Real Estate In A Real-Ationship with Alex and Kaely Pal
This content is provided in partnership with Georges El Masri and the Well Off Podcast.
Podcast transcription
George El-Masri [00:00:00] Hey, everyone, thank you for tuning in to the Well Off podcast this month. This time I got to interview Alex and Kaely Pal, who are a husband and wife team. They work together in Hamilton to basically acquire properties for themselves and to represent people as they are both realtors. Their goal here is to create a perfect life by achieving financial freedom through real estate. For the most part, you're going to hear about what kind of projects they're working on today, some of their flips, some of their buy and hold strategies. There's a lot of really good stuff in here, so hopefully you'll benefit from it and just want to throw something out there. If you happen to know anyone that's looking to buy an investment property, I'd be more than happy to help them figure it out, create a plan and go out there and find the right property. And of course, through the team of lawyers, mortgage brokers, contractors, everything else, we can make sure to make the numbers work for you. So reach out. You can always check out the website well off to contact me and we'll make it happen from there. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the podcast, where the goal is to motivate, inspire and share success principles. Today I'm here with Alex and Kaylee and there's actually a third person joining us for the first time, another agent. And so there is actually a total of four real estate agents in one condo right now. And we're all going to be discussing a whole bunch of stuff. The first thing that I'll say about Alex and Kelly is that their team, they work together. They're both, as I mentioned, in real estate. We're going to try to figure out how they've structured their business because they from my understanding, they both focus on different things. I know that you're both living in Hamilton. You're locals from the area. One of the goals for your business, as you guys have mentioned to me, is to find the perfect life and one that is by design, not by default. So welcome to the show to start off. Thanks for having us.
Kaely Pal [00:01:52] Yeah. Very, very much. Thank you.
George El-Masri [00:01:54] You're very welcome. So to start off, as usual, what I normally like to do is ask you about your past before real estate. So what your childhood was like, maybe tell me just what you remember, certain things that stood out to you, maybe Kaili, you can start.
Kaely Pal [00:02:09] Sure. So I was born in Hamilton. I moved to Caledonia when I was about seven. I was lucky enough to grow up on a farm. So I had horses, chickens, all sorts of cool stuff. I went to McMaster University, so when I was 18, I moved back to Hamilton and I've been here ever since.
George El-Masri [00:02:27] Cool. Sounds good. What about you, Alex? Yeah, so I actually grew up in Whippy. My whole family actually lives up that way still in the east. And and I actually had never intended to get a realtor's license or even get into real estate except for investing of course. But I started off in tool and die as a pre apprentice, just kind of working my way through high school. Then I moved on to get my mechanical engineers diploma from Mohawk, and then I went on to Lakehead University to mechanical engineering degree. And then I started working at Eikon, which was a large project management company. Um, the large contractors, if you see them on the road to the ones causing the traffic jams. Yeah. Yeah. So and then from there did my first flip and I absolutely loved it. And I said, okay, this is a it's my ticket out of here. So that was it. Got my license and I joined the Keller Williams family. And so, you know, looking back since so you dropped everything, you you come out here for school originally to Hamilton Mohawk, and from there you decide, you know what, forget all of this project management engineering stuff. I'm just going to go in by these dirty old houses, fix them, make them nice and make a living like that. Yeah, well, I went to the real estate expo when I was sixteen. My cousins, second cousins, ex-husband. Now, he had these two VIP tickets. They showed up in the mail and he was like, hey, do you want to go? And I was super excited that he'd even ask me because he was like, you know, twice my age. So when I looked up to and so I was like, yeah, totally. I'd love to come. And he took me to the expo and it handed me the Don Campbell book, the, you know, investing in real estate, using the ecosystem. And it was all uphill from there. I never looked back. When was that, by the way? Well, at this point was about thirteen years ago. Thirteen years. So you got your start in real estate investing? Technically about thirteen years ago? Technically, no, because I was just sixteen, so I couldn't buy anything. Yeah. So my first property I bought seven years ago. But you know, I'm a firm believer you got to work to learn and then you work to earn. Right. So it's it was a big aid in order to have that kind of inspiration from the get go and then to be able to have read all these books. So by the time I was looking to invest in properties, I could run numbers backwards, forwards, upside down. Right. Yeah. And then you understand the principles of like the rich dad, poor dad series. And, you know, I had invested logically and what to do with your money and what's the difference between all the quadrants and the cash. And these are things then that now are a second nature is like, why doesn't everyone do? Right. Right. Why did you wait so long to get into your first investment? You said 13 years ago you got that book and you started getting involved with everything. And then it wasn't until seven years ago that you actually bought your first one. Well, I made my way through university, so that was priority number one, because I came from a conventional family that's like, you know, you go to school, you study hard, you get good grades, go to university, get a good degree so you can get a job and you work till you're sixty five and you could live on a pension because I live on a pension. So that was always the mindset. And it was only through this external education that I started to get inspired. But regardless, I didn't know what I want to do. I didn't know I want to be an engineer either. I wanted to choose to do something that was going to give me the most options. And so, you know, going from Tool and Die, which is manufacturing, I worked during the summers also doing my diploma in consulting engineering. And then, you know, you work in construction engineering and you work in project management and party coordination. So you get all this experience. And then so the things that I was missing was more of a sales side. So that's why my realtor's license, but quite frankly, was never the plan to become a realtor either. It wasn't my dream. The dream was always to buy a ton of properties. It's pretty funny what some of the reasons are that people get into real estate for you is for sales to maybe learn how to sell or whatever it is. Everybody has a different reason, but some of them are pretty funny. And I don't want to leave Mendi out of this. Yeah, I just want to kind of help people understand that you're cohosting with me today and you're also a realtor with Remax premier. Is there anything you want to share or you don't feel like people know?
Kaely Pal [00:06:41] No, that's OK. I didn't get into real estate. I didn't start out wanting to be a realtor either. I went to university to become a therapist. I actually wanted to help people. I wanted to know that. Well, and it's good for you guys. Yeah. I actually really dislike this is another conversation entirely, but I really disliked postsecondary a lot. And at the time I was working with my mom, just helping out, doing admin work on the side. I had two or three jobs at the time and and going to school and I just decided I wanted to get into real estate. And now it's almost been ten years and I haven't looked back, so.
George El-Masri [00:07:22] Yeah, yeah. So Mandy's looking at getting into the whole investment side of things as well. She's she's exploring that. So hopefully you guys will be able to give her some tips on that. OK, the real estate's lifestyle, whereas I find other careers are it's a job, right. You go there and you come home. But it's funny, just the other day I heard that and it really resonated because it really is a lifestyle. It's a different way to think about your career and your life trajectory, of course. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. We for everyone, we definitely don't have that normal kind of lifestyle. We have different stresses and pressures to deal with, but we also have potentially more rewards. So it's completely different. Exactly. Exactly. So here's the thing that I'm interested in finding out as a couple that are both involved in real estate, how has that worked for you? How involved are you guys in each other's businesses or are you kind of operating separately?
Kaely Pal [00:08:17] No, we're we're completely enmeshed. So we actually originally met on the same team, OK, so we were both working on the same team we met.
George El-Masri [00:08:27] It was a secret love affair
Kaely Pal [00:08:30] for like a hot month. You aren't fooling anyone. All right. So we met up from that point to now. Alex had been on a different team and I had gone on my own. So we had about a year. And then very recently, we've actually come back together and now we have our own real estate team. And we have our obviously our main focus is our our own personal portfolio and our our property business, the investment business.
George El-Masri [00:08:58] And of course, with that comes like we sat down, we talked about our big why. And there's something else that drives you. It's not just like acquiring a jillion property isn't sitting on a mountain of them. We get a lot of gratification from helping others get financially free. It's probably one of the coolest feelings when you're you're talking to a friend who just bought their third property and you've helped guide them through that path. And they're like totally immersed in it. Caught the bug, as they call it. Right. When you buy some properties and they just you see what it's going to do for their futures, for their children's futures, the children that don't even exist yet. And they've now, you know, if you look back by the time that child, you know, that's we had a one one couple who were very close with that, just bought the second property from us, superexcited awesome, awesome couple. They just expecting their first now in that first child is born, that first child is going to have its entire education paid for. Consider that wild. Yeah, absolutely. It's a lot better than earning four or five per. And just putting money into it every year, like what most people do. Yeah, it's a different way of achieving the same result pretty much. Yeah. So a little bit more. I thought he was saying to we have two main entities that we have, so we have the power realty group, which is like a transactional business, and then we have power property solutions, and that's mainly our investor base business. So that's you know, we do some coaching and stuff like that for clients. Nothing that really brought people on officially or anything like that. But we help people through. We also do a lot of joint venture partnerships, and that's the entity that deals with that. Right. And what what percent would you say you guys are focusing on your real estate transactions, helping people buy and sell versus acquiring properties for your own portfolio?
Kaely Pal [00:10:45] I would say, I mean, even to give it a percentage. Now, our goal in the future, like neither neither Alex or I ever thought that we would be our goal has never been to have a massive team. We've never wanted to be, you know, like a traditional kind of realtor, you know, like a couple that sells houses together. So right now, I would say one, Alex, maybe 60 40.
George El-Masri [00:11:12] And they're kind of down the middle. It's a 50
Kaely Pal [00:11:14] 50, 50 50. And truthfully, in the future, getting out of transactional real estate entirely is our our goal. That's where we see ourselves. Right.
George El-Masri [00:11:24] OK, so how do you think that you'd be able to do that? Is it through subsid substituting your income from your income properties? It's yeah, it's funny because the way it works right now is that when we buy a property from the property solutions entity, so let's say hypothetically that you're someone who wants to get better returns on their money. You talked about investing in real estate and you haven't the slightest idea of how to do that. We partner with those people. We do all the work and they fund their money through us and then we split that 50/50. So the problem with that from a sustainability standpoint is you become wealthy via equity once you're cash poor because you don't really make immediate cash. Yeah. So right now, a transactional business and helping out a friend family buy properties that's funding our lifestyle versus property solutions, which is funding our your future future.
Kaely Pal [00:12:21] And that, again, we should note, given our ages, we are in a position where we actually can be making equity purchases. We have another 30, 40, 50 years. Right. So it's not, you know, depending on your strategy, a lot of people are looking for cash flow, and that's great. We're making strategic purchases of properties that are going to either, A, enable us to use them as vehicles to buy larger properties more again in the future. That's going to be, you know, where we're able to kind of maybe cash out a few. And that's how we live.
George El-Masri [00:12:57] Right, exactly. And where you both always interested in acquiring properties are well, maybe not always, but when you two met or did one person kind of influence the other and say, hey, this is what we should be doing?
Kaely Pal [00:13:10] Um, I think that the interest has always been there. Alex is definitely more experienced than I am. I've only I joined a real estate investment team. Most of my clients have almost always been investors. It's what I prefer, but I think I push Alex too. Well, we've made a few purchases where I've been the sole driver and I was a little scared. Yeah, we went in firm and it's like you don't even have financing. You'll find a way. Yeah. Oh, we do. Every single time. But, you know, again, there has to be a certain element of almost brazenness, I think, because there's there's opportunities every day.
George El-Masri [00:13:45] Right. We are we have this ideology where it's like it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. So we're like, well, look at each other and we'll know the gifts. Credible idea. And then the idea becomes real. And it's like, oh, crap, OK, no, now we've got to figure it out. Right. But I actually think is the better way to do it because you can always figure it out somehow. There's always a way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. But just not taking action I find is what most people get stuck in. Right. Have you ever gotten to a point where you felt like you were over leveraged or you just bit off more than you can chew every day?
Kaely Pal [00:14:20] Yeah, to be honest, it's it's something like we we also coach. So we have a coach that we work with. So we have calls with her once a week. And in all honesty, there is always an element of chaos. When you're an entrepreneur, you're building a business. There's a certain element of unpredictability. You you don't know necessarily. There's a lot of moving pieces that you can't control. We have a lot of very large construction projects that are on the go at any given time to. So, you know, you just you do your best and every single day you just keep moving forward. But you can't let that chaos stop your momentum. And I think that's what happens to a lot of people as they start to feel overwhelmed and then they actually end up taking a few steps back when really you should be pushing your foot down on that gas pedal even more and just go through it again. The days are going to pass regardless. Just you know, you have to be very optimistic. It's a good
George El-Masri [00:15:21] time to be going back to that main thesis. Point is you want to live a life by design, right? So many people I talked to that wake up every day and we can't wait for Monday. How weird is that? You know, a lot of people like, oh, it's Monday. It was a Friday, yet it's just a different lifestyles, different idea.
Kaely Pal [00:15:40] And we don't even know what they like. I think realtors know that. Right. Like, oh, we don't have a weekend. So what's a Monday to us?
George El-Masri [00:15:49] OK, so what you were saying earlier, you kind of describe the chaos and everything. I think most people know what realtors do on a daily basis to a certain extent, but maybe they don't know what you do on the investment side. Could you tell us in general what you do as investors? And also, can you give us examples of things that you're working on today?
Kaely Pal [00:16:08] Sure. Did you want more of like, um, like our what we do for lead generation?
George El-Masri [00:16:14] No, no, not the not the real estate sales side. I'm talking more of your personal properties and your renovations and that kind of stuff.
Kaely Pal [00:16:23] The day in the life of an investor. Well, I feel like Alex bears the the brunt of that. I mean, Alex, again, coming from a project management background, does a lot of the if we don't have it already completely, which we actually have switched over to that model now. And it's been phenomenal. He's the one that's coordinating a lot of the trades.
George El-Masri [00:16:47] So for those people who don't know, GC means a general contracting. So to explain a little bit as to kind of what we we do is that are the model that we like in real estate. There's a there's a number of different strategies you can implement so you can do a typical buy and hold. Right. You can buy new builds, which we don't touch on the Denver pool personally. But yeah, people make good money on them. Right. But our favorite model is the be our. Yeah. Most people are going towards that. Yeah. And it makes sense to because when you consider cash flow versus equity towns. Right. And an equity town is a property that's good for an area that's good to do flips because if you buy a property that's under market value, you can flip that property over and you can make a profit that way. But renting out a property in an equity town, you're not going to it's not going to cash for property. So, for instance, in Oakville, you put renters and intellectual property. It's not going to cash right. Versus Hamilton. It's right on that cusp is becoming an equity. Yes. The prices have gone so, so high recently. But utilizing strategies like the bath strategy where you buy a property and you change the use of the property, it's like having your cake and eating it, too. So to give an example, we're doing a property now that we purchased two and a half storey property and we're putting one hundred and twenty thousand dollars into it. So we're in it for four forty total. Right. And it'll refinance because we're going to put three units into it, which we already have with three units into it. Refinances between six twenty and six thirty. Is that the one on King Street? That's this is the one on one care. OK, because there is one on your website on King Street, I think you've done in the past. And it was a mixed use. And you converted it to a triplex. Yeah, that was the King King Grant. So that was a wild property. That was that was our to date our most successful deal. Right. So same kind of dynamic is where you buy something that's once again, the the worse off the property is, the better, because you're bring it down to the studs anyway, and then you just have to coordinate the project. And that's why I was saying to about now that we stopped seeing it ourselves, it's become a lot easier because you can imagine when the idea behind you seeing is that you're managing all your own substrates. And what happens is you take away the head manager and it's so much easier having somebody on site every single day who's coordinating trades. And yes, you pay for that privilege because obviously you're paying their salary and their contribution towards the project. But our time and our effort and our highest per dollar activity is going and finding the investment going and find the next joint venture partner. Yeah, and making the actual money keep turning. And the contractors love it, too, because we keep them busy
Kaely Pal [00:19:31] and we can also handle more projects exactly
George El-Masri [00:19:34] at once. When you were seeing the projects, were you there every day? I wouldn't say every day of calls. Maybe every year is because what ends up happening is when you're not on site, naturally things go wrong on a project that you expect that. But when you're not there to deal with them, these little problems can sometimes fester into something bigger or dramatics happen. For instance, you have another. Christian and a plumber and the plumber comes and he's drilling a bunch of holes and he leaves a mess everywhere, right? And then the electrician comes, he's complaining about the mess. So you go back to the plumber and you tell him to clean up this mess. And then he's like, oh, I can't be by there until Thursday. Electricians, miserable electrician, does his job. Now he assumes it's OK to live in a mess if he leaves office. It's all these things that if you're out there every day saying, hey, clean up your mess, set the expectation. That's what the general contractors will be there. You know, we'll manage that process. Now, that's just one example of thousands of works. Can you also dig into that Kingstree one, the one that you said that was your most successful project. Can you tell us how you managed to convert it from a mixed use building into a residential triplex and some of the other details? Yeah, so the permit process on that was helpful, but it can imagine we had a few. Yes. So we it was zoned H something which allowed for multifamily dwelling. We didn't have parking, but there was some sort of stipulation in there as well that we actually didn't need. Parking was actually something in the bylaws. So it worked out well. It was a two and a half storey Victorian property that fronted Grant Street. And then there was a commercial building that was Mike's cuisine. It was an old shawarma place that faced King Street. And there were two separate buildings. And we originally purchased the property was on the market for ninety two days living on it. So we bought the property and the listing agent with some Toronto agent who didn't know. And there was only one picture that was the front of the Grant Street property. Right. And he said that in the listing comments, he said the sides can be used for commercial. It was so vague it didn't make any sense. So when I went to go see it, I opened up the lockbox. And there's a whole bunch of keys that came out and one of them set up for Unit B and what so actually walked around. There's a whole other property here because while so you didn't know what the residential property. I didn't know about the commercial property, but the commercial said that the site can be used for commercial. Right. But it didn't. So vague. And who's going to read the fine print when they're just flipping through the thumbnail pictures on the property, right? Yeah. So anyway, we ended up buying it. Cash does financing wouldn't touch it in the state that it was in. And also because of his mixed use, a little bit more more complicated. The joint venture money. Right. So we're getting a return for someone else. Yeah. And so we structured a plan to go through four units and we had to dwindle that down to three units because it just didn't quite make sense with the four and then the to the application. So we had to go through site plan approval. And so you need to get a full survey done on the property. You also need to do a phase one environmental because of the commercial. Now, when you're converting from like, let's say, a restaurant to a residential, how the city deems that is that you're actually going to more sensitive use. So which is funny when you think about it, because you think a restaurant would be actually more sensitive because food and stuff like that. Yeah, but anyway, it's because of that. That's why they need the phase one. And so we went through that entire process. There's obviously some fees that go along with that. And I mean, like phase one is four and a half weeks now and then surveys two and a half. When you're doing all these things, you have to get a survey from scratch. That would be pretty costly, isn't it? Two thousand bucks. Yeah. Then then we have to go through a committee of adjustments, of course, to officially the change of use. And it was funny even sitting there, we had two guys complaining because they thought that we were taken away from the King Street business corridor. Oh, yeah,
Kaely Pal [00:23:38] yeah, yeah. Business on the main street and wall, every neighbor's boarded up.
George El-Masri [00:23:43] Yeah, yeah. It was funny. Like we pitched our case and I sat there. Actually we want to make this into something nice and we have a great plan and the committee members all sat there in silence. And then finally this one guy like kind of piped up and he's like, you know what? I drive by this bloody Mike's Cousine place every day on my way to work. And it is the most God building and I've let the guy fix it so they all look alike. Yeah, OK. And then one of the committee members sitting there with his arms crossed as well. But I go get passed and then that was it. Yeah. So so we went through the process after that. The building process. Pretty typical. That's it would be. And and that's it. Right. So we did you convert the house into a duplex and then the restaurant into a single family or single unicycling in. The one thing too is that they they didn't want to or they wouldn't allow us to go into a triplex because the two buildings actually weren't attached. And once again, like working out creative solutions, because roadblocks will happen all the time. That's how you get over those roadblocks. Yeah. I think separates you from from the nuns. Right. So we built a stairwell in between the two units and connected them via stairwell, of course. And now the city is like, well, it's not really one property. Like it's connected. All right, you win this one. So so, yeah, it was a super simple solution and we had a fire escape done that, that was perfect and yes, we ended up fixing that property up and and this so the intention was supposed to be a long term buy and hold. And we refined it for appraisal on the property. The appraisal came back, so we bought it for two 14. Whoa. That's a great price. Yeah. How long ago was that? That was 20, just on the cusp of twenty sixteen. So. OK, December 2015. Right. And so we um. Yeah. So we put to 50 to 80 into it, something like that. And we fight at seven seventy five. Beautiful. And then we're finally we've got all the rental units occupied. Everything's going really great. A few things to get things settled in like some leaking or whatever we patch all up. It's all great, we're super happy. And lo and behold, we get a letter from Metrolink's right on the LRT corridor. OK, you have been chosen for. Oh yeah. I expropriated us and they like we went through an appraisal and appraisal was like three pages. The end went through an appraisal with one hundred and seventy page appraisal. So they came in as the same thing into the four pages. And so they gave us an offer of seven seventy five. We signed it back at eight hundred and they took it. OK, were you happy with that. Well yeah. You have no choice really. Right. Like I mean that the funds from that property have allowed us to buy a number of other things and really expand our business, right? Yeah. So in one sense it was beneficial, but on the other sense, it didn't fit into our plan. Our plan is to buy and hold and sit on these properties that are going to be really great because realistically, if that equity comes in now and we would have kept that property, how much more we were worth. So that's OK. At the end of the day, like you lose and really it's not a wound. I see that very lightly. Like we netted a quarter million on it. Yeah. So of you'll not really. Right. Right.
Kaely Pal [00:27:01] Well, so go ahead. I was just going to jump in. Is there specific rules that you have for yourselves when you're looking for a property?
George El-Masri [00:27:09] We like to pull all of our money out maximum within three years
Kaely Pal [00:27:15] right away, and
George El-Masri [00:27:16] not just our money, like our joint ventures. So if a person's like Alex, we have two hundred thousand dollars that we can invest with you. We want to make sure that that investor within three years time has all two hundred thousand plus any interest that they've incurred on that back three years. And then we own a free and clear property that can have your
Kaely Pal [00:27:36] rule of thumb when you're looking
George El-Masri [00:27:37] for property. So far we haven't made it to the one year mark. Usually when we refinance, it's like a slam dunk. So but realistically, with prices going up as they have been, it's more realistic to set those
Kaely Pal [00:27:48] expectations, to say it's just easier to set that expectation of three now and then when you over deliver. It's it's even better.
George El-Masri [00:27:56] When you were working on that project, did you have help or were you have you done anything like that before prior to that experience, or was that your first time dealing with the conversion of that sort? And if you did have help, where did you look for no help? Well, I mean, no help on the city side of things, we're dealing with an architect who kind of had a good idea of the plan. So that's what I would consider the help.
Kaely Pal [00:28:18] You've done a conversion. Now we have a duplex in Kitchener. Yeah. Yeah, but that residential development.
George El-Masri [00:28:26] Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you utilize the resources around you as best you can. The city actually in the city of Hamilton is very helpful. I find the process isn't helpful and it's super slow. But the people there are excellent, I find. But to answer the question, I didn't know where to start or what to do. But when you run the numbers and the numbers make sense, you just figure it out. Yeah. And realistically, we went over budget by like 30 grand on it. That's still not that bad considering how big the budget was. But there's some unknowns as long as you got like a buffer and some padding and then you got to just make sure it's OK. You saw two fourteen price and you said that looks like a good deal. It's actually two fifty to fifty to fifty. You got a four to fifteen or two, four times to four. So it was asking two fifty. Yeah. I put an offer in it to fourteen to twenty four. OK, and then there was a massive league of the guys shut off all the hydro in the power. Yeah. Because he wants to save every penny could as Jan. Oh. Trying to close. So one of the, the fittings on the pipes on the second floor burst and it rained through the entire house. Look like a rain forest, go out to the entire house as well. How it just spread. And so we walk in and it's like it sounded like you're in the Rainforest Cafe. And so we're like, OK, so I wrote a big letter asking for a big lump sum of money. And Guy told me, no, I'll give you ten grand. I was like a deal. So that's how we got it. Four to fourteen. Well, that's cool. Yeah. So you saw it was a good deal. And you thought, OK, there's no way we're not going to be able to make this work. We'll figure out a way. And did you know from the beginning you were going to convert the the restaurant into a residential unit you knew right from the get go? OK, so the first thing you do is you check out the zoning. Right. So you like Hamilton Super Commune has an interactive zoning map. Yeah. So you go on to the West or the Hamilton website, whatever it is. And you Google interactive zoning map that works too. And then it comes up and you click on that particular plot of land. Anyone can do it and it tells you what the zoning designation is, what it's CBD
Kaely Pal [00:30:36] and the city is very helpful to. We just recently bought one that had zoning that I had never seen before, went down to the city. They literally printed it out for me, walked me through it. I had a few questions. They're like, yeah, like they are very helpful. Yeah. It's just there's certain procedures that you have to follow right at us step by step.
George El-Masri [00:30:56] Well, the reason I ask, there is a property that I was interested in. It was a mixed use in Hamilton downtown, and it was set up as two storefronts at the bottom and then it had two residential units on top. And I have a friend that's an architect. So I asked her to look into it to see if the residential or sorry the commercial units could be converted to residential. And she she knew someone from the city and they looked into it and they just said it can't happen because I forgot what the reasoning was. But it had something to do with how far the the stores were from the street and these little things that, yeah, whatever it was. So I was surprised that you were able to do that on King Street pretty much. Now, if it's just a matter of setbacks,
Kaely Pal [00:31:38] we could go for
George El-Masri [00:31:40] it. Yeah, that was one of the things. There were a couple other things, but they were saying basically no other because they look at the street to see if any other one in the car
Kaely Pal [00:31:49] maybe like it was
George El-Masri [00:31:51] it was east, just east of the corner,
Kaely Pal [00:31:53] maybe two kilometers. Yeah. It depends to to be honest who you speak with right now, like there's such an influx of small businesses going into that corner. All right. I think that they're a little bit more optimistic on it trickling out. Yeah. So they're probably hoping that there will be business eventually.
George El-Masri [00:32:12] Yeah, I can understand. And I think their reasoning was you have to look on the street, see if anyone else managed to convert into residential. And if you have a chance, if no one else has done it, your your odds are really slim.
Kaely Pal [00:32:25] Or should I tell you
George El-Masri [00:32:29] it's been expropriated. So who cares. Right. Doesn't matter anymore. Ask for forgiveness
Kaely Pal [00:32:36] beyond just put some tenants in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
George El-Masri [00:32:40] OK, so right now I'm just curious to know because obviously I know that you do a lot of marketing in the area to pick up properties that are off market and such. Can you tell us a bit about that? And I don't know if you're doing that as well, if you guys can tell us about some of your strategies.
Kaely Pal [00:32:54] Yeah, to be honest, we're not doing anything that's really unique. I think if you do anything, if you choose any one of the strategies, whether it's cold calling, door knocking, mail campaigns, web, if you have an online presence, that's how you're getting these off markets. As long as you're you're choosing one that you enjoy doing and that you can do it consistently, that's all it comes down to. It's it's not hard. Anyone can do it. I think the people that really do well in it, they're just doing it more often than others. That's all it comes down to.
George El-Masri [00:33:26] There's no secret.
Kaely Pal [00:33:27] There's no oh, my God. Like we're not any more charming than anybody else are. How many projects? Probably a little better looking, but how many?
George El-Masri [00:33:38] Alex doesn't say anything very
Kaely Pal [00:33:40] biased, obviously.
George El-Masri [00:33:42] How many projects are you guys working on at the moment? Renovation projects or just by fixed refinance type stuff we
Kaely Pal [00:33:49] offer for large construction projects. One is our own personal home, which is the biggest project we've done to date.
George El-Masri [00:33:56] We have about three quarters of a million and contract values over you now. Awesome. All in Hamilton and within Grimsby.
Kaely Pal [00:34:03] Yeah, three and a half million to our triplex. This one's a duplex and then the other is adding a second story
George El-Masri [00:34:11] to a bungalow. That's pretty awesome.
Kaely Pal [00:34:13] It's like super, super cool to see.
George El-Masri [00:34:15] This is our first time growing up. So it's not an easy process. Nice. And so I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance to answer that, but are you kind of in the same thing or is there anything that you enjoy doing to find these off market deals from the off market deal standpoint? There's a couple of strategies that you can utilize that are more we like the more broad approach. You know, networking is a big one driving for dollars. You see, a crapshoot is pull over and throw a little token in their mailbox. You knock on the door and say, yeah, my name's Alex and I live in the area and we're looking at purchasing a home. Are you ever thinking about selling? So we actually, um, we have a YouTube channel that are the main objection we're hearing from a lot of young investors or even. People looking to buy a house, are that a there's no good deals out there, and B, that everything's overpriced. And so we're trying to debunk the myth, because if you look hard enough and you actually try, you can find good properties, just as people expect. If you ever go to I'm sure you go to a networking event to in the second somebody who is your real estate agent like, oh, yeah, listen, just put me down and we get a good deal to send my way. Yeah, yeah. It works actually. Like, you got a you got to prove that you're a worthy buyer for one. And the other thing too is that, look, we have preferred buyers now too. So you've got to build that relationship.
Kaely Pal [00:35:34] All of our buyers as well for sure.
George El-Masri [00:35:36] You have to, especially because we're buying unconventional properties that are not going to get financing most of the time in the condition that they're in. So, I mean, that's we're so our intention is like we're really trying to ramp up on find these deals. And it's challenging to do that because there's only two of us. So we are working right now and expanding that a little bit. But we've had some tremendous success with even Qualcomm, which sounds silly. But the property we're going to be moving into was a cool call. Oh, yeah,
Kaely Pal [00:36:05] that is our background. Again, we come from, you know, teams that were very heavy, cold callers. So to us for like up on the phone now, you know,
George El-Masri [00:36:13] you get a lot of no's and you get like vinos aren't meant as like no will tell you where to go kind of thing, right? Yeah. It's meant like, no, I'm not looking at selling right now. And the one person that you do connect with that is a yes, you have an opportunity to change that person's life and help them. And every person that we transact, we're very, very passionate about it's a win win or it's no deal. Right. If that seller like if this doesn't work for them, they don't have to accept our deal. And we're very clear about that because at the end of the day, we're very open about the fact that we're realtors and B, we are looking to profit source most of the time. These are
Kaely Pal [00:36:51] this is what we want to do for
George El-Masri [00:36:53] the rest of your life. And most times the sellers themselves are so grateful, like the little hug you like we had one lady who did a whole video testimonial for us. She was so happy, like her roof was caving in. She you know what the heck to do so we can help these kind of people, right? Yeah. Well, I have a two part question. You talked about networking. Do you who are you looking to network with? Is it other realtors or is it wholesalers? Flip whatever. And also, do you find that cold calling has been more effective than networking or is it the other way around now? We're way more effective.
Kaely Pal [00:37:27] Yeah, I like I love networking. I think that I don't know any time that you have an opportunity to rub shoulders with people that are either doing exactly the same thing or doing at a much higher level, like I think everyone's heard that premise that you are kind of the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. And like even in the GTA, like even in Hamilton, people doing really crazy things. Yeah. And it's super inspiring. And I find investing people in real estate, it's competitive. Right. We all know that. But when you get into the investing realm at a high level, it's probably one of the most open door places that you can go. Everyone is very willing to share trade secrets, you know, properties, a lot of the larger transactions like apartment buildings, they don't have the market. They're sold privately. Yeah. Between investors,
George El-Masri [00:38:20] it's like the only business where you're in direct competition with everybody else, but everyone else is also your client. Yeah, it's true. If if, for instance, if you brought me a property off market, you like Alex, I have this property. Other kalbi buy that off. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not like you want to keep that secret to yourself and how you found it, because if I find it off my property I'd send it to you, maybe you'd buy it off me. So it all works really, really well so that they Tancer who we like to network with, like personally I think that the most gratifying networking experiences I've had have been with other investors and other joint venture partners, because then you get to learn about what their challenges are. You get to swap notes a little bit, oh, I found this software helped me or like, why don't I send you my property, analyze that I use and compare notes or whatever the case may be. Right. And same with joint venture partners. You have a lot of people that come to these events but haven't bought a place. And that's OK. I encourage anybody who's listening to this show right now, like if you haven't bought a property, the first thing you should do is go online and look at every single meetup that is out there. That's real estate investing related to sellers
Kaely Pal [00:39:32] yourself at
George El-Masri [00:39:33] all. Just go there and sit and listen, bring a notepad and then eventually talk to the people at your table and then talk to the people at the table next to you, talk to the organizers and just embrace it. It's amazing how open people are at those events. Just like you said, the networking can be or sorry, the investment community. It's always the same faces for the most part. And you can talk to someone who has one hundred and fifty properties and they're willing to just sit down with you and tell you everything, whatever you want to know, because they've cut. The bug in that, and that's it, they see what's done for their life and us is incredible.
Kaely Pal [00:40:04] I it's also you're coming from a place of plenty. You know, it's not a scarcity mindset. There's more than enough opportunity is more than enough business out there for everybody, you know, and it's it's really cool to, you know, send a property to somebody in it and changing someone's life, gets them started, gets their foot in the door, you know, or like that's again, it's just this trade off. It's it's really exciting to me. That's the one of the most gratifying.
George El-Masri [00:40:34] We had two wholesalers that found a piece of ad mail that we had called me and invited me out to a breakfast. Anyway, I was there. I'm going to go and was at Wendy's Diner and I go there. And lo and behold, as I go there and lo and behold, there's a group of like a couple of guys sitting of a whole says, I introduced myself, those two guys. I just wholesale to them their first property. Yeah. It just depends on Monday, you know, they call me from the Coles property and they're super excited. And you could tell they're just like they're they're buckling down. And this is going to this is going to shape them. It's going to be a really cool experience and to their success, right? Of course. Yeah. I mean, you've kind of been in here for a while. Do you have any questions or anything or you just sort of.
Kaely Pal [00:41:19] I was just going to say, because I'm also kind of a newbie, but that was one thing that really I started going to these events with you and just meeting all sorts of different people, I guess. And there's so many different ways that you can create your future, like you're saying. Yeah, we used to go to, like, every I mean, like the key fires, the Robert Kiyosaki, the rich dad or dad stuff. Yeah. Like we both even before we knew each other. Any opportunity to go to anything free. Yeah, sure. If you walk away with one little tidbit of wisdom. Right. That's going to leave an impression on you. It's well worth it. But then, you know, it comes to the sales part where they're like you signing up and not making eye contact you. I just go to the bathroom. Yeah. Just be right back. No money. No, it's just there to learn and get caught up in the energy and stuff like that. Yeah.
George El-Masri [00:42:13] You guys kind of touched on this a little bit earlier about not just doing it to have a thousand properties and you have to figure out why you want to do it. And you kind of said that you enjoy helping others. Is there another another bigger picture thing for you? I family's always number one for us, and I think that's one core value that I, I love most about Caylee too, and that we share is that family is always comes first. So like, the way we see it is that, yes, we get up on our own two feet and we provide a safe ness for our own family. And then that also extends to, like, you know, our immediate family around us and then also extends to our friends. Like, for instance, we just help my brother and his wife buy a property in Toronto and it's a duplex and they're living in one unit and they're going to rent out the other unit. And now they're rented out their condo where they originally moved from. But like they were strategic about how they did it. And that property is going to change their life. Yeah, that one property. So it's like in my parents as well. And uncle, these are people who invest with and like my parents are getting close to the retirement age and they're they've expressed interest on, you know, wanting to do real estate at a higher level so that when they do retire, instead of having to rely on a pension, when they downsize from their house where the living will be, they can move into something substantially smaller and take the rest, pay off one of the rentals. And that's going to then they act as the bank. Yeah. And then that becomes a source of income for them. And it's huge. So if we can inspire other young people or does it matter how old you are, really anybody to do is just about
Kaely Pal [00:43:55] say it's never too late. It's never too late. Like we people think that they're behind, right?
George El-Masri [00:43:59] Yeah. Like so many people that retire and then have money from their retirement don't know what to do with themselves. So they get into real estate investing
Kaely Pal [00:44:07] and it's a ton of fun people that can't retire and they're looking for, you know, like they're looking at what they're going to receive for a pension and being like, how could I possibly make a living off this? I couldn't I can't retire.
George El-Masri [00:44:20] My my dad got his he's got a great job and he's got our Espy's. But his basic pension was he was laughing at it so I could never buy groceries on this. Yeah. And so that's a scary thought to a lot of people. And that's that's why Kelly and I have done a lot of focusing on like joint venturing with these people, because, for instance, a lot of the people that are in there, the that baby boomer generation, have their properties paid off. They're sitting on a ton of equity that does absolutely nothing for them. So what we do is we take that equity and we give it all back to them. But now they own a property that also cash flows. Yeah. And not only are they helping save their retirement, they're also building a legacy and they get to leave something substantial to their heirs. Right. So it's been a really cool experience to see how people are benefiting from it. And personally, for me and I'll kill for the same way is that it's more gratifying than actually doing the deal for yourself as you see this, like, sparkle in their eye and you just see sheer gratitude, which is the highest form of energy. Right. Well, I'm just curious now, judging by all the things that I'm hearing from you, but how often are you guys working on yourselves and reading these self personal growth books and all of that? Is that something that you're constantly doing? It seems like it should go
Kaely Pal [00:45:39] check out our bedside table or
George El-Masri [00:45:43] even that shelf right there and see, those are all like those like, you know, it's funny because people call them like the self-help books. And I think they get like a bad vibe because people think that, you know, you should just love who you are and, you know, why do you need to improve yourself? Yeah, well, because you do. Yes. The bottom line, I think that everybody constantly needs to improve and learn and otherwise there's a scene that I really like. It's either you're green and growing or you're ripe and rotting.
Kaely Pal [00:46:13] Yeah.
George El-Masri [00:46:14] Before I haven't heard that one. And so, like killing our good people, we feel and we like to help others. But there's more efficient ways to do things. There's ways to expand your mindset. And we have tough days, like we have days where I sit in bed and I'm like, what the heck am I doing? And you got to find a way to motivate yourself out of it. And the books help with that. Right. Like, for instance, like I think I've read what's it's called How to Win Friends and Influence. Yeah. And I wanted to actually buy a crate of those
Kaely Pal [00:46:47] books, give them away
George El-Masri [00:46:48] right now and sneak into people's houses and like hide them under their pillows.
Kaely Pal [00:46:52] Think there's a little little
George El-Masri [00:46:54] little Dale Carnegie series because I think that everyone should read that. Yeah, it is so good. And like that's just one example right now. You can see,
Kaely Pal [00:47:04] um, I don't know it to be honest. I think off the top of my head, like I'm reading the IMA right now, I just
George El-Masri [00:47:12] I just finished reading that
Kaely Pal [00:47:14] Alex. Alex had to rewrite it for a time and I thought, oh, I'll read it too. So we're kind of on the same page. But I got a lot of
George El-Masri [00:47:21] figuratively, of course. Yeah. Yeah. The secret.
Kaely Pal [00:47:24] Yeah, yeah. The secret, to be honest. I read that, I watched the secret and it gets, again, like a lot of it's the Oprah Winfrey and people like a bunch of hoopla. Take what you want out of it. You walk away with something. It's great. But I think that if your day is intentional and if you're constantly, you know, taking action with purpose, then you will have a much more successful in life. Of course,
George El-Masri [00:47:50] when we say a life by design, not
Kaely Pal [00:47:53] by default,
George El-Masri [00:47:55] we just do that right back.
Kaely Pal [00:47:56] Yeah. Yeah, not exactly sure.
George El-Masri [00:48:01] What's your what's the big picture for you guys. What are you thinking about. Maybe five, 10 years. What do you want your life to look like. Your life by choice. By design.
Kaely Pal [00:48:09] And we just did our five year plan. That's right. We do a lot of planning. We do a monthly for one one. We have a three year plan, a five year plan, you know, to be out of transactional real estate. Obviously, we're starting a family, so that's going to change things. There's a lot of variables we can't really predict at this point, but constantly expanding our own personal portfolio, we're looking to start trading in those smaller houses for some some hotels and get bigger properties, taking on bigger challenges and also, like still spending a lot of meaningful time doing the things that we enjoy. You know, it doesn't always have to be work. It shouldn't. I think that you should have a good life balance and we all deserve that. So that to me is is what I'm seeing, because
George El-Masri [00:49:02] we used to tell my parents that I'd be retired by thirty five. And right now in the trajectory that we have, we could do that. We won't. However, I would like to be present at all times and I find now that that's a big challenge that I'm trying to overcome because there's just a lot of times where we're pulled into so many different directions. And I mean, when I think of a family like I'm very blessed in the sense that I came from an incredible family like like I have a really cool mom and dad and two brothers that are still incredibly close live. And my dad was there for every soccer game. Well, for most of them, I'd say right now I want to do that. I want to be present at all times and I want to be present for Kaylie and I would be present for my family, immediate and not right. And so when I think about what that means from a goal standpoint is that you have to set up you have to set up the systems and the processes in the back end that will help accommodate that. And real estate in my is the only thing that I could really come up with. And you can build a big successful business and have someone else run it for you. But that goes back to that cash flow quadrants. Right? So our goal is to shift everything to the to the right hand side, become either the investor or the big business owner. But we don't want to have a massive team of like thirty agents under us just dominating the market. No, it's by a few properties every year. Have fun. Take the summers off. If we want to do really cool, stir crazy after a week. You know, I you know what's funny. Yeah. I actually think the exact same way as you do. I've never wanted to have a massive real estate team. I know there's some people right now that you guys definitely know as well that are that are doing that. They're doing really well and they're able to acquire properties and do everything. But for some reason, I just don't like the idea of of being fully involved in transactional real estate. Like you're saying, I would prefer to have a focus 50/50 on acquiring properties as well. And and just living that life that you're talking about, going on vacation, enjoying it, spending time with your family
Kaely Pal [00:51:14] and not being tied to one location. And honestly, like I again, like I said, real estate really does seem to be the one vessel. Again, we have so many avenues. You know, it is what you make it. If you want to have a huge team, great. You can totally do that. If you want to be the number one realtor in your neighborhood, you can do that, too. If your goal is just to keep buying properties. Awesome. You know, like we can really choose whatever it is you want to do. And we're so lucky to to be in an industry that can kind of facilitate those choices.
George El-Masri [00:51:47] And it doesn't matter what you do to generate your income because you two are realtors. But it could be a lawyer, couple, two lawyers or it could be a doctor and whatever.
Kaely Pal [00:51:56] Always easy is anyone can make money. I mean, that's that's the simple part. It's what are you doing with what you're. Exactly. And, you know, I know in real estate too, we tend to the more you earn, the more you burn. Right. So it's about being a little bit more strategic to with your spending. We spend R.O., I would say like a lion's share of our money on real estate now when we can right now. Right. Like we're no younger and we're looking to reinvest it into ourselves, into our. Into our portfolio.
George El-Masri [00:52:28] And for those people, too, that are thinking, oh, well, the reason these two are able to do it is because they're realtors and they get first dibs at all. The hot it doesn't work like that. Like we like some of the most successful investors that we know came from very humble, simple jobs, where they worked a nine to five. And what they were better at was strategic marketing. And they would go and set up lunch meetings with agents. And they were very clear with them to say that, listen, I can produce this as long as you find me this and all you.
Kaely Pal [00:53:01] So or they're just tenacious. Yeah, I'll keep at it.
George El-Masri [00:53:05] It's so funny. We have a lot of people coming up to us on. Man, I want to sit down with you and just learn what you're doing. And it's like, great, you know what you first thing's going to do? Go buy this book and read it and then call me. Yeah. Let me know what you made out and talk about it. Do you think anyone calls me back? Maybe a couple people. Once a woman, my 16 year old cousin, I give them a book for Christmas last Christmas and I made a promise that I'd read it before Christmas.
Kaely Pal [00:53:32] I read it.
George El-Masri [00:53:33] So I hope she looks up to you, that's why.
Kaely Pal [00:53:36] Yeah, it was rich that caught. Yeah. That's a great book. Yeah. It's an easy read. It's good for mindset. It's a good intro book to kind of get into it.
George El-Masri [00:53:44] One of those stocking stuffers. Yeah. Yeah. Okay great. Well Mandy's going to do I told you guys kind of briefly about the random five, so I'm just going to be five random questions. It could be anything Mandy's prepared to list here for you. So she's going to get started so you can go ahead. All right.
Kaely Pal [00:54:02] Your favorite Spice Girl. Plus, only because I had brown hair and I looked the most like her.
George El-Masri [00:54:11] Is that the one that married David Beckham? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kaely Pal [00:54:15] I'm going to go a fashion. I go, OK. That was always who I was following me to.
George El-Masri [00:54:22] Did you have any of their albums when you were younger? Yeah. Yeah, I was. I was backstreet then. Oh, are you. I mean, you can't. Well, mostly, yeah, I guess. But as a boy, if you listen to either Backstreet Boys or the Spice Girls, you weren't cool. You can I was of that a grade three, you know, like, you know, you still don't understand social norms. First said that I got Backstreet Boys and that's where I live.
Kaely Pal [00:54:48] And he also had purple Pocahontas. I still don't know
George El-Masri [00:54:57] that didn't live down
Kaely Pal [00:54:59] the making of. Actually, that's a good segue into my next question. What fashion trends would you wish would come back or would never come back?
George El-Masri [00:55:09] Hoodies and skater jeans. You want them to. Well, I'd still put when I. Were you a skater? Yeah. Were you wearing skinny jeans? Not skinny jeans. That's the modern day skating like we do. Even flex your knees. I know. Like, you know, my mom would always pull your pants up because they're hanging out with you. Yeah. Yeah. And then the big hoodie sweaters, the kangaroo pouches in the front of those light. I have one that I put on, like
Kaely Pal [00:55:37] when you get home.
George El-Masri [00:55:37] Was that a wimpy thing? No, I don't know. Maybe I didn't I don't remember seeing anyone doing stuff like that. I only used to see people from high school. So I went,
Kaely Pal [00:55:49] oh, I feel like it was more a musical thing or
George El-Masri [00:55:52] Westford. Yeah, that was my size. Forty nine. I was coming back. So, yeah, it's just a walking billboard. What about you.
Kaely Pal [00:56:01] Um hmm. I remember like candy shoes. That was a big, a big thing when I was in school and anyone remembers but they had those the like flared denim. Yeah. For some reason I came back but they had liquid jeans, they were cold and they were shiny. You remember that. Yeah, I do remember.
George El-Masri [00:56:22] Was that to come back.
Kaely Pal [00:56:24] Yeah I, I didn't give them. They looked so. Yeah.
George El-Masri [00:56:28] Nineties early.
Kaely Pal [00:56:29] Two thousand. I wouldn't read red light for you. Yeah. This is in grade three. Um yeah. But I also I went to like a farm school so I mean that was like very typical that of. All right. Would you dress differently if no one would judge you and what would you wear. No. And that could even mean showing up. You know how they say you have to dress to impress them. So would you dress differently if you think that no one would ever judge you? Nubbly don't well know lots of stuff, like I like dresses, to be honest, like I don't like to layer and I don't like jeans, so I just yes, that kind of stuff. I'm actually a very lazy dresser. So but, you know, women that can have a little bit more we can have a lot of options. Yeah, we've got a lot of options. So I don't think I would just know
George El-Masri [00:57:21] for me, like if I go to any sort of like networking event, I usually wear jeans and a long sleeve shirt and then I just put a suit jacket over top of it.
Kaely Pal [00:57:30] It's been a long time since you are fully suited up. You do like every listing appointment would be full suit. Either way,
George El-Masri [00:57:36] intimidate half the people down a little bit like it's Hamilton sucks. Nobody wear suits.
Kaely Pal [00:57:44] I'm just getting lazier. Yeah, yeah. That's actually a good point because I think it depends on who your client that you're going to is their age group, if they're more casual
George El-Masri [00:57:52] versus if you're with a 60 year old man showing condos in Toronto, one point five million.
Kaely Pal [00:57:57] I was going to say price point to I mean, if you're going to a million dollar listing, then you should be suiting up.
George El-Masri [00:58:03] I think there's a rule of thumb where you're supposed to dress that smidgen higher than you're going to go meet. Just out of respect. Sometimes that's really hard to. Well, have you ever seen something that you thought looks really nice, a piece of clothing and you just thought and people I just wouldn't feel comfortable doing this. People would just I'd get too much attention or the banana
Kaely Pal [00:58:23] because I was going to say, do you feel that way about a bikini? I think that that's funny. I just wish I had no fear. No fear. OK, OK. This is a little bit more serious, but can you name a time where you failed at something and what was the lesson that came out of it? Well, God got so many failures. Most significant one of them. Do you want it to be real estate related? No, it doesn't. It doesn't matter. It could be your personal life could be failing at an exam in high school or whatever comes to mind. The easiest when I can do and this is the biggest lesson that I learned the fastest in real estate. When I first got my license, I sold property firm as a bully offer to without understanding tenant law. So these people, these clients of mine literally had to be out. They themselves were getting evicted. So they had to buy a home. They were on a timeline. They were very, very stressed. So we found this property at a very limited budget on offer and got it accepted. And the tenant was still on a year lease. And I had for some reason, again, just ignorance, not knowing, you know, should total shame on me. I had thought that they could break the lease and get her to leave, which they couldn't. And that, to be honest, like my boss saved my ass so much and I love them to death to this day for that. But that was like the you know, you get those moments where you're like, oh, my God, it's somebody else's life. Yeah. You know, and like, I'm supposed to be the professional. I should know this. So it's now that was like a big eye opener. Like you need to know everything before you make a decision because you're advising people on making these choices. Right.
George El-Masri [01:00:18] And then the mistakes are very costly. That's the thing. Oh, yeah.
Kaely Pal [01:00:22] That's like that could have literally and luckily, like everything turned out fine. They ended up getting a fantastic home. But, you know, like I it weighed really heavily. So again, it's not something to be taken lightly. This is, you know, we're professionals. We're making what can be often the biggest or helping others make the biggest decision of their life right, making a home purchase. So I think that's what's the scary thing about real estate. You never know everything there is to know because things rules are always changing. Mortgage rules are always changing. But there's a lot of people that take it very like, you know, flip it like, right. Or they don't care. And like, I couldn't I couldn't sleep at night. I was sick over. I was so. Yeah, like, mad at myself. So I was by far the the biggest.
George El-Masri [01:01:07] How did you get out of that? You said your your your what was a broker. Someone helped you.
Kaely Pal [01:01:11] Oh so my my my boss bail me out. He ended up buying the property. Oh whoa whoa oh seriously. Oh it was awesome. And to be honest it worked out well for them too because the cash flowed and they just put in their portfolio. They ended up selling it the next year. So like all is fair. But again, like it worked out really well. I remember him saying laughing you'd be like, yeah. So just getting paid of this. I just died. I was like, yeah, yeah. But that's again. And that's like that's leadership, right? Yeah. It's somebody being there. I'm be like, it's OK. We're we're going to take care of it. And you learn from it. Yeah. For I'll tell you I will never make up. Never again, Alex, do you have one?
George El-Masri [01:02:01] I've been thinking about it. It's hard to like I feel every day, multiple times, but I think that often those failures turn into successes because you just have to find a different door to go through one. That stands out to me that that actually prove to me that there's a will. There's a way. I was struggling to get into university and from Mohonk graduate, they have a summer transition program. So you graduate from your three year diploma program and they put you in through a summer transition with just four weeks. Like if you think about in a year and a half at Lakehead, we had done the equivalent of four and a half years of university level calculus and an eight course load. We averaged Universalize five. So they just like to try and get you caught up so that now you are recognized among the professional engineering society so that you can actually register the intention. So it was my last exam of my last year in college and I had this Romanian teacher that just had it out for me to forget. And I was so sick on his exam. I don't have like a bug or something like that. And I had passed everything pretty decent marks and his I walked out of there with a thirty six percent. And the problem is, is they were only hosting that same course the next year. So I'd have to miss the fall semester and then I'd have to start in the winter so I could be done by spring so I could get into the next year. Summer transition. There was no fast pacing this. Now when I say that there's a will, there's a way I was networking so close with the faculty and they had obviously seen my marks because we were working together for my application to go in. And so they saw that there was a discrepancy that really didn't make sense. But by that point, we made good relations with the dean. And so I called and he's like, Alex, what happened? I was like, man, I was sick. And I tried to tell the teacher, give me five minutes. The teacher calls me back and he's like, I'm sending you an assignment, give it to me by tonight and I'll pass it. And and so I did I did the assignment and I drove it. I was in Whitby at the time, drove it to Hamilton, got it to him and he passed me. And I see the story because it's one of the most impactful failures I think I've ever had. It got me into Eyre, but if I were to just stop there and not done anything about it and it would have changed the entire course of my life. Yeah, yeah. Well, you took action. Basically, your failure led to you taking action. It's a good example of turning a failure to success, but otherwise real failures like they they don't linger for a long time because you have to find a solution. There's no choice. Yeah. So it's just stressful. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially if you're talking about your investments. If you've got your money here and you're just to the rim, you don't have anywhere to go. You've got to figure out an answer. I get stressful now. Yeah. Yeah.
Kaely Pal [01:05:04] Time last. We have one. We're OK. Yep. All right. Just one. Would you prefer to have your kids watch cartoons of today or of your own time.
George El-Masri [01:05:15] Our own time.
Kaely Pal [01:05:16] Oh hands down us. What was your favorite. Yeah. What is that. Garbage. What was your favorite to watch. I was. I'm just curious. Peppa Pig. Oh. When when you were growing up. Oh yeah. That's good. That's a good one. Yeah.
George El-Masri [01:05:28] So straightforward. Like Looney Tunes. Yeah. Yeah. You can't go wrong like Roadrunner and the Animaniacs.
Kaely Pal [01:05:34] Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. I still like the magic school bus.
George El-Masri [01:05:38] Wiley Coyote. I like
Kaely Pal [01:05:39] to one with a purpose and you're learning
George El-Masri [01:05:42] a big chicken. I really like the ones there was the the old sheepdog.
Kaely Pal [01:05:47] You're talking about old school Bugs Bunny.
George El-Masri [01:05:49] Yeah yeah. Yeah. Those with classic.
Kaely Pal [01:05:51] Yeah. Or not even cartoons boaster dress up was big in our era.
George El-Masri [01:05:56] My parents never let me watch Power Rangers. Jalila. Yeah, it's too violent.
Kaely Pal [01:06:01] No, no. Because he kept insisting on bringing him the book.
George El-Masri [01:06:09] And Granger with your with your kid that's coming soon. In a few months, are you going to allow them to have their iPad and there are two thumbs down?
Kaely Pal [01:06:20] No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I used to I served four years at the keg and it was like a shocking one. How many, like, couples will come in for, like, say, an anniversary dinner or something like that? Don't even talk. They're just on their phones and see my kids come in and they're like, oh, I guess they're quiet. They're sitting, but they're not engaging. They're just watching TV the whole time. Right. I don't think it's teaching the right lesson
George El-Masri [01:06:47] because that expectation is set and now it becomes awkward to have a conversation and you're uncomfortable bring things up that I could really call my dad. And to about absolutely anything, and I admire that I could call my aunt and uncle if I could call anybody in my family just because we have that open, there was none of that. I mean, for instance, I had my first cell phone when I was in college. So, yeah, I was a little late bloomer bloomer in that. But I do find it challenging now. Luckily now watch Netflix and I'll be playing like a flash game on my phone and we're talking to each other. And sometimes it becomes like, OK, there's a way to shut two of these. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It's hard to do one thing now. Today, it's like you're
Kaely Pal [01:07:32] considered like lazy or efficient if you're only doing one task at a time or
George El-Masri [01:07:37] if you have the TV on, you're also doing something on your phone or whatever. There's a million things going on at once, all the time. But I get why people do it is because it's cheap and easy. I mean, it's so easy to say, hey, child, look at this YouTube video. I'm going to go make dinner. Right? I don't want to hear your voice just get distracted versus like and my mom used to make me sit and play guitar to hate. Hated sitting on the counter and just play guitar or a hooked on phonics. I hated that too. Or I used to have to write like cursive writing on a green chalkboard. I heard. But, you know, builds character I guess. Well what about just talking to your child? Like if you're out at a restaurant, it's a chance to connect. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah. I saw someone just like that. He was on his phone the whole time, but then his son was bored, so he would just lean over and just watch what his dad was doing on the phone. That was their whole dinner together.
Kaely Pal [01:08:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll have family dinners. Sit down. That's really important to us. We both came from families that did that. And honestly, we probably will on occasion be the parents at the restaurant. Yeah. You know, it's going to happen. They're going to have meltdowns, temper tantrums and stuff. Alex still has them. The other day
George El-Masri [01:08:53] she carries me out just the one hand.
Kaely Pal [01:08:56] I'm just so embarrassed.
George El-Masri [01:08:59] I come from a European family, Eastern European family. So there was no talk on cell phones, no talk. There's none of that at the table. There's no hats at the table, none of that. My brother had a friend who's actually now one of our still best friends. He's kind of become a part of our family. And I'll never forget the first time you saw Virginia had a baseball cap on. And my dad goes to me, he says, hey, do you mind if I see your hat? And the guy's like, Yeah, sure does the hat. My dad opens the back sliding glass door, throws it at the door, closed so we can eat now. And the kid's like, shell shocked, really. I just hugged my hat out the door and I never saw ahead of the table ever again. Yeah, that's a wonderful story. And it's the European lesson. Yeah. Yeah, right. OK, well, I appreciate your time, guys. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Life is great. Yeah. I'm pretty
Kaely Pal [01:09:48] sure I know you a little
George El-Masri [01:09:50] more. Yeah, you too. And I'm sure there was something in there for, for whoever's listening. So again, appreciate your time and I look forward to connecting with you guys again. Yeah. Thank you.
Kaely Pal [01:09:59] Let's do a deal. Thanks.
George El-Masri [01:10:02] Thanks for listening to this episode of the Law podcast, if you enjoy the show, then I'd really appreciate if you left us a review on iTunes and let us know your thoughts in order for us to get a larger audience. It's really important to have reviews. So your support is extremely appreciated. And also, don't forget to share the podcast with your friends and family. Until next time. I'm George Elmasry. Have a great day.