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Podcast Transcription
Georges El Masri [00:00:00] This is the Well Off podcast, I’m Georges El Masri, thank you for joining today. I interviewed Martin Ouellet. Martin is from Kingston, Ontario. Obviously, French speaker, we talked a lot about his story. He was actually a military man, went to Afghanistan. He told me a little bit about how that impacted his, his thinking and how he got into real estate. Because obviously, if you’re in the military, there isn’t necessarily a direct relation to real estate, but just his thinking. And we talked about visualizing and goal setting and where he’s at today through real estate and how he was able to actually purchase a new car, put all the money down by selling the first investment property that he had several years later. So it’s a pretty cool story. We broke down the Kingston Market a little bit and talked about the cap rates and the price per door on multi units. We’re talking about larger properties here, so there’s going to be lots of good stuff for you. As always, I hope you’ll enjoy. And if you guys know anyone who might benefit from this, I encourage you and ask you to share it. Leave us a review on the iTunes or Apple Podcasts platform. Thank you for all your support, and if you want to connect with me, just go to, well, dossier and my contact information will be there. Enjoy the episode and we’ll talk soon. Welcome to the World podcast, where the goal is to motivate, inspire and share success principles. I am here with Martin Ouellet today. Martin is a real estate investor, a realtor, a business owner who is building generational wealth by wealth, sorry by leveraging the benefits of real estate. He believes in self-actualization and the power of a team, and also the importance of loving what you do so much welcome. I appreciate having you here today.
Martin Ouellet [00:01:46] It did so much, Georges, for inviting me. It’s a great honor to be here with you all.
Georges El Masri [00:01:50] Yeah, it’s my pleasure to have you. So I like to start off by asking you a little bit about your childhood. Do you want to tell me about where you grew up and just a couple of things you remember?
Martin Ouellet [00:02:00] I grew up in a very small town in the north of Quebec. My parents were both from a different area. My mom from B.C., my mom from New Brunswick. So my childhood going to school was basically local close to home. But my summers were going see the extended family going to see grandma, either in New Brunswick or in B.C. and my uncles to a very large family place. I believe I do have 30 about 30 Derek cousins, probably as many uncles and aunts and being the oldest of the family. My dad being the oldest and myself among his many, my small or their own cousins became my cousins. So a lot of good time with family. Yes.
Georges El Masri [00:02:53] Cool. Yeah, that’s always interesting. Just to hear like I know a lot of people in Quebec back in the day, these are big, big families, 10, 15 people. So it’s cool that you come from a big family yourself. So let’s talk about your journey a little bit. I know you were saying a little bit earlier that you were in the military. How did you go? Like, tell us a little bit about that and how real estate became a part of your life as well.
Martin Outellet [00:03:17] Well, first, my grandfather was a landlord having 12 kids. We had to find a way to close the loop. So he was a foreman for a company serving our company. And on the side, he was also a carpenter and building furnishers selling vegetables. And he started to buy a lots in my small town or building or renovating houses to have a bit of extra income to support the family. So I guess I got that exposure to my grandpa. What else? At that age, make my other side of the family on my mom’s side. The family is carpenter, is an electrician. So growing up, I really thought I would be an actress and working as a dancer. And I think a cottage or a snowmobile and probably a dog or two up to about 15, 16 years old when they’re recruiting sergeant from the recording center, came up to my school and presented us the opportunity to go to university and a military college in Kingston and at the time, to do a degree and explore the word Learn English because I’m truly francophone born and traveled the world and meet people. So I said yes to that. So after one year college in eco mode, I basically flew for D.C. And did the basic training camp in Chilliwack, B.C. And after that summer, I ended up in the station in Montreal. So there’s no service to you for my first year and five years later, I was Rob everything as a second lieutenant in the Army in the signal corps, providing communication systems to in an armed forces supporting domestic or international operations.
Georges El Masri [00:05:16] Cool. Wow. What a journey you’ve been. You’ve traveled a lot and experienced a lot of different things. So that’s cool. So how does. Where did why did you start investing in real estate and how
Martin Outellet [00:05:30] admits some famous businesspeople in the year 2000, 2001, 2002 that were in network marketing. And each book that I was reading about how to start a business was seeing Keep your job, build a system based company and invest your profits in real estate. So that seed was planted very early in my early 20s. So the first move for me was to buy a house for my family, which we did in Quebec City for like ninety six thousand dollars in 2002, renovated the house. I had the skills and I still do. So we went for a relatively simple but all-encompassing run like renovation over a six seven years when I came back from Afghanistan, or I was deployed for 10 months with three kids at a young age. I was posted to Ottawa and so I had the money from the tour and the profits from the Quebec City House. And I knew that that profit over a few years, if I would multiply it into multiple properties and that I was seeing always doing that same for people but scaled all the working smart and grow ways. If they were doing it, why not me? So when I really sat on the table, I was I own the House and got to know I really said, OK, I need to talk to people I know about real estate in order to get to know. So I met with I called about 10 realtors. I met at which five and I selected one of them. There was a senior person was a former public servant realtor investing in real estate and a portfolio of about 10 of 11 properties, smaller or single family homes. And I told you about my mentor and he taught me. And he brought me to buy a deal. Of course, he was a seller, but he sold me good things. He sold me a semi-detached house. To start with that, I just sold and got to know about three years ago and as a story I bought. My first brand new vehicle was at 41 years old. When I saw that first rental, I bought two thousand and nine, I believe eight. So the profit got this property paid my first. I supported myself. I pushed the reward for a long time and I read a lot of many books delay the rewards. And then I said, I’m going to have my forerunner when I can see it from real estate sold out for one who had just reported to the. The Facebook post asked Where you go to, you need to know what a vehicle means more than just a vehicle. It means hard work. And yeah, so three months later, after that first house, I was buying my first six packs because that process was simple and I had written a lease for the first time with the Quebec format. And then I bought that six FedEx building that was the beginning of my journey as an investor.
Georges El Masri [00:08:51] Awesome. That’s really cool. I like that. So you, you sell. You sold your Sandy, the first one that you bought and then you bought yourself a nice car recently is that in the last year, around three years ago that
Martin Outellet [00:09:04] the car that’s three years ago
Georges El Masri [00:09:05] and you paid for it in cash and that’s it.
Martin Outellet [00:09:07] You’re done. I had refinanced that property once already and. I forgot which year, 2013, probably 14. And when I sold it. Even then, the increase in value, there was enough equity in the property to pay all the fees and after taxes, everything was sufficient to build my own tailor told April Forerunner seven seater, which doesn’t even exist, that we created the vehicle from scratch. So like your hobby as a reward, so I’ll work hard, play hard. I asked my wife, she said. When did was an exciting time to buy a new vehicle and the next one will be a luxury car? Uh, and it’s not soon because I don’t believe in toys and believe in making a difference, but that vehicle made the difference for my family as a hockey dad being in a room or reliable vehicle. And if you want me to continue to invest in real estate because my roots are licensed because I had something concrete in front of me, that’s the result of hard work and teamwork action.
Georges El Masri [00:10:16] Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Well, that’s great. Congrats on your car and on your successful investment there. What are you investing in today? What does your life look like? I know you’re also a realtor but tell us a little bit about what you’re doing today and what type of properties you look for right now.
Martin Outellet [00:10:33] Today, I’m looking into multifamily may last year and some people that followed consumer real estate or myself on social media, I probably have seen a lot of BR strategy, uh, mentoring people to get into real estate, buying a single family home, incorporating either horizontally or vertically appeasement or skipping a house left and right to create value to create cash flow. Because of course, if you own a unit or property, you automatically cash flow will increase, but also create equity in the property refinances of the property and generate cash flow. So being in Kingston established and seeing the opportunity of their rent raising way before to buy you does. That means a lot of sense, with the capital available at the time because we had done previous investment, refinancing and raising funds through investors. We got about twenty five investors, you know, our network that come back to us or do business. We started to do those properties to convert. At this stage what I am looking for, we’ve closed. Oracle did exist 12 in 12 months, so it’s a huge achievement that we have and we’re proud to have done so. At this point we’re really turning into. We have made some good bids on the good properties, many, many units and vertical buildings that we didn’t get the beer. We wanted to really pay a certain amount and some other people were willing to pay more. So it’s a hot market.
Georges El Masri [00:12:14] And when you talk about in Kingston right now, are you looking at Kingston Multisite Kingston?
Martin Outellet [00:12:18] Yeah, that was Kingston. Yeah, we’re looking at Ontario. But of course, I do know my market a lot and I recognize deals. However, if you go to compete with four or five older buyers or nobody knows me, I want to be more willing to pay more, which we are waiting for some properties. But yeah, that’s really where my focus is for prospecting right now in the larger community. I do have a lot of clients in this small number, and I always ask my clients as a to go first. I saw them ask me to partner with them because they know that they’re stabilizing the building, which means that you going or rent the market value. After doing the right work on the buildings, we generate them 200 percent when a low quality will achieve this in the same timeframe, so they’re willing to give away something as a share of it, which is not what I prefer to do, but I am there to help people reach their own objectives and if it means our cooperation being involved with the whole team and we are always happy to do so.
Georges El Masri [00:13:26] Perfect. So we’re talking a little bit about Kingston here. Can you tell us a bit about what the pros and cons are of that market?
Martin Outellet [00:13:34] The pros is that it’s a very insular city with a lot of good income. When you look at that market analysis from last year, it’s the same demographics as last year, although prices were not, of course, raised the rent prices. But having all of those universities, the military base, having a strong government presence, correctional services and under twenty five thousand people or of all of ours. Relation Kingston offers all the services that you want and a lot of entertainment. Accessible from Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, a two hour drive to an eight hour drive. It’s a huge investment city student housing waterfront cottages with the lakes in the north, with the development of the new internet services with top interest right now. And that’s. More and more people are aware by north of Kingston live by a large work from home, business from home or provision or working from home. Transit to Toronto or Ottawa or Montreal. But enjoying the quality and peaceful aspect of Kingston and of course, the entertainment. There’s always somebody playing music, and that’s it. But COVID a part. There’s always something happening in town, either on the street, at the park club with good bands. Tragically, Hip Tea Party, we have many other musicians that stop making stuff good, and city tours like to have hockey games and good shows from great artists. So all of this attracts retirees, professionals, young families and workers. That’s why Kingston is like a hub for many things happening.
Georges El Masri [00:15:35] Yeah. And what kind of numbers are we looking at in Kingston? Like what would be maybe a price per door if we’re talking about, like some of these Maltese that you work on? And what are some of the culprits that you can expect in the area?
Martin Outellet [00:15:48] Yeah, the advertised cap rate and I would have thought we that differentiate, we’re not going to talk about single family home year. The whole competed by homeowners. Neither do duplexes, which still are but a purchase by homeowners to have additional rent. Let’s talk about a bit of a larger guernsey. Yeah. True, investors would like to play on and twenty five a door. I think it’s pretty hard to get things done to do that. Most people would pay up to $200000 a door talking about doors. It’s kind of misleading in a way. Talking about bedrooms starts to make more sense. Yeah. And also square footage. Location. Property condition. Age of the property. So there’s many factors to assess prior to just putting an average of there. But I would say that if you purchased a four door average good mix of apartments mixed at 150 to 175 at war with Iran, that can be increased from a thousand to 13 14 15, then you’re talking about the good refinancing approach of our two or three, four or five years for buying homes, for sure.
Georges El Masri [00:17:07] Awesome. So basically the buildings that are in need of renovations, you’re able to get them for about 150 to 175 per door. Fix them up. Get that rent up to like, you know, 1000 to thirteen hundred bucks and then refi. And that’s kind of your strategy.
Martin Outellet [00:17:25] Exactly. Yeah, you’re going to they’re going to be listed at five percent approved of the current rent. Some very well positioned or well renovated apartments would sell for a better, lower cap rate, which means more value could reach the one at your door at the end of the day. If you have less capital investment and or need to raise their rent with turnover, you’re going to be you’re going to be paying more what you need to two out of the door, and it depends on the age of the building. So average 10 or 15 years old, 20 years old, building under seventy five to 200 a door. If it’s all renovated, it’s probably what you’re going to be the older building C-Class, the glass building. Then you can reach these numbers you just talked to. Depends on how much you want to put it all. Sounds good.
Georges El Masri [00:18:17] OK, Martin, let me ask you this question how do you recognize and seize opportunities?
Martin Outellet [00:18:23] What is the kind of car that you’d like to acquire? I mean, we’re turning the question the rental car of a specific Tesla Roadster. OK, so how many people are listening to this podcast saw a Tesla on the road in the last week. Now we’re going to talk about this later today, and you tell me in a tweet or write us an email right about how many Teslas you saw on TV in the magazine or on the road since we put the seed in your head. So how to recognize a deal starts by visualizing a deal, you can talk about buildings. I took this approach, but I had a good shot with my 18 year old son that is interested in the business going to business school next year. Newly graduate. And I was talking to him about you need to define your objective if your objective is natural or creating value, then you can map as a mental exercise, which is not free. It’s work. You need to do work; you need to define IQ. What does it mean for what I’d like? And then we’re time analyzing deals, analyzing and analyzing a Burr bungalow, analyzing buying a lot, by the way, where taxes are low and doing a storage facility. And crunching numbers for cash flow, you need to do a mental exercise of what could be possible prior to recognizing that scene. Opportunity or building when it goes by, so if you don’t talk about Tesla today, you’re not going to see a Tesla among the cars of the vehicle on the road you’re going to be driving by next week. But since we talk about Tesla, maybe you should go and have a look on that one. Does it like, where’s the logo of the designer? How do I recommend the brand or the smell of a Tesla? So if you look at what are the different options to create cash flow, what they can buy underperforming, which is I mean, I can buy a piece of light and be a star is going to be a service capacity. I can buy a home and make student housing or make a retirement home. I have so many services and on and on and on. I can even buy a piece of land by the water and with the right things. I’ve marina enough boats. I run the boats, so. To recognize an opportunity, you need to understand what you want to achieve at the end state. Then what are the ways? The ways is the different manners, the different approaches that you can take to get to that outcome. It’s like basically it’s my being said. It is the same thing as my being available and we can enforce this or with corporate strategy. What is the outcome? The ways to get there. Reverse engineering that into what kind of possibilities exist in the real estate. And if you don’t know nothing about that, then you can get it. So you need to get some training. You need to read some books. You need to listen to podcasts like this. You need to call a mentor a coach, join a club and listen to people. Success story, which to me is the most inspiring. The most effective way to do a real estate is to listen to people that been before. So once you have your ways identified the ways that the different approaches, then you can start identifying the means that you need. OK, I will need that. People feel that I did. I will need that type of lot with that type of zoning. So knowing your market becomes key, knowing the actors in the market and the competition. Knowing you are your possible potential partners from a career that money professionals to help you transform that property or real estate. Into something that can be transformed into a value. So that’s kind of the same thing as goal setting, but any more a bit more concrete, so less in the clouds and in the air. I want to be rich; I want to make a million dollar. I want to make on a thousand dollar a year or what have you got an extra month? It’s taking that same state of money slash lifestyle or transporting it. And you, how do I really get that? So. Why am I able to talk to you about this today? It’s because over the last now I have to say 13 years because it’s been 11, 12 years for a year and a half and things went like this. It is everything we’ve done led us to understand how to do multifamily stabilization, how to renovate, let’s do how to do rent to own that. We’ve for six years how to build our condo hotel in a different country than Canada. What are your risks? What are the partners risking the legal, the fiscal risk attached to them? And then how do you develop local and how do you transform your competition into allies and partners through a realistic investment club? People collaborate, people exchange ideas that you are missing on that deal. Do you want it? You know, this is the kind of atmosphere was created in Kingston, with most of its members of the club being happy for the others because there is enough for everybody. I don’t know nobody that can do it all by themselves. And if somebody exists, give me a call. I want to make a secret. So this is a bit how to time we as a team begin good at recognizing deals. A lot of people call me as I have a potential deal here, but an opportunity. So to me does a property real estate that is a potential opportunity, which means we are not sure but potentially could generate cash flow or value. And then it becomes a deal when it’s aligned with your strategy and you tailor it to what you want to achieve. So a deal for me is different from a deal for George or a deal for any other person calling me to find a property in Kingston and real estate investment or even old family home. It depends on what they really want to do. Sometimes they don’t know. So there’s an indication or part that summarizes the very key question.
Georges El Masri [00:25:02] OK, yeah, we touched on it. You touched on a couple of things there. One of the things that I liked was visualizing and basically, you didn’t say this, but kind of like setting goals and writing them down. And I think that’s so important because even for myself lately, I’ve noticed that when I’ve written down goals, I feel like I often accomplish them. But if they’re not very specific, I will accomplish the goal, but not exactly how I want. So I think it’s awesome to visualize exactly what you want very, very precisely and take the time and write it down and you’ll get there eventually, like you set a deadline on it. And just somehow the universe just helps you. You reach your goals. It’s pretty amazing.
Martin Outellet [00:25:45] Exactly. We all know about the smart giving specific goals and measurable, more accessible, timely, realistic and timely smart this remains. But I think making it tangible enough so that it leads you to put the plan together. So I was reading a book about that. The order was against your study saying that there’s a philosophy behind it. And it was like goal setting is setting yourself for deception, disappointments, sorry and not reaching your goals and stuff like that. But it goes with my view of thinking is that if you write your generic objective down your different ways and it takes courage to write it down and being accountable to somebody else and very and really far room, we offer to be accountable for people or be accountable to somebody. So I am telling my wife or my kids, all my partners, I’m trying to achieve this this year. And if I don’t? It there’s going to be a reason for it, but I’m committing to do this, but we are just kicking off a kind of what MS team things as a brokerage. They didn’t exist before. There was probably some footprint back in the days, but it takes courage hard as a relatively new team on reserve on the board in Kingston to take this and bring it to the next step with perceptions. Be at war, these people and why? No, but we truly believe in collaboration that we can set. And used or renew or remind people about the standard that we want to work as a realtor and then attract people from any brokerages to collaborate with us and be on social media to congratulate other realtors about their own successes working for any other firm, it doesn’t matter. We are the team serving clients and we can really help each other and we see this in Kingston so that consider over an estate values. Keller Williams sets of values resonates within me, and it resonates with other people of the profession, including some investors, realtors from any other brokerage. And it doesn’t really matter which banner you are on top of your head or parts of your business card. It’s what we achieve, adding this mentality that counts. So yes, we’re really. Preaching that and it makes a difference.
Georges El Masri [00:28:19] Awesome. Well, that’s great. There’s been a lot of good things in here, so we’re going to move on to the next section, which is the random five. So I’m going to ask you five questions. You just tell me the first thing that comes to mind. First answer. OK, so number one, do you prefer gold or bitcoin? OK. Two. What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done?
Martin Outellet [00:28:46] Having to make hard decisions about human beings being in danger. And I’m talking about my military background being afraid to make the wrong that the wrong decision. But knowing by training that I’m going to go make one. It will be the best that you can do. Yes, that a background to that. Yeah.
Georges El Masri [00:29:11] OK. Yeah, that’s definitely you have like a certain history that a lot of people don’t have, so I can totally understand that. Number three, what’s your biggest regret?
Martin Outellet [00:29:26] My wife, my wife, my daughter, asked me that question this week is very interesting. We went camping at Sundance and she asked me the exact same question and it took me a while because I didn’t want to tell her 15 things I regretted. Yeah, yeah. But basically, it was not to be patient enough in certain circumstances. Okay. Well, I’ve influenced my life completely differently. So being not being as patient as I could have been? Got it. And she and secret. That’s a good answer. Yeah, I brought up my daughter. Oh, good question.
Georges El Masri [00:30:03] OK, so number four, what do you wish kids were taught in school?
Martin Outellet [00:30:11] How to find themself, find a route values and. How to reach her and way to find himself to save your school is assessing students as losing points and they grow up and they are afraid to lose points, they are afraid to fail. So the fear of failure is the worst enemy to our country, to our nation, to have an entrepreneur, mindset and entrepreneur. It doesn’t mean making tons of money. It means realizing what you really want to do. Being an artist, being a doctor, finding the cure for cancer, what people are so afraid of not succeeding or afraid of failure that that should be taught at school very early. You don’t have to be afraid. Everything you’re going to be doing would make you a better person and being stronger for the next step.
Georges El Masri [00:31:09] Cool. Yeah, I never thought about it that way, but it’s true you lose points for every mistake you make in school, so it does kind of instill that fear of failure, like you said. Number five, What makes you tough?
Martin Outellet [00:31:24] Failure. It’s time I don’t achieve what I wanted or what I had planned. What I wanted doesn’t matter because what I want is and then what’s happened is there is ego. But what I plan is mentally profound to me. And it’s what needs to be done. So really, it is more than $2 to go.
Georges El Masri [00:31:52] Awesome. Yeah. Well, that’s the random five there. Do you want to tell people how they could reach you and what services you provide?
Martin Outellet [00:32:00] Yes, of course. We’re focusing on Kingston, but we have a riggen audience of Canada wide, a two hour network of collaborators. So we have consumer real estate consumer real estate group with realtors can help you shape your investment plan. From an investment perspective, we can help you find the team across Canada of realtors that can help you acquire these properties. If you want to look at the Kingston Market, we can help you, of course, go to the market and see what’s available out there. Basically, if you any question, just go on my Facebook marketing, well, that’s pretty easy to find cultural real estate services and investment. How’s the page? Mark very well at two you become is my email. Always happy to help in all the rooms of roasty.
Georges El Masri [00:32:58] Awesome. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure speaking with you, and I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the day.
Martin Outellet [00:33:04] Thank you, George. Same for you.
Georges El Masri [00:33:07] As always, thank you for listening, I hope you enjoyed the content, and if you did, I ask you to share this with a friend with a family member, somebody who might benefit, and it’s always appreciated if you can leave us a review, especially if you’re listening to it on the Apple Podcasts app or if you’re on YouTube, give us a like subscribe comment and your support is always. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.