Table of Contents
This content is provided in partnership with Rob Break and Sandy Mackay with the Breakthrough Real Estate Investing Podcast.
Podcast Transcription
Sandy MacKay [00:00:00] Breakthrough Real Estate Investing Podcast, Episode four.
Rob Break [00:00:24] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Breakthrough Real Estate Investing podcast. We put this show together to inspire you and help you live the life that you want to live through, the power of real estate investing. My name is Rob Brake, and here with me, as always, is Sandy MacKay. What’s up, Sandy?
Sandy MacKay [00:00:44] Yeah, hey, Rob, lots of stuff up, as always, we’ve got some cool stuff coming for everyone on this show and a really awesome interview with Michael Domínguez that’s coming your way in just a few minutes. First of all, I want to tell everyone to go check out our website, Breakthru RTI podcast Dossie. First of all, lots of awesome interviews that we’ve done on there with other experts in the real estate industry, and we’ve got to really I think the amazing report that’s going to help a lot of people out there. It’s called the seven freedom activators you can trigger in your properties right now if you’re an investor already or you’re just looking to get into real estate. There’s a lot you can learn in this this totally free report. So go check out the website. Again, it’s Breakthru Area podcast gutsier and pick that report up and also check out the old interviews are not old, but the the other interviews with industry experts,
Rob Break [00:01:39] the past interviews
Sandy MacKay [00:01:41] past. That’s the word I’m looking for.
Rob Break [00:01:43] Yeah. And also take the time to go over to iTunes and click the subscribe button on Breakthru, our podcast, and you’ll be able to get all the new episodes as they come out and take the time, if you would, please, and write a review for us. Tell us what you think of the show. We’d really appreciate that as well.
Sandy MacKay [00:02:04] For sure. Yeah, and so, yeah, hang around here, we got, like I said, this awesome interview coming. First of all, though, let’s quickly chat about what we’ve been up to. I know we got a cool deal closing in a week or so. It’s been a long time coming.
Rob Break [00:02:20] That’s pretty fun with that one.
Sandy MacKay [00:02:21] Yeah, that’s cool. And you’ve also been doing something on your own. That’s pretty exciting to Rob. Tell us about this property you’ve been working on.
Rob Break [00:02:29] Yeah, my wife Jennifer and I just finished our first fix and flip project. It was a three level back split here in the same area that we live in, just around the corner and is basically a full gut renovation. It’s taken us both the last six weeks to complete and we just listed that. So we’re super excited to see how that goes. And if all of you would like to see all of the pictures from that project, I wrote a big blog post on it. It’s pretty interesting stuff. Some challenges in there. And, you know, along with being the worst winter that we’ve had in a long time, I had the furnace break down through the renovation. That was fun. And, you know, I was sick through a lot of the renovation and we had some contractors that needed to be fired. All kinds of fun stuff. So, you know, go check that out. It was a it was a it was a blast. Even though, you know, there’s always challenges to me. But that was a lot of fun and we’re just really excited to see it.
Sandy MacKay [00:03:36] Yeah, awesome. And it’s yeah. Like everything just ups and downs. But maybe tell everyone, what’s your kind of projected outcome of that place? How much money are you going to make on it.
Rob Break [00:03:48] I don’t want to do too much speculating, but I mean, we’ve got it, so it was a purchase price of two hundred thousand and we put about thirty three thousand into it with carrying and all of that as well as the renovations. So. We’ve got it listed for three of nine.
Sandy MacKay [00:04:09] Pretty good, pretty good, yeah. And that’s in a couple of months, and that was a joint venture deal, right?
Rob Break [00:04:15] It was. So we’re splitting that. It’s not all ours, unfortunately. And if it was, I’d be probably jumping up and down for joy. I’d be a little more willing to bring the price down. But as it is, I mean, hey, we’ve had a lot of interest in it so far. So I’m just really excited to see how it goes.
Sandy MacKay [00:04:37] Yeah, flips are not for everyone, but when done right as your place, as an example, you can make a lot of a lot of money.
Rob Break [00:04:47] Well, the money is not made yet. So I don’t want to I don’t want to count it in my pocket. But, you know, it was fun and it was definitely a learning experience. I mean, I don’t think we’re going to lose any money. So, you know, that’s good. But getting it at the right price, that’s really the main the main thing. I think if you’re going to start a project like this, I mean, we could have went over budget quite significantly and I think it’s still done. OK, so that’s really the key, in my opinion, is getting it at the right price.
Sandy MacKay [00:05:21] Totally. Do you think that in your opinion, just going through this, I guess that’s the most important thing, right? In the end, if you make that purchase right, then you can screw up a lot of things and still come out on top.
Rob Break [00:05:34] Well, we’ve done some small renovations on our own properties that we’re holding right in on our own house, all the other houses that we’ve lived in as well. And so I have a rough idea. And my dad was in construction. I grew up with it all my life, but I would be far from good at it. But, you know, I think that it was a good learning experience. It was a good way to learn just because I did have some confidence and I wasn’t I wasn’t fearful. You know, I knew that we were going to be OK, even if I even if I did a really bad job. And I don’t think I did. I think I did pretty well. But we’ll see. You know, we’ll talk about it later and and hopefully have some good news to come back with.
Sandy MacKay [00:06:21] Awesome, great, and yeah, again, that’s going to be a blog post up over on JTV for profits dot com so everyone can go check that out. So let’s get to the interview and let’s hear what Michael has to said. He shared some awesome stuff in this interview. So I know we’re both really excited to get this out here. He’s going to talk to us about how to stay optimistic when you encounter some really big challenges. And he’ll discuss a personal story there where he’s had a really horrendous property that had all sorts of issues and he was able to to bring it up to snuff and really turn it into a great property for himself. And that was quite a story. It is. It’s it’s pretty funny. It’s funny and amazing, really. I was blown away. Yeah, it’s it’s crazy. So you’re going to hear on the whole, that’s what all that’s about. And we’re going to also talk about what’s so great about two properties and why you should be buying them up right now. And then we’re also going to talk about how to fit couches into convertibles, which is another interesting story and something you’re going to have to hold on line here to here.
Rob Break [00:07:29] So this one.
Sandy MacKay [00:07:31] Yeah, exactly. So let’s get to it then. Here’s our interview with Michael Domínguez.
Rob Break [00:07:37] Enjoy. All right, well, thank you for being here with us, Michael.
Michael Dominguez [00:07:44] You’re welcome. Looking forward to this talk.
Rob Break [00:07:47] How are you tonight?
Michael Dominguez [00:07:49] Very good. And sitting in my garage, sitting in my convertible, it’s all good.
Sandy MacKay [00:07:55] Yeah, it’s the famous Mustang Red, I guess it is. What color is that?
Michael Dominguez [00:08:01] It’s a cherry red convertible Mustang. Absolutely.
Rob Break [00:08:06] Tell me your garage is heated because it’s still cold, though, is it not?
Michael Dominguez [00:08:11] Yes, it is. And, you know, it’s it is not heated. I am just I’m doing whatever it takes to stay away from my Jack Russell terrier bark. So, no, we’re good. I mean, I can survive for for 45 minutes.
Rob Break [00:08:25] We’ll try to keep you entertained enough that you don’t like start the car and gas yourself out or anything.
Michael Dominguez [00:08:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sandy MacKay [00:08:33] OK, so I got a little a quick bio of you here, Michael, and then if you want to add on to it, feel free afterwards. OK, so. So you’re an investor and a realtor. A realtor with real apage. Frank in Durham region and Michael focuses primarily on finding cash flow investment properties for investors. He’s a member of Rain, which is a real estate investment network. As a Durham real estate investors member, he’s a member of the Northumberland Landlords Association. And he’s also just fresh off his win of the award for Realtor of the Year, presented by a Canadian real estate wealth magazine. And also, you were a nominee for investor of the year there as well. So you’re having quite the year already and yeah. Yeah, certainly we’re really pumped to have you here on the show.
Michael Dominguez [00:09:33] Yeah, looking forward to it and yeah, that’s a great introduction. I appreciate it.
Rob Break [00:09:39] Well, Michael, what came first for you? Were you a realtor or an investor first?
Michael Dominguez [00:09:46] I became a realtor in in early 2008. At the time, I really didn’t have any idea that I wanted to even work with investors. And basically I for about 15 years, I’d worked for a pet food company and I was the franchise sales manager for them for the last seven or eight years. So I’ve been dealing with a lot of investors of franchises prior to that. And and so in 2008, I. I started becoming a real estate agent and I quickly started to gravitate towards working with the with the investors. I felt like I sort of melded well with their with their mindset after helping about four or five people buy an investment property. I said I said, you know, I could be doing this too. And so that’s when I move forward and bought my first one. So definitely I was a realtor, first investor, second in timing.
Rob Break [00:10:49] So then that first property, what was that one, did you what intrigued you to purchase that specific property?
Michael Dominguez [00:10:56] The first property I was a bit of in hindsight, I was a little bit naive. I thought I was going to be able to walk right in and and improve it immensely. It was actually a six plex in in Kobrick. So I knew the Kloberg area from my time at the pet food company. So I knew that area and I liked I like to Koberg. And however, what I basically, you know, I this is this is before any knowledge of rain. This is before any knowledge of of Dermody. I am reading all of my books and stuff like that. This is just simply Michael, the realtor, having helped about four or five investors thinking I was some some knowledgeable person and I went and naively and I saw the price per door and I decided to go for it. But yeah, in hindsight, it was a pretty ambitious first one. In hindsight, a lot of people didn’t start that way. I went right to the sixth place.
Rob Break [00:11:58] No, that’s awesome. And you still have that one, too, don’t you?
Michael Dominguez [00:12:02] Yeah, I own every property I’ve ever purchased. I’ve never sold appropriate on my right from the beginning. It’s always been a buy and hold for for life sort of mentality.
Rob Break [00:12:16] Yeah, that’s great, because one thing I always hear from investors is what’s your biggest regret is? You know, I wish I never saw that one or this one or that one or whatever,
Michael Dominguez [00:12:27] and I could share with you with this particular property and and maybe a few other people that are listening and could maybe share this story with some of their properties they’ve bought. But the real estate investment network often speaks of that. The first 24 months are, you know, for for a new investor are such a critical time. And maybe that can be extended 36 months. But there’s a lot of ups and downs and it feels like the downs are pretty, pretty steep downs. And there were some times that I went through actually, I’m on my third property manager now and I had an awful lot of vacancies. I had an awful lot of repairs. I had budgeted certain amounts of repair work. But I thought but I thought I would need and I pretty much tripled those repairs. The good news is, is that this property is cash. Good enough that I didn’t have to dip into my own life savings in order to in order to maintain it. It’s always been using what you know, what is in cash flow towards towards the repairs and in upgrades will even say so. It’s not like I was just repairing things that had to be repaired. I’ve also been improving it. And but then, you know, lo and behold, 30, 36 months later, you know, I sort of look up and I realize how much this property’s appreciated. I look at how much the value of rent has gone up and I look at my rent or my monthly cash flow is and and I’ve had no vacancies for a long time. And I think, you know, now I’m pretty excited about the property. But you have asked me this question in 2011 or even 2012, I might have been thinking, I’m gonna hold onto this. I’ve held on.
Sandy MacKay [00:14:15] So did you buy it originally because of the cash flow you saw there, or was it like in a good area, you think it’s going to appreciate that sort of thing?
Michael Dominguez [00:14:26] I don’t think I was smart enough, honestly, to be that focused on area like I knew to some degree. But I was enthralled with the idea of having a multiplex. And then I just made it happen. And I was in a bit of a different situation than the two. You guys, for example, that I’m a little bit older and I thought I had a fair bit of equity in my personal residence. I was able to use my home equity line of credit for development. So that afforded me the opportunity to go right for the big boy stuff. And and and I. Yeah, so so that was more I think it was a bit of a power trip saying I owned a six plex, you know, and I like the idea of a cash flow idea. Like right from the beginning I, I valued cash flow even before I, I really like I it it blows you away when, you know, I consider myself a pretty knowledgeable guy. It helped investors. I, I had been in business for many, many years and I got my real estate license and and I took some extra courses in real estate to make myself even better. It just goes to show you until you do the extra research on your own, you’re just your typical realtor is just not going to have the base knowledge. And and I wasn’t there. And so I was able to I got lucky a lot of ways. Actually, it was it could have been a much worse purchase than it was.
Rob Break [00:15:56] So before we move on, just one last question about this specific property here, she said you’ve done some improvements on it, and I was just curious of what kind of improvements you decided to do and maybe why you chose those things.
Michael Dominguez [00:16:09] Well, actually, from the the first the first bits of improvements I did were were more making the property a little safer and and, you know, more resistant to utilities. So replacing real exciting stuff like replacing windows, improving plumbing, you know, changing some drywall around. And so it really wasn’t increasing the rent all that much. My latest project was I added a washer and dryer coin laundry, and that is hopefully going to generate me some additional revenue. But more than that, what it’s going to do is it’s going to hopefully bring a different class of tenant. We were not able to attract certain tenants simply because they didn’t want to have to take their laundry to the laundry mat on a regular basis. Now, like me having that, that’s going to aid in the ability of asking for more rent. What I’m going to be doing going forward is I’m actually waiting for a vacancy to happen and I’ve got a 10000 sitting in a sitting in a pile ready to be spent. And once a tenant leaves, I’m expecting to do a more extensive renovation, replacing the old 1960s kitchen, replacing some flooring, really bringing the property up to the 21st century, where really it’s it’s your typical 1960s, 1970s multiplex currently.
Rob Break [00:17:46] OK, cool. So you were talking about how great from the beginning, I guess you were investment focused realtor, right? Or did you go that?
Michael Dominguez [00:17:58] You know, I guess not to say right away is maybe a bit erroneous, but certainly within 24 months of me getting my license, I just felt that was where I wanted to go. It really wasn’t until 2011 that what I said is one of my goals that I wanted to become more knowledgeable in in in real estate and working with investors. And really, it was 2012 where I really started to see the benefits of that. So it hasn’t been that long, to be fair. But, you know, I set my goals at the beginning of the year. And thankfully, now I can tell you that that working with investors represents about 75 to 80 percent of my business.
Rob Break [00:18:39] Well, Cindy and I both kind of pride ourselves in our ability to find off market deals, good ones, and that being said, we’ve both used you to help us purchase. Properties before.
Michael Dominguez [00:18:56] Yeah, yeah, it’s it’s kind of cool that that we’ve both know, we’ve all worked together and and I think we’ve got a bit of a different mindset than than some even some of the investors and other some of the realtors, for that matter, is I’m I’m perfectly willing to age you guys in in doing private deals, you know, because at the end of the day, we’re we’re all in this for the long run. And building relationships is far more important than than any one commission deal, you know, and such like that.
Sandy MacKay [00:19:31] Yeah, I think that’s really cool because. Just the fact that we’ve both bought property and used your services, even though we’ve like, we just have a deal closing in the next month or so, that’s, you know, we had it thirty thousand dollars or so under market value. And and we’re still able to you know, you’re able to still find some pretty awesome deals out there for us, you know, on the MLS and things like that, that I think you just you’re able to see things that other realtors maybe can’t see.
Rob Break [00:20:00] Yeah, my best cash flowing property, actually.
Michael Dominguez [00:20:03] There you go. Yeah, I’m actually proud of that one that you’ve got, Rob, is is that, you know, just going back a ways, you were you were certainly looking for cash flow and you were looking for an opportunity. And and I’d already shown this one to one or two other people. So I pretty much brought you right there as soon as we really got to know each other on a different level. I wanted to bring you there because I just knew it was a good match for you. And and yes, to your point, it’s been cash flowing. Well, and it was it was in good shape, too, which is which is a nice bonus.
Rob Break [00:20:39] Yeah. There’s definitely been some unforeseen things pop up and a few issues that I still need to take care of. I had some pipes freeze over the winter over there and I just I got to take care of that stuff. But I think I know where the issue is and it looks like an easy fix. So that’s that’s good. But, you know, I mean, it’s the same as what you were talking about. I mean, it’s putting a dent in my cash flow, but that’s about it. Like, I’m not dipping into my pockets to fix this stuff. And that’s really, really good. That’s saying something.
Michael Dominguez [00:21:12] Yeah, that’s that’s exactly you know, if, you know, I’m not a lie to any potential investor that I’m working with, I certainly want to tell them that there’s going to be a lot of cash flow that’s going to go away to a repair or an improvement. So to assume that you’re going to be following your model that you set up before you bought your property is is sometimes a little bit naive. So. So you have some questions for me.
Sandy MacKay [00:21:47] Yeah, I was going to ask you, Michael, what what is so you got the six plex. What other kind of properties do you have in your portfolio right now?
Michael Dominguez [00:21:56] I’m a huge, huge fan of legal to year dwellings and let me describe a typical two unit dwelling. It’s a property that was built as a single family home. Typically a bungalow or a bungalow is the most typical one that I that I love working with and with a separate entrance. And it has a the ability to put in a basement apartment in there. And that’s become one of my nieces as a realtor. And personally, I just love them. I have a legal team who have three legal community dwellings in Oshawa. In addition, I was able to, through a joint venture agreement, purchased a nine plex, which which is actually right adjacent to the offshore center. And that was that was a cool purchase. It was a private deal. And I was never on the MLS. And I happen to know some some guy who who who made the deal available to me, who happens to be, you know, on the other end of the line right now. And and so, Rob, you were able to provide that that lidded and I was able to find some joint venture money and two partners and we put that together. So that’s a nine plex. And actually in December of this last year, I purchased my first student rental, and that’s up in really Ontario. And that’s now fully recovered as of May 1st, actually. But they already they already paid the first and last as of May 1st for 12 months lease the one of the three two unit dwellings I’m actually acquiring in April of this year. So I’m counting on his mind, even though I haven’t taken the position yet. So in total, that makes 22 Dorce.
Rob Break [00:23:51] Wow, that’s that’s great. And the student rental who’s like, I guess you have a property manager dealing with that.
Michael Dominguez [00:24:01] Yeah, I’m doing a pretty good team up there. Really, it’s that’s you know, that’s a that’s a full conversation in itself. If somebody is ever looking at student rental, I’ve I’m a huge fan of the Durham market. And I’m sure you’ve got a couple of questions about that. Obviously, that’s my main focus as a realtor. But the one exception to the rule really is student rentals. I really feel for sure the city of Oshawa isn’t very onside with especially up in the north end with dealing with landlords of student rentals. The cash flow is simply not there for the amount of work and and risk involved. But that’s not the case up in Australia. And so I had a couple of clients who were curious about that market. I had one client that actually bought up there and the kind of guy I am, I’m a bit of a take action kind of guy. Instead of taking a bunch of courses like I do take the courses too. But instead of just studying and I said, screw it, let me just buy a property up there. And no better way to really learn the market than to actually be with my Toinette. So I bought a pretty inexpensive property and and, you know, building my team, I, I’ve got a really good property manager. I’ve got a couple of workers that have done some repair work in there. And where that’s really been beneficial is for any of my clients who are looking for that market to really starting to really grasp that pretty well.
Rob Break [00:25:31] Yeah, maybe I’ll talk to you about that, because, you know, I was born in a really and a whole bunch of family up there. I’ve been thinking about that area as well lately for some reason. So.
Michael Dominguez [00:25:43] Well, I can tell you that it’s this is a city or town or whatever you want to call it, the village of thirty one thousand people. If prices are fairly stagnant, maybe, you know, actually, they’re not fairly they’re very stagnant yet in the last few years. Well, they’ve always had they’ve always had George in college, which is about 1500, almost 2000 kids. And now they’ve added Lakehead University, which everyone knows that they had with their Thunder Bay connection. But Lakehead is growing their campus in an area. And so they’ve got almost 2000 kids already. And within a decade, the number I hear is by 2023, which isn’t that far away. They’re hoping to have as many as seventy five hundred kids so in that school. So let’s let’s even say they overstated. And between the two schools are sitting around 7000 kids. So that’s that’s what 25 percent of the population of Australia is going to be now students. And to this point, they really haven’t been building a lot of purpose built multis. They’re depending on the on the community to add second suites. And and they were very much onside with allowing contractors to build multi units, double duplex triplex, that sort of thing. And yet housing prices are pretty low. So it’s a lot of good things are going on are really the only downside to this point is there really hasn’t been an appreciated value. But all the fundamentals are there, I believe, for that to change over time.
Sandy MacKay [00:27:24] Cool, and I love that that idea of that. What better way to get to know a market than to just go in there yourself? And what better way to bring clients are to invest their self and learn and make sure it actually works and then and then go from there. That’s a really good really makes sense.
Michael Dominguez [00:27:43] Oh, look, I’m not an idiot. Obviously, I’m hoping to make some money, too. Of course. But, you know, worst case scenario, I’m going to lose a few thousand bucks. But the best case scenario is I’m going to be able to take my investors and be a lot more confident about this. Like I, I I’m thankfully, I’ve never sold a property, an investment property where somebody has come back to me a year later and said, what the heck did you make me do? This is the worst property ever bought, actually about a year. And listen to your goal. Six months ago, I went through and talked to each of my investors that I’ve ever done a deal with. And I’m proud to say that not one investor to this point has ever lost money on their property. They’re all they’re all happy with it and they’re all wanting to keep it. And they’re all wanting to, in many cases, wanting to add more because they’ve been they’ve been cash flowing and they’re building wealth.
Rob Break [00:28:38] Perfect. Yeah, that’s great.
Sandy MacKay [00:28:41] Totally, and I mean, Rob would both agree with that, too, right?
Rob Break [00:28:45] Yeah, I would like having I’m having a rough time getting people into that place this year. Yeah. They don’t seem to be coming out as well. It’s been so cold. I think that has something to do with it.
Michael Dominguez [00:29:00] My property manager to really be here, we’re complaining, I’m sorry.
Rob Break [00:29:05] I said, hopefully that has something to do with that I’m going to cross my fingers, that that’s what it is and
Michael Dominguez [00:29:10] my property, my property manager, really I’m sorry, I mentioned being an apologist, but my property manager really has had a lot of issues as well. Now they’ve had a lot more snow than we’ve even had and more cold. But that’s been a common complaint for a couple of property managers that I’ve spoken to is that they’re having a hard time getting the students out. But you still have a little bit of time before me first. So hopefully what is going to break? We’ll go from there.
Sandy MacKay [00:29:35] Mm hmm. So is it fair to say that buy and hold buying and holding to unit investment property, is that your famous strategy or is there other strategies that you use that you like or what is your favorite type of deal?
Michael Dominguez [00:29:51] Yeah, well, from an entry level standpoint, there’s no I can’t think of a better way to get into the market than with a two year property. Most of the people I’m working with have enough money in their HELOC or available cash to put the down payment down as as I’m sure we all know that. Listen to this. The Canadian market, you need 20 percent to put down. So using offshore was an example of, let’s say a property is available for three hundred thousand dollars. So that’s a pretty decent guess of where it’s going to be made a little higher, maybe a little lower. But that’s let’s use that as approximate. That would mean that 20 percent of that is approximately sixty thousand dollars. And with a mortgage of 240, well, with today’s interest rates, that’s about a thousand dollars a month. And the insurance and and taxes on that property are going to be about three three hundred plus one hundred people take. And so you’re into it for fourteen hundred before, before a property manager and such like that. And assuming you’re doing it yourself. So, you know, you’re just for let’s let’s even round up and say 1516 and and typically these legal two unit dwellings are are renting on the upper level, four for 11, 50 or so, and the basement’s reticular 100 or so. And the reason I’m saying we’re so they could get some of the more. So, you know, so this property that’s available on the market today, you know, it’s going to it’s going to generate about 250 dollars in cash for five years from now. Yeah, we need some repairs. And maintenance is going to probably take away from a little bit of that. But at the end of the day, if all hell breaks loose, you lose your job. This property is going to support itself. And in a worst case scenario, it’s going to be paying off. Paying down the mortgage to your balance is going to continue to drop the based on if we’ve done a good job of finding the location properly, it’s going to depreciate over time and it’s generating some cash flow. So it’s got a triple whammy. And and there just and they’re easy and the tenants themselves. If you’ve got a good property, you’re going to have a better quality tenant there, is there certainly a desire for first time investors to look for the cheapest properties possible? There there’s some weaker areas of offshore where you can get a duplex for maybe two hundred thousand dollars or two fifty or so. But I tend to steer people away from that area because we’re we’re dealing with ODP and welfare people and people that probably don’t want to have your tenants in many cases, whereas spending 300 to 320000 on a duplex is going to generate you the cash flow you’re looking for and and you’re hoping to have a much better time. His landlord.
Rob Break [00:32:47] So I like I’m right on board with you there, and I know, like I duplexes are my favorite and I’m pretty sure Sandy is right right there with us.
Sandy MacKay [00:32:56] Yeah, we’ve duplexes are great from a cash flow standpoint, it’s like, as you said, starting out. It’s a great way to do it because you’re not I mean, you’re not going crazy, maybe like you with your six plex, but you’re getting into the market with something that’s going to cash flow pretty well compared to a single family residential. We’re probably not going to get too much cash flow there.
Michael Dominguez [00:33:17] No, you know, the advantage of single family and I haven’t really done a lot of single families for investors, but there is some some validity, if you can at least cash flow neutral on some of these properties, you know, a newer one. And you just have to pay your mortgage, then. Sure, you can. You know, if you hold onto this thing for 25 years, you basically, you know how to pay off this house since, let’s say, doubled in value in that time if you’ve done well. But, you know, as you mentioned, starting out, you mentioned just starting out. There’s I have an investor that I’m working with that’s that’s now up to 10 to you, the properties. And, you know, you’re a potential, you know, property of each one, castling, 500 bucks a building. And, you know, ten of them is 5000 dollars. That’s that’s going a long ways. It’s making it’s making a dent in your in your in your seriously your income. And it’s building a fair bit of wealth, too. So you have to go to the big, you know, eight, 10, 20 unit properties. If you you just keep rolling along with those two, you and it can work.
Rob Break [00:34:23] So now we’re going to talk about some pitfalls, and I’m going to ask you. You must have like the worst moment as an investor, something that came up there was a sort of a big a big deal. And how did you overcome that?
Michael Dominguez [00:34:43] I did. It was actually the second property actually purchased, it was actually my first two year property of all things. I bought a legal two unit dwelling in Oshawa at Park and Jordt area, and I bought it well under market value. It was already tainted by a miserable woman and and her kids. And so I like the fact that I was inheriting. Yeah, I knew it was a lower end property. It needed a lot of work, but it was already had the legal certificate, which is awesome. And and then and it was already collecting rent. And so I thought and so, you know, a couple of months goes by and eventually she’s going from being we can rent to not paying rent at all. And six months goes by and the basement tenant is now starting to seriously compare our complaint over the fact that mold is coming in all over the place. And so we’re now coming into the spring and it was really more black mold was coming in everywhere. So I tried to do some quick fixes. And this is the biggest mistake I ever made. And I was spending thousands of dollars ripping out drywall and and replacing it as best I could, cleaning up and and such like that. Anyway, sure enough, weeks later, the black mold starts to return. And I was able to bring in my home inspector and he told me that I basically had a river running all the way around my house. It was my my foundation was completely shot. And so I needed to do a full redig. And so I probably spent eight, 10000 at that point doing small repairs. And so but, you know, I realized that I had to put down everything I’ve done and and start over again. And I knew that the dog was going to cost me ten to fifteen thousand dollars. And that didn’t include the cost of having to rip out all the I basically had to go back to study and I in my lower level. And and so the good news is, is that I was able to get rid of that, you know, both tenants eventually. And and I actually had to pay them to leave, even though they were paying rent just to get them to sign off that I that they weren’t able to move back in. I basically gave them like a month’s rent just to just to leave. And so they all agreed to that. But the money was the money was huge. And there were some times that I questioned my sanity in saying, what the heck am I doing? And I think the worst two moments, the first one was to realize I had to do for observation deck. And the second one is when the upper tenant moved out the place like nothing I’d ever seen before. And I’ve seen a lot of interesting property. And the realtor, especially the kind of properties that I look at as a as an investment realtor, but nothing I’d ever seen looked as bad and felt as bad as this particular unit. And I had to own the damn thing. So we tried cleaning. We tried doing everything. We were ripping out floorboards, trying to clean this out.
Rob Break [00:38:04] It was it was it. Animals are like, how did it get that way?
Michael Dominguez [00:38:08] Yeah, the dogs, the dogs and cats. We knew the dog and cats had urinated in the floor. So we were trying to scrape and clean as best we could. But even that wasn’t making a difference. It was the worst
Rob Break [00:38:19] enemy, you know, man’s best friend. Investor’s worst enemy.
Michael Dominguez [00:38:23] Exactly. It wasn’t until my contractor in the basement. Oh, I was also putting in a new as well. And some of the ducks needed to be moved a little bit to work. Nothing major, just some some minor alterations. And and so as the contractor was was moving the ducks around just a little bit, all of a sudden he felt some liquid hitting his shoulders. It turned out that the kids were were actually sweeping the feces and into the ductwork. Instead of having to clean it up, they would just sweep it in there. And apparently they did this over the course of months and months and months, you know, once. So we basically had to now rip out the entire ceiling of the lower unit, which I really hadn’t planned on doing in order to replace all the ducks. And and I hold and back work as well. So that was a rough moment in the.
Rob Break [00:39:23] She said, yeah, I’m having a bad day, I’m going to remember that, and and
Michael Dominguez [00:39:31] the hotel let me let me let let me turn it into a good story, guys. Let me turn it into a good story in the total. Now, I bought this one at a pretty good price. I paid about one hundred eighty thousand for this to you as well, and which was under market value even even at that time. And I put about 100000 dollars into the dwelling. So at the end of the day, I was into it to and which really hurts. But I could tell you that today it’s not only renting the opportunity of getting 150 plus utilities, I’m getting 950 plus utilities in the basement and I’m renting the garage for an additional 250 for 25 to 24, 50 plus utilities. If somebody were to offer me two or three, 25 for that property right now, I wouldn’t take it. It’s it’s even from all those repairs and all that B.S. I’ve really like I have increased value since then. And and now I’ve got a wonderfully renovated two unit suite that is getting premium and it’s well located. So, you know, despite every bit of nightmare I could possibly have, the thing is still cash flowing about seven to eight hundred dollars a month free.
Rob Break [00:40:51] Very, very nice. Wow.
Sandy MacKay [00:40:52] Well, I just got a quick question. That’s an awesome story. I think I think like I think so if someone’s listening to us, I think they’re if they haven’t invested in real estate before, maybe they’re listening to that and kind of being like, oh, my gosh, I don’t ever want to deal with any of that, obviously. But how would you say, like, you overcame that? How did you know how to deal with that type of thing at the at the time or did you learn how to do that?
Michael Dominguez [00:41:21] It was a lot more learning to go. There’s a lot of my business coaches and someone by the name of Brian Bazini and he he coaches real estate. And now obviously it wasn’t directly towards me. But one of the things that helped me get through some of these things is I set my goals every single year. And that’s something that I never used to do years ago. But through coaching, I. I do that more. I set my objectives and set where I want to be in one year and five years and such like that. And the one thing that he says is that, you know, you’re you’re here, you want to be there. And but it’s not a straight line. There’s a lot of squiggly lines along the way. But eventually, you know, if you keep saying your mind setting a goal for that particular spot, you’re eventually going to get there. And so I tried to write it off as a really squiggly line along the way. But, you know, all of the if I didn’t have the key lock available to me, I probably would have I probably would have had this sort of property. I was fortunate to have enough equity. I’m sure enough the effects would be in my and my personal residence. And then what I was able to do is and refinance my property once it’s been renovated and get most of that money back and then put that back in the market lock. So it was now available cash again. So, yeah, that was it was you know, there’s no roadmap for urine and feces in the in the ductwork. I’ve looked at a lot of business books and that has not been there.
Rob Break [00:43:02] It’s truly amazing. I won’t go into my stories, but I’ve got some that are not that bad. But, you know, coming up on very, very close. And it’s it’s so that is just something that you wouldn’t even you couldn’t even think of that for a movie,
Michael Dominguez [00:43:19] you know,
Rob Break [00:43:22] hide hide the poop. So when you’re talking about goals and all of that, I guess you sort of answered it with that. But the next question is, what motivates you? Where do you get your inspiration and drive from?
Michael Dominguez [00:43:39] Well, I. It’s a little bit of a sad story, but it’s it it really meant a lot to me. Unfortunately, my little brother, three or four years ago, he he developed cancer and he he passed away actually less than a month after being diagnosed. And he died at 41. And and that was that was a real moment in my life. And obviously, it’s not trying to turn this into me, but it was it was a real aha moment for me. No one I really had been that connected to my grandparents had passed away and stuff like that. We’ve all had that. But to have someone who is such an important member of my my inner circle just just die on me was really something. And I had set a lot of goals when I was a teenager. I think a lot of us do. And a lot of my goals involve building wealth and such like that. And I really hadn’t seen travel and such like that. I really hadn’t done as much as I’d had wanted to do. So it was really I think my goals became much larger after after Jim passed away. And and so I started to set again more more grand goals and more objectives and and and so now, you know, fast forward three, four years. I think that’s one of the reasons why I’m taking chances in my real estate in terms of educated chances. I’m not I’m not I don’t think I’m putting myself in too much of a limb when I’m buying these properties. They’re they’re they’re well leveraged. They’re good areas. They’re I think they’re smart purchases. But nonetheless, if someone who doesn’t own any properties are probably sort of shaking their head and say, what the heck are you doing? You know, I’ve now got over a million dollars in mortgage debts. You know, how do I sleep at night? But what if that million dollars in mortgages generates me, you know, three dollars million in wealth and I’m okay with that. So I think that’s that’s been a big a big turning point in terms of that. And I also have a son who’s now 17, and I’m in a situation now where I’d like to build what they call generational wealth, where not only am I trying to get myself in a position where I have complete, total freedom, as Robert Kiyosaki would would tell you, is the ability of not having to do your job. You might still decide to do something because you enjoy it, but not because you have to. And I’d love to be in that position. I’m getting closer to that position, but also have something so that my son is in as good a position as he possibly can be and set him up. But I think the driving force was was really four years ago and when Jim passed away. Hmm.
Rob Break [00:46:39] Wow. I don’t even know how to follow up on that,
Sandy MacKay [00:46:44] so it’s great. I think I think it’s things like that. You know, you hear a lot of big successful people, whether it be with money or or in other means, but they all have not necessarily deaths or things like that. But there’s always something that clicks. You know, there’s a point where it just clicks and you say, you know, I got to make this happen. So. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, I think a lot of people can relate to or at least can see how that makes a lot of sense, right.
Michael Dominguez [00:47:14] Well, it has forced me to well, and it has forced me I forced myself and and I’ve been I’ve been really trying to take action and and unlike probably 97 percent of the human population, been writing goals on an annual basis. And my goal is, you know, like my goals are, you know, one year inside your goals. And then I’m striving to hit them and I accept, you know, I have anybody who knows me can look at my BlackBerry and look at my bucket list of things that I want to accomplish during my lifetime. And they add ones and twos from time to time. But my goal is to knock these things off. And. And so sometimes I can tell you that when I’m in a situation that I’m not feeling comfortable with, you know, I sometimes look and I say, is this something that’s going to get me closer to my goal or not? And if the answer is it is, then I suck it up and do it. But if the answer is not, then I do my best to try to delegate my way out of there and get out of it. And so I become more goal driven, which I get sometimes I think infuriates my wife a little bit. But nonetheless, it’s something that I that I really strive to do.
Rob Break [00:48:25] Well, it’s really hard to do that sometimes, and it’s good to take a step back and look at things and see what you can what you can delegate or just draw up. I mean, some it’s it is surprising when you look at all of the things that you think you have to do. And if you were to just not do half of them, you’d probably get by just fine just the way that you. Well, with all the stress, though, it’s funny because you wouldn’t think that was the case. But it really is. I’ve done that lately a lot. Just just let some things go that I always thought I had to do. And lo and behold, here I am still.
Michael Dominguez [00:49:04] Absolutely. Yes, it really is shocking how you can you can just focus on what you do well, what can generate you the most wealth, what you enjoy, and and then and then try to get people to do the other stuff, even if you have to pay to have it done. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you know, if I have to pay you fifteen dollars or twenty dollars an hour to do a job for me, that allows me to assist another client to sell a house. And I generate, you know, 5000 or 8000 commissions, then, you know, I think in the long run I had.
Rob Break [00:49:42] Michael, you have a system for helping new investors buy their first cash flow investing property. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
Michael Dominguez [00:49:52] Yes, I. The first thing that I always like to do is I really want to get to know the person. And so I I insist that before we start going randomly and start looking at houses and and, you know, pretty much every other realtor in the world does is, you know, somebody calls and I just start showing them places. That’s just that’s what a realtor does. That’s not what I do. And what I want to do is will usually be over lunch, one of my three or four favorite restaurants. And that’s why I’m probably overweight. But there’s a lot of reasons why I’m overweight. So that’s another story. And and so we I really want to get to know the person that I’m that I’m potentially going to be working with and see if we make a match. And there have been times that we’ve had lunch and we’ve agreed to it’s probably not the best fit. And that’s cool. I’d rather do that than than than waste, you know, dozens or even hundreds of hours on someone who I’m never going to do a deal with. Also, if the person can’t spend the time and meet with me and they say, no, I don’t want to do it your way, I want to look at houses, that, again, is a way of telling me that this is probably something that someone I don’t want to work with. So the first thing I do is I want to be with them and I get to find out what their goals are, what their skill set is like. Even using the two of you guys, for example, I know you have different different skills and different contracting, you know, abilities of doing jobs around the place. And and so as I find out more and more of what you’re what you who you are and what your skill set is and what your connections are, then I do my best to to narrow the search to something that fits your style. And then part two and as the introduction is, I’ll sort of give a little history with me and and, you know, where I’m at and where I’m where I’m going in my life. I’m very open with that. And and then I’ll usually take them on a tour of the area that we’re focusing on. And so if let’s say, for example, we’re talking about two units, well, I’ll I’ll show them, you know, some of the properties that I own. In addition, I’ll show them some of the ones that I’ve helped other clients of mine sell and repurchase purchase. And and we’re looking at, you know, 15, 25 different properties. You know, as we’re driving around, give or take, we maybe don’t see them all. We might even pop into one or two just to give them a taste of what a two and a dwelling really looks like from the inside with no intention of buying that day. That’s not the focus at all. But it’s really more of an education, because I really feel that for a young investor to really teach them what what they’re getting into is far more important than selling them the house right off the bat. I also encourage them to to do some research on rain, to attend a Durham REIT group meeting, which is our local real estate investment group run by Clinton, who does a wonderful job. I try to get them to educate themselves as best as they can and read a few books on the matter. And, you know, sometimes it might take a few weeks, sometimes it may take a few months. But when they’re ready to buy, I want them to be able to take action. And a lot of times when they first contact me, they’re not at that point. So that’s sort of my strategy. And and I find that it works for me. It’s it’s much more efficient. At the end of the day, it’s when they are ready, they’re not often ready just to buy one property, but they’re ready to buy two or three really, really ready for a one for the next couple of years. That’s cool, too, because it’s someone that some of that I think is going to, you know, be educated by the time they’re ready to make their first purchase. And that’s the kind of client a lot of work with.
Rob Break [00:53:50] You know, the funny thing, too, is that I thought I knew what I was looking for when when when you and I first met and I had an idea of what we were looking for, what we were going after. And I think that I do believe that after we talked and and you kind of showed me some of the properties along the lines of what I was looking for. And then you said, but you know what? I’d really like to show you this over here, because I think it’s more along the lines of what you might be looking for, even though you don’t think that right now. And and that may sound I just think those really, really good strategy. And you learn who I was, I thought. And then you went out and you sort of provided me with things that I that I wasn’t necessarily looking for in the first place.
Michael Dominguez [00:54:41] Yeah, I
Rob Break [00:54:43] turned out really, really well, that one.
Michael Dominguez [00:54:45] And actually was Sandy and Canada. It was a similar circumstance.
Sandy MacKay [00:54:48] Wasn’t exactly I was going to say, like I could say literally the exact same thing, Rob. And the other cool thing is like we had some fun to have going out there, and I know, Rob, I was going to I don’t even think you’ve heard this story yet, but I want to share the car story here quickly. They are not the car, the couch story story. So. So, yeah. And like I was saying, it’s it’s just a lot of fun looking for houses sometimes. And to go back to when we were looking out with you that one day we’re driving through, I guess it wasn’t wasn’t necessarily a great area, but it was one of the areas that we are maybe looking at. And you were kind of maybe hinting that this might not be the area for you, but we ended up finding a. I don’t know if we noticed that Kate noticed that couch that someone had basically throwing on the end of their driveway for the garbage guy or whoever to pick up. And it was like. It was not a very pretty sight when we picked it up, it must have had something we picked. Okay, so picture us in in Michael’s Mustang, right in his convertible, OK? And we have this disgusting I think it was cat pee on the couch. And but, you know, I think
Rob Break [00:56:16] the part here of why you picked it up.
Michael Dominguez [00:56:19] Well, this is this is a full sized cage, by the way.
Sandy MacKay [00:56:21] Full size. Yeah, it was. Yeah. As you know, two or three seater. And it was like it was disgusting. But we picked it up because. Kate. For who knows why? Who knows what sort and and this is one of the things I like about her, and she does this in real estate, too. She saw it and and said, you know, I can make that. Into something, you know, I can she looked at it, it was terribly ugly looking, but she said, you know, I can I’m picturing that in my room or in this in our living room or something once it’s all fixed up. And and we yeah, we picked it up. We put it in the back of his convertible. I was literally sitting on the on the ground, like, scrunched up in like this. It just smelled terrible. And we were driving around Australia with this Cathy covid couch hanging out, hanging out the window or hanging Topo’s down.
Michael Dominguez [00:57:20] Yeah, just hanging right out,
Rob Break [00:57:24] sticking up both sides like air airplane wings.
Michael Dominguez [00:57:26] Yeah. Yeah. That’s something that honestly you guys took a picture of that when we were in there. I really think that that’s something that should be added to your website.
Rob Break [00:57:35] Yeah. You got to put that picture in the show notes.
Sandy MacKay [00:57:37] Oh totally is. Yeah I definitely have it around still. It was, it was too funny. And then. We actually tried to fix it up and realize that it was going to cost a bit too much to do what flot Kate had envisioned, but we ended up. Basically just tidying it up a little bit, vacuuming and stuff, I think we threw it on yours. I’m just to get rid of it and we sold it for, like. I remember now two hundred bucks maybe.
Michael Dominguez [00:58:05] Yeah, she remembers you’re telling me it’s a couple hundred bucks you got got four and yeah.
Sandy MacKay [00:58:08] So it was like it wasn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but there was a funny story. It was really funny kind of bucks or whatever. Yeah, well, that’s one thing
Rob Break [00:58:19] that that’s the kind of adventures you get when you go out with Michael.
Michael Dominguez [00:58:23] Yeah, it’s a Mustang convertible moving truck is what it really is. Exactly.
Sandy MacKay [00:58:28] Yes. Back to some important stuff, I guess. What do you have an investment that stands out for you, like what’s your favorite investment that you’ve made personally or that you’ve helped? You’re going to
Michael Dominguez [00:58:42] purchase, I guess. Yeah, I’m going to I’m going to throw a little bit of a loop on this answer. I think you ask the question is if it was a as appropriate answer, an investment property. And really that’s my best signal investment that’s generated more single wealth than anything else I’ve ever done has been. Going to increase my knowledge in terms of investment properties, just spending money on education has has proved so worthwhile, I. This is going back five, six years now ago, I really didn’t read a heck of a lot in terms of, you know, I just never really read a lot of fiction. Know the thought of reading a Danielle Steel book or something like that just wasn’t really my thing.
Rob Break [00:59:34] And I don’t know until you try it, but I.
Michael Dominguez [00:59:41] I made a conscious decision when about four or five years ago and one of the first books I read was someone by the name of Jim Rohn, and he’s a business philosopher, one of the top of the 20th century. And one of the things that he that he really pushed was to read as much as you could in terms of things that would would make you grow as a person. And and so some of the lines he would say is don’t wish for more money, wish for more skills. And and so and one of the things that he advocated was to actually make a journal. And and so when you read a book that that means something, you know, highlighted, make notes, really read the book properly, and then after that you actually make notes and, you know, your journal is a particular thing. And then after you’ve killed it, then you then you you know, you teach others and and then you really feel like you’ve accomplished and read this book. And so I really make it a point to to read a lot more. And it it’s it’s really almost unfair. Like you’re talking about guys like like Jim Rohn or when they think now Don or Campbell, Julie brought her latest book and you know, the wealthy Barbers, another one, Robert Kiyosaki, rich, that poor dad. And, you know, you’re getting all these books for like 30, maybe 40 bucks. And I usually equate when I read a good book, it would generate me, you know, 10 to 20 thousand dollars in personal wealth and sometimes more just because of the information that they provide in those books. You combine that with attending the Durham Real Estate Investment Group or any other local investment group from wherever you’re this from. It also includes going to I’ve been to the rich dad education and some of that is very expensive, but I’ve done some cheaper stuff which is not too expensive. And I’m a rain member state, 200 a month there for the amount of education and information that everybody given the thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of dollars in wealth. And what’s really cool is that if something were to ever happen and all of a sudden they lost all of my wealth, the one thing that they can’t take away from me is my education. And it’s really a neat feeling to know that if I had to, I really, really had to. I lost all my money for some reason I could go out and and build it all over again because of what I learned. Just can’t take that stuff away from it. And and I think within within five to 10 years, even if I was bankrupt tomorrow, I’d get back to at least where I was and get into the billionaire range again, which is kind of cool.
Sandy MacKay [01:02:35] Yeah, that’s very cool, yeah, that’s that’s that’s like I flipped it, that’s a great, great answer. And OK, so let’s let’s talk a little bit about Durham region. What is it that you love about Durham?
Michael Dominguez [01:02:54] Durham’s offers the best of a lot of worlds, and first, I should mention that rain lists their top 10 cities that they recommended Ontario and quite often with the in-laws who are not on that list. And and that’s OK. I don’t necessarily need to have some validation from an organization, a national organization to tell me it’s it’s one of the best cities to invest in. I’ve done my own due diligence. I’ve done my own research in in, you know, really studied the market quite well. And I can tell you that it’s it’s been growing on a regular basis. I as a realtor, I can tell you I’ve done research in terms of those infamous 1950s, 60s, 70s neighborhoods and seeing increase in value of five to six percent annually for all of this century on average, which is which is pretty impressive. We’ve got the lowest prices of homes anywhere in the GTA. If you draw a circle or a or a rainbow over Toronto and you look at Mississauga, Oakville to the west, you look at Vaun and and Woodbridge to the north and Richmond Hill, where you look at Durham to the east, you’re simply getting the cheapest prices by far in Durham. So I really don’t foresee there to be a tremendous decrease in values, even if we do have a market correction in the short term future. In addition, as I said, we are growing. The Durham region has a population of over a half million people, which is continuing to grow on an annual basis. We’ve got an improvement in transit, so things like the ghost station has been getting better and better. So it’s going to be that much easier for a person to commute from. Oshawa would be Clarington into into downtown Oshawa or denser downtown Toronto. In addition, in 2015, the 407 is going to make its way to Harmonie Road, which is the far end of Oshawa, and so it’ll be from north Oshawa, north with the Brooklyn. You’ll be able to get from those markets to Young Street in 25 minutes. What do you think that’s going to do with pricing? I feel it’s going to at worst maintain and likely increase it because it’s going to be so, so close to Toronto. So I feel really I’m really pumped about that market. I think it’s it’s a good one. And to make matters best. The municipal governments are favorable with regards to legal to unit suites. They’ve been encouraging it where certain markets like Mississauga have been fighting it. You can still get into a property affordably and make cash flow in year one. Where in Toronto? In Mississauga, Brampton, that’s pretty tough to do. So I’m I’m pretty pumped about the market. You get the best of the Toronto world. You get the best of the Toronto amenities. You’re that close from a commuting standpoint, yet you’ve got that small, smaller town versus.
Sandy MacKay [01:06:18] Totally. And I definitely agree with pretty much all of it. It’s crazy and it’s really the last place that close to the Toronto that has prices like that. And it’s really is still a great place to to have a house and to live if you have to live there or whatever. Right. It’s it’s a great, great spot.
Michael Dominguez [01:06:40] I really do. And and if somebody really doesn’t know for sure what my advice is to do is, you know, first of all, I always recommend to go to the Durham Real Estate Investment Group and learn even if you have no interest in investing in Durham, we have people in our group. And I say we because I remember not because I have any affiliation, but people from as far away as Barry and Oakville and Peterboro and Koeberg are going to to get that kind of education. But if you are going to go look me up and I’ll happily take you on a tour and show you certain parts of the community that you might not even know exists. There’s an area of north which has been dubbed Joshua because it’s basically it’s you know, it’s like Unionville or Brooklyn. If anybody knows up in north Auschwitz, it’s you know, if I were to blindfold you and sort of, you know, then taking the blindfold off, you would know that you were in Auschwitz when you when you had the blindfold taken off. It’s it’s a pretty nice community. I mean, we’re that’s where we’re investing as investors. But it’s certainly nice to know that that the the mindset of the of the actual resident has certainly changed.
Rob Break [01:07:52] So do you think the opposite is true in certain places in Oshawa where they drop you in and like the south end? So just like kind of with the take the blindfold off and sort of sniff the air and go, yeah, South Ossetia
Michael Dominguez [01:08:07] and a savvy investor or a savvy realtor would direct the person away from that weaker area. But in saying that, Rob, I’m going to tell you, there are pockets of areas south of the four or one, the infamous South Ossetia. Cue the scary music where it’s actually pretty good places to invest. We can we can you know, we could talk all day on that. But I use as an example from Philip Murray down to Lake Ontario. If you look at every other market across Ontario, practically waterfront properties are things just a block or two away from the river or lake tend to be higher in price. That’s just that’s a natural thing, except in Ottawa, South Australia, right near the lake is is pretty, pretty inexpensive. Yet there are these beautiful 1960s, 50s bungalows that are just trying to be turned into legal two unit suites that are going to cash really well. They’re a nice little residential streets with, you know, just a street full of the same bungalow that was built by the same builder back in 1958 or whatever. And they’re going to be able to make some serious, serious money on South Australia. And yet they’re still getting these properties for more in the in the 240 to 270 range, which is which is pretty affordable for the Durham for the world, not only Durham, but all of of GTA.
Rob Break [01:09:38] Yeah, I have a duplex for one two, and and I like it, it’s it’s great, I, I haven’t had much trouble with it and it does well for me. Yeah. I’m just going to jump in here, actually, because I looked up that quote and I remember I wrote it down when I first heard it, that quote that you were saying. And I just wanted to say it because the next question is about your favorite quote or piece of advice. And I really like that one. And I remember writing it down. So I just want to say it here. That one by Jim Rohnt says, Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better, don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills and don’t wish for less challenges. Wish for more wisdom. And I remember hearing that for the first time I wrote it down and it’s always stuck with me. It makes a lot of sense.
Michael Dominguez [01:10:29] It’s you know, again, I obviously I paraphrased that a little bit when I spoke, but yeah, absolutely. It’s that’s one of his best. I can give you a couple more of that, but I want to kind of use one. For example, I mentioned before trying to the one thing that he likes to try to encourage one to do is to win the day and he defines winning the day, let’s say, for example, out of an eight hour day, if you put in five good hours and you set a list of goals at the beginning of the day, you’ve accomplished those goals. You’ve won the day and. If you can win three days out of five, if you’re working a five day workweek, you’ve won the week. If you can win three weeks out of four, you’ve won the month. You can win seven months out of a year. You can win the year. So focus on winning the day and and just keep going. And before you know it, it’s remarkable what you can do in a year. So, you know, I try to I sometimes set my goals small and just simply winning the day is is quite a it’s quite a feat because it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve you’ve. Conquered cancer. You’ve changed the world, but if you’ve accomplished the goals that you’ve set out at the beginning of the day and those goals are. Goals towards winning a month, of winning a year, then then you’ve done you’ve done a lot. That’s one thing that I certainly try to do. And another another one that I’ll mention as well. Is it Zig Ziglar and and Zig? He has the expression, if you if you help enough people get what they want, you’ll get everything that you want. And as a realtor, I like to take that mindset as much as I can. And and so I have no problem in just helping as many people as I can. And I think at the end of the day, it’s going to certainly improve my myself in the long run. So.
Rob Break [01:12:40] I’m sure everyone everyone’s perfect, Ziggler, but the other who was the other person you were mentioning there,
Michael Dominguez [01:12:47] Brian Buffini in the real estate world, he’s well known he was one of the real stars in the real world. He’s well known, but he’s he’s really focused more with realtors. And and he has he has some really good basic sound advice, which are. Not really, you know, well, they’re kind of stuff, it’s old school building, relationships with calls, notes, potpies, meeting your clients, you’re you’re far better off spending time with people you like and networking with the people you know than it is to spend thousands of dollars doing spending an ad in a in a newspaper or something like that. It’s his his philosophy is to make your business larger. You should make your focus smaller and to focus on your database of, you know, whether that number is 30 people or 100 people. Instead of focusing on, you know, the entire town of Whippy. If you’re a realtor, just focus on the 100 people that you like. You know, you were that’s 20 people. Doesn’t matter. And that’s that’s certainly how I operate my business. As a realtor. I’d rather build a relationship and and enjoy who I’m working with than try to advertise to the masses. So I really pinpointed my my strategy as a realtor.
Rob Break [01:14:11] And that’s good advice and hopefully people will look him up. Thanks for coming on the show, Michael. Really appreciate you being here.
Michael Dominguez [01:14:21] You’re welcome. It’s been fun. I hope I hope I said a few things that will resonate with the two you guys and if anybody else ever listens.
Sandy MacKay [01:14:31] Yeah, that was awesome. I know there’s tons of tons of value in that. I think for you know, for a lot of people, for investors, for realtors, for newbie investors, for experienced investors is a bit of everything there. I think there’s a lot of great, great, little, great little things that to learn.
Rob Break [01:14:50] A lot of takeaways for sure. How can people contact you to learn more about?
Michael Dominguez [01:14:55] Sure, I I suppose there’s a couple of ways they can look me up on my on my website, which is w w w dirham home gutsier. And and I really encourage you to take a look at my website. I’ve been spending a little bit time on it. To be fair. It’s not really my strength is doing the online presence thing. As I told you, I’d rather spend 500 bucks an hour taking a group of people out to see the play The Evil Dead, the musical and have a grand old time than than spending it on the website. But I decided to do it. And and what I’ve also done or actually more than that, that’s what I’ve done, is I’ve built an investor’s corner where I’ve included different articles and different blogs. And the best way to describe it was by my attempt at sort of, you know, explaining where were my thoughts, bizarre. And so, by all means, if you’re bored one afternoon, you really got nothing else to do. You know, peruse through my articles and maybe they’ll be of benefit or nothing else. I’ll tell you a little about who I am. And if you certainly want to reach me, you can also on the other, you do as well as follow me on Twitter at at Durham home and and then, of course, come to the Durham area in meetings and check them out. Jeremi RTI I is what they are and then we can meet face to face or whatever. I said, give me an email and through my website and we’ll go from there.
Sandy MacKay [01:16:32] Great, awesome.
Rob Break [01:16:34] Perfect. Thank you very much, Michael, I appreciate you coming on again.
Michael Dominguez [01:16:37] Have a good night, Walker. Yeah, thank you for that, Michael. All right.
Rob Break [01:17:06] I’m going to say my first I guess I like breakthrough, you know. Oh, right. So this is no breakthrough. Real Estate Investing Podcast, Episode four.
Michael Dominguez [01:17:24] Michael hazony. Are we actually starting
Rob Break [01:17:28] I think it’s been recording ever since we got on. Oh, we.
Michael Dominguez [01:17:33] I didn’t even know this. OK, all right, starting to get.