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Podcast Transcription
Georges El Mari [00:00:01] Welcome to the War podcast, where the goal is to motivate, inspire and share success principles. I’m your host, Georges El Masri. Today I interviewed Thomas Bobby Ski, a former chartered accountant who became a realtor and investor. He followed in his father’s footsteps, got his real estate license, and then eventually found his passion in real estate investing. His primary real story strategies focus on fixing flips, long term buying holds. And on this episode, we talked about how he’s been able to successfully flip properties in Mississauga, Brampton and Tobago. A lot of these places, people traditionally have not been flipping because of the price points and whatnot. But he talked about how he’s able to make it work, how he manages to do 8 to 10 flips per year while selling real estate. We also broke down a new Brampton condo purchase and flip that he’s working on how he finds his off market deals and how he uses private capital to get ahead. So I know you guys are going to enjoy this episode. If you do, we ask you to leave us a five star review and to share this with a friend or family member. Because we all want to grow. We all want to build our wealth if we’re listening to stuff like this. So I know there’s going to be benefit to them. And then if you want to connect with me to talk about some of the opportunities we have in southern Ontario, we have some apartment buildings in Welland and in Hamilton that we’re working on. If you’d like to get involved in any of our projects. Make sure to reach out by going to well-off dot CA, booking a call or reach out to me on Instagram while off X. There you go. Enjoy the episode. All right. I’m here with Tom, but we have ski for the first time. We sat down together. I’ve met you in the past at certain events. I guess you’re reminding me here. I have a hard time remembering everyone that I meet, but I know for a fact that we’ve spoken in the past. So thank you for joining me today.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:01:50] Yeah, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Georges El Mari [00:01:52] Great. I like to start off by asking you about your childhood. So do you want to tell me about where you grew up? A couple of things you remember.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:01:59] Well, you know, a great question, actually, I’m originally from the States, but I came to Canada was when I was a child. So a Polish immigrant family came. Buchanan was about one years old. I’m actually a second generation relative. So I watched my dad sell real estate for about 20, 30 years. And then, you know what? I actually became a CPA, and sure enough, I decided to follow my dad’s footsteps and become a full time realtor. So I’ve been doing this for now, 12 years.
Georges El Mari [00:02:28] Cool. 12 years? Yeah. Not a lot of people go from being accounts to becoming real estate agents. Did your family think you were crazy when you did that or. No, because they kind of understood the game all the time.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:02:40] Like, honestly, my dad was just like, don’t become a bum, become an agent, cause, you know, you won’t have a life and you’re going to go through basically, I want you to have basically more of a work life balance than I did. Yeah, but sure enough, like the corporate world, when I was working downtown, trying to work for a big law firm, and I’d say it didn’t really jive with me. I said to myself, if I’m going to spend like 20, 30 years of my life doing something, I better love it or else it’s going to be a very unhappy time. Right? So eventually what happened was like I got involved in real estate investing. I was trying to figure out how to get ahead in life because I noticed that the money I was making at my job wasn’t really getting me far. After paying taxes and personal expenses, I was like, Well, you know, I am. How do I get ahead? Right? So I started with the stock market, if you remember, in 2007 and 2008. Like I thought it was a rock star. You could, but sure enough, you know, prove me wrong once the everything changed after that. So lost a little bit of money but I didn’t give up. Started with as a fix and flip property that eventually got me interested more into real estate. And once I bought my first rental property within a couple of years, decide to become a full time realtor, decided to kind of work for myself.
Georges El Mari [00:03:58] Was it was your dad right that you weren’t he weren’t going to have a life when you became a realtor?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:04:02] You know, it’s your it’s like you’re running your own business. Right? But I’m passionate about it. So definitely you work a lot of hours at the same time. You can still structure in such a way where it can work on your terms.
Georges El Mari [00:04:16] Yeah. Okay. So tell me about your experiences here. So I know you mentioned that you do a couple of fixing flips a year and you’re also investing in buy and hold. So tell us a bit about how you built your portfolio. What was the journey like and where are you at today?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:04:35] Well, I started with I guess I should break it down, like I kept it fairly simple in the sense like I’ve got my short game and my long game, kind of like in golf, right? You kind of have to have two games. So what I did was I got involved in like these specs and flips, regular sort of properties that you’d find entry level homes, and you make a little bit here, make a little bit there. And what I would do is use that money and put them into long term. Assets. Your long term buying holds. Cash flowing single-family duplexes. Triplexes or time. Those triplexes and duplexes and single families would grow in value, can get them refinanced, pull the money out and guess what? Put that money into more short term sort of strategies like flipping and then it would go in a circle like that basically. And I think the expression is an artesian well and then over time just kept doing that. So it went from like short term investing in terms of flips to putting into long term assets and so forth. Yeah, yeah.
Georges El Mari [00:05:34] How did you do with your flips? Like when you started flipping? Did you have a hard time with it? Did you did you struggle? Did you make a lot of mistakes or what was that experience like?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:05:46] Well, I would say, like I kind of broke it down to like three. I always kind of simplify things, right with a flip can be a little overwhelming, but really comes down to like buying the right property. So underwriting in a sense like valuing the property and saying, okay, is this a good buy or not? And trying to figure out, okay, what would it be worth if I did these sorts of renovations? Then secondly, it was like getting the financing in order, right? So making sure that you’ve got financing to essentially finance the whole operation, not only just a purchase, but your working capital. And then and then lastly was finding contractors and you probably noticed that contractors can be somewhat difficult to find, but through, I guess, some kind of contacts and relationships and then just doing it time out over and over like it was, you start to build that rapport with some of the same contractors. So I like to use the same people over and over. So definitely it’s been some challenges along the way, right? I mean, I’ve had, you know, even people do not move out of a house and then have to kind of even get cops involved and so on after it closes. So there’s been some interesting stories along the way with some of these fix and flips.
Georges El Mari [00:06:53] Yeah. Are you I know we touched on some of the areas that you’re investing in. Are you still investing in Etobicoke Mississauga, or is it become too pricey?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:07:03] Not still doing that, honestly. Still. Let’s put it this way. So last month, I purchased a condo for under 400 grand in Brampton. So that’s one there. We have another project in Burlington that we’re working on those. But 700 there is. What was it, the other one. Oh, the townhouse in Mississauga. That’s for about five and change. But I try to really focus on the starter market. But you know what, George? You’re right. Like it’s definitely a price your area and one of the challenges with flipping right now is especially when you’re dealing with the higher price points, is you need wider spreads to make it work. Yeah, because your transaction costs are more, your commissions are more, everything is more. So ideally you kind of want to stay into like the more affordable price ranges.
Georges El Mari [00:07:54] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So just curious about this Brampton condo. What’s the plan? What are you going to do with it?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:08:00] I’m still figuring that out in the sense that. Right. We have a closing towards the end of the month.
Georges El Mari [00:08:06] Okay.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:08:06] And I may consider assigning it so or I, I or I think the other strategy will be we’re going to go there this week and get a contract and figure out, okay, do we just kind of maybe just do a very light cosmetic work or are we going to do the whole shebang? So that’s going to be this upcoming. We’re going to figure that out. And what’s the best strategy? Because right now in especially in this market. So I know if I can mentioned they, but we’re right now in November. Right. And it’s a very unique market right now. And it’s either you’re going to renovate to the nines and try to go for that amazing price that’s going to be relative to your kind of your other comparables or you’re going to kind of just do something basic but is in kind of the lower end of that spectrum. So I don’t want to get lost in the middle, is what I’m finding.
Georges El Mari [00:08:53] Sure. Yeah, it’s an interesting time for Philips for sure, because the margins are tighter, prices have come down. So what is your first of all, did you pick this up off market or in the Condor?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:09:08] Yeah, it’s off market.
Georges El Mari [00:09:09] Off market. And then what do you think the RV is going to be on that?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:09:13] So this one here, it’s picked up for 357.
Georges El Mari [00:09:17] Wow. Okay.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:09:18] Yeah, 357 grand RV is about 500. Mm hmm. Okay. So I’m going to figure out how much we want to spend on it and see where we want the RV on a 500 to be fully renovated. Keep in mind, right, I’m thinking in the back of my mind that if I just do something very basic, we can maybe get for 44, 50 and maybe attract more people that just want to basically live in like, let’s say I’m a first time buyer and I’m looking for value. I want to live in it and do it the way I want to, but it can’t be like grotesque. So, okay, these are kind of the approaches that I’m currently wrestling with right now.
Georges El Mari [00:09:59] Sure. Yeah, there’s a lot of options with something like that. What do you think it would be worth to see right now if you if you just signed it or just sold it, as is out of curiosity.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:10:09] I mean, maybe upwards of four, but, um, even the say three, three, 70, three, 80, right. Something like that as an assignment, I mean.
Georges El Mari [00:10:19] Yeah, that would be a pretty good, pretty good deal if you were to sign it and make that 30, 30 grand on it or whatever. It’s still not that bad, right?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:10:27] No, it’s great. I mean, at the end of the day, you kind of you basically sell and then you move on into another project, right? So the turnover is a lot higher. But what I’m finding right now, especially so again, November 20, 22 with the market that’s got like negative pricing pressure attached to it, you get in, you get out. When the market was screaming hot for the last two years before, let’s say February, hanging on to a little longer, made a lot more sense. Right. I mean, I’ll give you an example. Like George, we were picking up townhomes in Mississauga in the summer of August of 2021. For this. We had three of them. We picked up four for 600 K. We figured, okay, RV is going to be 750, we’ll net about 40 K on it. And as you know, November and December, all of a sudden, this market kind of just shoots up. So sure enough, we were ready by January with some of these and some of the contractors took longer. We wanted. In those cases, those three each sold for about a million bucks. Kind of lucky, right? Like we weren’t expecting it. So you’ve got basically a huge discrepancy there. Those townhomes today, unfortunately, are about maybe 800, right?
Georges El Mari [00:11:44] Yeah, that makes sense.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:11:45] So the volatility in the markets quite interesting. But just these are the things that we’re playing around with these short term strategies is what’s the best way to get in and get out?
Georges El Mari [00:11:55] Yeah, the market’s changed quite a bit. Have you found that you’ve gotten caught in anything because you are doing a couple of flips a year with clients and on your own? Has there been a situation where maybe you overpaid for something or you expected to get a certain price and you didn’t get it and you may be lost a little bit of money or had to adjust your strategy?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:12:15] Yeah, no, I have one in Hamilton, for example, was purchased in February and there was always kind of a risk that something may change. We just don’t know when things are going to stop, but you just don’t want to put yourself in a position where you don’t have alternatives. So in this case, with this property, luckily in this case, we just rented it out for the time being. So that’s the alternative. But if, for example, it’s a you’ve got private money and that’s quite expensive, which we didn’t have in this case, we just used lines of credit for this one source, less expensive financing, and I’ll just hang on to it till things kind of change. So I always say to people like have kind of alternatives on their stock. What’s the worst case scenario? If I can’t sell this for what I want, what else am I going to do with it? In this case, it was just renting it out is a better alternative.
Georges El Mari [00:13:04] Sure. Are you? So are you generally buying on your own or are you partnering with people generally? What are you what’s your strategy?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:13:16] The structure is it’s I just I wholly own them. I don’t only get involved with the JVs structure so much like to just be the lone wolf, so to speak, but not make it too complicated here.
Georges El Mari [00:13:28] And you mentioned that you’re doing like 8 to 10 flips a year, roughly. Maybe things are going to change now because the market’s adjusted a little bit and you’re able to do like are you using private money to do this stuff or are you kind of just use it? You’re leveraging your portfolio.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:13:43] Mostly leveraging the portfolio and like using lines of credit, it’s sometimes getting private money, but I try to keep my financing relatively inexpensive. So lines of credit are great because you don’t have the legal costs associated with it, the higher interest rates. But I mean, even today, bank financing is not as cheap as it used to be. Right. So but in short, yeah, I try to use my own resources for flips and flip financing.
Georges El Mari [00:14:09] Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Your buy and hold portfolio are you spread out pretty much over a bunch of cities you do you own a bunch of rentals in different spots or are you focusing more on one area compared to another?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:14:24] So my first rental was, is, was and is in Oshawa. So I still I’ve actually never sold a rental Georges believe it or not, I’ve just hung on to them. So my first one was in the south of Oshawa and I’ve had ever since like I bought it for 130 K and it’s worth like I want to say around 6 to 700 K, something like that. I’ve refinanced that multiple times. Yep. And I find that the beauty of that home is one, I’ve got a fantastic tenant and number two is just again, the access to capital. Can you use the capital in there for other purposes which fortunately I was able to do? And then my next one after that was in Bowmanville, another one was in Mississauga, then another one in Barry. And I kind of went around because I noticed that once I could make numbers work, I would go to another area and I noticed that eventually the trends would follow. It was kind of like a spillover effect, but like I think I mentioned earlier, like I have as far as within an hour, an hour and a half of Toronto, so like Cambridge and Kitchener, etc.. So and even downtown even Toronto triplex and a duplex there. So they’re, they’re fairly scattered.
Georges El Mari [00:15:34] Yeah. So Oshawa, Bowmanville, Mississauga, Barrie, you’re kind of over how are you managing to take care of all of all of these properties? Do you have like a strong team, property management, that sort of thing, or are you self-managing? For the most part.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:15:49] I used to self-manage them and then eventually got smarter and decided to hire. So it’s a combination of like third party management and then I have someone in-house that’s also managing the majority of them and then. Yeah. So trying to delegate as much as I can.
Georges El Mari [00:16:07] Yeah. What’s the plan? What are you looking to accomplish here? You’ve, you’ve built this portfolio. How far do you want to take this and what are you striving for? Is it a certain cash flow number or are you just going to build as much equity as possible to grow your net worth?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:16:24] Yeah, I’ve I asked myself that same question. I think it changes all the time. Like when I first got into this real estate, it was just all about getting financially ahead. And then at some point it gets kind of addictive. I don’t know if you found that right. Like you start building a portfolio and then you kind of wonder, well, how far can you take this? What I didn’t want it to become eventually was like another job. I want it to be as passive as possible. You and I both know there’s no such thing as passive. However, sometimes, like if you’re like a type-A personality, you start to kind of like get, Oh, you know, maybe I should go into syndications and maybe I should get in these larger apartment buildings. But then you have to ask yourself, Well, what are the eventual goals, which is what you just asked me? And for me, like, it’s just a matter of one preserving wealth and having that in the future. I think eventually what I want to do is take that and then put it into like private money and just have kind of an income stream coming in there that’s going to finance my future. I don’t want to overly complicate my life with these thousand units because I think for me, I know what’s going to happen is it won’t stop, right eventually. Just kind of keep growing, growing, growing in one or both. When I get into this first place that I was supposed to get freedom out of this. Right, right.
Georges El Mari [00:17:41] So yeah. Yeah. A lot of people. Well, not a lot of people, but some of the people I’ve spoken to on the podcast have kind of sold off some of their portfolio at a certain point in their lives and just started doing private mortgages, like you mentioned, and they were able to fund their lifestyle moving forward by doing so. And that’s a pretty cool strategy. Do you find that are you investing in other things as well or is most of your wealth in real estate?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:18:08] Most of it in real estate, I’d say, or like I do some private mortgages to just for extra cash flow. Um, majority. So I’ve always thought about what the diversification like I’ve done to the stock trading. I still do some today. I’m not the greatest at it, though. I’ll be honest with you. I kind of like the real estate racket the most, I’d say.
Georges El Mari [00:18:29] And you’re doing you’re also selling real estate. How are you able to manage selling real estate, growing your portfolio, doing flips, managing your buying holds, doing all of that?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:18:39] I do like I have a team that helps as well, right. I’ve got a great admin staff that assists with, with that. Um, I interesting enough, a lot of times I would find some properties that my clients didn’t want to buy and I was like, I like this one. And I just by myself. So it was, it kind of went hand in hand, if that makes sense. A lot of the times, um, I think ultimately just comes out also with just like having a good structure, like having it for me, it’s important. I have like a very structured morning where I go through a series of. It is a structured morning where you get things done and then the afternoon is filled with appointments. So that makes sense.
Georges El Mari [00:19:20] Yeah, sure. Yeah, definitely. It’s important to have that structure and to have your goals and to do all that. What’s the future going to be like for you? Do you find that you’re going to be focusing more on your real estate sales or on your investments? Or do you just want to at some point soon lay back and just kind of enjoy the fruits of your labor?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:19:43] I thought about that a lot too, actually. So I just turned 40 this year and thinking, okay, where do I see myself in like ten years from now and or 20 years from now? Like, I’ll give you an example. So my dad. Right, he just retired. Well, semi-retired 65. And I think in the back of he doesn’t say it like this, but really between the lines, I think he wishes that he had maybe started his semi-retirement ten or 15 years sooner. But it wasn’t until I think COVID happened where he decided to actually buy a cottage, which was the trend with a lot of people and remove himself out of the working environment that he was able to enjoy himself. So I think I like to I think in my 50 or 55. Having more life on your terms. Right. I think that’s why we’re all doing this is like, okay, where do you want to spend your time? I personally don’t. I couldn’t see myself on an island, you know, 24, seven or something like that. I want to constantly like do projects of some sort, but not necessarily, but doing it on your terms, right? Where it’s not necessarily like 60, 70 hours a week. Mm hmm. That makes sense. Yeah, sure.
Georges El Mari [00:20:51] Yeah, it definitely makes sense. Who’s to say that the perfect life is not working? Some people enjoy working, and they. And they want to continue to do it even into their sixties or seventies or whatever else. Yeah.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:21:03] Like the mayor of Mississauga, right? Hazel. She was mayor, and she’s being a mayor to, like, 90 or 100 years old. Like, it’s crazy. But she loved it.
Georges El Mari [00:21:11] She loved it, you know, for sure. Just going back to the deals you were talking about. So you mentioned the Brampton condo and Mississauga townhouse and all that. You said the some of them were off market. How are you finding these deals? Are they people that reach out to you because they know you are? Are you talking to wholesalers? Are you marketing.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:21:30] A combination of on market realtors, CAA MLS believe it still has deals. People will say there’s no deals, they’re available, but if you look hard enough, you’ll find them. Luckily, I’m in a position where if you’re doing this every single day, you start recognizing the opportunities that maybe someone else doesn’t definitely have built some great relationships with wholesalers. I like to think they like working with me because I have the experience I can close and I’m easy to deal with. So that’s another great resource. And I’ve discovered that one in 2018 and I didn’t think it even existed because I heard about in the States from like and then sure enough there was one guy that was doing it and I said the same comment and he goes, I didn’t think so either. And then he started to build this huge business out of it. And then there’s also just some there’s agents out there that know what we do, realtors that have some exclusive of our off market deals. And they come to us and say, listen, we’ve got this property. I think it might be a good fit for you. The seller doesn’t want to put on the market for privacy reasons. Are you interested in that? And those are those are also opportunities that take place. Yeah.
Georges El Mari [00:22:44] You mentioned dealing with wholesalers and that you were pretty easy to deal with and whatnot. What are some tips that you would have for people maybe that if it’s their first time dealing with a wholesaler or they’re interested in going down that path, well, what do you think they should do to establish that relationship? And what do you think is the right way to deal with a wholesaler Viking?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:23:05] So one is understand the financing with the with the wholesale deal. So making sure you have the financial backing. So for example, one thing to be cognizant of is if you buy a wholesale deal, you may not be able to finance the assignment fee attached to it. Right. So if they bought it for 400 K and you take it off their hands for 500,000, you’ve got $100,000 spread there depending on where you’re getting your money from. They may that money may have to come in the form of cash. So don’t be surprised with the financing. I would say have your cash and financing available upfront. And that’s the question always going to ask you is how are you financing this? So be prepared to answer that question. I think the other thing too is just do your due diligence on the property and have that open line of communication. Right. I’d say one thing because I’m experience stated that we have a good rhythm, right? There isn’t too much back and forth. There’s maybe some questions, but the process is fairly fluid. That makes sense. But the financing, I think, is. Really critical to help to answer the question, how are you finances? Where are you getting money from?
Georges El Mari [00:24:15] Sure. Yeah. I’m in the process of buying something from a wholesaler for the first time myself and it’s pretty cool seeing how it works. It’s more of like a personal relationship, sort of, even though like we don’t know each other really well. But I feel like they want to know who you are, what your plans are, how experienced are you? Can we make this deal happen? And the cool thing is because I had looked at another property that they sent me in the past, they brought me this deal before sending it out to like through a mass email. So I was kind of a priority on their list. And I think that’s important to make sure you establish that relationship so you can get some exclusive deals.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:24:54] Yeah, for sure. I mean, I’ll get the call too sometimes and say, Hey, we have something here. We want to give it to our mass lists for a variety of reasons. So you get kind of like that from online access, so to speak, on some of the properties.
Georges El Mari [00:25:05] So yeah, yeah. And in this example for the property that I’m working on, the, the owners were kind of ashamed of the state of their home and they didn’t really want them to market it to a bunch of people. So they just reached out to a certain few that were really interested and in that specific pocket in that area for that type of property.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:25:25] Yeah, for sure. I mean, honest with you, like I’ve even wholesaling myself, but in a different sense. Like what I have done oftentimes is like I’ll secure a property under contract, even on the MLS deal, for example, and then I’ll share it with my investor groups and say, Hey, I’ve got something here that’s really special, and if someone wants to take it off my hands, by all means, sometimes I don’t even do a markup because there’s already a commission attached to it. But I just sometimes by the time I go to a client, say, Hey, I got this great dash, come take a look at it, it’s gone. So if I can reserve that and I feel confident enough that if someone doesn’t want it, I’ll take it on myself. And great. But the process, like you said, is the exact same. It’s just a matter of finding a willing buyer that’s willing to take it off your hands for the same terms.
Georges El Mari [00:26:09] Yeah. How have you built that list of people that you can shop these opportunities to? Is that from networking? Is that just from being in the business for a while?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:26:20] Yeah, go to meet ups, for example. You find people that are interested in those opportunities. Um, a lot of the investors that I’ve built up over the years, it’s a lot of the same people, I would say, that are familiar with how we do things and you create those relationships. So it just comes from over time, just networking and being in the space and as well. Sometimes people will see what we do. We have like a YouTube channel and shows before and afters and they’re kind of curious, okay, what’s this all about? So we’ve even held seminars on it too. So I kind of flip homes for profit in the GTA, and that’s how we’ve built up that database of willing buyers.
Georges El Mari [00:26:56] Since the markets adjusted prices have come down from the height. So February, March, whatever. Are you changing your strategy at all, moving forward with your flips? Are you are you doing anything differently now? Are you going to scale back or are you still going full speed ahead?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:27:14] Definitely. We’re more careful about the properties that we’re looking at, so definitely it’s decreased for sure this year. I do feel that we are coming to a bottom. I’ve seen stabilization in pricing. Now it’s area by area, so you have to be aware of it. However, in terms of the interest rate cycle that they’re projecting, I mean, I think we’re almost there. So I feel the best opportunities will come in the next 2 to 6 months for any buyer as far as anyone is looking for the so-called bottom. And I said in air quotes, you know, you probably can’t see it, but everyone’s trying to pick a bottom and I think you’re going to see the next 2 to 6 months. One way I’ve readjust the strategy is trying to get in and out sooner than later. So used to be kind of go let’s go the whole nine yards with a flip let’s do the kitchens was through the bathroom something that would take upwards of 2 to 3 months to renovate whereas because now the price the downward pricing pressure is probably better to get it sooner than later. So maybe just doing a light cosmetic where someone can just move in and do it themselves over time. But it’s not grotesque enough that they don’t they feel like there’s something around them, like cockroaches that that might. That is a better approach. Sure. Yeah.
Georges El Mari [00:28:31] Yeah. Because you’re there aren’t as many people right now that are looking for that immaculate property that’s got the top upgrades. Possibly, maybe they’re more willing to take on something that needs a little bit more work but get a lower price because they’re being a little more conservative. And the other part is affordability has come down because their rates are so much higher. Like we have some clients that maybe two weeks ago my wife was working with someone that was able to buy a condo for 510 and today it’s like 490. So it’s an adjustment in their affordability. I know it’s not a massive number, but if you take larger budgets, then that’s going to impact their affordability significantly more.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:29:08] Yeah, for sure. I agree. There’s it’s like you don’t get lost in the middle, right? You kind of want to be either price at the bottom end of the comparables or the top end. But because it’s taking so much more time to go, let’s say get the top price, maybe going after the bottom end with something with a like cosmetic work is going to work to your benefit from a timing perspective. And just like you said from a value and affordability perspective.
Georges El Mari [00:29:31] Have you yourself or with clients worked with any creative programs to make deals work like the purchase plus improvements program that that type of thing?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:29:43] Not really. I’d say no. Like one I know with our fix and flips, what we do offer is like private lending. So one reason why people kind of work with us also is like we have access to private capital, not through a broker. I’m talking about just through our network of people that have some excess cash and are looking to fund a project. Now they won’t finance the working capital, but they will go up to say 80% LTV, LTV. And that’s a you know, and that’s not, like I said, through a broker.
Georges El Mari [00:30:15] Mm hmm. Yeah, that’s. I guess that is a good benefit, because if you are going through a broker, there’s that lender fee. They might be saving a little bit of money if they avoid that, which is typically a lender fee, would be somewhere around 2%. There might be a broker fee involved. That that type of thing.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:30:29] Yeah, absolutely. So it’s just again, going back to like the fix and flips, it’s like finding the property, finding the financing which will we can arrange. And then the contractor you have the if you can package that together for somebody, you create a kind of a turnkey sort of solution for them. Yeah. As an investment.
Georges El Mari [00:30:48] Yeah, for sure. It’s interesting that you don’t you don’t really do too many joint ventures, because I would imagine people must ask you not to work with them.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:30:58] I’ve had it before, but I just like to just stay separate. I rather be a consultant. So my job, I see is like a sort of being a salesperson or a real estate broker. It’s like I’m a consultant. I’m there to help you find the property and help you going to find the financing. And I’m also going to help you put the scope of work together and the contractors. So then we when we go to market, we’ve got a great product. We sell it and we’re going to do it again. Mm hmm.
Georges El Mari [00:31:21] Makes sense. Okay. What advice do you have for people that are looking to flip in the next couple of months or even if they’re looking to buy and hold?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:31:31] You know what? Uh, be greedy when everyone’s fearful. I would say that’s going to be my motto for the next 2 to 6 months is really start looking at the opportunities are going to present themselves because right now people are really scared. There’s so much negativity out in the media. I mean, even like pre con, I was reading this yesterday in the Toronto Star, so this is again November 1st, 2022, that like pre-construction, I don’t know if you noticed this they’re offering so many crazy incentives for people to buy pre con and I knew sales were bad but they were down. I want to say 70% for Q3 of 2022 versus last year. And apparently like two thirds of the projects didn’t sell one unit for this for the three quarters. So there’s a lot of fear in this market right now. But our long term fundamentals as they stand is we have low supply and high demand that’s coming especially from the immigration. If you look at the statistics. We have like very little inventory. We have less than three months of inventory, which is traditionally a seller’s market. But psychologically, people have been kind of brainwashed. But let’s just say they’ve been they’ve been reading the news and they’ve been noticing that things aren’t as rosy as they were for the last two years.
Georges El Mari [00:32:44] Well, it does not make you laugh, though, a little bit like personally when I hear that those production units aren’t selling, whereas the last five, five plus years you couldn’t get your hands on a unit because of how crazy things were. This is not just make you realize how much people basically rely on either the news or are just following a trend or, you know, doing what everyone else is doing and not really following a fundamental strategy.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:33:08] It’s definitely a herd mentality, right? I mean, everyone likes to buy when the market’s going up because their neighbors buying and everyone’s getting rich. Right. But then when things kind of turn, then people are a little more cautious. Absolutely. I mean, this this the other part to that fricken story was there is the gap is widening between the African prices and the resale. Like it’s widening ever so much. The pre prices though, they can’t really reduce them because their costs are not going anywhere. So any a certain margin out of it. Meanwhile, these resale properties are let’s just say they’re selling at a discount their values. So look for those value plays that are coming in the next even today. But in the next 2 to 6 months. Yeah.
Georges El Mari [00:33:52] Yeah. Yeah. That’s cool. And that just goes to show that people who are following fundamental investing principles are always going to do well. Anyone I know that I was investing a year ago, six months ago. They’re still looking for opportunities and are still willing to go because nothing’s changed other than maybe the price and whatnot in their rates. So it’s good to know that there are a lot of wise investors out there and I hope that people continue to learn and to understand how to succeed in a market like this.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:34:21] Yeah, for sure. There’s like you said, there’s never going to be the opportunities that present themselves.
Georges El Mari [00:34:26] Yeah. Any final words to share with the audience before we move on?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:34:34] You know, I go back to what I said earlier was like, be greedy when everyone’s fearful, so don’t put your head in the sand and kind of wish things were different. Be present, work every day and good things are going to come.
Georges El Mari [00:34:48] Sure. Tom, how do people reach you and maybe tell us a little bit about how you can help the audience with your services?
Thomas Pobojewski [00:34:56] Yeah. So again, I’m it’s Tom, but we have ski from the Royal LePage signature office in Mississauga. Our phone number is 905568 2121. We do have all the social media, so I’m sure they’ll be shared. And so you can just reach out if you want to discuss, for example, picks and flips and how what we’re seeing out there in the off market properties, you can join our list as well and as well, you know, we are helping people also move from your traditional residential from A to B, so absolutely. Reach out and love to help.
Georges El Mari [00:35:27] Cool. Tom, thank you so much for joining me. Appreciate it. It’s nice sitting down with you today and wish you all the best in the next couple of months to continue to grow your portfolio.
Thomas Pobojewski [00:35:34] Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having me on here.
Georges El Mari [00:35:37] Thanks for listening to this episode. Your support is truly appreciated and if you can share this with a friend or family member, that might benefit from the information. Remember, our goal is to motivate and inspire others to take action and to build wealth and to become well-off. Enjoy the rest of your day.