforever.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Right.
So very different point of view, I think.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Brings us to our final and last question for
today.
Paul, I want to go back to thebeginning with your unique
background.
You used to be a fireman.
You went to get your realtorlicense.
What advice would you give toanyone looking to transition
from a stable job to real estateinvesting, especially in
(16:24):
today's market?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Like transition to full-time real estate investing.
Yeah Well, I would say, don'tdo it.
I would say, start like I didand you're going to have to
part-time it.
It's got to be your side gigfor a while, unless you've got a
few million dollars to startwith.
But for us, regular folks whoare grinding and have one or two
(16:48):
down payments on this, it'sdefinitely a start.
It's a get-rich-slow kind ofgame.
You're basically playingMonopoly.
You don't win Monopoly untilyou go around the board 40, 50
times.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Right, play monopoly.
You don't win monopoly untilyou go around the board 40, 50
times.
Yeah, yeah, right, so, um,that's what I would recommend is
start slow, get one property,do it right and then try and
find ways to repeat that.
I find a lot of people who aretrying to go, trying to start
and, and and that's their endgoal, like I hate my job, I want
to quit.
Five years.
It's impossible for them tofathom, to see in reality how it
(17:29):
is.
They can do that in five toseven years, but that just
creates confusion in your mind.
I'm a big believer in you know,for lack of a better term
called law of attraction, andyou know, if you're constantly
confused and if you'reconstantly looking at five years
from now and saying, how thehell am I going to do that, like
(17:50):
that's what you're putting outto the universe and that's what
you're going to get back just alot more confusion.
So I tell people, just do oneproperty and do it right, then
let's solve the next problem,then we'll solve the next
problem, then we the nextproblem, then we'll solve the
next problem, then we'll solvethe next problem.
There's nothing wrong withhaving long-term goals, but you
got to get there one step at atime and markets change.
(18:17):
Whatever you plan for now, Imean three years you know,
having a very clear definitionof how you want your portfolio
to benefit you personally isreally important.
You know I want 10 propertiesso I can retire is not enough.
You know, and I'll give you atry and make it a fast example.
(18:41):
I worked with clients, you know,immigrants to Canada.
They were a Filipino couple andwhen I met with them the first
time, you know I typically askthem you know why you want to
invest in real estate and afterseveral times of digging through
it, you know the real thing ontheir heart was they wanted to
help their parents pay off theirmortgage here in Canada because
(19:03):
they were grateful.
Help their parents pay off theirmortgage here in canada,
because they were grateful totheir parents for coming to
canada working like low-payingjobs and working their tails off
to give these kids anopportunity to go to university
and get good jobs and all theywanted to do was help their
parents pay off their mortgageand I was like that's it right
and and having that close totheir heart really motivated
them to get results and theywere able to do it.
(19:27):
So something of that nature hasto be close to you and it helps
you get over all thedifficulties and stress the
nonsense, the things you can'tpredict the toilets and the
tenants, and you know everythingelse.
So, one property at a timestart slow, make it part-time,
have a goal that's close to yourheart and, lastly, you're going
(19:49):
to have to surround yourselfwith people that know what
they're doing and who've beenthere before.
I know it's totally cliche, butI mean, if everybody around you
has one or two properties anddoesn't have what you want, then
you're not going to go anywherevery quickly.
I have my own coaches and I betyou do too.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
That's what I was going to ask you, If you didn't
bring it up.
I was going to ask you howimportant it is to ask for help
if you're just getting started,or ask for coaching.
How is that important forsomebody to do real estate
full-time?
Speaker 1 (20:26):
I think it makes or breaks people.
I mean, my cheesy line isthere's no I in real estate,
right?
You literally can't spell theword real estate with the letter
I.
Like it's a team sport, likeyou can't do it by yourself, no
matter how much you try, right?
And I'm not saying you need apartner, you know, as in someone
who's working with you everyday, but it's, you know, real
(20:47):
estate masterminds, real estategroups.
You know networks are reallyimportant.
There's going to be people ofvarious, you know, experience
levels and if you can getinvolved in these groups on a
monthly basis, you're going tobe learning from people who are
way ahead of you and they'regoing to cut your learning curve
.
And you might want to makefriends with some of these
people also.
(21:07):
Buy them a coffee, buy themlunch, talk to them, and I think
that kind of exposure is 110%necessary.
You're not going to get veryfar on your own.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Paul, it was a pleasure to have you on the show
today.
Lots of knowledge, great points.
I hope that all of ourlisteners take a piece of your
advice and knowledge on theirjourney and hopefully we'll run
into each other soon again andmaybe record another podcast.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah, absolutely, mario.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it If anybodywants to.
I wrote a book recently.
If anybody wants to download mybook, you can get it at
expertinvestoracademycom forwardslash playbook.
It just talks about theCanadian real estate market and
how you should navigate thecurrent economics we're going
through and what you think mightwork.
(21:59):
So it might be valuable to yourreaders.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
We'll make sure to put the link in the description.
Yes, sir, thanks, mary.
All right, we'll talk soon,bye-bye.
Thanks for tuning into the 5Questions Podcast.
If you enjoyed today's episode,don't forget to subscribe, like
and hit the notification bellon our YouTube channel so you
never miss an episode.
Stay tuned for more insightsand tips to transform your real
(22:23):
estate and business game.
See you next time.
It's a get-rich-slow kind of game.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast, where we
unlock real estate and businessinsights one question at a time.
Welcome to the 5 QuestionsPodcast.
My name is Mario Lamar, I amthe host of the show and today
(00:27):
our guest on the show is aformer Toronto firefighter who
turned his passion for realestate into a highly successful
investment career.
His journey is one ofresilience and innovation,
showing us how strategicthinking and adaptability can
lead to immense success, even involatile markets.
(00:49):
I present to you Paul D'Abruzzo.
Paul, welcome to the show,welcome, thanks for the great
intro.
Paul, the concept of the podcastis very simple Five questions
about either real estate orbusiness and we get straight to
the point.
You ready, yes, sir.
So, as mentioned in the intro,you transitioned from a stable
(01:14):
career in firefighting to realestate investing.
What inspired that leap andmaybe, how did you prepare
yourself for that change?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, it wasn't easy.
I started investing in realestate 15 years ago, right about
2010, and I was actually justgetting hired to the fire
department at the same time.
Okay, so I mean, I was thefireman and the firefighter for
about a decade and you know wasbuilding my portfolio the whole
time.
You know firefighters like tohave side gigs.
You know a lot of them arepolicemen or carpenters and I
(01:53):
know guys who set up movie setslike crazy stuff and car
mechanics.
And you know my side gig, youcould say, was real estate
investing.
But it grew and you know,thankfully, thank God it grew.
And you know, thankfully, thankGod it grew.
And you know it did well for us.
We worked really hard to grow aportfolio that had a positive
(02:13):
impact on our lifestyle, but wegot to a point where it was
large.
You know large enough that itwas taking up a lot of time.
You know, plus, I needed todedicate myself to becoming, to
being you, to being a goodfirefighter.
Plus, I had a family, a wife,three kids and on top of that,
believe it or not, I had gottenmy real estate license shortly
(02:38):
after I started investing andwas specialized in only working
with other investors, helpingthem acquire more investment
properties, the same way that Iwas doing.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
So I was doing all those things at the same time
and my health started todeteriorate near the end.
Just a lot of stress, too muchwork, not enough hall time.
Something I had to give it waseither give up my family, give
up real estate, give up mybusiness or give up firefighting
.
So it took me about a year ofyou should say healing and to
(03:14):
get the mental clarity tofinally let it go, and I guess I
had to come to the conclusionthat enough was enough, right?
You know, trying to do allthose things at the same time,
although it was getting me aheadfor so many years, was actually
having a negative return on mylifestyle after a certain amount
(03:34):
of time.
So it took me some time torealize that, but that was the
origin of how I started and howI left the fire department.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
This is a great story and sometimes you're right.
You know we try to juggle abunch of different balls at the
same time and sometimes, whenit's too many, we're going to
drop some right.
So it's better to take a stepback and do the things that we
love and the things that bringsus fulfillment, as at the same
(04:06):
time.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
That's right.
Right around that time I coinedthe new term, you know.
After coming to all theseconclusions, we've all heard the
term return on investment, youknow ROI.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So I I coined this term uh, rol, return on
lifestyle, oh yeah.
So what I mean by that is you.
That is, the bigger decisions Imake and the bigger investments
I make have to have a good ROI.
Of course, they have to makemoney, but they also have to
have a good positive impact onmy lifestyle also, and I find
(04:38):
that's something we don't lookat very often and we don't
measure it.
It's easy to say, yes, I'll buythis property and it'll help me
in my retirement later, butthat's not good enough.
We have to dive deeper, andmaybe that's for another podcast
, but the ROL calculation isimportant.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Absolutely.
I want to go to the secondquestion because it's a little
bit interesting.
When you decided to startinvesting in real estate, you
started during the 2009financial crisis, 2009, 2010.
What lessons from that time didyou carry forward into now,
(05:18):
your more recent investments?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, an interesting time.
At the time I was young andstupid.
I, you know, was 23, 24 yearsold.
You know, you're kind of inthat stage you don't know what
you don't know, right?
Yeah, yeah, you haven't, youhaven't even had time to make
mistakes.
So, you know, I was readinglots of books, like I'm sure
many of you have, or you andyour audience has reading lots
(05:46):
of books, like I'm sure many ofyou have, or you and your
audience has.
Excuse me, and, um, I attendeda, a conference in toronto.
It was, uh, you know, hosted byone of these kind of guru,
mastermind kind of guys.
His name is, uh, t t harv ecker.
He wrote this book calledmillionaire mind something, and
then his whole thing was to getyou into this conference and at
(06:07):
this conference he would sellyou like a big ticket conference
somewhere else.
So I remember being young andstupid and, or I guess say,
young and naive, and he wasselling this conference there
called Never Work Again.
You know all about how to buildpassive income streams so you
never have to work again yeah soI attended this conference in
(06:27):
california by myself, um 23years old, and, uh, you know,
quick, quick story.
You know we're there and theydid this.
You know, big energy thing.
You know, like a tony robbinsstyle, get everyone fired up and
then at the end of that they'relike okay, everybody under 30s,
you know, stay standing.
You know, 29, 28, 27, 26, 24,25, and by the time they got to
(06:51):
23, it was me and one other guyin the corner and I'm praying
like, please, buddy, pleasedon't let it be me, right.
So the guy goes 22 and I satdown and the guy, the guy in the
front there was 22 and he gaveme some award.
Anyways, when I was there againyoung and naive, it was just as
the financial crisis wasstarting to happen and they were
(07:13):
talking about it like crazy,right.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
But the one thing I noticed, three things.
One, the people who had passiveincome were okay.
Okay, and how do you getpassive income?
Well, there's a milliondifferent ways, because this
conference had all these things,but I noticed that more than
half of them were somewhat realestate related Rental properties
(07:38):
, buying tax liens, americans,they have all these creative
things mortgages, anyway.
And then the last thing Ilearned was cash flow, and I'd
never heard this word before.
I'm like, well, what the helldoes that mean?
It just stuck in my mind.
When I came home, I was like,okay, passive income, real
estate, cash flow.
You know what I mean.
(08:01):
I guess back to your originalquestion.
The lessons about the financialcrisis came after, after after
it was, after all, the smartpeople had a chance to dissect
it all yeah but in the middle ofit, what made me decide to
invest was those three things.
I figure from all these peoplewho are getting killed, all the
(08:24):
ones who are doing well, we'redoing those three things, and if
I can do those three things,I'll be okay too and that's what
made you continue, that's whatmade me continue to carry
forward till uh, yourinvestments today yeah, I uh, I
mean we pretty boring, I.
(08:45):
You know we started with singlefamily stuff.
We did rent to owns, we didstudent rental, we did smaller
multifamily, we did duplexconversions and larger
multifamily conversions.
We've done development projects, both to sell for profit and to
keep for more rental income andI would say nowadays we're
(09:05):
basically in that small tomedium-sized multifamily range.
We find that's the best bangfor your buck.
It gives you the best of allworlds in terms of investment
and ROL and that's what wecontinue to do.
We've been developing andbuilding our own brand new.
That's where we've kind ofshifted, with some of the
(09:28):
advantages that CMHC and theirprograms offer.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that brings us to a thirdquestion.
And now let's not go back toofar, maybe around three years
ago, Navigating the 2022 surgein mortgage payments.
There must have been achallenge, because you know you
have a lot of properties.
How did you adjust to thoserising costs and still keep the
(09:54):
portfolio growing?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, three things really.
And at the same time as thishappened for me, it's happening
to all the investors that I workwith, I consult with coach you
could say work with more than200 investors here in ontario,
you know helping them acquire,buy, sell and figure out their
portfolios.
So everyone was going throughthis at the same time, yeah.
So I look directly at myselfand I'm saying, okay, if I can
(10:20):
figure this out, then I can helpeverybody else.
I can continue to be valuablefor everyone in my business.
So what we did is, you know,establish or improve
relationships with our currenttenants.
What we didn't want to happenis for them to see us as the
evil landlord Right and createthat rift, and just that
(10:46):
eliminated a lot more risk ofthem not paying or trying to
find clever ways to not pay andusing the system kind of against
us.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Right.
So that was, I don't want tosay an easy one, but an obvious
one.
Number two we had to sort ofrelook at our portfolio and go
through this process of you knowthe same way at the end of the
season, you know you're going topick all the fruit from your
(11:15):
fruit trees and cut off all thedead branches, right, that's
what we had to do to ourportfolio.
We spent, you know, the betterpart of 15 years, basically in
an acquisition phase just buy,buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy.
It was never a reason to sellunless you were selling to go
get something bigger.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Excuse me, but in this stage I mean for for myself
and many other investors we hadwe've had accumulated so much
equity we got to relook at theportfolio and say where are the
spots or the properties that aredoing the best and which ones
are not performing anymore.
So we went through that processand decided to sell a few
(11:54):
properties Some we refinancedand able to put cash on the
table and get rid of someproperties that were just not
cash flowing enough to managethe higher interest bills.
And the third thing we did wasof the properties we were
keeping, which of thoseproperties could we improve to
(12:17):
dramatically increase income?
Which properties could I add abasement apartment?
Which properties could I builda what do you call it a garden
suite?
Which properties had really lowpaying rents, et cetera, et
cetera.
So those three things we did.
We dramatically improved ourportfolio and then used the CMXC
program, which sort of came outat the same time, to continue
(12:39):
to grow and play offense.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's all great points and sometimes, when you're
pushed against a wall, it forcesyou to reevaluate.
It forces you to get out of thecomfort zone of having your
portfolio the way it is, andsometimes we need to reevaluate
what we're doing with ourproperties.
That's right.
(13:04):
That's right.
Fourth question talking about alot of properties, you've
amassed $45 million in assets.
What strategies did youattribute to achieving such an
impressive growth and arelatively short amount of time?
We're talking about 10-ishyears, 10, 12 years.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, I would say about 15 to be fair.
But yeah, at its peak it wasclose to $45 million worth of
assets.
Some of those assets were landassets that had grown
significant value, especially ifyou're under developing
projects.
As you're developing andgetting to the point of
(13:45):
completion, your asset values goreally high If you sell them
the asset of asset, the books,right.
So it's sort of a fluctuatingnumber, but that was our peak,
let's say, and it's really justdoing what works.
How we got there is just to dowhat works and not be distracted
by shiny objects, right, youknow it's okay to speculate.
(14:10):
You know, for example, we Inever really got involved here
in, especially the greatertoronto area, in the whole condo
thing you know, buy it fromreconstruction, sell it later
and yeah and I'm not judging.
I know a lot of guys who mademoney.
Uh, I was in gals who mademoney and you know some people
now are losing money.
So it's a very speculative gameand, although it's profitable
(14:34):
if you do it right, it didn'tfit my ROL calculation.
I can make money, but itdoesn't help me achieve the
goals what kind of goals Iwanted to achieve.
So we found what worked and wejust put it on repeat and, in
order to increase the results,we just did what we did, but did
it bigger instead of one unit,two units instead of two, four
instead of four, eight or 10 or12.
(14:56):
And now we're building, youknow, nine and 10 and 12 units
from scratch.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Right, so yeah, so you know, like you said, there's
a lot of shiny objects outthere, different strategies that
sometimes are good for a shortamount of time and you can make
money or you can lose money.
But using the strategies thathave been working for a long
(15:22):
period of time, like multifamily, this, it might be a more
stable route to choose.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, I, I, I agree, I agree.
I think those who are maybeattracted to the shiny object,
they, they see real estate aslike a a get in, make my money
and get out, kind of you know,venture, you know, whereas me
and I guess the clients that Icoach you know we see it as
(15:50):
building a portfolio thatcontinues to have an impact on
your lifestyle for basicallyforever.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Right.
So very different point of view, I think.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Brings us to our final and last question for
today.
Paul, I want to go back to thebeginning with your unique
background.
You used to be a fireman.
You went to get your realtorlicense.
What advice would you give toanyone looking to transition
from a stable job to real estateinvesting, especially in
(16:24):
today's market?
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Like transition to full-time real estate investing.
Yeah Well, I would say, don'tdo it.
I would say, start like I didand you're going to have to
part-time it.
It's got to be your side gigfor a while, unless you've got a
few million dollars to startwith.
But for us, regular folks whoare grinding and have one or two
(16:48):
down payments on this, it'sdefinitely a start.
It's a get-rich-slow kind ofgame.
You're basically playingMonopoly.
You don't win Monopoly untilyou go around the board 40, 50
times.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Right, play monopoly.
You don't win monopoly untilyou go around the board 40, 50
times.
Yeah, yeah, right, so, um,that's what I would recommend is
start slow, get one property,do it right and then try and
find ways to repeat that.
I find a lot of people who aretrying to go, trying to start
and, and and that's their endgoal, like I hate my job, I want
to quit.
Five years.
It's impossible for them tofathom, to see in reality how it
(17:29):
is.
They can do that in five toseven years, but that just
creates confusion in your mind.
I'm a big believer in you know,for lack of a better term
called law of attraction, andyou know, if you're constantly
confused and if you'reconstantly looking at five years
from now and saying, how thehell am I going to do that, like
(17:50):
that's what you're putting outto the universe and that's what
you're going to get back just alot more confusion.
So I tell people, just do oneproperty and do it right, then
let's solve the next problem,then we'll solve the next
problem, then we the nextproblem, then we'll solve the
next problem, then we'll solvethe next problem.
There's nothing wrong withhaving long-term goals, but you
got to get there one step at atime and markets change.
(18:17):
Whatever you plan for now, Imean three years you know,
having a very clear definitionof how you want your portfolio
to benefit you personally isreally important.
You know I want 10 propertiesso I can retire is not enough.
You know, and I'll give you atry and make it a fast example.
(18:41):
I worked with clients, you know,immigrants to Canada.
They were a Filipino couple andwhen I met with them the first
time, you know I typically askthem you know why you want to
invest in real estate and afterseveral times of digging through
it, you know the real thing ontheir heart was they wanted to
help their parents pay off theirmortgage here in Canada because
(19:03):
they were grateful.
Help their parents pay off theirmortgage here in canada,
because they were grateful totheir parents for coming to
canada working like low-payingjobs and working their tails off
to give these kids anopportunity to go to university
and get good jobs and all theywanted to do was help their
parents pay off their mortgageand I was like that's it right
and and having that close totheir heart really motivated
them to get results and theywere able to do it.
(19:27):
So something of that nature hasto be close to you and it helps
you get over all thedifficulties and stress the
nonsense, the things you can'tpredict the toilets and the
tenants, and you know everythingelse.
So, one property at a timestart slow, make it part-time,
have a goal that's close to yourheart and, lastly, you're going
(19:49):
to have to surround yourselfwith people that know what
they're doing and who've beenthere before.
I know it's totally cliche, butI mean, if everybody around you
has one or two properties anddoesn't have what you want, then
you're not going to go anywherevery quickly.
I have my own coaches and I betyou do too.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
That's what I was going to ask you, If you didn't
bring it up.
I was going to ask you howimportant it is to ask for help
if you're just getting started,or ask for coaching.
How is that important forsomebody to do real estate
full-time?
Speaker 1 (20:26):
I think it makes or breaks people.
I mean, my cheesy line isthere's no I in real estate,
right?
You literally can't spell theword real estate with the letter
I.
Like it's a team sport, likeyou can't do it by yourself, no
matter how much you try, right?
And I'm not saying you need apartner, you know, as in someone
who's working with you everyday, but it's, you know, real
(20:47):
estate masterminds, real estategroups.
You know networks are reallyimportant.
There's going to be people ofvarious, you know, experience
levels and if you can getinvolved in these groups on a
monthly basis, you're going tobe learning from people who are
way ahead of you and they'regoing to cut your learning curve
.
And you might want to makefriends with some of these
people also.
(21:07):
Buy them a coffee, buy themlunch, talk to them, and I think
that kind of exposure is 110%necessary.
You're not going to get veryfar on your own.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Paul, it was a pleasure to have you on the show
today.
Lots of knowledge, great points.
I hope that all of ourlisteners take a piece of your
advice and knowledge on theirjourney and hopefully we'll run
into each other soon again andmaybe record another podcast.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah, absolutely, mario.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it If anybodywants to.
I wrote a book recently.
If anybody wants to download mybook, you can get it at
expertinvestoracademycom forwardslash playbook.
It just talks about theCanadian real estate market and
how you should navigate thecurrent economics we're going
through and what you think mightwork.
(21:59):
So it might be valuable to yourreaders.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
We'll make sure to put the link in the description.
Yes, sir, thanks, mary.
All right, we'll talk soon,bye-bye.
Thanks for tuning into the 5Questions Podcast.
If you enjoyed today's episode,don't forget to subscribe, like
and hit the notification bellon our YouTube channel so you
never miss an episode.
Stay tuned for more insightsand tips to transform your real
(22:23):
estate and business game.
See you next time.
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