Table of Contents
Podcast Transcription
Erwin Szeto [00:00:07] Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, investors across Canada. My name is Erwin Szeto Erwin, welcome to the truth about real estate investing show. As always, I have the pleasure of interviewing the titans of Canadian Real Estate to figure out what makes them successful. We’ll listen to their teaching, learn from their mistakes and experiences, so we may take away actual advice to apply to our businesses and make more money. If you enjoy the show, please leave me a review on Apple’s iTunes and my comment. I read every one and I’m grateful for it all. If you have any constructive feedback, please send me an email and I will endeavor to improve. So just quick, I’m back with my family and I learned back in Canada about 12 hours ago after a two week vacation in Hong Kong to witness the marriage of my brother in law, Vic to his lovely bride Kitty. Hong Kong in the Real Estate world is known as the least affordable real estate market in the world, and soon, to be specific, it is the least affordable that are more expensive real estate markets in the world, cities like New York City Los Angeles. But this is the least affordable, and it’s both expensive and the folks that live there do not make enough money. As a real estate nerd, I find Real Estate interesting, and it’s completely fascinating to me. No matter what market I’m in, because I’m always looking to learn from what works in those markets and hopefully apply those same lessons back at home. For many of your listeners, you may recall the massive influx of Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong in the 90s. Today, it’s more the Mandarin speaking folks. If you don’t know the difference, it’s cool. In a nutshell, it’s just much nicer and affordable to live here. I hear from my almost all the time, from my friends in Vancouver, in and around Toronto, that all their neighbors that are moving in, who are buying up their neighbors’ homes are Mandarin speaking. So if you spend any time in China like Hong Kong, you understand why and it starts with prices. Let’s start with prices. It’s just easy. The kind of building a city that it’s only a few years old, it’s in the suburban terminal end of a train line in the Northeast. So for the GTA equivalent, I would call it bribery or Stovall, right? Again, Real Estate nerd. Whenever I see listings in Hong Kong, a lot of the Real Estate offices are in malls. So when you walk by a mall storefront, they have all the listings posted in the window, and I saw a listing for a unit in the same complex that we were in and it was asking just under two million Canadian for almost 800 square feet. A two bedroom, two bath apartment condo. So $2 million. Think of what that gets you in Canada ” million because you a decent house in West Vancouver, the most expensive neighborhood in all of Canada. So I’m comparing a 100 square foot condo to a premier address in Canada for a house. A little bit of a difference. Another way to think about prices is in per square foot because I’m talking about a condo apartment here so that two million by eight hundred square feet. That works out to almost $2500 per square foot. The market out compared to for the GTA Greater Toronto Area would be Barry or Soulsville. Now compare twenty five hundred dollars per square foot to one Bloor West in Toronto, which is one of the most premier addresses for any construction condo in Toronto and the most expensive property I’ve seen in a while. Priced at $1300 a square foot. So do you wonder why we see so much foreign investment in China? Again, this retreat that 2500 per square foot in a suburb for an upper middle level finish condo versus the premier address a premier address in Toronto for fifteen hundred dollars a square foot. A difference of two thirds. So again, do you wonder why we see so much foreign investment from China? And at what price do you think Canadian real estate has to sell for? For the demand for our Real Estate to stop. I don’t know the answer, but I think it’s higher than where we were at just my two cents on the rental side. It’s not nearly as crazy. The same kind of would rent for over $3000 per month. I’m talking about Canadian dollars, by the way. Just keep things simple. But on the other hand, we have a family friend who’s paying over $11000 per month in rent for her almost 200 square foot ocean facing condo. So something to keep in mind. Even though I don’t invest in condos right now, I know I will be soon in the near future because condo investing will be synonymous with single family home investing in condos with views in this market. Rent for well above market prices, there’s also a beach there. So again, that’s something I’ll keep in mind if I can purchase something that has a lakefront view near a beach for a similar price to something that doesn’t. I’ll take the one with the better view. Just as an example, Canada sounds pretty cheap, doesn’t it? Affordability is a concern for every Canadian. I believe it’s a top two concern for Canadians for a poll across all provinces like upcoming elections. That’s what you hear coming up so often. But just keep it in mind, we have it better than many know. As a socialist, someone is interested in socialism and public policy. So for Hong Kong, their populations over seven million by seven point six, so slightly bigger than Toronto Greater Toronto. That is so on a socialist front. Twenty eight percent of Hong Kong’s population, so over two million people live in public housing. Two million people. In comparison, Toronto public housing has one hundred and sixty four thousand tenants crazy. So even though it’s not very affordable there for people buying, the government has done. Pretty darn good job of helping out the people who can’t afford it. Very impressive, in my opinion. Some of the fun facts about Hong Kong minimum wage under six dollars an hour income taxes 15 percent. There is no sales tax or capital gains tax. And here’s where things get tough for investors. Investment property refinancing requires 50 percent down. Interesting. Here’s another quick announcement before we get on to our world champion guest, I’m still getting questions almost on a daily basis about timing Real Estate the future of Real Estate blockchain and Real Estate. Am I worried about interest rates and bubbles and whatnot? So come January, my monthly networking meeting, I will go over how I see the world and how my research drives my decisions called an economic update Erwin economic update. Because this is just how I see the world. I’m not economists, however. I am a multimillionaire real estate investor. I don’t brag about it. But for those who don’t know I am, I am, and I spend a lot of time around. Other real estate millionaires, multimillionaires. Sorry. I actually saw Grant Cardone post something recently, Harry said. Don’t listen to millionaires. Only listen to multi-millionaires. So anyways, hopefully I’ve learned something along the way. And if you’re interested in hearing more about it seemed nice. I’ll speak live in person about this because I don’t share this stuff on the podcast because I think it’s just way too difficult of a subject to go through on our podcast. But anyway, to get on the inmate list, go to WWE Truth about real estate investing dossier slash meeting again. W dot truth about real estate investing dossier last meeting to get on the invite list on to this week’s show. Investing early at age 18 to living the dream for the last 14 years, talking people and becoming a world champion at Jujitsu with Barbi Benton, Barbie is living the dream. No, I know what you’re thinking. There is no or pink Corvette, but she does what she wants with her time when she wants to. Barbie chooses to train and teach martial arts several times a day, and she’s quite good at it, and the proof in the pudding would be she has one at the Abu Dhabi Brazilian Jiu Jitsu World Championships. She is the first world champion with heard in the show was of us have day jobs. Barbie’s day job is that she is a self-sponsored professional athlete, meaning she pays for herself to train. Thanks to having started investing at the age of 18 17 years later, that same property now makes up half of her income this year today. Barbie shares on the show what it takes to become a world champion, what life is like as a successful investor, and people forget this often. People often come to me saying they want. They want to Real Estate invest, invest in Real Estate because they want to make money. What does it look like? So whenever I get to meet people who are basically retired and living the dream, I’m always interested in what it’s like because it helps motivate me. So Barbie is living the dream, and she shares a lot of things that I would want in my dream. She’s a lot younger than I am. No, it’s a couple of years that I am. But again, she’s been living the dream for, like the last 14 years or so. She hasn’t worked a proper defined job in the last 14 years. That’s pretty awesome because she’s only interested thirties. She just got back from recent trip to China to start her e-commerce business, and I’m just jealous that she gets to have fun all day and doesn’t have to really work again. Also known as living the dream. So without further ado, I give you Barbie Benton. How many kids do you have? Two. I don’t know yet a second.
Barbie Benton [00:08:15] Is that ricin? Yeah. Yeah, Austin’s 11.
Erwin Szeto [00:08:20] Yeah. And what’s the other one?
Barbie Benton [00:08:22] Emily, she’s not. She just turned 10, actually. Oh, they’re close. Yeah, you’re not part.
Erwin Szeto [00:08:29] There’s awesome, dude. Just do as well.
Barbie Benton [00:08:31] And he did. He started out with my tie in jiu jitsu, but now he does rep hockey. Oh, OK, OK. That takes over his life.
Erwin Szeto [00:08:38] So explain the space.
Barbie Benton [00:08:39] You’re in physical space like the co-working space.
Erwin Szeto [00:08:42] Yeah, because not many people are familiar with these businesses of yeah, because it’s another type of type of investment property, so it’s actually good to share. It’s the first time we’re talking about it.
Barbie Benton [00:08:53] My jiu jitsu training partner, the renovated an old building. And here’s the co-working space in there. Do you want a quick tour? Sure.
Erwin Szeto [00:09:05] We’ve never done this before. For those listening, we’ll figure this out. Again, we haven’t really done this before. Oh, it’s huge. How many square feet is this place?
Barbie Benton [00:09:19] To be honest, I’m not sure. So this is just a hallway with some offices. It’s more than 10000.
Erwin Szeto [00:09:28] It looks like more than 10000 square feet.
Barbie Benton [00:09:30] We have some desks, co-working desks, just like a random community member desk. They can come in here any number of things, big offices at the back. We also have super nice kitchen too.
Erwin Szeto [00:09:44] Do you know how much an office rents for?
Barbie Benton [00:09:46] They vary. Let me get you the sheet. Were you ever thinking of doing something like this?
Erwin Szeto [00:09:52] I know other in a lot of emerging
Erwin Szeto [00:09:55] markets, including Hamilton.
Erwin Szeto [00:09:57] I’m sure places like Oshawa, actually. I bet these happen. This pop up in lots of places. Where are you right now? What city? Cambridge Oh, okay. Yeah. So Barbie’s in a co-working space. In my experience, are usually unwanted commercial space. Sometimes they’re not on ground floor. Georges looks to be ground floor, but the ones I’ve seen are not a ground floor. So it’s tougher to rent. It’s almost like wholesaling office space.
Barbie Benton [00:10:25] Right, exactly. It’s for the nerds. I would normally work from home, but I’m lonesome and doing come hang out in here together, right? Like a lot of us collaborate different projects. Yeah.
Erwin Szeto [00:10:38] So if anyone has like a building, for example, with a large square footage and you have trouble renting that whole space. I’ve seen these solutions like your co-working spaces you’re in right now. It’s cut up into, you know, 10 20, 30 offices roughly can be seven by seven or 10 by 10 or 12 by 12 offices. And like you said, it’s actually very good collaborative space as well.
Barbie Benton [00:10:59] Absolutely, some of these offices are bigger, so they have their entire company in here, maybe three, four or five six desks. Mm hmm. So there’s lots of room to expand ring into smaller offices just for yourself. Mm hmm. Very cool. I like to be in the middle of everything. I need the chaos. So I just get asked out in the middle of everything. So I’m like, right by the kitchen, the social space. Oh, you like that. Oh, I love it. I have to. I don’t want an office. I mean, office secretary me again.
Erwin Szeto [00:11:25] I like the closed door, everyone. But that’s actually cool because it actually makes a good point is everyone’s different. There’s no rule for everyone to work. What way? Because I mean, I need any peace and quiet. I need time to think and dispel all of my thoughts in order to put work to paper type stuff. So again, like everyone’s different,
Barbie Benton [00:11:42] I need that time as well, but I use driving for that time. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. That’s my reflection. Time is when I’m driving just about a half hour for me to get anywhere from where we live in the country. Very cool, very cool. So I have a lot of reflections. Well, I’m here. Yeah, I’ve got to be in the middle of the bus.
Erwin Szeto [00:12:00] OK. So for the listeners, this is on YouTube as well, so you’re welcome to go watch the video. Barbie hasn’t even noticed yet. I’m wearing my G Watch.
Barbie Benton [00:12:09] You are used to it when people are wearing them, like, what are you wearing?
Erwin Szeto [00:12:18] So I’m wearing my jujitsu uniform Barbie’s actually much better than I am at this.
Barbie Benton [00:12:24] I don’t know, really.
Erwin Szeto [00:12:25] I don’t think we need to prove that, for example, Barbie is actually won on the world stage. So explain what have you done in your careers as a jiu jitsu practitioner?
Barbie Benton [00:12:38] Well, I’m just starting out really in my journey in jiu jitsu, right? I’ve done a whole bunch of local tournaments in like southwestern Ontario. I did quite well at that, so that gave me the confidence that I went out and competed in L.A.. Mm. That was super fun. And then I thought, Well, if I can compete in L.A., then why can’t I just compete anywhere? So then and 2017 as a white belt, I went to the Abu Dhabi Pro World Pro. So that was super exciting. Definitely put me outside my comfort zone, for sure.
Erwin Szeto [00:13:12] OK, so what was the L.A. event L.A. Pro?
Barbie Benton [00:13:16] So it’s just kind of like the top of the top? Yeah, kind of my technique a little bit because white belt and Pro don’t really go in the same sentence. So it’s like weird. So of course, not very many white belts show up because you don’t think they belong there, right? So like, we all go. HUh.. So there’s less people. It was also that,
Erwin Szeto [00:13:41] but you still won.
Barbie Benton [00:13:42] So yeah, I didn’t have to fight 30 people to win.
Erwin Szeto [00:13:46] Oh yeah. But if you did five, 30 people, you still probably still won. So, yeah, you didn’t have to work as hard for it. But yeah, it likely would have happened. You know, it’d be like it’d be like us in a golf tournament in a foursome with Tiger Woods, the only way to beat us three. But he’s going to f we put a thousand people in the room. He’s still going to beat us all.
Barbie Benton [00:14:09] It was a fun experiment, really. It’s just being able to push myself right and not just physically but mentally. Hey, yeah, you can go compete on that stage. You could do it. Like, why can’t you? Right, right.
Erwin Szeto [00:14:21] You been to Abu Dhabi. Where is Abu Dhabi? Only outside. I should look it up.
Barbie Benton [00:14:25] Yeah, yeah. Abu Dhabi is in the United Arab Emirates.
Erwin Szeto [00:14:30] It’s a very far unless other world
Barbie Benton [00:14:32] outside of the worlds.
Erwin Szeto [00:14:34] And what was that like?
Barbie Benton [00:14:35] That was amazing. I loved it so much. I had a friend go the year before and she was telling me, Be careful, you don’t know how you’re going to get treated as a woman. I guess she didn’t have a great experience. Maybe I’m just for an outlook. I got treated better there than I do in Canada. What do you mean?
Erwin Szeto [00:14:53] People treated poorly here? No, but they know you could strangle them there.
Barbie Benton [00:14:58] I was amazing. I love it. Other than ma’am, everything is man made me feel really old. Oh yeah, super, super respectful. If I had to go into another line for anything because I’m a woman basically so I can get to the front of the line right there was amazing. I just have to wait for all my male teammates forever as they go through the long lines.
Erwin Szeto [00:15:18] Now why was that? Why were they why? What did you get special treatment? Because you were a fighter like,
Barbie Benton [00:15:23] no, just the difference between the male and female. So we go in different lineups. Things are more segregated there.
Erwin Szeto [00:15:29] Oh, OK. Just cause segregation. There’s just more men as well than women. So everything is move faster for you.
Barbie Benton [00:15:34] Oh yeah, there’s less women in the jiu jitsu tournaments.
Erwin Szeto [00:15:37] It’s like the opposite of like being in the in a stadium like men’s versus women’s bathrooms.
Barbie Benton [00:15:44] Yeah.
Erwin Szeto [00:15:46] So for that, for people who don’t understand jiu jitsu and especially in their competing, I explained to less informed listener like, what is what are you doing at these tournaments?
Barbie Benton [00:15:56] Well, jiu jitsu is a grappling art, so if you watched UFC before, usually a form of Mai Tai would be the upper part where you’re striking with like punches, kicks, elbows, knees and when you get to the ground, it’s usually a form of jiu jitsu or wrestling. So it’s submitting your opponent via like a joint law, like a knee bar or an ankle lock. You just basically trying to break their arms and legs. Hmm. Or you can deprive them of oxygen by choking them out. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So it’s a lot of fun.
Erwin Szeto [00:16:28] I’m sure people are scared right now.
Barbie Benton [00:16:31] No, it’s not. I honestly, I do jujitsu for personal development. It sounds funny. And I also do it to get better business whenever I have a problem in business. I actually don’t stop training and focus on work. I stop working and I focus on training because I can solve my problem, either in the ring from a tire on the mat for jiu jitsu. And they’re both interchangeable with the lessons so I can learn without losing a lot of money first and then apply that lesson to business. Right.
Erwin Szeto [00:17:04] Right now, it’s I’ve been seeing a lot of grit lately and I sports extracurriculars are just part of it. So anything is actually good. I probably follow the same philosophy as you. I just I choose jiu jitsu because it’s very practical. And for example, I was discussing with someone today, we hadn’t seen someone in a while because they didn’t. They didn’t know. You know, investors are listening to the show. I know a landlord who was assaulted by their tenant very badly. Right? That’s horrible. Yeah. And you know, jujitsu will help.
Barbie Benton [00:17:36] Yeah. Sure. Yeah, investors and especially real estate agents makes me nervous. We do those open houses all by yourself, right? Mm hmm. But I feel a lot more confident having the skills to defend myself like I can go run at five a.m. and I feel like it’s cool. I got this
Erwin Szeto [00:17:53] right. And men who are six feet tall at one hundred eighty five pounds are intimidated by you. I actually talked to them. I talked to that
Erwin Szeto [00:18:02] because I’ve shared
Erwin Szeto [00:18:04] before my daughter is so, so the words I used to explain as I had a conversation with share, you know, my wife Cherry and I said, Okay, oh so great. The Ghost Bus stations right by our house. So our daughter can get on the bus and go to McMaster and come back and live at home during school. And she says, Well, that’s not fair where she wants to go somewhere else. And then she had also to make it worse, yes, what about her son? Well, she’s going to be bigger than I am. You can go over. He wants so a little to double standard. Is that right? Yeah. So my wife said, obviously, that’s not fair. But this is the overprotective father, and I’m sure many of you men who are fathers of daughters feel the same way. I’m sure the mother of daughter doesn’t feel that much different. I mean, I may be a little bit extreme. So then I slept on it and I said the next day, OK, fine. My daughter can have the black belt of her choice, and then she can choose whatever she wants to go.
Barbie Benton [00:18:57] I told my daughters, You OK? So once you get your black belt, then you can date whoever you want. No day to you until you have your black belt. Right, right. But I jiu jitsu is excellent for boys, too. Just getting started because there are other than learning to defend yourself, which everyone needs in this day and age. You also get the benefits of work ethic, resilience, being able to learn to focus and chaos and such. There’s so many added person develop benefits that people of either sex can benefit from, especially as they’re growing and kind of learning their own bodies and learning how to use their own minds to obviously teach kids classes.
Erwin Szeto [00:19:39] Oh yes, you’re used to telling all this stuff. So I’ll share one quick thing. The way I’ve heard learning martial arts is it is almost everyone has done first aid and everyone understands why you do first aid. Then you think about martial arts. It’s almost as if it’s first aid for yourself, right? Because first dates for somebody else, you’re saving somebody else learning. Going to defend yourself is to protect yourself
Barbie Benton [00:20:02] and your life. Preventative?
Erwin Szeto [00:20:05] Yeah, yeah. So why jujitsu for yourself? Why the decision? What’s the argument for jujitsu over? You know, did you watch Karate Kid like, you know, younger, smaller kid, learn karate and beat up the bigger, stronger, faster, more athletic component? So that sounds practical. Like why not? And then taekwondo, that seems everywhere. That seems, you know, kicking and punching and breaking boards seems applicable.
Barbie Benton [00:20:30] So when I first got started around six years ago, asked a couple of friends of suggestions, Hey, where should I train martial arts? And they all recommended the same place in Cambridge. Ironically, none of them actually trained there. They trained at competing gyms. They all recommended that I go to Mass Academy in Cambridge. Mm-Hmm. So I don’t even know what martial art I wanted to do. I just went there. They had my time. So I signed up and I did my time for like four years, three or four years before I started doing jiu jitsu. Then actually, my daughter and son, they started jiu jitsu first, and I really got to the point where she would go to tournaments that were so far away that a coach couldn’t always come. So she told me that I needed to level up so I could teach her and culture. We went to these tournaments. This was actually Emily that decided it was a good sport for me to try out.
Erwin Szeto [00:21:23] Interesting. Again, like our listeners, are often new to this subject. So with my daughter’s example is the decisions already made sure I’m doing. She’s going to be doing jitsu and then she’ll do some boxing for stand up. But that’s only just so, you know, a little bit of stand up, right? I’m trying to get to like, what can you do to men? Because that is that is because that goes back to the UFC one when we thought we knew about martial arts was what we saw in the movies, right? And then we saw martial art versus martial art for real for money. Everything. Everything’s at stake and you represent your martial art as well. And then we saw who with the winner was.
Barbie Benton [00:22:01] This is also the honor behind it.
Erwin Szeto [00:22:04] So, yeah, what? No. My point being is that people aren’t taking it easy. They had the weight of the martial art and all the scores and everything. Yeah, lots of pressure. Tons of pressure, right? And then you saw who won.
Barbie Benton [00:22:18] All right. I think that’s one of the reasons why I like jiu jitsu. So much is because it’s meant for the smaller person. So this is a defensive art, so you’re able to use the techniques and leverage against a larger person and still come out on top in an advantageous position, as you know, right? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, it’s crazy. Like my daughter has actually used her jiu jitsu to defend herself from a four year old or boy attacking her and her friend. Tell me about it. Well, it’s an unfortunate situation, and we’re going into details about it. But she was able to avoid being taken down by an older person. And so they went for her friend and she was able to take down. The boy pinned him to the ground so her friend could run away, and she was able to run away afterwards. But for an eight year old girl to pin a 12 year old boy to the ground, so he’s a mobile, you have to be able to have the different techniques to use your leverage properly. And that’s something that jujitsu teaches us, right?
Erwin Szeto [00:23:24] What do you think the weight difference was? Between the two
Barbie Benton [00:23:27] 60, 70 pounds kid was huge.
Erwin Szeto [00:23:30] That’s incredible.
Barbie Benton [00:23:31] Yeah, so that’s one reason why we trained jujitsu. And the other part is she had the confidence that she can just handle the situation, right? She was where you did it right.
Erwin Szeto [00:23:43] And that was first aid in a different manner. She basically did pro-active first aid on her friend.
Barbie Benton [00:23:49] Yeah, she was able to help herself and her friends.
Erwin Szeto [00:23:52] That’s fantastic. That’s amazing.
Erwin Szeto [00:23:54] OK. I don’t know
Erwin Szeto [00:23:55] where our listeners are feeling about this at this point because you are an investor in Cambridge, I’m assuming.
Barbie Benton [00:24:01] I know actually, I invest in air. We have a couple of agricultural properties and areas of farms.
Erwin Szeto [00:24:08] OK, so where? How do you spell it air? Oh, I’ve heard of that one in jumbo.
Barbie Benton [00:24:15] And then we also have a single family home in Guelph and the single family home in Brantford as well, right?
Erwin Szeto [00:24:24] And that is because real estate funds your lifestyle. This is not.
Barbie Benton [00:24:29] Yeah, it’s amazing because I don’t want to exchange time for money, I can cash checks when I’m fighting around the world, right? All my traveling is funded by money Real Estate, so it was my lifestyle.
Erwin Szeto [00:24:43] And just to clarify, you are world champion or you’re not world champion.
Barbie Benton [00:24:49] I was only a white belt then. So it’s not like super cool, but you still have to work your ass off and like train three times a day for years in order to get there. It’s still work because you’re fighting people that are the same skill level as you. But it’s not really as cool as like world champion any other belt, but I’m working on that. That’ll be next.
Erwin Szeto [00:25:10] But there still is the title, is it not?
Barbie Benton [00:25:12] You know, it’s the title.
Erwin Szeto [00:25:14] Yeah, I mean that many people are committed enough to do train three times a day.
Barbie Benton [00:25:20] Know there’s a lot of sacrifices that go into it. Sacrifices for family. They have to support me. My husband had to step up to that, watch the kids a little bit more. If I go and train at five a.m., he has to get them on the bus and stuff. So it’s kind of a group effort. A daughter makes sure that I run and pokes me in the butt if I’m not going back to hunt.
Erwin Szeto [00:25:42] How did you get started investing in Real Estate?
Barbie Benton [00:25:45] When we were super young was actually my husband’s grandfather passed away and we purchased his home at 18 when we were in university. We purchased the farm, our first rental property. That’s while we lived in. We call it the panel policy. It was like a one bedroom, 70’s basement apartment in the ghetto, in golf.
Erwin Szeto [00:26:11] That’s when you were a student. Sorry.
Barbie Benton [00:26:12] Yeah, we were student
Erwin Szeto [00:26:14] 18 years old. That’s fantastic. Can I ask, how much are you at? How much of the purchase price was?
Barbie Benton [00:26:19] He was around like maybe twenty five, something like that. That’s still a chunk of change in your school. Yeah, well, we. Chris worked a lot, but he worked on a dairy farm since he was nine years old. He worked a summer in university. I actually dropped out of high school to start managing for Microsoft when I was 18. So we have some money saved up for down payment. Fantastic.
Erwin Szeto [00:26:44] And it’s an investment property now. Your grandpa
Barbie Benton [00:26:47] property. Yet we’ve never lived there. What do you do with a tenant? So we rent the land out to neighboring farmers and then we rent the house separately.
Erwin Szeto [00:26:56] Oh, fantastic.
Barbie Benton [00:26:58] Just so, yeah, get a new roof on it.
Erwin Szeto [00:26:59] Today never ends.
Barbie Benton [00:27:03] Well, that’s OK, though I don’t mind one bit.
Erwin Szeto [00:27:07] What do you rent a farm for? I’ve never had anyone before on this show.
Barbie Benton [00:27:13] At least this is all their farms are cash crops. So then a farmer will work the land. And I think this year it’s soybeans and one and corn in the other.
Erwin Szeto [00:27:23] And then he pays you monthly fee or he pays your percentage. How’s that work?
Barbie Benton [00:27:28] He just pays annually per acre, a certain amount per acre, depending on the fertility of the land. Right?
Erwin Szeto [00:27:35] And you pay less tax property tax because his farmland, because it’s farmland.
Barbie Benton [00:27:39] Correct.
Erwin Szeto [00:27:40] What percentage do you think you pay less like? You pay like 10, 10 cents in the dollar or less?
Barbie Benton [00:27:44] Let’s just say the 50 acre farm.
Erwin Szeto [00:27:47] 50 acres.
Barbie Benton [00:27:49] Yeah, actually, really. Not a lot. When you consider Farm as one of the smaller farms, but a 50 acre farm, we pay the same tax as we pay for a 30 foot single-family lot in glass. Oh okay, interesting.
Erwin Szeto [00:28:04] And then any potential development opportunities down the road,
Barbie Benton [00:28:08] not in this area. It’s all protected agricultural land.
Erwin Szeto [00:28:12] Interesting. But it’s not green belt.
Barbie Benton [00:28:15] No interesting. Now it’s all done by this specific township and counties. As for what’s protected and what’s not. So we can’t we can’t even sever. We need one hundred and fifty acres to set her into seventy five because we’re like green.
Erwin Szeto [00:28:35] Are you even allowed to build a house on it if you wanted one?
Barbie Benton [00:28:37] We’d have to tear this one down in order to build this clever cash cow. Right? So I wouldn’t want to do that. So we just bought a different farm.
Erwin Szeto [00:28:45] Sorry, is the house is your cash cow. The house is a cash cow or the land?
Barbie Benton [00:28:50] Right? Because we have a majority of it pinned down. All right. Wow.
Erwin Szeto [00:28:56] Well, you talked about sacrifice like to pick up that chunk of change at 18, when people would have a lot of people would have drank that money
Barbie Benton [00:29:04] at home
Erwin Szeto [00:29:07] as fantastic. And how much how much of that of your income is that part property responsible for?
Barbie Benton [00:29:12] Probably about have.
Erwin Szeto [00:29:13] Wow.
Barbie Benton [00:29:13] Fantastic majority of that money is paid off, right?
Erwin Szeto [00:29:18] So my first thought is like the importance of starting early.
Barbie Benton [00:29:21] Oh, hundred percent. Yeah, I’d like to think I’m young now. Thirty five but starting at 18. Yeah, it was awesome.
Erwin Szeto [00:29:31] What were your thoughts when you’re 18 of a buying this property? Do you know what the opportunity was? Did you have it all figured out?
Barbie Benton [00:29:38] Not fully. My husband’s parents owned a couple properties. Oh, OK. That’s tried real estate like back in the eighties, and they I think they just weren’t educated enough. Like, you know how now we’re a part of these groups. We research, we network, we’re educated on what’s happening so we can make good investment decisions. I don’t think my parents got any help, so they got burned right there. Are you sure you want to do this America? Actually? Well, no, momma, you never heard numbers, right?
Erwin Szeto [00:30:09] Right?
Barbie Benton [00:30:10] Friends, of course, and parents who like, go for it.
Erwin Szeto [00:30:13] I think a lot of investors, what we do and the education that receive it to me, it’s not investing. This is business and it starts with economics. And I do not think people think economics when they think real estate investing. I mean, people who listen to the show are probably quite well educated around the subject, but people think, Oh, just, you know, like a mutual fund, for example, you stick money in and it’s supposed to go up. On average, it goes up. They don’t really understand why it goes up. Why it goes down. What can affect the market, right? Allowances, you know, especially any investor who’s playing against Real Estate, you know, actually very easy question. I always filter people with people say, Oh, the market’s going to crash ahead, OK, so they go, OK, what has to happen for the market to crash? And then an eight or nine times out of 10, they say, Oh, it always crashes or goes up, must come down,
Barbie Benton [00:31:06] OK, it crashes. So like you and I go, buy more. Really? Go buy more. Yeah. Other people can’t qualify for mortgages, so now they’re renting from us.
Erwin Szeto [00:31:16] Like matter. Exactly. And then I asked people to quantify it. So people talked it in 1989. All the time I got the go all crash, right? Okay. How much does it crash? How much they crash in one year? How much of the price move in one year? And they go, they go. They don’t really know. Right? And it’s like seven percent.
Barbie Benton [00:31:33] A lot of fear based. Right. But think of it excuses for non-action based on fear.
Erwin Szeto [00:31:41] Exactly. But then if you quantify it, if you lost seven percent, we give up like a year of returns. And if you’ve invested for five years, you give up one year of returns and you still have the other four years.
Barbie Benton [00:31:54] So Ruth appearance in the same year moving on.
Erwin Szeto [00:31:57] Yeah, yeah. No. Like, what’s your lifestyle mate now? You’re actually on the other end of what a lot of people want, and that’s you’re much younger, but people expect to be on the other side of having a portfolio. What’s life like?
Barbie Benton [00:32:12] Well, in my day, I get up super early. So if I get up at four a.m., grab my meals for the day. I’m at the gym for five. I do a half hour run, usually before class starts because I’m old and I got to like, warm up a lot of beautiful things. And then Georges team starts from 5:30 a.m. to seven a.m.. Sometimes they’ll do a private lesson after class, so twice a week I try to get a private lesson in from my coach. And then I go to physio right after I physio twice a week is more preventative. He’s like an athletic therapist, that real physio and just like fixes whatever I need. He knows his whole goal is to make it so I can keep training. He’s absolutely amazing.
Erwin Szeto [00:32:58] So you said once a week for four hours, twice a week, twice a week and you’re wow, that’s a lot of people don’t go periods.
Barbie Benton [00:33:07] If I want my body to perform in like top function. Then I have to pay attention to it. I have to treat it well. It’s not oil change in your car, right? Right.
Erwin Szeto [00:33:15] Your benefits cover this treatment, right?
Barbie Benton [00:33:18] Yeah. Oh yeah,
Erwin Szeto [00:33:19] you do have benefits.
Barbie Benton [00:33:21] I have the benefits to my husband’s work. Oh, lucky. Yeah, I’m fortunate that way. Nice. What does your husband do? He oversees milk testers for Jerry. Heard improvement. So he’s a manager for them. So it is a little bit like software consulting. Dairy farmers also run their farms more efficiently.
Erwin Szeto [00:33:40] So sorry, you mentioned you trained, you trained between five and seven plus half hour running, which is for many people, that’s the only worker they get. Are you back in the gym again?
Barbie Benton [00:33:48] So depending on the day, Monday and Wednesday, if I can, I try to drive down to London, to one of our affiliates and then train with professors to pull it down there. He’s an amazing blackball. He’s kind of adopted me and helps me a lot with my stuff, so I’ll try to get some extra training with him if I can. And then Monday, Wednesday, Friday we have class again at 7:15 p.m. and I also teach the kids classes from 5:30 to 8:30 at night. So we have two different age groups and then I throw it a competitive class.
Erwin Szeto [00:34:22] There’s no competitive adults or kids, competitive kids. Wow, you have pretty packed schedule.
Barbie Benton [00:34:29] Yeah, exactly what I want to do, though,
Erwin Szeto [00:34:32] and they pay you lots, right? That’s how you afford this lifestyle now.
Barbie Benton [00:34:38] So I just enjoy doing it because I can and I can make an impact on these children’s lives. I’ve already seen a little boys and girls be so shy and not want to talk to anyone to literally unleashing their inner beast and crushing other kids in tournaments. And then it’s all love. Afterwards they go play Barbies together. So cool to watch
Erwin Szeto [00:34:57] these positive puns.
Barbie Benton [00:34:58] Name a Stevie P o u ally.
Erwin Szeto [00:35:02] And oh, so it sounds like French-Canadian stipulated.
Barbie Benton [00:35:07] Perhaps I don’t know from the submission academy.
Erwin Szeto [00:35:10] Does he train like other killers from London?
Barbie Benton [00:35:12] Trains a lot of killers.
Erwin Szeto [00:35:15] He named Rob like former UFC.
Barbie Benton [00:35:17] People know he does more like family oriented class, like more of a family oriented academy, but he does have a lot of like high level athletes, so he trains out of there. Oh, fascinating. He has a solid, solid program.
Erwin Szeto [00:35:33] Very cool.
Barbie Benton [00:35:34] Yeah, so he always helps us out as well.
Erwin Szeto [00:35:37] When you do Real Estate, when you earn those money you’re making.
Barbie Benton [00:35:41] I have a lot to do. I’m also so Real Estate giving me like the time and the income that I can pursue other things, right? So I’m actually starting a new company. Just a journal, as I was telling you about. So High-Performance Jujitsu Journal. So I’m going to be selling those. And then most of the proceeds are going to go towards helping afterschool programs for kids to get involved in jujitsu, keep them off the streets after school, sponsoring athletes, sponsoring kids who can’t afford to train, send them to camps, things like that. So I do that during the day I’ll come to the co-working space. It’s like two minutes from the gym and I’ll work on that
Erwin Szeto [00:36:20] super cool
Barbie Benton [00:36:21] temple that I haven’t seen any real like buying or selling recently for Real Estate. Mm hmm. So it hasn’t really taken up much of my time at all.
Erwin Szeto [00:36:32] So working folks, find these big journals.
Barbie Benton [00:36:36] I am just launching it super shortly, but it’s like two Elevator J dot com. So it’s maybe I’ll be a to be J dot com. And then very soon, I’m going to have a sign up for an email list to be put on the pre-launch list for that. So that was one of my ventures when I went over to China recently to get all of that fun stuff organized. Mm hmm.
Erwin Szeto [00:37:00] And so for listeners who don’t know, explain the trip to China, it’s funny because I’ve talked about this trip to China many times the last like three months. You know, I’m focused on the Real Estate stuff.
Barbie Benton [00:37:12] That’s your focus. So the trip to China was Brian and Greg from Rockstar Group. They have very successful Amazon businesses themselves, and now they’re getting into teaching other people about Amazon and how to source products and such so different streams of income. REIN a lot of us already have Real Estate. This is an additional stream of income for us. Mm-Hmm. Oh, we had a couple classes. Says To Prep before we went, I actually kind of decided not long before the actual trip, so I just popped in, but we went to China for a week and learned how to source the different products. Learn what makes a good product, what doesn’t make good products. We’re working one on one with our agents. At night, we would all get together to see how things went through the day and the feedback they can give us help to get us on the right path. Absolutely amazing experience. I love it. I love it, love it. And I can’t wait to go back. It’s so exciting.
Erwin Szeto [00:38:10] You’re going to go back. What are you going back?
Barbie Benton [00:38:12] I don’t know yet. It depends how this product launch goes, right? How in-demand things are kind of also sourcing to other products due to two related while I was there. So we’ll see how that goes.
Erwin Szeto [00:38:23] Are you able to share what they are? Or is it still private?
Barbie Benton [00:38:25] It’s top secret right now. Not at all. I’m still doing iterations to increase the product quality and stuff, so I’m kind of going back and forth manufacturer to get it exactly the way I want it, right? So I don’t want to tell you it has this win a month later. It’s not going to happen.
Erwin Szeto [00:38:41] Got it. Got it now, because a lot of people are secretive on this because it is it’s a very visible business.
Barbie Benton [00:38:46] And yeah, I’m not so worried about that as other people, because they’re like super-duper competitors. But mine is not. They’re not products. A lot of other people care. So it’s not like I’m making the 15 millionth deal on the market right now, which wouldn’t be a big secret anyway. I’m trying to find other avenues that I can raise money for these programs and maybe aren’t so competitive that I can have a little bit of an edge or a unique factor about them.
Erwin Szeto [00:39:15] That’s cool. And for the listeners will understand that with products that people are sourcing from China or people get it, people who have been to like four simple Pacific Mall and you see like a fake Rolex, for example, or fake anything, really. This is what we’re talking about. And sometimes when some people don’t understand is when, when you see something fake, it may not necessarily be fake. What happens is, I’ve heard is, for example, like a big brand will order, say, you know, 10000 sweatshirts from a manufacturer and then the manufacturer and say, make 20000, 10000, we’re going to do to the purchaser. The company that ordered it say it’s Adidas, Reebok, Nike, whatever. And then 10000 go to their own their own vendors. So it’s exactly it came from the same place, right?
Barbie Benton [00:39:59] Yeah. A lot of the time, it’s the same product, a different take on it
Erwin Szeto [00:40:04] that to own that is that the proper term for private labeling?
Erwin Szeto [00:40:08] Yes. My wife told me,
Erwin Szeto [00:40:10] for example, like Huggies, we’re Costco shoppers and we have kids. They’re out of diapers now. Oh my God, the REI diapers now parenting when cash flow back to work because I was told, she told me how Georges is available in Costco, and they also make the Kirkland brand for Costco. So it’s all hoodies. You just don’t realize it.
Barbie Benton [00:40:36] It’s just marketed under a different name.
Erwin Szeto [00:40:38] Yeah, under the Kirkland private label name, right? And there’s probably many other examples of that where you see a Kirkland brand in Costco, and it’s like in as good chances made by the same people who make another product in the same store or brand you’ve heard of.
Barbie Benton [00:40:52] Absolutely. And from there, you can decrease or increase the quality and price as you see fit according to what market you’re going for. Hmm.
Erwin Szeto [00:41:00] Awesome. Are you going the Amazon route? Are you going on? You’re on your own?
Barbie Benton [00:41:04] I’m going to be going for my own network to begin with. I will be going to Amazon eventually. I like to keep as much of the margin I can to give back to the organizations that I’m supporting, but we’ll see how it goes, and I’m not adverse to playing around with it and kind of having some fun and figuring it all out, right? Maybe some lessons learned for me. I’m sure
Erwin Szeto [00:41:25] for that. For people who aren’t as familiar, what is the benefit of being on Amazon versus doing it yourself?
Barbie Benton [00:41:30] Amazon Amazon’s the built-in marketplace people who are already searching for everything on Amazon already. So it’s a lot easier to attract the customer initially because they’ve already built that platform and they do all the marketing and advertising and such kind of built in for you in a way, to a degree.
Erwin Szeto [00:41:46] And it’s like a trust factor as well. Yeah, there’s a trust and you trust the marketplace. It’s super scary. It’s so easy to buy, right? I just get my thumbprint to my phone and I just bought whatever
Barbie Benton [00:42:00] it is, and they have a logistics chain to support it, right? So you do get that awesome customer service. Things are here in two days. If you have prime hours, if you’re shipping it yourself like it’s going to cost you a lot.
Erwin Szeto [00:42:12] Are you literally like shipping it yourself? Like there, there will be in your hands and you’re putting a stamp on it?
Barbie Benton [00:42:16] And oh, how am I going to travel around the world if I do that? So I’m probably going to get it fulfilled by Amazon through, they call it. I think it’s something like third party merchant or merchant, something so I can ship all my journals to Amazon and they fulfill it for me, whether it’s from my own website or from Amazon Web.
Erwin Szeto [00:42:35] Oh, what’s the difference in cost if you do it, even though it’s fulfilled by Amazon but not sold on Amazon Marketplace, what’s the difference in a
Barbie Benton [00:42:43] little bit higher shipping fee? But you don’t have to pay the 15 percent, I believe, or there’s a fixed cost to selling it on Amazon. I know from my journal it would be a right off the bat. Ten bucks like Amazon seller get out on top of the shipping.
Erwin Szeto [00:43:00] Right? What’s the price of the journal? Fifty four dollars and $10 off the top would go to Amazon Marketplace if you went that.
Barbie Benton [00:43:07] Yeah, plus the fulfillment and shipping charge.
Erwin Szeto [00:43:10] Interesting because often I’m sure other Amazon users don’t feel slighted as well when we can’t find what we want on dossier when it’s uncommon. Like, for example, I was looking for that. I guess Assault Gun is familiar with that one. Yes. So the publishers don’t know it is what it is. It’s what it sounds like. It is an it’s a pump action gun that fires table salt and you used to shoot bugs anyways. They have a dot com website, so they have proper e-commerce in the states, but they don’t have a dossier version. There’s no vendors in Canada that sell the biggest gun, except for Amazon. So that’s interesting. They chose to go 100 percent marketplace versus having any sort of outside presence available in Canada.
Barbie Benton [00:43:54] Yeah, who knows how they have everything set up? Maybe that’s not their only products, right? Mm hmm.
Erwin Szeto [00:43:59] And this is why I only just realized recently was, if you’re on Amazon, you can skirt a lot of language laws. I used to work in and retail. I used to work for gateway computers. So anytime we brought computers into Canada, we were said to have everything translated. All the manuals translated labels translate and stuck onto products. But it seems to be you don’t have to do that for Amazon.
Barbie Benton [00:44:18] I’m not familiar with all the rules. That’s why I have Greg and Brian to help me. Oh, right, right.
Erwin Szeto [00:44:24] That’d be interesting. Just language. Please come after you. They want a French B.J. Lubega,
Barbie Benton [00:44:31] so I don’t think I have the market to make it all in French. Got it. That would definitely have to be a preorder.
Erwin Szeto [00:44:38] Very cool. So do you have any tips for new investors like, Wow, it’s so early?
Barbie Benton [00:44:43] That would be my biggest hope.
Erwin Szeto [00:44:45] Good God. So say you’re starting today. What would you do investor wise? Buy a farm?
Barbie Benton [00:44:50] No, I know I would if I was like, starting all over again today.
Erwin Szeto [00:44:57] Yeah, for the beginner investor, for the beginner investors benefit,
Barbie Benton [00:45:00] I would probably get a property that had Dubeau units. I’d rent AutoML and then I would stay in the top right, vice versa. Might even read the topic for more. I live in the basement and what’s nice, right?
Erwin Szeto [00:45:14] What city do you like
Barbie Benton [00:45:16] to live in an actual city? I like wealth. Golf is awesome.
Erwin Szeto [00:45:20] Have you done that? Golf, because I know you’re on a property in golf. You said this single family home?
Barbie Benton [00:45:24] Yeah, ours was just single family. We’ve never lived with another family above or below us, so that was had our own personal residence, Rob Break.
Erwin Szeto [00:45:31] It’s going to be the future, right? I rented one of my properties in St. Catharines to for young people, and they’re not related. That’s just the reality. And I think a lot of people need to understand that if you can’t afford to live by yourself or just you as a couple, you and your partner need a buddy up.
Barbie Benton [00:45:49] Absolutely. We’ve had tenants do that before, too.
Erwin Szeto [00:45:52] No, I just don’t get these people coming in with an application. Rent is like seventeen hundred say, for example, and then a couple comes. A combined income is $2500. It’s a four bedroom house. Find another friend who makes at least a lot of twenty five hundred dollars and then maybe your than your own combined income will work.
Erwin Szeto [00:46:08] Times have
Erwin Szeto [00:46:08] changed.
Barbie Benton [00:46:10] Yeah, it’s not the same. It’s going to be very, very difficult for people just coming into homeownership now. Eight Even qualify for it. But to save a down payment is tricky, right? I was fortunate that I worked full time and a good job for it, so I really had that built up. But I don’t know how people pay for university, have student debt right and then buy a house. Your debt ratio would be horrible already, like already from the start. Yeah, I would probably get like an apartment below. Live in the basement, rented the top for top dollar.
Erwin Szeto [00:46:48] I would do the same. Hell, I would. If I lived in the basement, I’d ever be the other bedroom too. And that’s the
Barbie Benton [00:46:55] thing like that to me. Sacrifices to make it work.
Erwin Szeto [00:46:58] Uh, there’s just so many people who are willing to sacrifice to make ends meet. It is rather, I don’t know that others complain when the government does more stop control rents crash the market, please.
Barbie Benton [00:47:11] I know it’s not going to help them.
Erwin Szeto [00:47:13] This is actually a survey result is like a ridiculous portion of people from like Toronto Vancouver who want the market to crash. Yeah. If wishes were fishes, we don’t cast nets. You mentioned, get a job when you were 18, when did you stop working a job?
Barbie Benton [00:47:28] Twenty one. Well, I stopped working for Microsoft when I was twenty one. I went to school because I really enjoyed marketing, so I went back. Back to school tomorrow, college for marketing and advertising. OK. And then I became a strength and conditioning coach after that. OK, so it’s fine. I like I like it. It’s easier. So I like coaching people. So it was perfect. I was training at Microsoft as a lot of the training for different for different groups, so I enjoyed that aspect of it also is awesome. I love it. So I did that probably up until maybe seven or eight years ago. Wow.
Erwin Szeto [00:48:08] So you’re 28 roughly when you stopped trading time for money?
Barbie Benton [00:48:12] Yes. Holy cow. Yeah, because my Real Estate like income lapsed over, so I didn’t have to work anymore. And in that time, we moved from wealth back to the family farm. So that was forty five minute drive. I mean, I loved my clients, but like, I’m getting paid peanuts, like, why am I doing this right? So I just made my clients into drinking buddies instead. Oh, OK. So I got to hang out with them. And then I just trained a lot more, trained myself a lot more.
Erwin Szeto [00:48:49] Living the dream for many people know, like strength and conditioning coaches, personal trainers, they don’t make much. They do it because they enjoy it.
Barbie Benton [00:48:57] Only made maybe like thirty five bucks an hour. So when
Erwin Szeto [00:49:01] you are working, though, because there’s lots of
Barbie Benton [00:49:02] people that was working. Absolutely. As long as it was still I was still in control of my own schedule. I can work what I want, right? Yeah, I only had to listen to a boss once in a while to try out Rob Break. So that was good. I can come and go what I wanted.
Erwin Szeto [00:49:18] And then you graduated from Mohawk with no debt. I’m assuming,
Barbie Benton [00:49:22] no, no, I’m a beginner, so I don’t think I was entitled. But when I when I quit Microsoft, I’m like, OK, so what do people do when they go back to school so they get part time jobs? That’s what these college students do. I’m going to get a part time job so I can feel cool. And I started working at the K brand for they were just opening the store and I got a job. I think I was like, supposed to be in between from the kitchen, but not quite a waitress that I wasn’t cooking anything. I just take the food out. And then like days before we opened, I was like, OK, so it’s your shift to clean the toilets. I’m like, No, no, it’s not going to happen. And then I just started tutoring Mohawk College and stuff that was way better because there’s more into the teaching, right? I could teach more so adults. And that was way more appealing. Toilet. So I feel like and I have to pay you to go to school. So I just quit a job and now I have to pay you to teach me. But I was super fun. I got it done really quickly because I don’t have all that social structure worry about. I don’t really care about making friends and stuff. I just wanted to go home. I played bursty badminton while I was there, so of my social aspect through that. But I can just like whip off assignments because like, I’ve already done this right, I’ve done this for real company already, but they’re teaching. So I was able to fast track it in a lot shorter time
Erwin Szeto [00:50:49] if basically lived your life in your terms, your entire adult life.
Barbie Benton [00:50:53] Yeah. Rob Break authority.
Erwin Szeto [00:50:56] There’s nothing wrong with that. Lots of people do. But I I’m scratching my mind for anyone else. I know who who’s done what you’ve done and lived your life the way you wanted, since you’re pretty much 18. Answer to no one.
Barbie Benton [00:51:10] Yeah, I just enjoy what I’m doing. If I just like the toilet experience. If I don’t like it, I quit. I find something to enjoy. Right, right. So never. I’ve never pigeonholed into doing something I don’t want to do. It’s kind of we have unlimited options like you can for you.
Erwin Szeto [00:51:29] What is your home paid off as well?
Barbie Benton [00:51:32] No, we have a little bit on it.
Erwin Szeto [00:51:33] OK, but it’s a little bit. It’s not like
Barbie Benton [00:51:36] it’s like a hundred grand on an entire farm. So OK, I realize
Erwin Szeto [00:51:42] I was talking to a family member who was trying to buy a house in trial. They offered like 100000 over asking ended up selling for four hundred thousand over asking it was deliberately price low. And I was like, Oh my God, like, your mortgage were bigger than mine. And we’re throwing our numbers. I said the mortgage is going to be like $3000 or something, you know? Yeah, that’s right. I don’t know. This is going to be $6000 is no, no, it’s gonna be $3000, right? And then you thought about it for a while like, oh yes, a $3000 biweekly for a mortgage payment.
Barbie Benton [00:52:14] First free. Throw that open.
Erwin Szeto [00:52:18] Holy cow.
Barbie Benton [00:52:20] So, yeah, wow. And again, you have to sacrifice depending on where you want to live. Right?
Erwin Szeto [00:52:25] My word. And then I want all the listeners to take some time to think about what your life would look like if you didn’t have to work for money or you. Through free time, this is super cool,
Barbie Benton [00:52:37] and it’s a very powerful quote. Like, I love the person developments. I go to conferences all the time. And I think it’s maybe a Steve Jobs call. I might be wrong, but it’s what would you do between this? What would you do if you could do anything? If you would be successful at anything and you automatically knew that? Yeah. What do you want to do?
Erwin Szeto [00:53:00] Yeah, his convocation speech was commencement speech is a graduation speech, graduation. Some schools graduation speech along the lines of I do it. Follow whatever you’re passionate about. But I think people to dig a little bit deeper. Think if you’ve read his bio like my interpretation is his passion is to compete. So there you. Right? Yeah, just different. You compete in different areas. The right, his area to compete was in the computer, personal device, person, electronic devices and computer world. Right. So anyone who hasn’t read or listen to his biography, like, listen to it, he was crazy competitive, even with his own employees, right? He would compete. He would have product launches to compete with his own people because he wanted to be better than them. And they were like, Yeah, it’s crazy. But again, too many people on social media have interpreted as meaning to follow your passion. So I joke, I joke, saying I like to sit on a beach with a cocktail and just like, hang out and I’ll go play some beach volleyball. But that’s my passion. No one’s going to pay me for that.
Barbie Benton [00:54:08] Well, my Profits. Still, I’m lucky for that. And Real Estate has been instrumental in allowing me to follow that passion, right? Passion is also business. I love working with people, so I love working with the tennis. I love playing with numbers, and I love working with my hands. Nothing would make me happier than to lay a new floor like tile backsplash because I can design it and I get to make it happen and I can see the results of my work. So do I like dealing with four a.m. sewage calls? No. How often do you do that anyway, right? Yeah. If you make all of these things enjoyable, then you’re going to enjoy what you’re doing. But if you think, Oh my God, they’re calling again. Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, do you like saving your house? You can do this repair now to prevent future damage to your property versus not calling you at all. They’re doing you a thing, right? Perspective on how you look at it, I think right?
Erwin Szeto [00:55:09] You can always strangle them if you have problems of the tenants that you strangle, then you choke. I saw that as a dinner thing and I don’t know really know what. I don’t understand the background behind it. That’s okay. Oh, and that’s you’ve trained at some of the highest most famous schools in the world. I can’t believe I love the zone.
Barbie Benton [00:55:29] Yes, Professor Black Hole again, or sometimes a great coach here presents us with like crazy opportunities to train all over. So I took my daughter to school. She trains as well, and a couple of times last year we took two weeks off and we went down to New York City and we trained at Hanzo School. So we had a couple of privates for dinner. Ha, we did some group classes. I got to hang out with Hanzo for a little bit. I was super awesome. My daughter was just like, elated. Yeah, yeah. And one of our teammates was competing in the Kasai Pro, so we always go dance for him whenever we can. It’s just a blast. Like, they’re all super down to earth. Cool guys. Like, Yeah, I hope they put on social media. They’re just big teddy bears like for Emily to be able to like she’s a little right. Like Ryan, in this past year old bear chickens like squeeze her weigh in at then venue, go up, give him a big hug and say hello, like and he’s like, Hey, how’s it going? The seven level talks to her, like all these guys are becoming like, they’re also good with her and happy he has the training going. This is an amazing community to be involved in.
Erwin Szeto [00:56:45] Super cool. Gordon REIN this enormous room.
Barbie Benton [00:56:51] Well, OK, I’m like goes up to about his waist.
Erwin Szeto [00:56:56] For those who aren’t familiar, the people we’re speaking to, like, I like the royalty of this sport and Hendo and John Danaher, our coaches to some of the greatest fighters in history, including like Dawson Pierre, he’s like the Wayne Gretzky of what he’s in the conversation of top to at least like possible greatest of all time. We’ll see what Jon Jones does. And he replied, Do great things. But currently top two
Barbie Benton [00:57:24] is Canadian, so it’s kind of cool.
Erwin Szeto [00:57:25] Yeah, super cool. He wasn’t there when you were there, was he?
Barbie Benton [00:57:29] No, he wasn’t right. And little that allows us to go do these things right, like I’m able to offer these up for my daughter to train and to just do with her idols. Right?
Erwin Szeto [00:57:40] That’s exactly what she’s doing. Like, if you this would be like doing master class and acting with like Brad and Angelina Jolie. That’s the parallel I’m trying to make it understandable for everyone. It’d be like learning to like to play hockey from Wayne Gretzky. That’s awesome. And that’s what you’re doing, which is super cool. And this school is turning out like tons of world champions. Is disproportionate, is completely disproportionate. The number of students they have that are world champions and even at the highest level, a black belt, an absolute like. It’s just nuts. And that’s where you got to spend some time. Two weeks.
Barbie Benton [00:58:16] Yeah, we went down a couple times, so I think I took her out of school for about a month where I think we went maybe two weeks in December and then two weeks in, like July or August. Basically, whenever they have a cause, I probably try to go down, hang out, do some training at the guys for a bit and then go ice because I
Erwin Szeto [00:58:34] probably have gone over time. Any final thoughts you want to leave to anyone interested in the sport? Because I’ve had people have reached out to me about the sport because they know that I do, and they ask, like, why or how do you get started? Or I don’t get beaten up or Real Estate world or starting a new business. Anything you want to; you want to leave people with
Barbie Benton [00:58:53] and see if you’re looking to start anything new. Then other people before. If you have friends that are real estate investors or due to jazz or any type of martial arts, but with them, like go to Real Estate meeting with them, get your feet wet or look at or go to a class with them all the time times you’ll find what you think is such an intimidating environment. Actually, everyone’s just super cool, and they’re there to help each other out. Super cool and give it a shot
Erwin Szeto [00:59:18] for folks to follow along with you. How can they do so? I know you’re pretty active on Instagram. Is it the best place?
Barbie Benton [00:59:23] Yeah, Instagram is cool. I spoke to my Facebook is Barbi Benton Perry that took my making him out of there some time and my Instagram is Barbie underscored on this fire?
Erwin Szeto [00:59:37] Okay, so the idea was not so great there. So I’ll have that in the show notes for everyone who wants to follow it with Barbie, because you had the signature picture of barbecued bugs when you were in China. Did you try it?
Barbie Benton [00:59:52] No, I was advised not to. Just because it was like from the night market. It was from anywhere else that I would have been OK. I really wanted the scorpion. That’s like one of my life calls Scorpion one day
Erwin Szeto [01:00:05] I honestly didn’t have. OK. You can find a restaurant that serves Scorpion. I thought I was every corner like Starbucks or Tim Hortons.
Barbie Benton [01:00:11] And I’m pretty sure that the ones that were on the stick in the night market were the same ones from four days ago.
Erwin Szeto [01:00:18] OK, let’s get advice. OK.
Barbie Benton [01:00:20] The Wild West Texas that health insurance and China vehicle Barbie.
Erwin Szeto [01:00:26] Thank you again for doing this. Super cool. I thought we were going to talk about like Real Estate jujitsu, but wow, you even live in the dream since you were 18. Just like half your life, you’ve been living the dream. Like people, people want to live like you when they turn 65 and start living like you and when they turn 65, that freedom. 18. Wow. Good for you. Congratulations. So happy for you.
Barbie Benton [01:00:50] Yeah. If anyone wants to travel, I’d be happy to answer any questions that they have about living life on their own terms.
Erwin Szeto [01:00:58] Awesome. So cool. Thanks so much again for doing this.
Barbie Benton [01:01:02] And it was fun.
Erwin Szeto [01:01:09] Are you looking to the Greater Toronto Hamilton area? Are you interested in becoming a real estate investor, earning extra income in your sleep without getting calls from tenants or unplugging toilets? Then please join us live and in person at the Halton Real Estate Investors Group meetings at the prestigious Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. Our meetings are catered to both seasoned and novice investors to share and educate the fundamentals and truths about real estate investing so you two can earn seven figure net worth like our clients and guests of the show, how great it would be to be financially free to take more time off your family, retire earlier and more comfortably, or to support your favorite charity. If this is of interest to you, then get on the invite list at WW Dot Truth about real estate investing dossier slash meeting. The host of the meeting is yours truly Erwin Szeto? That’s me, a four time winner of the real estate agent of the Year to investors for the years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Results are not guaranteed by our investor clients who’ve been with us since 2012, earning over 400 percent returns on cash falling investment property. So come check us out soon as you can due to enter your fire code regulations. We can only have so many attendees and we have been waitlisted in the past, so don’t wait to register at WW Dot Truth about real estate investing dossier meeting. Thank you for listening in if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe button. Whatever after using or we can email you episodes of the podcast right to your inbox as soon as they become available each week, simply go to our website WW to be truth about real estate investing dossier again. This WW truth about real estate investing dossier entering your name and email on the right. If you really know the episode, please leave me a five star review and comment on iTunes. I read every comment and am grateful for every five star review. Thank you again for listening. Now go forth. Be awesome. Take action. Never give up because I believe in you. So next time this is Erwin Szeto bringing you the truth about real estate investing in.
Barbie Benton [01:03:08] You.