Table of Contents
Podcast Transcription
Erwin Szeto [00:00:07] Hello. Welcome to the truth about real estate investing show. My name is Erwin Szeto. Quick question. Have you gotten your shot yet? I just did at the Costco pharmacy this week. I was a bit early for my appointment. They did take me in early. The pharmacist read me the side effects to expect. I happened to be well informed on the subject. As my dad is a doctor, I follow several local E.R., ICU and infectious disease doctors on Twitter. These days, with all the fake news that’s out there, I prefer to get my news directly from the source. So I’m spending a lot more time on Twitter lately to get the unfiltered information again, getting it directly from the horse’s mouth, what they’re seeing, what doctors are seeing in their battle against the virus. I’ve actually posted their Twitter handles in the show notes in case anyone is interested in following them. One of them is an old friend of mine, Sumo CHAKRABARTI, who I went to school with, the University of Western Ontario. We live in residence together, and I know firsthand how smart he is. He’s actually on the local news pretty regularly. He’s on CTV TV 24. He’s in the Globe. He’s in all those places. He’s in the trial starts about two weeks ago. So yeah, so I follow smart people anyways. So I showed up early at the Costco pharmacy like 10 minutes early. I get my AstraZeneca shot. I barely felt it. I’m like the nose swabs for the COVID test. Mistake that Q-Tip up your nose and took your brain. So the shot was actually easier than taking the COVID tests. I waited 15 minutes till they said I could go, and as soon as I get my shot, I’m not going to lie. I got emotional. I immediately started crying. I don’t know what came over me, but I think it was just the be the end is in sight until we can return to some normalcy. I know it’s just a single shot, but I also know that’s highly effective. We’re one step closer to see my friends and family, clients and staff again in person. I cried even more when the cash Costco cashier asked for payment for my $300 grocery bill. I went a little overboard yesterday, buying some fresh salmon and realized to smoke three dozen chocolate signs. Five liters of ketchup. I need five liters since I know I’m going to be living a little bit longer, so there’s a chance of actually finishing that bottle as I recorded this. Now, it’s been about it’s been just over 24 hours since my shot. The only side effect I’ve had is the sight of my injection is mildly sore. It’s so mild I don’t even notice it. I even roll my peloton bike for about 30 minutes this morning without any problem. If anyone is feeling hesitant about vaccines or AstraZeneca vaccine, you’re not alone. I had questions too when I found out that was the one I was going to be getting. I’ll post in the show notes as well as some online resources. I read that and also, like I mentioned, my father is a medical doctor. More importantly, he’s a continuous learner. My brother’s a biologist. He’s actually in the vaccine field and he is totally geeking out on the coronavirus. He’s well researched again. He’s comes from a scientific background, so I am lucky. I’m quite well informed thanks to him geeking out and thanks for him digging around so that I was able to get one of the early appointments for the back for my shot so far. And India, we put our health where our mouth is so far. My mom, my dad, my stepmom, my brother, my sister, my sister in law, they’ve all had at least one shot. My mom is actually fully vaccinated now. She lives in Hong Kong, China. So she’s actually legally she actually legally did host a birthday party at her condo with friends who’ve all been fully vaccinated without masks, goes to show what is possible with the proper response to COVID. They’re expected subject to real estate. The Saturday morning, May 15th is our island meeting. This month we have James Moneybags Bag sharing how to purchase a foreign vacation property as he owned a condo near the beach in Costa Rica. I’m sure many Canadians are feeling the need to escape Canada these days for multiple reasons. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. I still love this country for the haters. Sorry, I’m still sticking around. But also real estate accountant Cherry Chan, CPA of Real Estate Tax Tips will be sharing how to deduct the interest expense from your mortgage on your home, which is also known as the Smith Maneuver. It’s a must know money saving strategy for all investors of real estate stocks, cryptocurrency, stock, acting, you name it. You don’t want to miss it. If you’re on my email list, you’ll be receiving invites once registration opens to receive my totally free newsletter that tens of thousands of Canadian investors already receive. Go to WW DOT Truth About Real Estate Investing Dossier. Again, tens of thousands people are to get this email. If they get invited to all my events to sign up, just go to W WW dot truth about Real Estate Investing. Got you on to this week’s guest. We have my old friend Michael Dominguez. He’s here to share about his journey to and lessons in his accumulation of 11 duplexes. So these are real estate properties with two units, two apartments in each one, and he’s got a couple more apartment buildings as well. I know we’ve had a lot of guests in the past who share aggressive, full time active investing strategy. So it’s a nice change of pace to hear from someone who’s relied on investing smarts and letting time invested in the market do the heavy lifting for him. Michael is here to share how we obtain financial. He’s only 55, which is pretty amazing. And he’s also here to share some of his not so much fun experiences with his tenants. Again, because the truth about real estate investing show it is not all sunshine and rainbows. We’re here to share with you the other side as well. So from those lessons of not so much fun tenants, Michael explains how and why that’s shaped his portfolio the way he is. Note that Michael’s also a serial investor. He has multiple streams of income beyond just real estate, which has enabled Michael to pursue his dream of road tripping in his convertible while taking in a baseball game at all 30 Major League Baseball Stadiums. Michael also spent the pandemic after recovering from coronavirus, writing a book called Armchair, Real Estate Millionaire and For the Beginning Investor. So I hope you enjoy the show, friends. If not, that’s okay. There’s always next week. All right. Hope you enjoy the show. All right, Michael, let’s keep me busy these days.
Michael Dominguez [00:05:54] Well, as we have chatted about, my big thing is I’ve been working on this book for way too long time. I’ve been using the pandemic to work for me. And so I wrote this book called Armchair Real Estate Millionaire. And I really designed it to be to be for helping people buy their first, second and third properties, because that’s really what drove me back in the day, was helping those people buy that first property. That’s where I really wrote the book.
Erwin Szeto [00:06:20] And so you’re a realtor? I’m a realtor. Before we were recorded, you were talking about how, like, helping someone buy, like, their 10th, 15th property. Yeah, it’s. It’s nice. It’s not life changing for them at that point. No, I’ll argue that it’s a much easier transaction when someone’s first property.
Michael Dominguez [00:06:37] This entrepreneur, that it really emulates. Like, if I was hoping to buy your ten or 50 property, have fun day or fun weekend or whatever, if you go buy it, we’re going to help people buy properties where I don’t think they were the property that their properties were and then see the property and they see as you’re okay if it’s a portfolio and buy it, like, you know, what kind of fun is that? And so you reach a point in your life where you say, you know, if I can help somebody really make a difference in their lives, that’s what’s driving me. So that is like the team, the doors, the wealth team was still very hot, heavy, doing a great job here in the Durham region and I’m still part of that team, but I’m just not as much in the day to day activities as a realtor.
Erwin Szeto [00:07:21] We’ll get to that in a bit. I wanna hear the story of the journey in a bit. So why did you target the book for the person that did to do their first, second and third property? And why is it so important that they do those? It’s for an investment property. You’re pretty well off already. Like in the grand scheme of things, you’re pretty well off. Why do people need more property?
Michael Dominguez [00:07:36] Good question. And the other component that’s sort of a1a is there’s a generation of Canadians that are or North Americans that are coming around now where they’re in their early thirties or so or they’ve got their high five figure or those six figure job. And yet they still can’t get into a home. They’re renting and paying a ton of money of rent. So I have an entire chapter focused on essentially house hacking, focusing on millennials to get them going. But even so much buying, let’s say they have that first place they are living in that home. They’ve built a lot with equity. I would I would venture to say that probably 50 to 75 to even 99% of their equity or their net worth is come as a result of their home purchase. So if I can help you get to the next level and we have a have a great client friend of mine, she and her husband are in their late twenties. They had a house; they had some equity and they decided to go buy a property. And they actually got a point where they got to be the ones they had to renovate them. And then a couple of years later, they actually had a child and they were going through the financial numbers and sort of wondering and worried about how they’re going to pay for their child’s education. And then they just almost forgot the fact they had these investment properties and they said, you know, as soon as refinance one of these properties or sell one in 15 years and my child’s education is paid for. I consider that a huge success in changing someone’s life. And there’s people that are talking to what we’re hiring ten years earlier, just because of this part time job, basically of 5 to 10 hours a month in many cases can literally change their life.
Erwin Szeto [00:09:13] Is it really that easy? Because there’s a whole bunch of stuff out there about like, you know, birds and you got to you got to go door knocking and you got a flier. Neighborhoods and stuff. And yet you had a buy something really beaten up. You get a haggle the seller for a great price and yeah.
Michael Dominguez [00:09:29] You and I both learned our gut our chops from the old rain days. We and I both started at right around the same time. And a lot of my book actually you’ll find by market fundamentals, I learned a lot from the great Don Campbell. And like I said, you and I were as students at the same time, and I bought my properties where I wanted to buy and stuff like that. But the problem is, is that all these books that talk about making all the buy, they don’t deal with that boring ten, 15 years in between. Where they got to actually manage the property deal with tennis. I’ve learned that if you buy a quality property, quality neighborhood, you can actually find quality tenants and then be able to hold onto that property for a long time and have a fairly maintenance free business where you can hold for ten or 15 years. And it’s the it’s the time in a in an appreciating market and with strong fundamentals that can really make the property appreciate the long run. I owned the six plex in a poor neighborhood that needs a lot of work and I actually ended up selling it because it was just a pain in the ass. And yet I could have a property manager and I did. But you still have to be dealing with stuff on a regular basis. You deal with tenants not paying rent said issues between tenants, but you want a quality property in a great neighborhood you’re going to want to see. My biggest problem sometimes is the tenants don’t give us a call when there’s an issue because they don’t want to bother us. We’ve got one house where both the upper and lower tenant, they’re both lawyers making $100,000 a year or more, and yet they’re renting because they can’t buy a place right now. But they’re incredible tenants to have. And, you know, I could hold that property forever in a situation like that.
Erwin Szeto [00:11:16] That sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Yeah, you made a great point there. And you mentioned how they can’t afford to buy a house because even with the household income of 200 grand. I heard about a property, a legal duplex in Kitchener that just went for 4 million.
Michael Dominguez [00:11:34] It’s unbelievable, but it’s great. And obviously the property that you and I owe, we’re excited about that. But you have to think about how that next generation should be able to buy a place. It’s going to be difficult or not.
Erwin Szeto [00:11:45] And that’s one of my concerns about people who don’t listen to this show is they don’t consider what’s going to happen in the future. Right. I’ve heard this story a couple of times. That story more about, you know, like my parents, we were a single family income home. Right. And that was pretty cool. Right. And then our generation, the very common debt to income homes. Right. So now for the next generation, are they going to be able to double their income? Maybe if the kids still live with them.
Michael Dominguez [00:12:17] And actually, it’s funny you say that. I actually think of the properties I own. In all seriousness, is there still generating enough rental income? But they’re covering all their expenses and they’re providing money to us on a monthly basis. So essentially our household has six or seven or ten incomes because not only does it have mine and my wife’s, but we have a bunch of other different sources of revenue and wealth building that we’re generating. So it just most of our income is now coming from non-humans. It’s not like it’s me doing my 9 to 5 job anymore, but I think other than in our circles, I don’t know a lot of people that are doing that and multiple streams of income has changed my life.
Erwin Szeto [00:12:56] Is my global streams of income bad for anyone?
Michael Dominguez [00:13:00] There’s no bad thing because.
Erwin Szeto [00:13:01] If you think about like none of us have people who don’t listen to this show, I’m going to guess a lot of them don’t have a second income, right? CP Yeah, those things don’t count. I mean.
Michael Dominguez [00:13:12] That’s a fallback. That’s if you fall down, you got a debt that’s sort of holding you from falling into the ground. But other than that, no, you’re right. Know in my book I mentioned, I say it sort of jokingly, I think we’ve heard this before in our meetings. But, you know, it always surprises me how people own a Land Rover. They still have a landlord. And that’s so prevalent. And unfortunately in our society is that we have the more money you make, the more debts you pick up. And so it was a focus of mine really over the last ten, 15 years was to eliminate all my bad debt. It just keep getting more and more streams of income. And it was the Hubble that was around three years ago where I was running my financial numbers. And I realized that my money coming in every single month, that my expenses split a little bit to spare my magic number was $50,000 a month that I wanted to generate in monthly revenue. And I do private mortgages. I do option trading, obviously, the investment properties. I have got a little money coming in from the small business. And so as everything is coming in on a monthly basis, I was generating more than 15 K a month and then I was thinking, well, why the heck am I still, you know, schlepping on a Sunday morning to get ready for an open house? What? I’ve already hit my financial freedom number. So. So that was a bit of an off.
Erwin Szeto [00:14:36] That’s pretty cool. Congrats. Thanks us. So what did you do before real estate? Because we all did something before real estate.
Michael Dominguez [00:14:43] We all did. You.
Erwin Szeto [00:14:44] Did you have a day job before being a realtor? Before being an investor.
Michael Dominguez [00:14:48] I worked for a company called Cap Value Canada.
Erwin Szeto [00:14:50] I’ve heard of them. They’re everywhere.
Michael Dominguez [00:14:52] They are everywhere. I was the franchise well, I was first class as a franchise consultant, but then after that I became a franchise field consultant for them. Then I end up selling franchises for. And so I was traveling all across Canada. Basically, they only had stores at the time in Manitoba and in Ontario, but I was basically selling their franchises. And before that, I was there, I was a consultant. And so why I it was a great student feeding ground for me, becoming a realtor. I didn’t know that at the time. But I just gravitated to these investors for people all over the world that were coming in. They wanted to make a difference in their lives. They wanted to them wanted to build their wealth. And those are my people. I really enjoyed spending time with people as they were trying to make a difference in their lives and take chances. And then when I was introduced to real estate as a realtor, within a couple of years, I started working with the investors because I just was the same people. And it was funny. I used to be so sure that buying a franchise was the means to an end for them. And I used to me was a good salesman and I believed in the product enough that my parents bought a place, my brother bought a franchise, as well as my wife, and I bought it for my first wife and I bought a franchise. And then when we got separated, she kept the store and I got my freedom. So we both worked. But then after that, we went into real estate and I started working with investors and I said, Oh my God, if I’d have spent even half the time and focused on that instead of helping people buy franchises. And so I just gravitated to the investors at that time, and that’s sort of how I became an investor.
Erwin Szeto [00:16:34] And then but if you’re working in franchises where there’s the real estate component to it, as in understanding the market, the demographic of the area, the people that live in that area 100%.
Michael Dominguez [00:16:44] And to be fair, my role was once the franchise had already been decided upon, I did have some interactions with landlords and lease negotiations, but only on a secondary level. But absolutely, talking about growth projections and stuff like that. Obviously a smaller market like in Hollywood sound doesn’t have the same growth potential as a Hamilton or a berry. But yeah, you get the idea. I was absolutely involved in performances and projections and, you know, all these things that we’re using today as investors, I was using in my 9 to 5 job making way too little money. Right.
Erwin Szeto [00:17:21] So you understand the importance of a market, because I think that’s often missing from real estate investors is they forget that it’s an it’s a business. Customers are potential buyers in the down the road and, of course, tenants. So you need to invest in a growing market, right? No different than you want to put value in an area with growing population. Just the more chance that more people will have pets.
Michael Dominguez [00:17:43] True. And actually one of the components in certain markets in the GTA was a real issue because of the large immigration. A lot of cultures aren’t really pet buyers, so there’s a whole element with that as well. That was what formed my thoughts in terms of real estate, which went into this book is, you know, just because a deal is cheap. I saw these things all the time where I bought cheap franchises. I actually bought some undervalued real estate in my early days because that’s what they told us you’re supposed to do. I got great deals on the buy, but the problem is, is that I was dealing with this bullshit tenant situation over and over and over again. And even if I cleaned up the property, I did a great job cleaning it up and I brought in a tenant who saw the photos and just loved everything we did. They were in a market where every other house around it was pretty crappy as well, and all of their children were dealing with the market influences of them and they were moving out and I was getting another crappy tenant again and I thought, There’s got to be a better way. And so it was more by accident. I started by a couple of properties in markets that I would live in, and an experience was completely different. And so all of a sudden I was paying maybe 20%, 30% more than what my colleagues were paying. And I went away from the multiplexes, which is what everyone, I’m sure on your podcast is saying. Duplexes are boring. I want to buy this multiplex. Well, I get rid of my multiplexes and I’m staying with a duplex.
Erwin Szeto [00:19:12] No kidding.
Michael Dominguez [00:19:13] I get all 11 investment properties in great neighborhoods with, you know, just a few hours a month in work. And every tenant paid the rent through the pandemic. You know, some of the tenets were actually reaching out to us. We have a real great relationship with our tenant profile, and they’re happy to be renting with us. And we didn’t get any tenant strikes. We didn’t get any challenges. We’ve got people that sometimes do the repair themselves because it’s their home. You just don’t get that kind of tenant profile at the multiplex.
Erwin Szeto [00:19:42] So your strategy partly revolves around who the tenant is.
Michael Dominguez [00:19:46] Actually, one of the things I mentioned in the book is the sign of the kind of tenant you want before you go looking for a house. You want to find a home that actually meets their profile. So I buy in neighborhoods that’s likely close to where people are going to work, close to shopping. Great walks, scores, good neighborhoods. I want to take my 1980s DeLorean into the future, and I want to in 30 years. I want to know that that street is still going to be a great residential home. And who knows where that what that floors is going to be doing? Who knows where that value store is going to be? Who knows how people are going to shop in the future? But I know how people are going to be living in 30 years. They’re going to be living in single family homes and apartments. Things are going to change that. We’re still going to be living there, and I’m going to own the real estate that people are going to want to have.
Erwin Szeto [00:20:36] So most people, most investors graduate from single family detached duplex to six plex, ten, plex, 12, 15, 30. And you’ve been there and you’ve chosen to come back. Yeah, right. Can you elaborate? Like, what was your experience like? So apologies to the listener. I actually know I know Michael and I know Sarah. So I know about the stuff that you do multifamily wise. But tell us, what multifamily investments have you done and what was your experience like? Like beyond duplexes?
Michael Dominguez [00:21:07] Yeah, it will surprise a lot of the listeners that the first place I ever bought was a six plex in Cobourg, Ontario, and undervalued, dilapidated six unit building, which I learned later was actually more of a drug house as much as anything. The tenant profile was very, very poor, and it wasn’t in a terrible neighborhood, to be fair, but it was more of an industrial neighborhood and it needed a lot of work and I bought it way undervalued it sitting on the market for a long time. And so I managed to get this great deal. I’m in a joint venture with a nine plex in Austria as well. So that’s those are my two examples at multiplexes. But in between all that, I started buying the duplex and as a realtor I focused more on that as well. And it just became so obvious for me, quality of life was the most important component and 80% of my issues, the classic 80, 20, 80% of the way issues with dealing with the worst tenants. And I thought, well, what if we were to all of a sudden get rid of all the bad tenants? How much would my life be better? And so we decided to sell the six plex. And the nine plex is being run by a property management company. So I don’t have a lot of day to day involvement with that. But the two units, Rollins just did so well, and actually a couple of the ones that we bought that were at worst neighborhoods, we sold them as well, and we’ve just kept the best ones. And we currently have a portfolio of 11 legal two units and they’re you know, obviously these are properties that are, you know, were yeah, I bought them at market value back in the day. I didn’t make a lot of the buy being a couple I did. But some you could actually even argue that I paid too much for em back in the day. But I can tell you the one that I had, what three or four people say I overpaid for it is now worth more than triple. We bought a 2014, so in seven years it’s basically tripled in value. So, you know, okay, could I have bought a 10,000, 20,000 less maybe. But who the hell cares?
Erwin Szeto [00:23:09] Michael, you’re doing this all wrong. I’ve heard lots of stuff out there that you need to do to make money in the buy. Otherwise, don’t do it. Don’t do the deal. And obviously you’re just buying all these things that, you know, you’ve lost lots of money or.
Michael Dominguez [00:23:22] This. Is exactly honest. It was it was a renovation. Is it my money? You make money on the horse. That’s it’s a bit of a different way to think, because if you can hold that property for ten, 20 years or forever, if I can have this as a legacy player that I could pass along to my children, I got to see if I gave my kid $1,000,000 figure a way of blowing it. But if I can give them a duplex or two that have paid off at some point, like that’s you know, that’s the money tree that’s going to last for the rest of his life.
Erwin Szeto [00:23:49] And that’s how we prevent future generations of tenants. And that’s not bad going to be a tenant for like short periods of time. But I just wouldn’t want to pigeonhole my family and future generations of being tenants for eternity. No, I mean.
Michael Dominguez [00:24:05] It’s true. And here’s the thing I wanted to share with you Erwin it and I know you know this, but there are so many mortgage brokers out there that will tell them they’re qualified for it. So then they come back to me and they say, you know, let’s let right now a bungalow in in Hamilton or Kitchener-Waterloo or Barry or Offshore. It’s only for about $800,000 or so, let’s say, or you know, it could be even a little more in this market. But let’s say let’s use 800,000 as a working number. And they say, what will they approve for? $600,000. So I got to buy this cheap ass townhouse in a mediocre neighborhood and it’s okay, you can do that. But if you were to pretend right now you’re living where? Well, I’m living in a two bedroom basement apartment. Let’s say you move to your own house and living your two bedroom basement apartment there, you know, not forever, but for a few years. But now you’ve got a tenant upstairs in this duplex is paying you $2,000 a month in rental income. Go back to your mortgage broker just for funds. And if all said you had the. $2,000 a month in income for your house. How would that change that? And a lot of times they come back to me and say, oh, I could buy a more expensive house now. And so now they’re actually buying this duplex for, in many cases, just a little bit more than 5% down. So you can get something for as little as 55, $60,000. Let’s say 10% for that stuff for 10%. Do they buy this place for 55 grand? And then they just hold on to it for a few years and then maybe in two or three years, they’re a position where they can move upstairs, maybe in a position they can buy another house altogether. They can rent the upstairs downstairs. Like you’re light years ahead of your colleague.
Erwin Szeto [00:25:40] And I imagine that’s part of the decision why you chose the duplex on all your properties, too, because the writing was kind of on the wall. Potential future buyers would be able to get more financing for them. Should it be should it be a single family home?
Michael Dominguez [00:25:53] Well, it’s yeah. I don’t know if it was necessarily like, honestly, I’m not smart enough to have had that much of a plan. I just thought of it. I started working with people like Joy, working with them, and I started helping people. And that’s sort of where I gravitated to what I wish I can tell you that ten years ago I, I had this proclamation. I was going to do something. But now it’s not nearly that sophisticated. It just sort of evolved.
Erwin Szeto [00:26:17] So my story was actually similar to the last home I owned. We were looking at a price point of under 600 grand for a home. That’s crazy. My wife and I do all right. And that was how is our price target affected today? But we were looking in Burlington, which is a pretty nice city. But then when we couldn’t find something suitor requirements. So we bumped up our budget based on choosing to look for a house with a potential basement suite so we can qualify for more financing. And it worked out well. Our budget went up from I think high five to mid six and then we found a house made six and then I was able to put down 5%, I put down $35,000 on a $635,000 house.
Michael Dominguez [00:27:01] Nowadays, you can only put 5% down on the first 500. So it might work out to 8% or 9%. And, you know, and now some of your listeners might say, well, how am I going to come up with 60 grand? Well, you know, 60 grand is still a heck of a lot less than 20% down. But I’m a big advocate of going to the bank. And mom and dad.
Erwin Szeto [00:27:21] I think you might as much of a choice.
Erwin Szeto [00:27:24] What if. You’re right? But, you know, now this is a lot different than like I was on all-star baseball teams and they spent a small fortune on me, on all my rep teams. And, you know, I’m sure there’s people here that are listening that had spent thousands thousand dollars on dance lessons and some other things, that the money went away as well. Ten grand a year.
Erwin Szeto [00:27:46] For how many years?
Michael Dominguez [00:27:48] And you know, those hundreds of dollars that I borrowed in university that I never paid back because I didn’t have anybody. It’s not the same as all of that. What we’re talking about here is I’m spending you know, I’m a 28 year old guy and I’m spending dozens of hours in research. I’m going to investment clubs. I’m learning, I understand what game to. And hopefully I can bring my parents in on that journey and say, you know, potentially even joint venture with them or do a loan. Because, you know, a lot of times these parents are now in their fifties and sixties and they don’t necessarily have a retirement fund as well. Having a percentage of a house for your kids, I think is the greatest gift you can ever give them. In many cases, you might not even have to give up anybody. You might just need to take money out of a line of credit and help them out that way. So, you know, don’t give your kids $1,000 to help, you know, on a down payment on a car, give them 60 grands or a down payment on a house that change their life.
Erwin Szeto [00:28:41] And go ahead and retain some ownership.
Michael Dominguez [00:28:45] I don’t have a problem with that. Sure.
Erwin Szeto [00:28:47] Because there are some people who like oh, like real estate markets or inflatable blah, blah, blah, but everything’s relative. Would you rather hold cash?
Michael Dominguez [00:28:58] Yeah. Like history has shown us anything is like and people are saying, well, is now a good time to buy a property and we’re in the middle of a pandemic. We’re in the middle of this. We’re thrilled that you pick a year in a year. And I’ll tell you, there were people that said now’s not a good time to buy. And the reality is the market is the market. It doesn’t lie. Supply is what it is. The band is what it is. And the market, you know, the market forces control it. And so do you believe that in the GTA, which is the fastest growing city in North America right now, with planned immigration on both the conservatives as well as liberals, both want immigration. Most of that immigration is going to the GTA. And oh, by the way, we’ve seen housing prices for new will go up more than ever before as material costs are going up. You know, do you think that in five and ten years that houses are going to be worth more today than they are, you know, in that more in ten years or more today? Well, they’re just naturally going to go up, not because it’s just magically going to happen, but the supply and demand is just going to keep increasing. So if I. A property that I think in ten years is going to be even more desirable than it is today. How is that a bad thing?
Erwin Szeto [00:30:07] So, Michael, so someone who’s brand new, like you like you said, your book is for the person to buy their first, second or third property. What are they looking at and what are they looking at in terms of like paint my listener a picture of what is that first investment property like most likely to look like?
Michael Dominguez [00:30:22] Sure. So in the greater Toronto area, or for that matter, across most of eastern Canada, it’s not as prevalent in the West, but we’re basically buying something that’s a duplex or a legal to get a dwelling or one that could be converted to be such. So in the Ontario market, there were a huge number of 1960s thousand square foot three bedroom bungalows that were built. So I’m going to use that as my example. So again, is this the kind of house that you see on HGTV? Of course not. It’s not that dream house open concept. It’s a 1960s bungalow baby that kind of dated. But what it also has the side door entrance that if you go up a few steps, you go to the upstairs and you go down about eight steps. You go down to the basement. Well, that side entrance is absolutely spectacularly perfect for the duplex. And so you can go downstairs at this basement height. Might be six and a half to seven and a half feet high, but you can build a separate suite. Yeah, it’s going to have shared of work and a lot of shared electrical and utilities, but for the most part, it’s going to be a totally separate dwelling unit that’s completely separate from the rest of the home. And this bungalow, obviously, if it had 1000 square feet upstairs, amazingly enough, it has a thousand square feet downstairs as well. And so you can build a nice quality to better basement down there. And in many cases, you could go, you’re only limited to your own your own ideas. You could make that place look like any upscale Toronto condo. You can make that into an incredible apartment. And now you’ve got yourself a legal three plus two bungalow and you’ve got yourself a property that’s going to likely in today’s market generate as much as $2,000 a month in rental income, plus utilities upstairs and another $600 or so of the basement. So if let’s say you choose to occupy one of those two units, you know, you’ve got a tentative there that’s basically clamoring to get into this quality property and they’re going to be happy, too.
Erwin Szeto [00:32:26] So your suggestion is for most people to the term is house hack ruin. You and I started looking at real estate house. That kind only came up like two years ago. But yeah, live in your own rental property and.
Michael Dominguez [00:32:37] You know, honestly, the term house hacking is a fun cool term. But you know, if our grandparents and great grandparents used to house hack and they just didn’t call it that. Right. It’s like I can tell you by my wife’s parents, they lived in they owned the house that they lived and a few of the rooms they had boarders that they divided off a section of their home. But that’s just what you had to do back in the day because they didn’t have a lot of income. And so it’s not a new concept by any stretch. It’s just sort of been rebranded. And then today’s market, like you said at the outset, or what is part of the days where like my wife, my mom worked at home, my dad was self-employed in the appliance repair business and my mom answered the phone. So that was the day to day stuff at the house. But really they had one income and gone to those days. It’s harder to make that happen. So you got to come up with a second income and that’s getting $2,000 a month for my upstairs tenant. Isn’t so bad.
Erwin Szeto [00:33:36] Well, what about are you guys doing third units yet?
Michael Dominguez [00:33:39] Oh, yeah. And I talk about that a little bit on the book as well. There are certain markets across North America where you can in fact add third units. I know in Ontario, in the Barre area, that’s a legal possibility. I have an entire chapter that I talk on which is actually sort of can’t even identify at the front end. It’s contrary to the rest of the book. It’s I believe there’s a deficiency in North America housing called The Missing Middle. And we have a number of single family homes. In fact, there’s a lot of neighborhoods that have 60, 70, 80% of the homes being single family. And then the only multi-unit buildings that are being built are these massive apartment buildings and condos. Well, there’s those duplexes, triplexes stacked townhouses of that type of stuff. And taking a house that’s the same size as a single family home, turning into a triplex is something that’s really, I believe, necessary. There is the state of Oregon actually has led the charge across North America with they’ve basically turned everything that was once single family in the ability of turning it into a triplex or so it’s called up zoning and I think that that’s going to be the future. I know California is trying to do the same thing. Ontario’s been talking about it as well, the current or the previous Liberal government. And even the Ontario or the. U.S. government is now talking about doing it as well. I think it it’s absolutely essential that we do that because we’re seeing huge immigration. Meanwhile, we’re seeing a massive push against sprawling, you know, taking out environmental areas. So we can’t knock down any more trees. We’re adding new people. Where are these people going to live? Well, they’ve got to live with duplexes to drive blocks. So I think that’s the future for sure. I don’t know if answer your question, but that’s sort of I’m a big, passionate person about little house.
Erwin Szeto [00:35:34] It makes sense. You know, just update the bylaws, zoning and bylaws and the private industry will create more housing.
Michael Dominguez [00:35:42] Yeah, there’s a huge I don’t know if anybody’s, but most people in this group have probably heard it NIMBY, not in my backyard. And there’s a huge component of people that are sort of saying, hey, when I bought my house, it was a it was a bungalow. It or it was a house in a nice residential neighborhood. I don’t want things to change in my idyllic Mayberry RFD neighborhood. But meanwhile, things are changing all the time. I actually have mentioned this in my book as well, where my wife’s parents bought a house on a street at Oshawa. When they bought it, it was a it was actually a dirt road. About 15 years later, it was paved. And then about ten, 15 years after that, it was decided that that was be one of the roads off of the for a one. So it became a major thoroughfare. Then ten years after that was turned, it was four lane road. And then shortly after that, it was one of the offshoots off a407 as well. So this is a major highway now. But in all of that, 50 years of time, it remained a single family residential home. So they couldn’t have turned into a triplex even if they wanted to, even though it’s on a frickin highway. So it’s kind of bullshit to think that neighborhoods don’t change. They do. And, and if we pick busier streets near shopping malls and bus stops and stuff like that and allow people to be able to turn those into Triplexes and four plex, I think that’s a great use of our of our neighborhoods.
Erwin Szeto [00:37:12] And if you’re just talking to a sense like that doesn’t work in government. And also, I understand NIMBYism as well that people don’t want their lives to change or their property values change. But the sad part of it is that they’re influencing what happens to poor people. And if you’re if you’re the NIMBY, there’s a good chance that you live in $1,000,000 house. And then one could argue that you’re the rich, and now you’re trying to decide what happens to the poor.
Michael Dominguez [00:37:39] Well, it’s one thing, and I don’t know if you really want to give this that much. But if we look at the genesis of the single family residential neighborhoods, they sort of came prevalent after World War Two. In the fifties, the suburbs were bought. And so keep in mind, in in the United States and even in parts of Canada, there was unbridled racism in those years. And so there was a lot of not in my backyard. We want our own kind that nothing else. And not even racially, but also just socio economic classes and stuff like that. And so that’s sort of how the suburbs were born, was through just simply not in my backyard. And so 50 years later, I’d like to think we’re a little bit more aware of what’s happened. And so by reminding people saying, well, this is why it was created. If you look back to neighborhoods of the twenties and thirties, there was a single family home, there was a big home, and it was duplex or triplex. And it’s just that’s how the towns were being built. If you go to inner cities, that’s how it was. It’s only been since the fifties and sixties that that’s happened.
Erwin Szeto [00:38:47] So. So, Michael, you mentioned you have a couple other streams of income actually, before you even get into that. Before we were recording, we’re talking about past to like 10,000,020 million and 50 million. And you’re a big thinker. Can you talk about what the path is to do that? But is it possible for someone starting today investing, or can you even speak to your own experience? Like how fast will it take you to get to 20? I don’t know, but you might go. Yeah.
Michael Dominguez [00:39:15] One of my favorite quotes that I quote all the time is from Bill Gates. And people tend to overestimate how much you can do in one year and underestimate what you can do in ten years. And, you know, and that that was really interesting when I finally became a realtor and then I hit the ten year mark. I had a bit of reflection. I thought, you know, you’re imagining where I was ten years ago and looking at my future self and sort of thinking, you know, this is already in ten years. It’s crazy. I’ve actually I’ve got a Zoom call scheduled with old high school friends of mine for SATs work and we have a talk to each other probably 25 years. And it was actually it was a post on Facebook looking at my book. And they both reached out to me and sort of said, hey, we should get together and stuff like. And he’ll be really interesting because, again, they’re probably not going to listen to this. But, you know, their lies, I’m sure, evolved as well. But financially, they’re sort of living in the same place they were living at 25, 30 years ago and, you know, have life sort of hit them hard a little bit in some cases. And yeah, I’m the you know, I’ve had so many modifications to my life, but I could tell you, like, it wasn’t that many years ago that I was having some serious financial problems. Like I used to go to a grocery store and, you know, the debit cards were now prevalent. But I was panicky because I didn’t know if I had enough money in my bank account to pay for that that week’s food bill sort of thing. And I was ready to put a couple of things back because I didn’t know if I had enough. So, like, I still remember those days where I was really tight on cash. I was never poor, but I certainly was really tight. And so to answer your question, I tell people within, if you can buy three investment properties and even if you get $0 in cash flow, assuming a 4% appreciation, which is well below what the GTA is providing, but let’s say 4% for a decade, just the appreciation, the loan plus mortgage paydown, even if there’s almost no dollars in cash flow at the end of ten years, you’ve got a net worth of over $1,000,000,000 after your original down payments. Now, you can argue that $1,000,000,000 is just as much as it used to be and blah, blah, blah, but sure as hell. Rather than $1,000,000,000 in my net worth today or ten years from now and have a plan to get there, rather than just sort of wing it, see what happens. So can you get to 50 billion? 100 billion? Of course you can. But, you know, I don’t want people to think too big here. Like if you’re hit with a net worth of $10,000 or $50,000, I can tell you there’s a path to get to a billion. Once you get to that path of the billion, there’s a path to get the 10 billion. There’s a path to get to 100 billion. You have to decide if you want to take it. There was an aha moment that I had with my wife about a year ago. I was sitting with a financial advisor. So amazing how the financial advisors are coming out of the woodwork now that I’m a high net worth person and they start saying, Oh, we can help you grow, we can help you this. And meanwhile, they weren’t there for me, what I was trying to pay for my food bill. But anyway, so they it was like a 28 year old or maybe was a deserted 30 year old millennial that basically said, you know, every open house you work, every house I sell. From now on, you’ve already reached your financial freedom number. Every house you’re getting now is either going to go with taxes going towards your child’s towards the will or it’s going to go to charity. You don’t need the money for yourself anymore. You’ve reached that point. You don’t need anymore. And so because I always had this goal of $100 billion, and then I started thinking, why? Like, you know what, if I could do really well with ten or 20 or 30 billion and then work 4 to 10 hours a week, just sort of managing my portfolio, I would do it a few little fun passion jobs.
Erwin Szeto [00:43:00] That’s pretty cool. That’s why my job become golf. You’ve plenty of time, it seems.
Michael Dominguez [00:43:08] Yeah. For those that are not, I’m possibly the worst golfer ever. And since I was in my head, I was really good at sports. So I used to make my own rules that were if I could throw the golf club than the ball, I take it to the clubs. So I just I used to get so angry. I think now I would be a break and had a couple of edibles ahead of time. Maybe I feel a whole lot better wrote again.
Erwin Szeto [00:43:32] They’re all at the bar. No, we won’t go golf. When you play baseball, you should have strong hand-eye coordination.
Michael Dominguez [00:43:39] Oh, I can hit it. It just doesn’t necessarily go in one direction for anybody.
Erwin Szeto [00:43:44] So you break more than one golf balls. Just don’t bring the expensive one. Yeah. Now, you talked about you have multiple investments and this what drives me bonkers about certain folks. To me, people are binary either for us or against us. You’re either in stocks or you’re in real estate, right? There’s no gray. You can’t. There’s no room for both. Seems like you’re pretty open minded to any means of making money.
Michael Dominguez [00:44:08] Yeah, I’m sure there’s a lot that of not doing, honestly, but I’m doing the ones that, like my goal is to have my money making money without me doing things on a daily basis. I think, you know the quotes they’ve done multiple times before, but if you think of money as your military and it’s going out there as soldiers and earning you more, you know, it’s winning battles for you. That’s what I want to have happen. And so I, I fell in love with the idea of private funding as a, as a form of incumbent, you know, for the for the savvy real estate investors, they’re thinking, okay, you’re making 8 to 12% return on your RRSP money. Why don’t you give it to me and I can do a bit more than that or do it yourself. You’ve got the skill set, but, you know, there’s something really cool about like, you know, someone like yourself that’s an experienced investor. If you’re looking to kind of grow your portfolio a little bit more, I would rather loan to you at 9%. Yeah, I could have moved to some stranger at ten or 12%, but I’m getting 9% from an all-star investor. That’s proven to pay for things and I’m generating with my RSP is that basically was it a volatile equity market. I’m getting a solid 9% return, about $6,000 a month in income every single month going into buyers. And so now we’re starting to pull up a little bit. We’ve got to pay, obviously, taxes with that. But still six grand a month. Bang, bang. The rest of my life, that’s how that I’ve done value investing for many, many, many years. I’ve learned a lot of different things from that I that’s been in the past in stocks. Yeah. Well, actually it started out it’s funny, I started out with stocks, went to real estate that was value investing at real estate essentially. And then I reapplied my value investing mindset back in stocks because really there’s a lot of similarities if you think about money and I was about the. Right. Yeah well bye. In both cases I was banking on the whole because I would buy that if let’s say there was a company that I was buying it at a decent, fair price and, and just doing well with it. And then I hold on to that stock for ten, 15 years. I’m okay with that. And if it’s providing me with dividends, that’s even better. But even if it was going up in value, I was okay with that. And so, so yeah, it’s a little bit here. A little bit there. And who knows, maybe my book sales, I’ll make a whopping $55 a month, but that is.
Erwin Szeto [00:46:43] It for the listener. Michael’s not kidding me. There’s not really money in selling bucks. This is.
Michael Dominguez [00:46:50] I was joking. I said I have to sell 1500 books to be the equivalent of selling one bungalow. So I’m certainly not going to be doing this for the money. But if I can help out 1500 people, I’m just delighted with it, that’s for sure.
Erwin Szeto [00:47:03] So this is Michael. Remember reaching out to you around this time last year because I heard you weren’t feeling well. Do you talked to why you weren’t feeling well?
Michael Dominguez [00:47:13] Well, you know, again, I.
Erwin Szeto [00:47:15] Don’t believe this stuff is real.
Michael Dominguez [00:47:17] I’m not going to get into the political things. But at the time, I did find out officially that I had told it, but I was one of the first that really got knocked on my ass. And so what happened was I had all the symptoms of phobic people, like in in late March of 2020, we were seeing what was happening in Italy, all the stuff that was happening there. It was the lot of the scare stuff that was happening in the media. So nobody knew what was really going on. But, you know, I was dealing with a fever of 104 and total body aches and everything else that I had. But nobody would diagnose me. I wasn’t allowed to even get a COVID test. So do I know definitively that I’d COVID? Of course not. But that was I definitely did. And again, I was I was out and about, you know, as a realtor would be or a salesperson would be as an investor. I was in every meeting in the world shaking hands and just babies and hugging and stuff like that. So. So it’s likely that through my connections I did now it was really it knocked me a mask. Let me tell you for sure. Thanks for asking, by the way.
Erwin Szeto [00:48:24] I appreciate Emory saying it was like three weeks or something.
Michael Dominguez [00:48:27] Yeah, yeah. I was there for about three weeks. And I’m the type of guy that in the decade prior, I probably had about eight, ten sick days in my last decade. And so for me to be out for more than a week and you know, it’s funny, even during all that time, I was still taking an investment course because like my brain was shut off. But I work like 3 hours that I took.
Erwin Szeto [00:48:49] Every one of the first things you said was, I’m pissed off because I missed out on all these great deals in the stock market.
Michael Dominguez [00:48:58] I didn’t have the brainpower to think about it. I just couldn’t come up with it. It was it was weird. Like my brain was foggy is the best way I could describe it. But, you know, if anyone’s ever had a fever of 103, it’s hard to be investing in equities at that time.
Erwin Szeto [00:49:12] It’s hard to function. Right. You know, I’ve had the flu. I’m sure most people have had the flu. But this was three weeks like.
Michael Dominguez [00:49:19] Yeah, yeah. So then I missed out. But, you know, there’s always other opportunities, but you have to take the action to make it happen like that. So this lever that I have is you got to make it. You got to make your breaks as far as I’m concerned.
Erwin Szeto [00:49:31] Amazing. What is the name of the book? Do you have one there with you?
Michael Dominguez [00:49:35] So I have one book right now. The rest are coming out shortly. I’m going to show it to you guys. It’s called the Earn Share Real Estate Millionaire. And I really picked armchair because I wanted people to know that you don’t necessarily need to have 30 and 50. Honestly, if you decide you want to do that after, you know, some point of view. A full time investor. Awesome. I’m excited for you, I. A lot of people who are that are full time investors. But if you want to have an if you want to help have real estate, fund your life and not run your life. That’s certainly finding properties that are can essentially manage themselves and just simply provide you with a monthly annual basis. They’re certainly buying quality properties in quality neighborhoods; is the way I would advise it.
Erwin Szeto [00:50:24] And Michael, you mentioned you’re not working that many hours a week. What are you doing the rest of your time?
Michael Dominguez [00:50:32] Well, I’m enjoying my life. I guess I’m not traveling as what right now for obvious reasons. But I have actually been taking a number of equity courses the last few months, has been more focused on getting the book ready, of course, but I’m planning this summer, I’m doing a summer of bicycle tour and just really enjoying myself. And I’ve got a Corvette convertible that I’m planning on taking out to if assuming they let me across the border. My goal this summer is to drive across Route 66 from Chicago to California and just experience towns along the way, just driving on my own and just enjoying life and doing what I want to do. I want to know again, it sounds like a Willie Nelson song, but people I’ll never meet again sort of thing, just to just experience life. And it’s nice to be in that position. I turned 55 last year, so I was kind of a bit of a freedom 35, so it’s pretty awesome.
Erwin Szeto [00:51:32] And I hope before the pandemic, you were you’re big into football and baseball, right?
Michael Dominguez [00:51:36] Baseball’s minor.
Erwin Szeto [00:51:37] What did you attend the World Series or something?
Michael Dominguez [00:51:40] Yeah. Yeah. Actually, my goal has always been to see every Major League Baseball park. I’m a Dodger fan. So when the Dodgers were the World Series in 2017, I, I flew down to California to watch the Dodgers play at home games. World Series. Yeah, I’ve seen I’ve seen games in Tokyo, in Cuba and Puerto Rico. I’ve been to every World Baseball Classic game or season, not every game, but I’ve been every year. I’ve been to someplace in the world watching baseball. Yeah, I enjoy going on road trips just to see baseball games. I’ll, I’ll even combine like I’ll say, honey, why don’t we go on a cruise and the cruise starts in Miami and oh, by the way, we’ll watch a couple of games of Miami at the same time. So she’s willing to go to the games in Miami as long as she doesn’t cruise in the back end. So it’s kind of worked out well. So I love baseball. I really do. And it’s been like even on this trip by plane is to sneak off Route 66 to make it to Kansas City. There’s five stadiums I haven’t been to, and so I’m hoping this year or next to knock that off my list. And that’s been a goal. I’ve had that goal for over 30 years to see every major league baseball stadium. They keep closing the ones down and building new ones. That’s the problem.
Erwin Szeto [00:52:56] So and when any of this be possible with that real estate?
Michael Dominguez [00:53:00] Yeah, there is no way. Honestly, like I would have still made it happen and seeing some of the stadiums. But certainly if you’ve only got to get to vacation weeks, a year or three big Asian weeks a year and you’re on a tight budget, you know, you just couldn’t do it. And it was one of these things, guys, that there was no aha moment. They were always said like, you know, it just was if that slow drip and you are just your net worth goes up a lot more. And actually something that I always like to tell people that they should do is to do a net worth analysis. It doesn’t matter where it’s sitting at right now, but if your net worth analysis is I don’t care if it’s $10 or -100,000 or $1,000,000,000 or whatever. But literally, look at every credit card, every debt you’ve got, and put that into one category and you say, Oh, I know I’m going to pay off that MasterCard in three weeks. I don’t care. Timestamp it for as of this day that you’re doing this project, what is in your bank account to the dollar? I actually had a piggy bank that I used to count how many dollars I had there just to add up my total amount of assets. So you take all your assets, all your negatives, your liabilities, there’s your net worth for the day. Well, that’s interesting. But what if a year from now that number is up 100 grand or a half a billion dollars or something like that because of the steps that you’ve done over that year. That’s life changing and that’s what happened with Real Estate. That aha moment for us is we thought we were doing okay. I get my net worth analysis a year later, but net worth had gone up about $650,000 in one year. And honestly, if you if you had told me to bet, I would have said grandbaby. And all of a sudden I was up over 600 grand in a year. And that’s when you realize that the steps you’ve done in the past has really been some positive differences. And now if you see a decrease of a billion stories, you know, okay, cool. But it’s when it went up from zero to I got a net worth 15 years ago, 20 years ago of 100 grand, that was my net worth. And that 99% of that was my home. And then it just increased.
Erwin Szeto [00:55:00] I’m sure you’ve asked this question. For. What’s your best investment then? That’s almost always that’s our home. And then I say, Don’t you want to?
Michael Dominguez [00:55:08] Yeah, well, I’m going to give you a more traditional answer to that is, honestly, the time I spent in education was my best investment. And I know that’s a lame answer, but it really is.
Erwin Szeto [00:55:18] What education, though? Where are you taking philosophy? The intake.
Michael Dominguez [00:55:23] Of breath.
Erwin Szeto [00:55:24] Are studies.
Michael Dominguez [00:55:25] Learning how to build body, build wealth. That was so big of a deal. And yeah, you’re absolutely right. I talked to these literate people that read, you know, they sort of mock me because they’re reading like a fiction book every week and a half is helpful. The movie was good, but the book is so much better. But everyone has those friends that are talking about that. And so, so like I don’t read nearly as many books as what everyone else reads, but you know, the ones that I have who’ve been life changing, I’ve taken action. And honestly, I wrote the book for the person who reads five books a year or less. I’ve included examples that I understand because I’m not a very smart person. I’ve included illustrations of cartoons and caricatures and all sorts of fun things because I want it to be entertaining because quite honestly, like for anyone who’s ever been on one of my investment real estate tours, I I’m a bit of a comic when it comes to like I want to entertain. And so I wrote the book for that purpose alone was just to entertain people and if only, by the way, they learn how to build some wealth along the way.
Erwin Szeto [00:56:28] That means you’ll recommend some of those books or education programs.
Michael Dominguez [00:56:32] Yes, absolutely. First thing I would always advise is every city that you’re even considering investing in. Look at the local meet ups in that area. There are some of the best investment clubs. I think in Ontario. We’ve got an embarrassment of investment groups out there and I think it all started with the real estate investment network here in Canada. They were sort of the granddaddy of all. That’s where both you and I both got our you know; our education was through that. And then because of that, groups like I win in my market that there are market, there is the term REI rockstar does some great programs as well, keeps fire away. I’ve actually taken their course and it was very positive, you know, good education. But honestly, a lot of these guys all got their education from Don’t Gamble. It’s amazing how, you know, one group has sort of spurred everyone else and the right club in the KW area. I’ve been to a number of their classes and they’re very good as well, so I’m not going to necessarily pick one or two groups. I think that’s but start to interact with other people. And you know, if you’re like me in my high school friends from years ago or because it was a ways now but it doesn’t feel like it if I stayed with my same circle of friends and only interacted with those people, I’d probably have a net worth in that situation. A station in life very similar to where they are today. But by hanging around with people like Erwin and some other superstars in the industry, all of a sudden you start rubbing shoulders with guys that were just at another level. And like, I remember one year where I’d actually bought three investment properties in one year and some of my friends world was mocking me, so. Oh, sure. I bet you bought another property, now, did you? And you know, they were so they weren’t being insulting, but they were sort of saying, oh, yeah, hot shot. Well, I go. Yeah.
Michael Dominguez [00:58:31] I go to my investment club meetings be clap they applauded they’d high five. Yeah. And then they’d sort of say, okay, what do you do next month? They say, Come on, guys, I just bought three properties and oh, are you going to get like one property every two years, three years? You’re ahead of 99% of your friends, I’m sure. And just hanging around with some of those guys in my life was all the difference in the world. And yeah, there’s some great investment books, I think. Rich Dad, Poor Dad was a huge game changer in my life in terms of mindset. Don Campbell is books 97 lots of dollar you probably know it 97 I believe behind the Canadian real estate investing thing. That’s a huge one as well. And actually one of the problems I always had is just like most of us, because I was always saying, Oh, I’ll do it myself, I’ll do it myself, yourself. But books like The Four Hour Workweek and other books from that standpoint of just sort of learning how to delegate and get rid of the jobs, I don’t want to do it. Focus on wealth building. That was a game changer for me as well. So. So, yeah. So can I ask your question that. Sorry, got to run?
Erwin Szeto [00:59:41] No, it’s great. The local knowledge can’t really beat it, you know, with people that that do can have rather than people just talk.
Michael Dominguez [00:59:49] To take action takers.
Erwin Szeto [00:59:51] Awesome. Michael So we’re over time. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. Any final thoughts you want to share with the listener?
Michael Dominguez [00:59:59] Well, you know, again, a show on the pretty simple. I have a simple message. I really think that no matter what you do, the people that win in this game are the ones that actually take action. And if you can do your research, do your homework, and really understand what you know, where you are at right now, it doesn’t matter where you are. But if you start taking action, whether it’s a year or three years from now, you can actually get there and actually start investing in actual assets that appreciate in value and actually cover their expenses. The difference you’re going to make in your life in three years and five years and ten years is going to be life changing. And so really that’s what my book is all about is, again, for the for the person who’s got 37 properties buys more properties that I change underwear. This maybe isn’t for you. There might be a couple of tips that are cool, but it’s for the guy who’s looking for that first, second and third to change their life. Change that the fortunes of where they’re going.
Erwin Szeto [01:00:59] Awesome. And then, Michael, working folks get the book.
Michael Dominguez [01:01:02] We have a website here, real estate billionaire dot com. It’s actually it’s funny to see this it’s available on Amazon right now. It’s depending on when this comes out it’s the launch date is May 11th. So you could preorder the book today. It’s also available on Kindle and other e-book versions as well. But yeah, it’s I think you’ll have you’ll enjoy it. That’s been the feedback I’m getting from a lot of people is that, you know, I don’t like reading a lot of books because they’re boring. I’d like to think even if you don’t learn anything, I hope that I made you laugh a couple of times. And if I could do that.
Erwin Szeto [01:01:36] That’s amazing. And then where can people follow? You’re not big on social media.
Michael Dominguez [01:01:41] I would actually think so. Actually, I just last week form a Berkshire real estate billionaire is now gone or is author Michael Dingle is this what it is, what my Facebook page is? I’ve just I’ve been doing Twitter and I just joined Clubhouse yesterday. So I’m going to become a clubhouse person, apparently. And that’s really what I’m going to be doing. Instagram hasn’t been my thing, but I got to try to do some stuff there. But yeah, I think you’ll if you go on my website, you’ll see where my links are that time. But I’m going to really try to. That’s the thing, honestly. Erwin you’ve been a superstar. That stuff that that they kind of look at you with a bit of ethics. The fact you do you’re good at that it’s just it’s not natural for me to that stuff. I’m more of a one on one kind of person.
Erwin Szeto [01:02:33] Awesome. Hey, you know, you just try to do everything. Just do what you can to start somewhere. Start doing some tik-tok dances and stuff.
Michael Dominguez [01:02:43] Nobody wants to do that. Trust me with that.
Erwin Szeto [01:02:46] So crazy. Michael, thanks so much for doing this. Yeah, thank you. Don’t do it. Come to the golf lesson. That’s what I’ve been offering. That’s been asking people to have doing it, playing. Go to a golf lesson together.
Michael Dominguez [01:02:57] I will take you up on that. I did. Yeah. That. Yeah. I’d like to get out there. A delta variant, the hang up.
Erwin Szeto [01:03:04] Awesome. Well, let’s do an Oakville. So it’s not so far for you to drive.
Michael Dominguez [01:03:07] That’s good. Awesome. All right.
Erwin Szeto [01:03:09] Thanks, Michael. Have a great weekend. Thank you very. Before you go, if you’re interested in learning more about an alternative means of cash flowing like hundreds of other real estate investors have already and sign up to my newsletter and you’ll learn of the next free demonstration webinar I’ll be delivering on the subject of stock hacking. It’s a much improved demonstration over the one that I gave to my cousin Chubby at Thanksgiving dinner in 2019. He now averages 1% cash flow per week, and he’s a musician by trade. As the real estate investor myself, I got into real estate for the cash flow, but with the rising costs to operate a rental business, it’s just not the same as it was 5 to 10 years ago when I started. Never forget that cash flow reduces your risk. The more you have, the more limbs you can absorb. And if you have none or limited cash flow, you’re going to be paying out of your pocket like I did on a recent basement flood at my rental in St Catherine’s, Ontario. If you’re interested in learning more for free from my newsletter at WDW DOT Truth About Real Estate Investing Dossier, enter your name and email address on the right side will include in the newsletter when we announce our next Free Stock Hacker demonstration. Find out for yourself with so many real estate investors are doing to diversify and increase our cash flow. And if you can’t tell, I love teaching and sharing the stuff.