Table of Contents
Podcast Transcription
Georges El Masri [00:01:38] Welcome to the Well Off podcast, where the goal is to motivate, inspire and share success principles for probably the third time. I’m here with Mark Loeffler. So for those that don’t know, Mark is an investor. He’s been investing since 2004. He started off with single families. He did a bit of rent to owns duplexes, triplexes and then got into larger buildings. He also does a bunch of options trading and investing, which will cover a little bit. And I wanted to talk about a couple of things with Mark, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen him, so I figured we can catch up a little bit. If you want to tell me just what you’ve been up to lately, it’s been probably what like six months, maybe since I’ve seen you.
Mark Loeffler [00:02:14] Yeah, it’s been a while yet. COVID, you know?
Georges El Masri [00:02:16] Yeah, yeah. So what’s new? What’s going on with you?
Mark Loeffler [00:02:20] While I sold seven apartment buildings in Hamilton, I think. Were you around when I was doing that? That was January is I saw yeah; I saw some of those I sold. Those are all closing. Maybe they’re all closed or are closing this month. I bought two more out in Alberta. I bought a personal property out in Alberta, just in Canmore that I’m going to Airbnb and use for personal use. Um, I’ve continued to options trading. I’ve uh. Yeah, cool about it.
Georges El Masri [00:02:56] I guess. What’s the deal with the seven buildings that you sold? I know, I think you said at the time you had a partner that was looking to cash out. Was it all with the same partner or?
Mark Loeffler [00:03:04] with the same partner? Yeah.
Georges El Masri [00:03:05] Okay, cool. And then you took that money. You reinvested a little bit, and I’m assuming you’re using some of those funds to do some more options trading.
Mark Loeffler [00:03:13] Yes, definitely using some of our funds to do more options trading.
Georges El Masri [00:03:17] OK, cool. How is the YouTube thing going for you?
Mark Loeffler [00:03:20] Yeah. So that’s yeah, YouTube. I got monetized back in November. The thing is November, and since then it’s grown up to about forty six hundred subscribers. Nice. So it’s going well. I cut back from three times a week to two times a week. I mean, people don’t understand it, but it’s a lot of work to put out content and, you know, do the research. And so like, I don’t look like an idiot on there, which sometimes I do anyways. But you know, but yeah, it’s a fair amount of work and then just the post-production and getting it already to go out. I guess it’s a fair amount of work. So I got it down to two times a week just for I mean, to be honest, if it’s not going to be fun for me, I’m not going to do it for sure.
Georges El Masri [00:04:07] Yeah. So what are you doing then when it comes to the podcast? Sorry, your YouTube channel. Are you doing all the research or do you have somebody that’s kind of setting up your episodes? Are you doing the post-production or so?
Mark Loeffler [00:04:20] I do all the research. I actually was looking for a researcher and I thought I had someone in that kind of fell through. I don’t know what happened, and then I kind of just wasn’t motivated anymore, so I didn’t pursue that. So I’m doing all the research. I’m coming up with the topics for the most part, like, we have a little chat going among our team and I’ll just drop in there. Hey, what do you guys think? Or, you know, a lot of times it’s what comments am I getting right? Like, am I getting the consistent comment over and over again as like, OK, well, that that’s something and a few people want to know about? So and I like that topic. So I’ll. Do that, and then obviously, the post-production is all done by Ramona.
Georges El Masri [00:05:05] OK. Yeah, you had you had somebody different, I think, before and then Ramona was taking care of that and it’s good. Yeah. What’s been your most popular topic to cover or topics?
Mark Loeffler [00:05:15] So, I mean, we do a monthly kind of market update, and that’s been the most popular by far. Like the last two or so, I do it with Andrew Hines every month. Yeah. And like the last ones, over 18000 views for which for me is really good. Some people, obviously, that’s like a good hour, but that for me, that’s a good, good video.
Georges El Masri [00:05:38] Yeah, OK, that’s cool. So what do you see as potential? Like, do you see YouTube becoming another income stream for you or is it just kind of you just make a little bit of money, maybe covers some of the production costs?
Mark Loeffler [00:05:49] Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t break even yet. I mean, we’ve gotten deals from it like we’ve gotten people who’ve reached out to me and said, Hey, you know, we like what you do. Can you help us find investment properties? So that’s been good. And just it’s been a good way to stay in touch with my database instead of actually phoning them. Yeah, they they’re all just come check out the YouTube channel now. So that’s been good as well. So we’ve gotten deals probably from that without really. Like having to, you know, make that phone call. So that’s been really good. But yeah, for the goal there, I mean. I’m just having fun with it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think what do I make six, $700 a month? And again, it doesn’t cover the production yet, and I’m sure at some point it well, but again, I’m not that worried about it.
Georges El Masri [00:06:45] That’s not bad, though, to think you started out with nothing on YouTube like just over a year ago, over a year ago? Yeah. And now you’re at six or seven hundred dollars a month. That’s decent. It’s nothing like this. It’s pretty good. Yeah, I know it costs a lot of money to produce it in terms of the revenue you’re bringing in, but there’s some good potential there.
Mark Loeffler [00:07:06] So well, I mean, here’s the thing anybody could have like I could have learned how to do the production post-production and I could have done that. And I mean, you’re going to spend a lot of time at the beginning and then hopefully over time, it grows and grows and grows. And then at some point it’s, you know, the return is exponential. Yeah, but your return up front is very small. It’s like anything, right? Sure. Until you learn it and people you know and I’m sure like you watch my videos today. Well, obviously the production is better because somebody is doing it. Yeah. Number two is, you know, I’m not filming it on my iPhone. You know, we have proper mikes now. You know, we’re a little bit more professional than we were a year ago.
Georges El Masri [00:07:45] Oh, yeah, yeah, it’s thanks for thanks for taking a shot at me there. I’m recording this on my iPhone right now, quite honestly.
Mark Loeffler [00:07:52] Yet, though, what I’m going to say is you don’t need to be that way. Yeah, if you have good information, people will watch you.
Georges El Masri [00:07:59] I’m going to be honest; my iPhone camera is just as good as any camera. Maybe not as good as like a 3000 or 4000 DSLR, but it’s as good as like a GoPro or whatever else is out there, like the standard stuff. But anyway, that’s true. Yeah. OK, so I want to cover three topics. The first one is options trading because I know that’s a big part of what you do. Number two, want to cover bitcoin and gold? OK. And then three, I want to talk about real estate. OK. OK, so here’s a scenario for the first thing that I want to cover the options trading. Let’s say you have somebody starting out. No experience with it has $10000, and their goal is to generate ten thousand dollars of revenue each month from their stocks, from their portfolio.
Mark Loeffler [00:08:44] So they you want to make 100 percent return per month.
Georges El Masri [00:08:48] I’m not saying like immediately. I’m saying over time like to get dividend payments from your stock, whatever it is. How do you do that and what would that look like? How long do you think that would take?
Mark Loeffler [00:08:57] Right. So I would tell you that you need to read Derek Foster. Yeah. Money for nothing. Stocks for free. We’ve had that conversation before. And then I would tell you to get low. I’ll get rich with options and read basically two of his strategies, which as naked puts and covered calls. And then I would just tell you, Hey, you know what? If you can afford to lose that $10000, then you should go ahead and, you know, put that into a stock market account. I use Interactive Brokers. Because I find their fees want to be some of the lowest and you know, they have it’s a good platform. It’s easy for me. It’s kind of like a video game. And then I would say, just start trading. And you know, the biggest mistake people do once they think they got it is they go, they start chasing yield. And you don’t need to like, I mean, what do you need to get to get the $10000 a month? I mean, so let’s back up first. But like, you could probably easily do $3000 on your $10000 in the first year, which is a 30 percent return.
Georges El Masri [00:10:07] Yeah, but you’re talking about like the growth of your portfolio when you say that number 30 percent growth in your portfolio or you talking about kind of dividend payments that you’re getting that type of thing? Or is it just overall?
Mark Loeffler [00:10:18] Yeah, it’s like it’s called your net liquidation value, right? OK. And no, and then what I would say is once you have that set up is you should be setting aside money monthly to grow that. Mm-Hmm. So if you can afford to put five hundred dollars a month, then you set up an automatic payments as the bill payment. It’s like, you know, a car payment that goes in there every month. And if you’re doing, I mean, so Cam in our office just started trading about a month ago. Yeah. And like, he’s up. I think he’s up like eight percent or something, six to eight percent. I don’t remember exactly, but like so in a month in, I think it’s about six weeks. Nice. And like, he’s not trading anything stupid. He’s really just, you know. So I gave him the strategy by things that you pay for that nobody else thinks like that you pay for without ever thinking about him. And then on riskier stocks, you buy back at 50 percent of the when the option has decreased 50 percent. And on safer stuff, like for me, like Suncor and Bridge stuff like that, I wait till 80 percent. OK, like this. Yesterday, I bought back Tesla put at 50 percent. Today I bought back. Uber puts a 50 percent.
Georges El Masri [00:11:34] You just kind of break down what you’re what you mean by that. You buy it back just in a very simple manner. Right?
Mark Loeffler [00:11:39] So basically what I do is I sell naked parts, so I sell insurance for people on their stocks. So, for instance, Uber, I think it was trading around $48 and I sold a $45 point. OK. So somebody paid me 70 cents per share. And I was obligated to buy that if buy that at $45, yes. So if it went below $45, they could then use that obligation to me, either on or before the 16th of July.
Georges El Masri [00:12:12] OK, there you go. So just to kind of recap that, so for the person who owns that stock, it’s worth $48 today. If they think that it’s going to drop to say $35, they’re going to take your option. You’re naked, put naked, but they’re in a pay kind of like a premium for that. And then if it does drop to $35, they can then insure that they can sell it to you for $45, you know, by July 17th, July 16th, 16th. Yeah. OK, so it’s an insurance for the person that owns that stock. Yes. Yeah, OK.
Mark Loeffler [00:12:44] Yeah. And people will bet on it going up or down by buying calls or buying puts. I don’t do a lot of that. I do buy some calls, but majority is I’m selling naked or naked puts and covered calls. OK.
Georges El Masri [00:12:59] Yeah. All right. So back to that scenario. How long do you think it would take somebody starting out with 10000 to get to $10000 of dividend or cash flow somehow from your portfolio?
Mark Loeffler [00:13:13] So you’re looking at $120000 a year. If you just do 30 percent. And so here’s the thing, do you want to take out the $10000 a month? Is it just want a growth $10000 a month?
Georges El Masri [00:13:26] You want it to you want, I guess, dividends of $10000 per month?
Mark Loeffler [00:13:31] Well, dividends are different, right? Like if you look at if you want to put that all into Enbridge, you’re looking at, you know, it’s a six percent return or six and a half right now. Dividend. But if you had bought back in March of last year when I was a 10 percent dividend rate, you’d need $1.2 million right now. You need, I don’t know, one point nine. Yeah, right? Whereas if you’re doing the naked puts and covered calls. So even if you just bought Enbridge today at 40, and let’s just call it $50, right? And it’s a six and a half percent dividend. So you bought you had a million dollars that $65000 a year, right? And you sold cover calls throughout the year on it. You could probably earn another six to seven percent or more, maybe eight percent on that. Yeah, on that money, right? So now you’re 14 and a half percent and you’re just over your goal, so maybe you need about eight hundred thousand. Yeah, like, that’s super conservative. You don’t get paid a lot for those covered calls. Sure. Like, if you want to be like aggressively, you need probably about three, 20 to 360. I would probably tell you that because you’re going have ups and downs. Yeah, you want to be trading five hundred ish or more. My goal is always two to three percent a month. Mm-Hmm.
Georges El Masri [00:14:46] Okay. So it sounds like it’ll take a while. It’s not something like you got to you got to get your portfolio. If you’re, let’s say, just buying Enbridge to be worth about one point nine million today in order.
Mark Loeffler [00:14:56] Great dividend. Yeah. You did the dividend covered call strategy. It’s less than half of that. OK.
Georges El Masri [00:15:02] I’m not really sure I understand how, because I think what you’re saying is that you’re going to earn a return on you or you’re going to buy the stock at a discount. So it’s going to improve you. No, no, OK.
Mark Loeffler [00:15:13] You’re saying if I bought the stock today, yeah, it’s like, Well, let me pull it up. Sure. So Enbridge is at $49 and 20 cents, OK? It is a six point six percent dividend yield. Yeah. So I bought it at $49 and twenty cents. I could basically go in. I just bought it today. And so for July 16th, I could go ahead and sell a $50 call against it. OK, for forty three cents. OK, so that makes me an extra one percent for the next three weeks. Right. Or, you know, I could sell further out, I could sell a $52 one for August, but I get paid thirty two cents. OK. All right. So I mean, the thing with Enbridge is it’s pretty. It’s pretty sedate.
Georges El Masri [00:16:06] Yeah, it does. It really like it’s not a very volatile stock. It kind of. I mean, over the last 10 years or so, from what I remember seeing, it’s been somewhere around the same price.
Mark Loeffler [00:16:16] It’s gone between like thirty four dollars and fifty dollars.
Georges El Masri [00:16:19] Yeah. Yeah. And it’s varied throughout. Those tenure is like it just keeps going up and down between those numbers.
Mark Loeffler [00:16:24] Yeah, pretty well.
Georges El Masri [00:16:26] Yeah. So that’s an interesting one because, you know, you’re going to get consistency with it.
Mark Loeffler [00:16:30] Well, that’s the thing right there. So if you held it like you were in fifty five point fifty six dollars and then it dropped down to around $34 when we were playing it, then it climbed back up, then it fell back down. Yeah.
Georges El Masri [00:16:42] Yeah. But you’re still getting that like six to eight percent dividend on it anyway. So you’re it’s kind of like insurance on itself because it’s a high dividend stock.
Mark Loeffler [00:16:51] Yeah. I mean, I forget when it was a year earlier this year, in December, January. So I mean, here’s the thing like Enbridge makes more money in the wintertime because it’s, you know, they heat people’s houses. Yeah, so they’re transferring more gas. Yeah, I told people to buy it, then I think it was like a seven point eight percent dividend. Yeah, and a bunch of people reached out to me and said, Hey, thanks for the heads up on Enbridge. Yeah, they bought it at like forty four dollars. It’s like went up 10 percent since they’ve got dividends. Yeah, of a couple percent too. So if they were using this covered call strategy, then yeah, they’d be they’d be doing pretty well.
Georges El Masri [00:17:29] If you buy it at a certain dividend, do you always get paid that dividend and does it change as Enbridge changes their dividend payout,
Mark Loeffler [00:17:37] but dividends based on your cost basis? OK, here’s the thing about Enbridge. They’ve also stated for the next couple of years, they’re going to raise their dividend 10 percent a year. Mm-Hmm. That’s right. So, you know, if I got it at 10 percent dividend yield and they raise that 10 percent, then my yield is now ten point six or something like that. Mm hmm.
Georges El Masri [00:17:56] OK. So you buy it at a seven percent dividend, you get paid that amount for the lifetime of that of that stock.
Mark Loeffler [00:18:05] Yeah. So you think of Warren Buffett, right? Warren Buffett owns a crap ton of Coke shares. He gets paid more in dividends per year than it costs him to buy his coke share back in the 80s.
Georges El Masri [00:18:16] Wow. Yeah, that’s pretty cool.
Mark Loeffler [00:18:17] So he makes one hundred percent return just on dividends through Coke every year.
Georges El Masri [00:18:22] Yeah, that’s yeah, I didn’t know that. That’s an interesting fact. Now here’s the thing. Last year, around March or around that time, we saw a big dip in the
Mark Loeffler [00:18:31] market between February and March, March 23rd was the lowest price.
Georges El Masri [00:18:35] Yeah, yeah. So what happened to your portfolio? Like, where did you take a big hit? Because I know you were doing a lot of transactions at that time.
Mark Loeffler [00:18:42] So end of February. So here’s the thing you like these things that you can see it coming. Yeah, right. Like in early in January, I was I was heavy volatility. It took me a month for a while. It took me two months for that to really pay off. But I was heavy volatility and so on. I almost hit the bottom and I started. Then I started buying again. Mm-Hmm. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t in many stocks at that time. I was mainly I was in a volatility product called the VIX. Mm-Hmm. Its volatility index, which you can basically do the same thing I was doing on other stuff. But yeah, I was in that rather than. Rather than stocks, so when everything went to the fan and everyone was like, Oh, this COVID thing is real. My volatility like it shot to the roof, so I made some good money.
Georges El Masri [00:19:43] OK, yeah, wow. I saw itself where you are somehow.
Mark Loeffler [00:19:49] Yeah. But here’s the thing, right? Like if you so with this strategy, if you just didn’t make it puts and covered calls and you were holding a lot of naked puts. So the thing is, if you’re deep into margin, yeah, you’re going to get margin calls, you get screwed if you’re not deep into margin or not using margin. And basically, what happens is you’re going to buy that stock and at a certain price, which ostensibly you might want to buy it for anyways, right? You know, if you bought just a stock in February, it’s the same thing. OK, it goes down and it’s like, What’s your strategy? Did you buy just to sell or did you buy for a dividend like you could just hold on and wait? And, you know, by June, July, August, September, you look like a genius. Yeah, and everything was up, you know, 100 percent in the bottom.
Georges El Masri [00:20:42] So, yeah. Do you know of anyone who may have not done too well during last year if that was applying the strategy?
Mark Loeffler [00:20:50] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And there were people who were very margined.
Georges El Masri [00:20:54] Yeah, yeah, those people got hit the worst.
Mark Loeffler [00:20:57] Well, because they can’t sustain. Yeah, they couldn’t hold through the dip right there. So you have to sell at a low point. Yeah, they get margin calls.
Georges El Masri [00:21:06] So they exactly when you’re leveraging your stocks. So yeah,
Mark Loeffler [00:21:09] so when you’re with IBK R and you’re going to do options, you have to. So if you don’t do options, you have to have a margin account, OK? And they give you a three point three percent. So if you have $10000 in there, you can trade thirty three thousand thirty six thousand something like, yeah, it’s quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, right. And you know, some people take that right to the limit. So if you’re right to the limit like you have, you know, ten thousand dollars, you have thirty six thousand, we have thirty five thousand dollars in obligations. And lo and behold, the market drops 20 percent. Then yeah, you’re going to you’re going to get liquidated and you’re going to lose 20 percent off $35000. Not twenty five, not 20 percent off $10000. Yeah, yeah.
Georges El Masri [00:21:52] If they like, pursue your assets, if other assets, if you don’t have the funds to pay what you owe,
Mark Loeffler [00:22:01] I mean, there’s been like conversation like that. I kind of doubt it. Yeah, like that’s why. So I’m like, there’s some of the high volatility stocks. They actually don’t let you use margin.
Georges El Masri [00:22:11] OK, yeah, that makes sense.
Mark Loeffler [00:22:13] Or I think they actually tightened the margin requirements which affected some people, too who are using margin. Yeah, right?
Georges El Masri [00:22:20] Yeah. Do you have to use margin? No, you don’t have to look. Fair enough. Yeah, I’m really interested in like learning a bit more about this, but it’s been something that I’ve thought about for the last two or three years because of you. Mostly, yeah, but I haven’t done it because I don’t know. I just, I don’t know. I feel like it’ll take away my focus, but I know that there are a lot of benefits to doing this thing.
Mark Loeffler [00:22:43] Yeah, talk to talk to Cam Sullivan
Georges El Masri [00:22:45] or even Alex Powell. I think he was saying that he started doing it not too long ago. So yeah, yeah. All right. So that’s a little bit about options trading. Let’s talk about bitcoin gold, precious metals, OK, just in general, obviously, there has been a dip in well, the last time I checked there was a dip in bitcoin. I don’t really know what’s happening now. That’s up
Mark Loeffler [00:23:03] four percent today, up
Georges El Masri [00:23:04] four percent today, but from, let’s say, a month ago. Oh yeah,
Mark Loeffler [00:23:07] it’s down like sixty thousand something. And now it’s thirty four thousand.
Georges El Masri [00:23:12] Yeah. So what are your thoughts on that? What do you think’s happening with it?
Mark Loeffler [00:23:16] I mean, there’s so much volatility around it, because it’s not a known quantity, right? Yeah. The people who believe in it believe in it fully, and they obviously bought the dip and they bought it hard. And hey, it might turn out that Elon bought, you know, billion dollars’ worth of bitcoin at 27000, and he’s going to sell it at 40 again, right? You know, like he probably made a billion dollars off bitcoin already this year, right? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, here’s the thing, like, it’s just super volatile. I don’t know what. I don’t own any. OK. I play it through some. I like the bitcoin miners and I do own Coinbase. I bought some Coinbase recently just because I think there’s something there, and I think Coinbase is obviously an exchange. And I like owning exchanges because if it goes up or down, people are buying and selling and they’re not. I don’t think they hold any. I mean, I mean, I always tell people to comment down below, but this is in YouTube.
Georges El Masri [00:24:20] So yeah, a few. I mean, I don’t know if they’re going to mind that I’m mentioning this or not, but I know the rockstar guys like Tom and Nick. They were covering bitcoin quite a bit on their podcast over the last year, and I was just curious to know your opinion because obviously you’re really knowledgeable when it comes to the stuff they find while they believe in gold too and hedging against inflation through bitcoin and gold. And not do you believe in that type of thing? Like, do you do you invest in precious metals yourself?
Mark Loeffler [00:24:49] I do not. Yeah, I do. I just believe in taking free money at mortgages. And then, you know, then that gives you that gives you leverage against inflation. If I have a 1.4 percent interest rate on my mortgage and inflation actually goes, you know, it’s four percent, three point six percent right now, four or five. I don’t know if you listen to some people, they think it’s 10, 15, 20 percent right now. Yeah, so I get interest rates at one point four percent right there. I’m making a heck of a good return.
Georges El Masri [00:25:20] Well, especially if you’re what you’re buying is making a substantial return. Yeah. So, yeah, so you’re in your opinion, forget gold. And why is it that you don’t really care for gold or for precious metals or bitcoin?
Mark Loeffler [00:25:32] I mean, it’s pretty. Yeah, but I can’t do anything with it, does it? It’s not like it doesn’t provide me cash flow. I’d rather get cash flow. Yeah, I’d rather be in the options trading. I mean, here’s the thing. Well, I buy a gold miner. Sure. Yeah. Or I buy an oil producer. Sure. Mm hmm. I don’t need to own the physical metal. Or, I mean, here’s the thing I have thought about buying, not bitcoin, but like a theory. I’m somebody actually was on my show. He’s like at theory. End was $700 at the beginning of the year. Like, this is going to go through the roof. And the more research I do on a theory, I’m as I think I think that’s the coin to buy. Mm hmm. I haven’t done anything with that information yet. I haven’t. Yeah, so I’m just.
Georges El Masri [00:26:19] Yeah. Well, would you say that people that invest in like gold or precious metals or bitcoin, it’s more of a defensive strategy as opposed to buying real estate, which is defensive in some ways, but it’s also a little bit more offensive.
Mark Loeffler [00:26:35] That’s a great question. I’m. I have no idea I’ve never really thought about it, and the guys who buy gold are sometimes the conspiracy theorists in what I see, right? I’m not going to say they’re anti-vaxxers or anything, but maybe I don’t know that you can scratch. I don’t know, but I just never. Yeah, I mean, there’s so many other ways to hedge inflation that are more that are just more beneficial to me, I guess.
Georges El Masri [00:27:17] Can you share some of those strategies aside from real estate and maybe options trading, I guess.
Mark Loeffler [00:27:23] I mean, I don’t think I need any more than that, right? Like, that’s true. Like, I’m a pretty simple guy, right? Like, I don’t I like to keep it simple. I mean, you look at so many companies to hedge inflation, you look at stuff that can, you know, increase their either their prices without increasing like as with their cost of production or something like Apple. Apple’s already proven that they’re not price sensitive. If their cost of manufacture goes up, they can pass that along to the customer. Someone like Amazon, they don’t actually make anything. So they can pass that along to the while they actually make stuff like, I mean, I’m sure one of your tripods is right.
Georges El Masri [00:28:07] What does that is an Amazon basics their line two or I don’t know.
Mark Loeffler [00:28:11] I don’t know. But yeah, they make stuff like, yeah, but at high profits or whatever. But they can pass that along, you know, stuff like that, right? So like Enbridge, like they’re just they just passing through. Yeah. So I don’t like or like if you if you think I buy gold miners instead of physical gold. Mm hmm.
Georges El Masri [00:28:35] So you’re banking on the profitability of the gold miner as opposed to the gold itself? Yeah. So you believe that gold miners are going to make money because gold is in demand for whatever reason. So you’re investing in that idea? Yeah. Yeah. OK, fair enough. Yeah. Is there anything we didn’t cover here on bitcoin and gold and precious metals?
Mark Loeffler [00:28:57] No, because I don’t know much about it. You know, other than I’ve read some white papers on like bitcoin and Etherium stuff. Yeah, but like nothing big. I’m not.
Georges El Masri [00:29:06] It’s all pretty new, but it seems like it’s a lot of people are talking about it now, and it’s easy to get caught up in these things and try to, you know, get rich off of these things. But anyway, I just want to pick your brain on it. Yeah.
Mark Loeffler [00:29:20] Fair enough. Okay.
Georges El Masri [00:29:21] Number three, so we’re going to cover some real estate. All right. I know you touched on a little bit, but why did you start investing in Alberta?
Mark Loeffler [00:29:31] So I mean, I had the opportunity to buy my partner out here. I looked at the numbers and basically said, for what I have to buy them for, I don’t want to own them. Mm hmm. And you know, that was it. And then I’m still looking for real estate in Ontario. It’s just I haven’t found anything that makes sense for me right now
Georges El Masri [00:29:51] based on what cap rate or
Mark Loeffler [00:29:53] cap rate and opportunity. And then the secondary thing is now this is good and bad with Alberta is it’s the Wild West. So like, I can walk in and I can increase the rent. Yeah, like once a year, basically whatever I want. You know, the other thing is you will sign a one year lease, George, and you turn out not to be such a great tenant at the end of your year lease. I just say, George, we’re not renewing. It’s been very nice having you get out. Right? Yeah, I don’t have to like, make pretax. I don’t have to keep you on, you know, evictions there take two weeks and somebody doesn’t pay. Yeah, you’re gone. Yeah. So and it feels like a lot like Hamilton did seven years ago. Yeah. Now my one concern out there and it’s a big concern, is that when things start to boom, if they start to boom out there, people can start like shovel in the ground and like two to three months. So like people can start building. Yeah, so that’s a huge concern that, you know, I don’t think it’s for me. It’s not going to be long term. I mean, it’s not going to be like, I don’t plan on holding these assets for 10 to 20 years. It’s going to be righted into the boom, you know, sell it with some, with some meat left on it and walk away.
Georges El Masri [00:31:10] When you say shovels to the ground, are you talking about the time to develop over there shorter than it is here?
Mark Loeffler [00:31:15] Yeah, yeah, definitely time. Yeah, time to develop is way shorter. So there actually is like a bunch of stuff came on the market like brand new came on the market in the last two years and like, that’s why their vacancy rate in Edmonton is eight percent. Mm hmm. Yeah. So I mean, we don’t have the same as the issue in Ontario, obviously, is you got rent control, so I can’t walk in. Building immediately and, you know, get market rents. Yeah. You know, if we could do that, I would definitely be looking at Ontario. Yeah. Because there’s a lot of under market rent properties, right?
Georges El Masri [00:31:52] OK, so you did mention that you weren’t looking at Ontario. What markets are you? Are you looking still in Hamilton or are you looking at other markets?
Mark Loeffler [00:31:59] Hamilton, St. Catharines, Brantford, Niagara? Yeah. I don’t really like K.W. See, I don’t like I’ve never liked their numbers. I’d rather buy in Hamilton or St. Catharines, Brantford. Yeah, I’m looking for a one corridor. So typically anything by kW. See, I go east to Bellville, Kingston. I’ve looked in Peterborough all that. I would go out the other side for a one. I mean, I’m looking everywhere, basically in Ontario, that’s not too far north of the 401.
Georges El Masri [00:32:31] OK, cool. So if anyone’s listening and you’ve got some opportunity to share them with Mark 100 percent, yeah, I was going to say I, we don’t look for the same product. Obviously, you’re looking at bigger scale projects usually, but I’ve been looking at four to six unit buildings. And what I’ve noticed personally is that there isn’t that much of a price difference anymore between like well in St. Catharines and Hamilton. I agree, and it’s actually to me, it’s making Hamilton more desirable now because it’s very close in price.
Mark Loeffler [00:32:59] I agree. So every time I find something OK in St. Catharines or Welland or something, it seems like this. This deal comes up in Hamilton and I think Athens and well and away. Yeah, and I just concentrate on working in Hamilton.
Georges El Masri [00:33:14] Yeah, I don’t know why that’s happening, but it’s like even last year from last year till now, the prices in the Niagara Region have increased substantially. I’m not sure why there’s such a huge demand for those areas, but
Mark Loeffler [00:33:27] I don’t know either. Yeah, I yeah, I would rather be in Hamilton all day long. The economic fundamental of Hamilton is way better than in St. Catharines, Niagara. Well, and yeah,
Georges El Masri [00:33:37] I would say probably like there are certain pockets and maybe Wellington St. Catharines that are nicer than downtown Hamilton. You have like maybe a better tenant base there. That would be the only thing, but otherwise I’m thinking about things looking good.
Mark Loeffler [00:33:50] I mean, six out of my eight buildings in Hamilton were downtown. Yeah, and we get great tenants. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Like, we make nice units. And when I say to Hamilton or Edmonton was all like Hamilton seven, eight years ago, nobody, nobody’s really renovating the units. Like we renovate them now because I think you renovate like I do right now to make them condo like you put dishwashers washer dryer in like granite countertop type thing, right? Nobody’s doing that out in Edmonton, like their newly renovated means, they probably put down some laminate and painted.
Georges El Masri [00:34:21] Yeah, yeah, for sure. What I was saying is like nicer areas. I mean, for somebody who’s not maybe experienced in those markets, if they drive by downtown Hamilton and they see mattresses on the street and a bunch of people are shirtless and stuff, you know what I mean? And then you go to like certain areas in, well, under St. Catharines, they might look a little bit nicer. The lawns are a little bit more groomed in that type of thing, right?
Mark Loeffler [00:34:45] Yeah. I mean, there’s those areas in St. Catharines. Oh, for
Georges El Masri [00:34:49] sure. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Same. Same with Wellens. Yeah, well, it’s pretty bad in some areas. Yeah, but yeah, so that’s it for real estate. I think the last thing I was going to ask you about was your year, your fitness, like, are you doing some, some triathlons? Yeah, man, that
Mark Loeffler [00:35:07] type of thing. I’m doing a full ironman in in September. Cool. I’m doing it. I think it’s twenty four hour now, Wilderness Traverse in August. I’m actually doing a half ironman this weekend, Wolf. Um yeah. I’m playing four or five rounds of golf a week. So yeah,
Georges El Masri [00:35:23] I want to play with you at some point. I just started golfing this year, so I’m pretty bad. But anyway, at some point we’ll play. Yeah, but that’s cool. How do you make the time to do all that stuff? You’ve got so much going on, like you’re doing the two videos a week on YouTube, you’ve got your real estate sales
Mark Loeffler [00:35:38] training stock up the restaurants there. Everyone in Hamilton go to Cairo or Victoria Steakhouse. Yeah, yeah, I don’t know, man, like you, just you make time for what you want to do, right? Like it’s in your budget, right? I don’t know. I ignore a lot of emails. So if you want to get a hold of me, don’t email me. Yeah, Instagram’s better or text is always the way. But yeah, I honestly just concentrate on the important things. And then if it’s not important to kind of just goes away typically.
Georges El Masri [00:36:13] So how are the restaurants doing with everything I know now, things are starting to rebound a little bit, but did they go through a really difficult time?
Mark Loeffler [00:36:20] Oh, yeah, like, I mean, having a steakhouse like nobody’s really
Georges El Masri [00:36:23] ordering for
Mark Loeffler [00:36:25] Uber Eats, you know, like it’s yeah, it’s not as big, right? Like, we have the pasta and pizza place and there they do. Well, they do okay with the takeout and pick up and stuff. But yeah, the steakhouse doesn’t. So it’s good like we only have a. Patio there, so it’s always fall like I tried to get in last Wednesday and I couldn’t like, they’re like, Oh yeah, mark five or nine, and I’m like, That’s OK, yeah, I’ll go to. Like, I don’t really mind, right? So like when we can eat inside like it, I don’t know that we don’t need to talk about COVID and Doug Ford. OK? I don’t know if we can. If you want, it’s your podcast, but
Georges El Masri [00:37:06] I don’t know if you want to. We can touch on it, but I think the point that you’re making was that they went through some difficult time.
Mark Loeffler [00:37:12] They went through some difficult times. And here’s the one thing is like the government talks out of both sides of their mouth. There I go. Once we get to this level of vaccination will open and oh, by the way, we’re there. But oh, there’s this now. Yeah. And I’m like, really? Like, Is this going to be going on forever? Like what? Like. So anyways, I don’t know. It’s as if they survive. It makes me sad. Yeah, they survived, and they’ll do well. I’m not that worried about it, but I’d like them just to be fully open. Oh yeah, at the end of the day, that’s all I’m saying.
Georges El Masri [00:37:45] Yeah. Are they both on Ottawa Street?
Mark Loeffler [00:37:47] No. So one’s in Ottawa, in Maine and then the other one. So Victoria is that like locking king and we opened a second castle in November, like during COVID. And that’s on James Street north, just south of Mulberry, just north of Mulberry.
Georges El Masri [00:38:03] Nice. Yeah. So I think that’s set for the things I want to talk about. I do want to tell people how they can reach you and what services you provide.
Mark Loeffler [00:38:11] Yeah, you know what? Check me out on YouTube. The Mark LaFlare experience hit me up on Instagram Live in the Dream 40, you know. Yeah, we help people buy and sell real estate. Same as you. So reach out to George for that anyways. I’m too busy, George, to help you. And yeah, I mean, I don’t know. Like, yeah, hit me up on uninstaller, hit me up on YouTube and check out what we do.
Georges El Masri [00:38:37] Yeah, if you guys are looking for apartment buildings marks a great, great person for that. Not a lot of people have the knowledge and skills that he has, so I’m sure he’d be opened to working with you guys on that type of stuff. Mark, thanks for coming all the way to von to record this. My pleasure. And yeah, we’ll player on a golf soon. All right. Thanks once again for listening to another episode of the Well Off podcast. Just want to remind you that if you do appreciate the content? All I ask is that you comment maybe like it, if you can on the platform that you’re listening to it on and finally share it with friends and family. I’d love to get the message out there and it would mean a lot if you can share it. And finally, I just wanted to offer you as a valued listener, a free copy to the roadmap to real estate investing, which is a document that I’ve put together, which helps you identify what strategy would best suit your needs at this current time. You go over certain things that are included in this document step by step, and it’ll hopefully provide you with some clarity. So have a look. You can go to W WW Dot Well-off Dot, see a forward slash guide to download your free copy.