Table of Contents
This content is provided in partnership with Georges El Masri and the Well Off Podcast.
Podcast Transcription
George El Masri [00:00:00] Ladies and gentlemen, George El Masri here coming to you with another episode of the Well Off podcast. And today I interviewed Darcy Marler, who is a longtime real estate investor. He’s been investing since 2001. He’s had experiences and almost every single strategy in real estate, including fixin’ flips. He’s owned over 200 doors. He’s own 90 buildings, 90 properties, and currently he’s into land development and new construction. So we talked about his journey and we discussed what he’s currently working on, which is actually taking some of his investments to the US. He’s looking at Dallas, Houston and certain parts of Florida. So we talked about land development out there, the differences between developing in the U.S. versus his native Calgary and the time differences and all that to get permits and whatever else. So if you are interested in learning a little bit about land development and you want to talk about some of the mistakes or you want to learn from his mistakes, because like I said, he’s been doing this a long time, I think this is a good one. And we also touched on some of the things that he’s learned in terms of maybe slowing down a little bit and not necessarily just trying to grow, grow, grow super fast and neglecting kind of your family, neglecting some of the other things in life that that make you truly happy. So I hope you’ll enjoy I want to remind you to leave us a review on the Apple podcast’s platform so you could do it on any Apple device that would be greatly appreciated. And be sure to share this with your friends and family. And if you want to download some free reports, I’ve got the roadmap to real estate investing, which helps newer investors identify strategy that works well for you. You just have to go to W-W Well-off Dossie for its last report. And there you go. Enjoy the episode. Welcome to the Life podcast, where the goal is to motivate, inspire and share success principles. I am here with Darcy Martela today and Darcy has been investing since 2001. He’s got firsthand experience in almost every aspect of real estate investing, including land development, new construction, condo conversion, long term rentals, the birth strategy and Fixin’ Flip’s. He’s owned more than 90 properties and over 240 units over his career and he’s, like we said, dabbled with so many different strategies in real estate. So, Darcy, welcome to the show. I’m happy to have you here. Sort of. I thought of having you here over a screen. Yeah. Yeah. So part of what I read here was that you lived in South America from 1996 to 2001 to 2001, and that’s where you met your wife. You want to tell us a little bit about that experience?
Darcy Marler [00:02:39] Yeah, I was actually a computer guy coming out of college. And the first 17 years or so of my work life, I was a computer guy and I had the opportunity to live and work full time down in South America. So I was in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil for five years. My wife’s Venezuela and my kids, all three kids were born in Caracas. So I really enjoyed that part of my life.
George El Masri [00:03:00] Oh, nice. What did what did you do there? Why did they ask you to go over there for computer stuff?
Darcy Marler [00:03:07] I had a client that was a multi US multinational oil company, and they wanted me to install the accounting software at their various sites down there. So I traveled around and did that. So I’d like to I was really, really good.
George El Masri [00:03:20] Were there any any dangerous places you were in, like in Colombia or anything like that?
Darcy Marler [00:03:26] I was actually in the Colombian office once. I was in the lunchroom just taking a coffee break, and I was reading the bulletin board and had a they had a a newspaper article that said the twenty five most dangerous countries to work in in the world. And four of the top ten were Mexico, Colombia, Brazil. And that is where I live. So I was hitting all the hotspots.
George El Masri [00:03:45] Yeah, that’s cool. OK, so the way I like to start off normally, Darsey, I like to ask you a little bit about your childhood. Do you want to tell me just very quickly one or two things you remember from from your childhood?
Darcy Marler [00:03:56] I grew up on a farm and we had sheep. So I’ve heard all the sheep jokes. Yeah.
George El Masri [00:04:03] Where where did you grow up?
Darcy Marler [00:04:04] Just outside of Edmonton. Just on a farm just around Schwartzbach. OK.
George El Masri [00:04:09] Yeah, I’ve been I’ve been talking to a lot of people from out west. Well, for us it would be out west. It’s been interesting because it’s so different out there. Right, in terms of real estate investing and whatnot now. OK, so let’s talk about your journey. What can you share with us from 2001 until now? You’ve tried so many different things. What are some of the things you’ve learned along the way and what mistakes what are some of the mistakes that you’ve made?
Darcy Marler [00:04:36] I’ve made all the mistakes, every single one. Basically, my biggest problem was a job of focusing. So I’d start with fixed and flips. And then I had the opportunity to do some Salan development and new construction and that led me to something else. So I would definitely advise people to stick with one strategy that they liked. I think too many people are kind of all that’s really out there for the education is. Stuff about flips and bird and rattles, I would caution that there’s all kinds of other ways to get into real estate, so maybe take some time and investigate that first. Find out something. Find out why you’re doing it. Really kind of think about that and then investigate all the options before you kind of pick a strategy. You’ll be a lot happier that way. And then once you do kind of figure out what you want to do, make sure you stick to a plan and focus. Don’t go all over the place like I did.
George El Masri [00:05:28] What advice would you have for somebody that’s trying to identify what strategy they want to go for?
Darcy Marler [00:05:35] It would be really good if someone wrote a book about that. Oh, actually, I did know one of my books is actually comparing the different real estate strategies of of of real estate investing. So that was basically the ape that you listed, plus a couple other ones. So I give an honest and objective look at the the pros and cons of every different strategy. What’s good about it and what’s bad about it, because that’s something I find too, with a lot of the the education, the books and the TV shows. Everything works all the time right there. The brothers make the brothers make money on the Flip’s every single time. And that’s maybe not the way it really works. So it gives an objective look at what’s good and what’s bad, how you make money, how you lose money and some some real case studies from my own history. So it’s a good opportunity to to to take a look at the broad range of everything that’s available before you nail, nail down and pick one. That’s right. For you.
George El Masri [00:06:26] Yeah. So if you could go back to when you started, what would be the strategy that you would have to advise yourself to focus on?
Darcy Marler [00:06:34] I started to do a lot of stuff, I thought one of you know, we I’ll tell those stories. One of the stories I was telling myself is that in order to make money, I couldn’t get anybody else involved. I could kind of get a guy in the middle. So I ended up being the site supervisor, my own general contractor on site all day, every day. And I wasn’t great at it and I didn’t like it. So I kind of didn’t enjoy great chunks of my my real estate journey. So I would if I had to do it over again, I’d still probably focus on new construction because I like to get in and out quickly. I don’t I’m tired of the eight to 10 year long holds of of the rental world. So I’d still probably do new construction, but I’d get somebody else to to be the general contractor, just farm that out, the parts you don’t like, farm out and do the parts that you like.
George El Masri [00:07:21] OK, so when you say new construction, you mean buying like a piece of land and developing it, that type of thing.
Darcy Marler [00:07:26] Right. So in my world I’ve got a couple of books, one on land development, and that’s taking property and get it ready for a builder. And then I define new construction as taking a service lots and physically building a construction or a building on it. OK, fair
George El Masri [00:07:41] enough. So in your experience, what’s been the most lucrative strategy for well, at least for yourself? I know obviously all strategies could be lucrative, but but you since you’ve tried all these different things throughout the years, what’s been the most lucrative for you?
Darcy Marler [00:07:59] Tough to say, I can honestly say I’ve made money in every strategy and I’ve lost money in every strategy, so that’s kind of one of the bigger takeaways, too, is it’s not it’s it’s cut and dried as it might be in the books and TV, I would say. And I should the strategies book. I devote a chapter where I compare. I did a bunch of flips earlier in my career like 2002, 2003, and then I went away from it for a while and I just looked and said, what if I did instead of selling those 15 homes back 10 years earlier, what if I have kept them? And I actually did a study and it turned out that the the buy and hold strategy, the I guess that would be bare ends up in the long run being a lot more beneficial than actually to fix it to the bottom. I thought that was interesting to go back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
George El Masri [00:08:45] That’s that’s the whole idea behind the books. Right. You’re right. It’s a long term thing, although you are able to recoup some of your money initially, which is awesome. But yeah, it’s interesting that you look back at your own Flip’s and thought, where would I be if I if I hadn’t sold those, if I just held onto them
Darcy Marler [00:09:04] a little masochistic. But that’s OK.
George El Masri [00:09:07] So I don’t as of late, you’ve been focusing more on land development and new construction. Why did you decide to make that switch?
Darcy Marler [00:09:18] They say a little soul searching, so in twenty eighteen, I kind of, you know, with the economy the way it was in Alberta here, I kind of. Wasn’t really making any headway in any of the things I was doing, the long term rentals, the projects I was doing, so I kind of just stopped and did some navel gazing. As I said, I wasn’t happy. So I said, OK. So I sat down and and started to think about my wife. I had never thought about that before. And I know everybody’s talking about why now, but back when I started, nobody my wife was just that I wanted to make money that was as much thought as I could. And then you jump right into the strategy, what am I going to do, flips or rentals or whatever. And so I start and I just took a pause and I said, you know what would make me happy? What what am I really trying to do here? And so once I had my wife figured out my wife is just, you know, I want to be fulfilled every day. I like to be intellectually stimulated. I like to have new things every day, like I get bored really easy. So once I kind of figured out what I wanted, then I could sit and make a list of maybe what I didn’t want. So I didn’t want to I didn’t want to have long term. I’m fifty four, so I don’t want to deal with 10 year jobs anymore for a long term. I don’t want to be on site supervisor. I don’t want to deal with icky anymore. Kind of. You know, I made a lot of money over the years dealing with really nasty stuff with what Flip’s and we’re tired of that. So it’s sometimes easier to start with the list of things you don’t want to narrow down. And what was left is is kind of the development and the new construction because you’re in and out quickly. You can delegate a lot of it. It’s repeatable. You can make money easier sometimes if you can do something and repeat it, like you can get a system that works, maybe, maybe just fix it. Flip’s with maybe you specialize in one specific type of house and you just do that over and over. So if you can get a system. So it just kind of my personality, I took some time to actually give some thought to that. And that’s where I came back to is the construction and land development. It’s extra work. And I really got I’m really much happier now that I’ve been in a long time.
George El Masri [00:11:22] OK, yeah, that’s great. I’m glad to hear that. What does your portfolio look like today? Did you end up selling a bunch of your properties because you said you didn’t really want to be hands on any more and whatnot, or are you still holding on to them and just having a property management in place?
Darcy Marler [00:11:37] I’ve always the management side. I kind of always farmed out. I’m I’m in the midst of selling my entire portfolio, actually. So I’m down to I think about eleven units or eleven buildings left and just around one hundred doors now that I’m actually about some some money partners. And we’re actively looking for land actually in United States and Texas and Florida to start doing some some new construction work down there, some pretty excited with that part of the thing. You know, that’s one of the things I didn’t want to do is to spend six months, a year and a half dealing with city hall like we tend to do now in Canada. So I was looking for opportunities where I didn’t have to do that either. So it looked a little better that way down in the States.
George El Masri [00:12:17] OK, so was that the driving force behind you, liquidating your assets in your local assets and looking abroad?
Darcy Marler [00:12:25] The liquidating of the assets? The Renzo’s was I just I didn’t want to. It wasn’t making me happy. Rentals, right. My my give it that made it was really really low. Lt forms are the problem and I didn’t care. My manager phoned in, another boiler broke and I didn’t care. So that’s not good for me. Not good for the tenants, not good for the building, not good for the manager. So if you hit that stage it’s best just to get out. So it was kind of it didn’t didn’t feed my wife. It didn’t make me happy anymore. So it’s out of my life. That’s kind of the new the new mantra. If something doesn’t make you happy, then why are you doing it right? So I think a lot of us I talked to a lot of guys my age or younger, like in their forties, and I know a lot of them aren’t happy with the real estate. I’m not talking about happy in terms of the rate of return. I’m just saying a lot of them aren’t enjoying the the journey. And I kind of like to focus on that. Now, if I’m doing mentorship, I kind of focus first on, like I said, the way before I get to the how to make sure you’re actually enjoying this because, you know, you can enjoy real estate investing, too. It doesn’t have to be all about the money. Yeah.
George El Masri [00:13:29] Yeah, for sure. So are you saying that you found joy in new development in that type of thing, land development and new construction?
Darcy Marler [00:13:39] I find the joy in focusing on the stuff that I like and then farming off the stuff that I don’t where I kind of just tried to do what I was trying to. I guess I was a lone wolf for too long. I was trying to do everything myself and it just wasn’t enjoyable. So. Well, after you’ve kind of figure out your why know, I like to look at your personality, your strengths and weaknesses, what you like and what you don’t like, if you don’t like dealing with people, then then don’t be a property manager. Don’t do rentals. Right. If you don’t want to deal with now, Steve, and then don’t deal with with Flip’s. Right. So I looked at the things that I like. I like being creative. I like designing. I like building. You know, when I when I was doing flips, I like the initial part going into a building and say, you know, if I take out that wall or what can I do with that really ugly 1960s fireplace thing? We got to wrap it up and over there. So I love that creative part. I love designing the new houses when I was doing the construction. I like designing the lots and where the water is going to go and land development. I like that part of it. So I kind of just focused on the parts that I like and I, I farm out the parts that I don’t know and that’s given me a lot more pleasure in the in the investments that I’m doing.
George El Masri [00:14:51] So can you tell us a little bit about what you’re working on now? You said you’re looking in the in the States for four different projects. Can you tell us where you’re looking and what does it look like to get involved in a project like that when you are in Edmonton or I think in Edmonton?
Darcy Marler [00:15:05] I was born in Amsterdam. In Calgary now. Oh, in Calgary now. Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s a little challenging with covid and not being able to go across the border. I guess I could go across the border. It was getting it would be getting back. That would be the tough part. Yeah. So you’re dealing with kind of long range, trying to find the realtors not so we’re actively looking basically in Dallas and Houston. And then also I’ve got people looking in Florida as well along the Atlantic seaboard. They’re kind of in the Boca Raton area. It’s cost of the construction costs are an issue now as well, although I think that’s going to be temporary. Most of that is supply and demand, access, demand based on covid and then also a lot of supply chain issues which again, are covered, related. So I’m thinking by the end of the year that should most of that should should kind of ease and go back to normal. So you’re looking at where to find land. We’re looking to basically do some some smaller, small, but maybe 10 to 15 unit apartment buildings. That’s kind of what we’re focused on. So we’re looking for the land that works for that. Houston and Texas in general, Florida in general are good because they’ve got net migration. And that was a problem we had here in western Canada for the last few years is that we’ve got more people moving out than moving in. And that’s not good for supply and demand and rental rates and and resale values. So I’m looking for something where, you know, like Texas the last few years have led the country down there. And in migration, you know, just everybody moves there with myself. American background or ties. Everybody in South America just loves Miami. So Miami, I don’t see slowing down population growth wise any time soon. So I kind of start at the top. I don’t necessarily I look for any like what is your area need? And then let’s try to fill it. I don’t again, start with the law to just try to find a lot. I try to go up a couple of levels to the city level, even the state or province level, and then then start to look down.
George El Masri [00:17:10] Right. So with these buildings that you’re talking about, you said you’re you’re looking for to build ten to fifteen unit apartment buildings. So are you keeping these ones? They’re built. Are you holding onto them or are you selling the buildings to other people? Are that corporations are investors or
Darcy Marler [00:17:29] whatever that we’re still trying to figure out? Are we more of a fix and flip model or are we going to keep a few of them until we get to, let’s say, a hundred and fifty doors and then sell a portfolio to a to an insurance company or read or something like that? So we’re still toying with that. I guess a lot of that once we finally land on the actual parcels and we we design the buildings, I think then once we know operating costs to that level, then we’ll be able to make that kind of decision.
George El Masri [00:17:57] Yeah. So is this pretty early on in your process right now or have you done this before? And some of these cities?
Darcy Marler [00:18:03] I’ve got my partner with some people that have built about 30 homes down in Houston. I personally haven’t, but they have. And so bringing my kind of larger expertize and some money to to get a little bigger. So they’re going to expand. So we’re both kind of growing and expanding our horizons in both ways. So, you know, obviously with my background, I bring a lot to the table, too, so we can maybe scale up and get a little bigger, quicker.
George El Masri [00:18:27] Right. And so what’s what would be the difference in build times, let’s say, like in your local area versus in Houston or Dallas or whatever part of Florida?
Darcy Marler [00:18:41] Getting a little worse now because of demand, but, you know, a few months ago, for example, it would take a month to get a permit in Houston, where it would take six months to a year here in Calgary. They don’t have basements there. So the actual build time, instead of being eight months to a year, can be in four or five months. They’ve got different insulation values, although they’re probably rethinking that in the Dallas area because it’s not. But basically, you can ideally you can be in and out of investment in a year, which is really, really important where you’re you’re at least two years here in Canada. And I just you know, you kind of just get tired of that after all those extra costs, like, you know, Vancouver, for example, takes to do a building of any size in Vancouver, you’re looking at two years worth of just to get permits. Right. And I read somewhere recently close to a little over 50 percent of the cost of a new condo in Vancouver. Are our permits and fees and city costs. Right. So it just kind of you kind of shake your head after a while and then say, yeah, just maybe we’ll go somewhere else where it’s a little easier to deal with that. So unfortunately, you know, I’m a very proud Canadian, but it’s we’ve kind of made it really hard for ourselves all across the country with the amount of red tape and regulations that we look at now.
George El Masri [00:19:58] I hear you. I, I agree with you. And the cool thing, though, although obviously you can’t bank on this, but typically after that, two years has passed, after the two years have passed, sorry for the permit process and what not. Typically the land is worth substantially more, or at least that’s been the case in the last few years. So that’s been a good thing. But definitely that you can’t bank on that. You can’t just pray for for the land to appreciate that way.
Darcy Marler [00:20:26] And the other thing, too, is I don’t know that we take enough or take into account enough the carrying costs of while you’re sitting on that land waiting, you’re not making any money, but you’ve still got probably a mortgage payment going out. You got some insurance, you have property taxes, you’ve got your own salary. Maybe you’ve got an office that you’re renting a team. So some of these really big builders, there’s a lot of costs going out the door in those two years. Right. So you’ve got to make sure that that you can cover that because there’s always there’s always seems to be extensions and the goalposts get moved. So you’ve got to make sure your your got a lot of cash kicking around to do that.
George El Masri [00:21:01] Yeah, for sure. So in terms of your current portfolio, you’re going to be liquidating all of your, well, beloved buildings that you have left. Now you’re going to be taking the funds from that and then reinvesting it into into building in the US, correct?
Darcy Marler [00:21:15] Correct.
George El Masri [00:21:16] Yeah, OK. And your you don’t plan on keeping anything here. You don’t have any intention of doing so.
Darcy Marler [00:21:23] Nothing. No. You know, even my personal residence, I’m going to expect the next couple of years to to sell and kind of be moving somewhere else. And I fully expect to rent the rest of my life. But I think owning a house makes a lot of sense still. But you are a younger person and you’ve got 20 years of living there for the appreciation to to go up and mortgage payments to pay down, it’s a really great savings mechanism, I think, for young people. When you’re fifty four, I don’t know that that’s those numbers kind of work in the same way. So you’re probably better off just renting and having the flexibility of being able to move on the fly whenever you want. So that’s kind of my plan. So I don’t intend to own a lot in the future.
George El Masri [00:22:06] Yeah, OK, fair enough.
Darcy Marler [00:22:08] But you know, that changes as you get older. Things change. So it’s OK to adjust, I guess. Don’t get tied to one strategy or one thing. You can figure things out and move every year.
George El Masri [00:22:22] Yeah. I mean, I know it hasn’t been too long, but I feel like we covered a lot of different things. Is there anything we missed in your journey? We talked about, like how you started the different strategies. Is there anything else we we should cover?
Darcy Marler [00:22:35] Probably just you know, I was always that guy in addition to to being unable to focus, I’ve always also been that guy to live in the future all the time. Right. So I was always planning my next thing on my next thing. And I kind of I forgot to enjoy the the journey. And you hear that it’s kind of cliche, but it is true. I take some time and enjoy it. So I’m enjoying the process a lot more now, too. I’m doing the actual planning and these calls. I really enjoy these calls, these type of podcasts. I like writing. I like putting together a couple of actual online courses. I’m really enjoying that. So I’ve learned to enjoy the journey. And my advice to to probably a younger audience is don’t get so wrapped up over the next thing. And the other thing is, you know, I was judging by the numbers, I was certainly empire building and and there’s really no need to write. I talked to a lot of people in their 30s that are kind of all nervous that they don’t already have twenty doors or twenty five doors. And it’s all good. You don’t don’t worry. It’s all good if you you’ll fit it, you know, fit the the plan that works for you. Not too many of us, really. The only reason you really need 240 units is ego. You don’t physically need it financially. You can get where you want to go with a lot less units. Not so. And you don’t want to see the amount of paperwork I have every month from just one hundred doors that I have left. So, you know, try to try to work a plan that works around your lifestyle as well, like real estate should kind of complement your existing lifestyle with your family and your kids and whatever should be part of it. I would try to stay away from where real estate is, your lifestyle and everything else is off to the sides. Just some other advice from an old guy with white hair.
George El Masri [00:24:14] No, I think that’s great advice, actually, because it’s so easy to get caught up and start not only thinking that you don’t have enough, but comparing yourself to others and saying, OK, well, this person is way ahead of me. Why am I not able to do that? You start driving yourself crazy and revolving your entire life around these crazy goals that you set instead of, like you said, just being happy with what you have, maybe slowing down a little bit, that type of thing.
Darcy Marler [00:24:42] Yes, no. And, you know, I don’t say. If you kind of do a self assessment and realize that, you know, long term rentals or flips are really what you want to do, that perfect go for it. Just make sure that the plan you have most people like is that we don’t that there’s a lot of pressure on the real estate education world. Like I said, they’re kind of pressuring you that you need 20 doors right away and they’re also pressuring you with kind of a private jet, champagne and Monaco kind of lifestyle, which I don’t most of us don’t want that. You may want that when you’re in your early 20s, but by the time you get to your your 30s, you know, it’s more family oriented for most of us. So, you know, keep your day job is something I always say to I think a big part of most people’s plans should be to keep your day job. There was a tremendous amount of stress in my life over the last 20 years because I was self-employed. I didn’t have any other income coming in. So, you know, most of these strategies, like Flip’s are long term rentals, even construction. Certainly money is going out the door, money’s going out the door, money’s going out the door. And then eventually, you know, you sell something to get some money. You look around, OK, well, who needs braces? Do we got. It’s only March, but let’s make sure we book the Christmas trip and. OK, we good. OK, now let’s go buy something else. So that gets really stressful. It’s a lot healthier if you can have a day job, have a regular income and then just be kind of investing on the side. So maybe what I say for most people who can afford to buy, you know, just even one maybe duplex are up down a year every two years, work what you can to pay down. And then in 15 years, you know, you’re going to have, you know, 10 suites and mostly pay down its mortgage and with depreciation. And that’s a really good little retirement. And you didn’t kill yourself probably to get there either, right? So you chose your life, enjoyed your family, went on your trips. It’s just a lot less stress. So, you know, you said people look around and this guy is doing much better. People look at me in a while. I want to begin with 90 buildings and 240 doors. I don’t know that every took behind the scenes thing. Maybe I don’t know if you want to buy a lot of stress on it. You know, where is the money coming from this month to do this? You know, you’re a millionaire on paper, but sometimes you can’t afford to buy groceries kind of thing. So that keep your day job is another. Yeah. Big tip on that’s road.
George El Masri [00:27:06] Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I wanted to go into the next section, which is the random five, so I’m going to ask you five random questions. Oh, can you just tell me the first thing that comes to mind. OK, so number one, which would you choose, jelly or ice cream? OK, by the way, I don’t I don’t create these questions. They’re totally random, so I don’t even know what’s on here sometimes. Number two, have you ever sailed a boat?
Darcy Marler [00:27:35] No.
George El Masri [00:27:36] Yeah, just very, very quickly, I find it funny because, as I say, a boat, I think about this one time I went to a conference in the US and there are a bunch of people from Dallas since you mentioned Dallas. And every time I would see a boat, they had no idea what I was talking about because of the Canadian accent or whatever. So they just reminded me of that there. But anyway, number three. Have you ever hopelessly failed a test?
Darcy Marler [00:28:05] No. OK, good. Not not not bad.
George El Masri [00:28:11] OK, number four, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for someone?
Darcy Marler [00:28:16] Krasa, Seiberg, Dumptruck. And I’m going to. Nothing comes to mind, but that’s crazy.
George El Masri [00:28:30] All right, no worries. If you think of something, you just let me know it happens. Number five, what’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?
Darcy Marler [00:28:38] What’s the scariest thing I’ve heard on? The client, actually, when I was 40, my 30th birthday, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and. It was it was it’s the largest mountain in the world that you don’t actually need climbing experience. You don’t have the crampons and all that. It’s just kind of a really serious hike. And there was parts of that that you’re still scrambling and stuff. So there’s part of that those those that were a little scary moments, but in the most was most private sprinkle.
George El Masri [00:29:09] Is it is it a dangerous climb or is it more so just like difficult to do?
Darcy Marler [00:29:14] It’s difficult. Yeah. Basically, you’re going you know, the world record is like eight hours, so some guy that’s lived his life in the Alps is a professional climber, will fly down to Tanzania and literally run up the run up the mountain. And then you’ve got all these guys like me that are basically it takes five days and one day is acclimatization days. So but there are days and then a lot of steep climb. So it’s more hard. Yeah, the the technically difficult, but yeah.
George El Masri [00:29:46] So it’s not like Everest where you can like fall through these crevasses and die.
Darcy Marler [00:29:53] And the only way people die is, is kind of the, the altitude sickness. They get severe altitude sickness. Oh OK. And but again, if you take an extra day, one day there was one day like the fifth that it took six days. The fifth day I just sat in Cap and just did nothing, all those guys out there. And that was just to get acclimatized. So I didn’t have any issues with the nausea or altitude at all.
George El Masri [00:30:18] Awesome. That sounds like a really cool experience.
Darcy Marler [00:30:20] It was,
George El Masri [00:30:22] yeah. So I mean, that concludes the random five. Do you want to tell people how they can reach you and what services you provide, if any?
Darcy Marler [00:30:32] I do, yeah. I’ve got some on my website. These are real estate mentors, dot com and H.R. stands for. And so our real estate ventures, dot com. I’ve written four books on real estate so you can buy those there. I’m in the process of developing some courses, one course on each book, and I also do mentorship as well, one on one mentorship with an actual Canadian that has done a ton of stuff, 20 years of experience. So that I think I find the thing about mentorship is really got a there’s so many guys out there, you really have to just find one that kind of matches your personality you feel comfortable with. So I would definitely suggest everybody gets a mentor, though. I wish I had legitimately back in the day, it probably would have helped me stay on track and not go all over the place. And whether that’s me or not, that’s fine. But I really do think everybody should get a mentor, just kind of speeds up the process, gets you where you want to go quicker.
George El Masri [00:31:25] Awesome. Yeah. Well, Darsey, I appreciate you sharing your story and advice, and it was really nice meeting you and connecting with you today.
Darcy Marler [00:31:34] Sounds very good. It was great meeting you. And thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.
George El Masri [00:31:38] All right. Enjoy the rest of your day. You too. As always. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed the content. And if you did, I ask you to share this with a friend, with a family member or somebody who might benefit. And it’s always appreciated if you can leave us a review, especially if you’re listening to it on the Apple podcast app or if you’re on YouTube, give us a like subscribe comment and your support is always appreciated. Thank you very much.