Podcast Transcription

Erwin Szeto [00:00:08] Hey Everybody. Welcome to the life of the Truth About Real Estate. Best in show. My name is Erwin Szeto, founder of Iowa Real Estate Team, the four time winner of the year, two investors and co-founder of Stock Academy. Of course, my wife and I own also a four accounting business and what a time it is to be an investor. Pretty much everything is down except for oil. But oil has almost given everything its gains in 2020, 2020. Sorry, but honestly, I’m not too worried. We survived and thrived in 2008. Financial crisis with our real estate investments are very small stock investments. Everything else we’ve got back to order. In my opinion, this recession is going to be a lot softer than the financial crisis of 2002 thousand houses we invested in back then. They’re up nearly six times since we bought them. My biggest regret is not knowing the stock market after the crash. There was an incredible opportunity in 2010 and also I missed the more recent crypto wave. I caught it on the way down and fortunately, thankfully, I think I’ve learned some lessons along the way. And now I’m poised to take turning to take greater advantage of them ever. Thanks to the experiences that we’ve gained, education we’ve consumed, and the people are surrounded by us with and the stocks and options world. My mentor, Derek Foster and six time bestselling author, is positive on the year. While every benchmark out there, for example, the stock market gets to be 500. Many people concerned about the stock market in generalities, especially among North Americans. That’s down six and a half percent as of this recording. And again, Derek is positive on the year, so Derek is likely beating every single fund manager out there. I even know about a Toronto fund manager who’s down around 40% on the year, so choose who you like to follow for inspiration and maybe advice. Our speaker at Lost Derek, who also happens to be our speaker at the wealth conference and regular contributor to the Stock Academy. There’s been retired for almost 20 years thanks to stock and option investing. So you don’t want to miss this. There’s nothing more positive than how Derek invests. If you follow Derek’s journey at all and we’ve shared it with he’s been on this podcast twice and he truly, honestly does little to no work. I know a lot of real estate investor friends who say they’re retired, but they honestly traded their job for a full time gig in full time real estate. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just one is completely passive on is quite active and very active anyway on the crypto side. We’re super excited to announce our speaker for the World Conference and he is Jordan Anderson, Chief Operating Officer, becoming the first regulated in cryptocurrency exchange. And Defi has 375,000 treated clients and facilitated $4.4 billion in transactions picked by Awesome as making them do it. Recently this year, Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary and his company Wonderful Technologies, purchased by for $206 million. So Jordan will be sharing our conference, his journey as an entrepreneur from a startup in a cryptocurrency space to now a massive success as Jordan is leading CME and crypto currency expert journal explain what the blockchain is, why and what he will be investing in on the dip. And I can’t wait to hear what he has to say again. I missed the run up. I missed the last one on crypto. I don’t plan on missing it again. After all, if you don’t believe in crypto, that’s okay. Lots of people are. I’m sure that area, someone who’s not I’m sure is Kevin O’Leary, who has been publicly stating that 20% of his investment portfolio is in cryptocurrencies and blockchain. And he also added just recently in the last few months, he added to his Bitcoin and Ethereum positions as well as other positions. So he’s buying the dip. I think all investors need to have an open mind on what could be a once in a generation opportunity. Don’t have regrets like I do. Well, Hacker dot CA details for you. My 17 loyal listeners. We have a special discount for you. It’s a five letter word troops. T r u t h. This code matches our current promotion, which is currently 40% off any ticket, including the apps which will sell out our VIP. So that last time I’m pretty sure it will sell out this time as well. We’re actually way ahead on sales in terms of the ticket sales. So this is not another conference. If you’ve been to the comics before, from what people told us, it was pretty good what it’s going to be a game changer, a community based, unique event. We are bringing the subject matter to our community ask for. So this is for you, our 70 listeners and beyond the event, multiple properties in our experience is also a reunion for investors. After two or three years now after two and a half years of lockdowns conference we. It’s been delayed three years now. All the issues will be in attendance. And I look forward to seeing all my friends from Bahrain, Rich Dad, rock star. And the list goes on and on. We turn. I love everybody in my experience. The thing is easier versus oh yeah. So my experience, we have a discount code link as well. So in my experience and after we’ve had lots of customers on ticket purchases have issues with entering the discount code. So I have a link that directly applies the discount. So you know, finally figuring out where to key in truth. So that’s in the show notes, hopefully know where that is. Wherever you’re listening to this on your iPod app or if you’re on my email list, the link will be in the show notes. So on a personal note, summer is effectively over. Most people I know it’s not time to be over, but most people consider summer over when Labor Day rolls by and our store is packed. We just returned from the week with my brother’s family and some family friends at a college we rented from a friend. And I cannot believe the price of college rentals these days. They can’t be rented at the normal prices 4500 per week. And I think that’s on a little bit on the low side, plus that 80 plus tax. On top of all that, the tax alone is over $600 throughout the country. We, of course, received the friends and family discount. But wow, for anyone else, this would have been over 5000. Just the rental. This rental are far from food and Costco bill or something else. We’ve been going to the same college for the last few summers. So it’s neat to reflect back and see how the kids have grown. For example, we fish. We fish at least every other day. Some days, some of those days, we’re twice a day. Once in the morning. What’s for dinner? And the kids? For the first time, they were putting their own farms and putting them on. They both caught more fish. Never well over time combined. My daughter Robin, like helping the other kids. Seem to prefer helping other kids with their gear and putting worms on hooks, then fishing for herself in general, just hanging out on the boat. Now we have zero success on the golf club in a canoe, our rowboat. And then compared to last year, both of my kids had enough trouble with just with their own gear. That’s kind of neat to see how they’ve grown up. My son Bruce of the College was his favorite event of the summer. After exhaustive list of activities through two weeks in our backyard, swimming lessons, three golf games, weeklong overnight camp put them into Brazilian jiu jitsu. They started CrossFit in August, and now they’re going to stay with it on top of their come on, which is their homework, which they have five days a week, including 2 to 1 tutoring sessions. And speaking of homework. We’re making some major changes in our household or canceling the math and English homework. Our kids are we’re taking them out there in the summer as a train. And I’m in the middle of reading and trying to finish a book called The Five Hour Sleep. Again, the link is in show notes. We’re allowing the kids to have more leeway in deciding what they want to learn. Yeah. And also with everything going on, the tutoring was $500 a month between the two kids. That’s almost six grand a year after tax money. So it’s something where we’re happy to save money. And also, this was where most of the arguments and stress that are in our household, that’s where they mostly originated, argue with the kids to get their homework done. This is not schoolwork either. This is private tutoring that we pay for. So back to or giving our kids some more leeway in terms of what they want to learn about. For example, my daughter, she’s a bit of a picky eater. She doesn’t eat very much. So her first project is to prepare a report on what she should be eating and how much. My son’s topic is sharks, and that’s his biggest personal interest. Now, since they don’t have homework in school and now they don’t have the after school tutoring, they’re going to have a lot more time to explore what they’re interested in. And they can also looking for a library so they can join the library. They go to a library a couple times a week already. It’s going four times after school, including the school library and interest will help as well in the research project. So one of the three shows we have 10 minutes. Mazo is with us. From my own irony of thinking, she’s a licensed wheelchair. One of the top realtors overall rock star real estate. And she’s here to share with us what types of deals and some numbers on the properties our clients look back on. Right now, it’s a crazy market, including we’re seeing so return best practices from our experience is we’re seeing a lot more traffic emerging so we will get into that. And also we still have lots of clients who are taking profits. So incredibly important on how to sell and property in this market. So taking. Sure about that as well. Yes, that’s right. We have clients who are still taking profits. But again, most of our clients have been in the market for like eight, six, five years. So they’re still taking some pretty significant profits, probably somewhere between 30, 40% on average return on investment per year. So again, I give you 10 minutes about it. I mean, what’s keeping you busy these days?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:10:25] Work or personal?

Erwin Szeto [00:10:26] All the above.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:10:28] I’ll tell you.

Erwin Szeto [00:10:29] I would you know, like many entrepreneurs, you don’t always separate the two.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:10:32] You know? Right. Right. Personal puppy. We got a puppy.

Erwin Szeto [00:10:37] Oh, impasto puppy. Is it a puppy? Is it your puppy?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:10:42] So, Robby, he’s 11, but he’s been asking for a puppy for about 15 years now. And he’s always loved all animals, especially dogs. And they were begging me for any mostly Robby begging for any kind of pet. And so I a few months ago, I’d say it was smart. Maybe I caved and I said, okay, fine, we’ll get a fixed variable rate. I know. And I was like, okay. So I was actually going to the aquarium store with the kids to get the fish. And I was like, Oh my goodness. Like, these takes are expensive, but all this other stuff and of course, Tess is like, I want to decorate inside and I want this rock and I want this castle and I want all this stuff. And then we looked over and there was these $15 hamsters. They’re like, Oh, hamsters. I’m like, Let’s do it. Let’s go to hamster instead. Right? So of again, the hamster that’s still in there cost me a little more than I thought because Tessa got deep into the hamster life and researched everything. And so we had to upgrade all of our original stuff. We needed a bigger cage than the original cage. Now, she was bah biting. That’s not good. So now we needed a glass cage. We had to change that. So anyway, so we did all of that. And then so we’ve had this hamster, you know what hamster? Now we don’t even know what killing the hamster so gets attached then about. Rob has been asking for a puppy and Tessa’s actually been very scared about getting a dog. She’s been terrified of puppies ever since she was jumped on, which was little. And so we had to ease her into all of that and make sure everybody was ready. So it certainly it’s a family dog, but I would say Robby was the one that prompted wanting to get this dog so badly. So Tommy loves it. I made sure my parents are on board. My parents live with me and I knew when the kids are back to school and were at work, my parents are going to be there if we want to go away on vacation. Know my parents were there so they were on board to the little Yorkie poo. She’s almost £4 adorable.

Erwin Szeto [00:12:30] And the kids all walk.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:12:32] It. So she’s a very timid, scared little puppy, which I like because she’s quiet. And it was also good for Tessa because they could grow together. But she is definitely coming more to Rochelle, so we’re not at the point of walking her just yet, but probably going to wait to the rest of her shots are done and so on before we start doing all that. But yeah, Robbie’s been actually really great. They’ve taken her out, they cleaned up her cuckoo’s nest. So they’ve been actually really great and research a lot to Robbie. When they wanted a dog, he actually put together a PowerPoint presentation for me. Yeah. And they’re like, list that we’ll pay for half of the dog bowl. It’s $13, so we’ll pay for half of the dog bowl anyway. Stuff like that was cute. So that’s what’s keeping me busy, I guess at home and just summer stuff. The kids are winding down to get ready for school and then work wise a little slower through the summer, which is typical for real estate market in general. But a lot of times with our investors, that’s a good opportunity for us to pick up some properties. But given the market with that, with the interest rates climbing, although the house price is coming down, we still have a lot of nervous investors just wanting to build things out. So a little bit slower there, but a lot of people start to come out of the woodwork now. So I’m getting a lot more calls, a lot more texts and emails to staying in touch with everybody, still staying on top of what’s happening in the market and seeing houses. So we’re still busy that way. I did a lot more selling of properties this year than I have in previous years. So one, given the fact of where the market was and to because we’ve had some investors decide that it was time to scale up and cash out some of these properties. So it was a good time to do that as well. So we were starting to see a little bit more of that.

Erwin Szeto [00:14:09] So did any of these sellers lose money in real estate?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:14:12] Zero? No. Nobody lost money. Definitely not. Now it’s oh, it’s weird because when you think back to in January, February, when we had the peak of the market where let’s say I give an example of a legal duplex and where they were selling it and where they’re selling it now. Sure, you could take it as a loss because you would think, well, I’m selling it for less than it would have then. But obviously you can’t let your brain think that way. But I think about it like, what did we pay for this house when we bought it? The house not only carried for itself with the tenants paying the rent, but a lot of times people were. I had positive cash flow as well, so they were making money on these properties that were also paid for themselves. And now they probably are good, I’m going to say, through a minimum of $300,000 higher than when we bought it. So, you know, if we bought about four 7500, for example, and we’re selling a minimum of eight now, I. And so. And then I’ve had other clients that refinanced.

Erwin Szeto [00:15:07] And it’s a big deal to you. And that’s a big deal for people like you. But people are profiting like $300,000.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:15:14] Oh, it’s a big deal for me.

Erwin Szeto [00:15:15] And capital gains.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:15:16] I know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s obviously a lot of moving parts, maybe not the exact numbers, but I’m saying if I take the price of what they purchased it at and the price of what they’re selling it, the difference there, maybe it’s not everyone’s story is obviously a little bit different. Just like I was going to say that there was some clients who also refinanced their properties in during the time period that they held them or they pulled out some money and then use that to purchase another property. So again, just the plus sides of obviously owning real estate. There’s always your ups and downs on it, but. Mm hmm. But the clients that we had that have sold. Yes. Have definitely did. They did make money.

Erwin Szeto [00:15:50] Apologies to some of the listeners. I may reservation in just watching social media, especially Twitter. I find that whoever is the most negative and reporting the negative news gets the most attention. But even though prices are down right now, we don’t really have any unhappy clients like. I’m sure that I’m happy they missed the peak. Yeah, but they’re still making meisters, still taking profits, and they’re taking a whole lot of profits. Like hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:16:15] Exactly.

Erwin Szeto [00:16:16] Nope, definitely. Sorry, folks. There’s no there’s no lost porn here. Did you have any buyers not able to close on properties through this whole thing?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:16:26] No, no, no. Look, I mean, we haven’t experienced anything like that personally. But, you know, I have heard some stories I’ve heard through some of our lawyers that we talked to that they had buyers that were looking to try and get out of transactions that they had.

Erwin Szeto [00:16:41] To be having those.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:16:42] No, no. I would say if you wanted like we have some clients that had some pretty crappy tenants. There’s a lot of negative story.

Erwin Szeto [00:16:51] And that’s just par for the course. Yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:16:55] Dollar wise. No, I mean, obviously, yeah. The greatest negative side was just the fact that they didn’t get to cash out as much as we had maybe hoped if they had sold at a different time period. Right. But it depends. Maybe they’re waiting for renovation or some of our clients, we’re waiting to have tenants that were moving out before we listed it. Yeah. And so on.

Erwin Szeto [00:17:14] Okay. All right. We’ll get to some of those tenant stories in a bit. First of mine asked you this for a bit of a refresher because it’s been almost a year and a half since your last on the show. What did you do for a living prior to being in real estate.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:17:27] Prior to being a realtor? I did. I had my own esthetics. Business. Mm hmm. So I did that. I can remember, like, 15, 17. So, like that year, over 15 years for sure. And that.

Erwin Szeto [00:17:37] That’s a long time.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:17:38] And it is a lot. Yeah. And I love that. I love that job. It was a little different at first when I you know what it was. I saw I was with a boyfriend at the time and I saw a friend’s girl, another friend’s girlfriend who we went out and she had her own little salon. And I actually thought, Wow, this is pretty cool. You’ve got your own business here. You’ve got your own salon. And I thought, maybe I’ll try that. I’d like to do that. And so I went to school to take the esthetics course, not really realizing that I was going to be touching people’s feet and waxing certain parts. It so it was a little bit of a.

Erwin Szeto [00:18:19] Preliminary, you know, pretty creepy upper lip. Yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:18:25] Yeah, I remember I remember I had a different facial.

Erwin Szeto [00:18:27] A facial.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:18:28] Facial. Yes. I had a gentleman one time, though, he did a fitness competition. And so they need to be lax and it was all professional. And he wanted to be waxed and he wore his bikini. He said, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so weird. But yeah, waxed his legs for his show, for his competition. But anyway, yeah, definitely.

Erwin Szeto [00:18:44] That’s it. Okay, that’s a simple yes.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:18:47] No. Yeah, yes. The law said no, so no. And then. Yeah, so that’s what I did these days. I absolutely love doing it. I love I don’t know if I realize this then, but looking back at it now, I love meeting people. I love being with people and to talk with so many different clients and a lot of them I’m actually still very close to. There’s a client in particular. I helped both her daughters recently just buy houses.

Erwin Szeto [00:19:13] So fantastic.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:19:14] So, yeah, yeah. And actually, I still meet up with her for lunch. There’s another client that I had from Esthetics, and she’s an older, older woman, probably in her seventies, at least. And she, we, her and I meet up for lunch from time to time. So definitely nice relationships.

Erwin Szeto [00:19:29] In you made a lot of money as an institution like you do as a realtor.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:19:32] No. Yeah, no, not at all. But at that time, I felt like I, I thought I felt like I was doing well at that time. And it was it was a lot of cash, cash out. But, you know, maybe 500 bucks a week coming in cash. And at that time, I felt like that was good money. Now we’re going back a while because this was oh, that’s a long time ago. I can’t even think of how long ago that was, I guess of 15 years, really? Because ten years ago, over ten years ago, I’d say for sure it was before my kids. So my kids are abroad. 11. And so it was prior to him that I had the business doing that. So when it was right out of high school, I had done that. But I realized that unless I was going to open up a salon, where how else was I really going to grow? I mean, I was working nonstop as it was, and I enjoyed it. That was fine. But it still it was a lot of hours and a lot of time that I had put in. And even though I thought it was doing well, I realize, especially now, looking back, I always thought I was a kind of a person that didn’t maybe like to travel, but maybe I just realized I also didn’t have the money to travel, right? Because I wouldn’t say like I’m I love traveling at this point right now, but I have noticed that ever since be more successful by doing real estate. I certainly have certainly taken a lot more vacations, traveled a lot more. And you’re.

Erwin Szeto [00:20:48] Pretty successful.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:20:49] I’ve been doing well. I’ve been doing well at it.

Erwin Szeto [00:20:51] Doing well.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:20:52] It’s so weird. I don’t know why that’s a weird thing. I should be. I guess I am because of you. It’s great and I love it and I work really hard, but it’s also I feel we’ll fight about that. But yeah.

Erwin Szeto [00:21:02] I mean, I admire how you rank on the board or anything, but you know.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:21:06] Okay, no, you know what I shouldn’t say. I know that we see these teams on our team had sent us a list and it shows you what the average realtors.

Erwin Szeto [00:21:18] Make.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:21:19] And that and that was a while ago when I saw that. So I was definitely on the top part of that list.

Erwin Szeto [00:21:25] Right? Top four or top one percentile.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:21:28] I thought it was. Yeah, but yeah, I’d have to relook at that.

Erwin Szeto [00:21:32] Okay.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:21:32] So I was two years ago, I’m going to.

Erwin Szeto [00:21:35] Take me as a top between top four of top 1%. Realtor So she’s quite successful. How did that happen?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:21:45] You, you work me like a dog.

Erwin Szeto [00:21:49] So I was like, your dog has a pretty good life and I want to talk about.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:21:53] You know what, it’s interesting because I’ve talked about this story last time on the podcast. You know how I’ve been friends with James for so long and I saw him doing it and I had him and his wife over for dinner and I talked about wanting to get into real estate and he’s like, You should do it, you should do it. And I did have interest in it. And it wasn’t really, though, until I got involved that I realized how much absolutely loved it. But again, all the other parts of the job, like I love working, I love being out there getting to meet and talk to so many different people all the time. I have this goal that I put on myself where I meet a client and they’re looking for something. Yes, I want to get it. And when they’re excited to get it, I’m excited to help them get it. And so it just drives me to kind of keep going more and more. And I guess I think the biggest thing with this job really is about hustle, in all honesty, is making sure that you’re constantly out there and you’re always looking for properties, look for houses and talking to your clients and so on. And I think I do that. So I think that’s been a big part of it. That’s why I think this job can be maybe a part time job for a lot of people because depending on how little or how much they want to do.

Erwin Szeto [00:22:59] You want to do a lot?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:23:01] I do. I love.

Erwin Szeto [00:23:02] It. Yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:23:04] I mean, we got to get away with my family and it’s not to get to get to travel, but I just genuinely love the drive behind it. I guess knowing that I’m help or helping people is awesome.

Erwin Szeto [00:23:16] You’re helping people. I’ve seen hesitation.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:23:18] I was. And maybe that’s part of why I like to clean them up. Pretty nice.

Erwin Szeto [00:23:25] You’ve had some pretty serious success stories among your clientele, didn’t you share some of them?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:23:31] Yeah.

Erwin Szeto [00:23:32] I just saw Joe on the on the show, so. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he owns the tail. Not only the youngest, our youngest client, but also our youngest, the youngest to achieve self-made millionaire status.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:23:44] So I’ll never forget when Joe approached me and it was January 2019 and we were at one of our meetings or our monthly meetings that we host, I would meetings and I did a presentation there. And on that presentation I actually showed a Best Buy property. And I had there was, I think over 200 people there at that meeting. And I had said how this property was so great, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, at the end of the meeting, Joe comes up to me, introduce and Southeast. I’d like to work together. My fabulous. I love it. Let’s do it. So we got into talking and nobody came up to me and talk to me about this Best Buy property. And I was like, Wow, this is such a good one. So as we were talking to Joe, I said, Listen, this is a really good property. We got to go for it. And this was all at the same time when we were leaving. Do you remember we were going to see Grant Cardone in February. We went to Miami and Joe and I and this is where I feel bad because it was our first real deal together transaction together. And I’m in the airport on the phone with him, say, okay, look at this is what we got to offer. This is what it’s going to work. And, and, and he’s like, Well, I think we should do this. I’m like, No, no, no, listen. You got to listen to me. You got to trust me; you know? And so anyway, we got it done. He got this property was a fantastic property for him. So I was super, super excited. But that’s why was our first meeting and our first real interaction. And then. And then it snowballed from there. Right. And. But you know, certainly as a realtor helping Joe with all of this, but then also Joe being very driven himself. So the two of us together, I think we hit it off and were able to help him get some good properties.

Erwin Szeto [00:25:15] So you’ve got a lot of first time investors. What are some of the challenges and how have you helped them?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:25:21] I think one of the biggest challenges, and I think it’s more for me personally, is that I know when I know who has a really good property, a really good deal or a really good opportunity. And I want to portray that to my client and I want them to know that. And I’m always worried that I’m going to come off as a salesy kind of person or I never I don’t want to be pushy, but I want to push them, do you know what I mean? And I don’t want somebody to think I’m just doing it because I need I want to get paid and I want the money. And I hate that. I would hate that part of it. Not that I’ve heard that, and I don’t think that’s happened, but I’d say that’s what goes on in the back of my mind where I want them to know. And I’ve heard other people say lines of, you know, you don’t buy it, I’ll buy it. It’s just not me. But I have to try to word it how it’s sincere for myself to know that when something’s really great. And actually it’s funny because my clients now, who certainly know me, know my reactions and they know I was in a property recently with Mike PEREIRA, that unicorn property we got. And it’s funny because I didn’t even realize that he was reading me on the outside and we were in this house and I was loving it. I was like, Oh my goodness, this is fantastic. And I guess I actually went a little bit quiet, which is rare, that that usually quiet and he’s like, You’re quiet. What are you thinking? And I look from.

Erwin Szeto [00:26:45] This place, I know.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:26:47] I was that to him. I’m thinking to myself, if you don’t buy this, how can I buy this? That’s what I was thinking. That was legit, right?

Erwin Szeto [00:26:53] But I thought, yeah. And I’m like, well yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:27:00] Money can move really quick or they get so yeah. So I think that was probably one of the challenges with new people for me, just making sure that they know that I am sincere and I want everyone to be happy. I’m not an agent and I have actually said this in the past. I can’t just let something roll off my shoulders and just let things go. That may be something I need to work in progress as well, but they need to toughen up that way a bit. But at the same time, I just I care a lot. And if something’s not quite right, I will overthink it. I’ll think about it all night. I won’t sleep, you know. And I. And that’s just me and that’s who I am. So I don’t know if that can be changed much, but.

Erwin Szeto [00:27:37] But that’s always to make sure to make do I think you get the first SEC deal and this correction.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:27:44] I know yeah that was an amazing.

Erwin Szeto [00:27:47] I know we’ve covered it before but just give us the headlines. What made this a unicorn property?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:27:52] So this one here, when we went to go look at it, Mike didn’t actually even want to go see it because the main floor of this house, it’s a bungalow is super, super nice. And he’s like, this is going to go for too much. Forget it. So I said, Well, let’s go check it out anyway and then, you know, fill up the agent and go from there. So this one here, the owner had renovated the house. Now the owner is also a builder contractor. So he actually did everything by code. So he turned the basement into another unit that he had a friend of his renting from him, but it had like it had fire rated drywall. The windows were so massive, like the biggest windows probably I’ve ever seen in a basement. And so we were good with egress to handle it. He did everything. And except that he didn’t go get the drawings done and he didn’t run it through the city so that it became a legal duplex. So that one was really great because it was going to be a really small conversion. I ended up finding out now because we had a pretty good idea of what we were getting into, of course, but the whole conversion to turn that into a duplex cost him $10,000.

Erwin Szeto [00:28:54] So that’s.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:28:55] That.

Erwin Szeto [00:28:56] Yeah, that’s a heck of a disclaimer here. This is not normal. No, it’s not normal. Basement conversion is not normally $10,000. This is a complete abnormality.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:29:09] Yeah.

Erwin Szeto [00:29:10] So that’s why this is one of the reasons this is a unicorn property. Yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:29:14] It was because for drawings and half that was for drawings and the other half is because we did a couple little upgrades.

Erwin Szeto [00:29:20] Yeah, right. Just in context, folks, for listeners benefit bigger properties, get higher rents. So just gets the properties a duplex and gets a certain rent and someone else gets it, but it’s a much higher rent. Then my next question is how big is that? Right. So I just want to clarify that. And this was a pretty big one, was it not?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:29:37] Yeah. I mean, a lot of times we’re looking at 1000, you know, to us big a big square footage for Bungalow would be, you know, 1100, 1200 that would be large.

Erwin Szeto [00:29:47] So. And those will fetch my rent.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:29:49] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. The upstairs of this house, the kitchen is nicer than most kitchens. You see that? Nicer than my own kitchen. So it was beautiful upstairs. And like I said, it already had this you know, it’s interesting. It had this basement that had. The second unit, and it’s a little bit on the smaller side, but not too small. Like it’s great. We’ve got two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, so and it’s nice, but there’s actually a whole nother separate side of the basement that hasn’t been touched. So we’re like over another unit.

Erwin Szeto [00:30:15] Maybe I wanted to put in a point. Pretty much everything was already renovated and there’s a lot to touch on as well, actually. Take the kitchen, for example. If someone want to install that kitchen, how much would that cost?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:30:24] Oh, jeez. I think it could easily be a 3040.

Erwin Szeto [00:30:29] Okay.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:30:30] Yeah.

Erwin Szeto [00:30:31] And then the basement, if we had to go get a quote today to say that basement unfinished.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:30:36] Yep. To do a conversion.

Erwin Szeto [00:30:38] Yeah. How much would it cost to renovate the basement?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:30:40] I’m going to say about 150,000.

Erwin Szeto [00:30:42] Right, right. About 180. Caven. Just between the kitchen and the basement. Now, one observation I’ve seen these days is contractors have not. Their prices have not gone down. Right. They’ve actually gone up.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:30:55] Yes, some are going up. And right now they’re kind of sitting still a little bit, which is nice. That’s a little.

Erwin Szeto [00:31:01] Bit. Yeah. And then my point is, I know a lot of a lot of folks out there who are teaching to buy really ugly property and then renovate it to come out of pocket, 180 grand for a basement in a kitchen alone on top of the down payment and everything. And that’s, that’s, that’s a lot capital.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:31:18] Yeah. Typically we wouldn’t put that amount into the just a kitchen upstairs, but that would be still the same total that we could easily put in upstairs. So if you do buy a rundown house, like you said, and we got to go through the main floor, we can break it down when we’re in there. And I’ll say Here, we need floors, we need paint, we need kitchen, we need bathroom. And I’ll break it up. I’ll make 5000, another 5000, 10,000 here. And you can easily be 30, 40 on the main floor for sure. And that doesn’t include other items that you’ve got to take into consideration, like a roof or a furnace because any new windows. Right. Driveway expansion.

Erwin Szeto [00:31:49] Now, there are other features of Mike’s house that made it the unicorn. What else?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:31:52] Biggest and most exciting part was that it had a large garage, existing garage in the backyard. It’s on a large lot, and it’s already got this garage, but this garage already had electricity. So has the electrical panel that has a gas line that had a waterline. The only thing left that it needs to do a garden speak because that’s our plan was sewer line.

Erwin Szeto [00:32:16] Interesting. You had a waterline, but no sewer.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:32:18] It had it. So it did have a sewer line previously that was abandoned into a septic tank. That can’t be used. Yeah.

Erwin Szeto [00:32:28] Right. So needs a sewer connection to this. To the city’s the city sewer. Any idea how much that’s going to cost?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:32:34] I don’t have the breakdown of that, but the total cost for that garden suite is going to be about 70,000, which is, again, a unicorn because it got here.

Erwin Szeto [00:32:44] Yeah. Yeah. Hey, guys, I can’t stand those TV shows where they give you, like, ridiculously low. I know.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:32:50] I talked about that. Yeah, I know.

Erwin Szeto [00:32:52] Just unicorns understand? 70 grand is not normal for a garden street conversion. Okay, so 70 grand. And then what?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:33:01] That’s about half of what, what it cost him because he had an existing because he had the existing structure of the garage. He’s probably saved about half the costs.

Erwin Szeto [00:33:09] So he’s, he has to spend how much then.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:33:11] So he’s about 70 is going to be about 70, right. 70. 75. Yep.

Erwin Szeto [00:33:16] And then what can you rent it for after.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:33:17] So I’m comparing the garden suite rentals to be very similar or even a tad more than the that’s usually a two bedroom, let’s say. Typically you’re going to be a two bedroom if we can compare it to a three bedroom main floor rental. So if you’re getting 2000 or 2500, whatever it is you’re getting, because it’s obviously going to differ city to city for your main floor, three bedroom, then you’re going to get very similar, I think, to your two bedroom because it’s completely separate, detached.

Erwin Szeto [00:33:46] Obviously you think it’s because this will be a two bedroom and it’ll be close to three bedroom rent? I do, yeah. Yeah. So what’s the total rent on this then. Sorry. What’s Mike in for. What’s his total. What’s his total.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:33:57] So he’s 70 on that and ten in the house. It’s under 100.

Erwin Szeto [00:34:02] What do you think is going to be then.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:34:03] A 2300 I think is upper. There is 22. This is Branford.

Erwin Szeto [00:34:10] Mm hmm.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:34:11] So a little less than Hamilton. The basement is probably going to be about 19. Mm hmm. I think he just rented it out, actually, so I have to get those numbers. And so the garage, I think, would be similar to the to the main.

Erwin Szeto [00:34:24] Which is nearly a 22 for the garden suite.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:34:26] I think so, yeah. I mean, obviously this is still very new to a lot of us and we haven’t been seeing it out there very much, but that’s certainly what I’d be. I might even try a little higher. It’s going to look super sweet when it’s all done.

Erwin Szeto [00:34:37] So a 6300 and rent. What do you pay for the house?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:34:41] Like a triplex? I knew you were going to ask me that, and I thought I should pull that up. Well, he’s tough.

Erwin Szeto [00:34:46] Yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:34:46] I. He paid I think it was 875.

Erwin Szeto [00:34:49] So 400 million. He’s got a triplex, right? A 6300 and rent a month. I’m doing the math as well.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:34:55] Here it is. Now it’s 35. Okay, good. No, no, I don’t do math constraints.

Erwin Szeto [00:35:01] All. Of 75,600 per year and he’s in for less than a million. Wow. That’s almost 80% world and it’s plus utilities, right?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:35:11] Yes. Oh, yeah, definitely.

Erwin Szeto [00:35:14] Wow. Congratulations. My career just took a lot more of these. Can they get one tonight? Yeah. Wow.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:35:20] I know. I actually got in trouble because people were like, why didn’t you call me? And that’s why.

Erwin Szeto [00:35:25] I made the effort to go out. That’s why I went out.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:35:27] Exactly. We went out to look at properties and you know what? And he’s always hustling as an investor as well. And so I was very, very happy for him. But yeah, all the years we’ve been doing this, I mean, I’ve been on your team for seven years now, like a realtor for five. So I’ve been with this in this business with you guys. This is the first time I’ve seen this, obviously.

Erwin Szeto [00:35:47] Right. Right. And then just to just for folks to understand how it works when you’re working with a realtor, if your regular client wants to see the property, we’re not calling other people to try to sell it. Right.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:35:59] Yeah. No, absolutely.

Erwin Szeto [00:36:00] That wouldn’t be fair to Mike, you know?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:36:02] No.

Erwin Szeto [00:36:03] No, it’s not like, why didn’t you call me as, like, more like, you know, you need to make the time to go see it, to take the effort to do the deals.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:36:09] And this was, you know, when prices were high and market’s going crazy. And, you know, we needed to know that the numbers were going to still going to work and everything was going to make sense for us. So I probably say the big question right now, just for the listeners, is the fact that, you know, the garden suites are very new. So there’s we can’t and I know I would never guarantee it anyway, to be honest, but we can’t really guarantee where those refinance numbers are going to look like on the garden suites yet.

Erwin Szeto [00:36:35] No, but who cares?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:36:38] So that’s the that’s the only I know. That’s the only part when you’re running your numbers that we do have to keep that in mind.

Erwin Szeto [00:36:43] But yeah, we may have to wait a few years for that for a good, a good refi number. Get an appraisal number. Yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:36:50] With the duplexes you guys.

Erwin Szeto [00:36:52] Yeah. Just with some of the duplexes and duplexes were a new thing. We couldn’t get appraisals. Yeah. The, the appraisal people would just use like in my suites as a comparable against our legal basement apartment houses. But that’s actually something that’s a good point to bring up with the what the investor realtor relationship is. When I was practicing as a realtor, my clients who are active, who are ready to buy, we’d have a standing meeting, right? So like every Thursday at 2:00 we go see property. So that client usually gets dibs versus the client that says, call me if you see anything good.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:37:24] Absolutely. And that’s really a tough tip. Yeah. Because I’ll often it’s actually a really big thing that I especially when I’m talking to my new investors that I say, you know, let’s book ahead of time, let’s book in and pencil in a date to go out and look at houses. Because when you have that date penciled, you’re going to go and you’re going to look at them. And let’s just say there’s nothing really on the market because we’ve had we’ve seen those markets before where there’s not really much out there. Right. Two things. One, we can still go and see the couple that are there just to check them out or to if you needed to cancel, we can cancel that appointment. Everyone’s busy, Erica. Fill up the time. But if you have that appointment set there, you’re more likely to keep that appointment and get out there and go look at the houses. And I always say all the investors that do super well are the ones that are just always looking but always got that appointment. They’re always checking them out. And that’s where the success is for sure, because I have many clients as well, new people, where they’ll say, I’ve probably been talking to them for two years, maybe even some three years. Just let me know if you see this or if you see that we are. But you have to come out and you have to see it. And that’s the important part of that. Right.

Erwin Szeto [00:38:26] Right. And that’s what it is to work with investors on a regular basis. We have lots of clients who have very similar criteria because we have a pretty good idea of what the best investment property is.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:38:39] You know what’s funny is that I get that question. How do you decide if you see a property comes up and don’t you have everybody all looking for the same thing? And the answer is like yes, but also no because of all the investors, let’s say that I’m working with right now. So let’s just say I’ve got as an example, you know, 12 active buyers, people that are ready, let’s just say as an example, a lot of them have different price points that they’re approved for. A lot of them have some particulars that their own personal stuff of what they want or don’t want. Some are looking for single family, student rentals, duplexes, triplexes, some that want to do a conversion. Some are looking in different cities than others. So a lot of I’ve only ever had one time where I had two clients that both wanted offer on the same property and one ended up actually changed their mind. I was like, We were kind of glad because I but I had to make sure I had that conversation with them to make sure that they both knew. But all in all, like as much as we’re all out there, there’s so many investors, there’s also it’s a small pocket of us that are out there right now doing this.

Erwin Szeto [00:39:40] So someone wants to be next in line. What do they have to do to have me for next year record.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:39:44] Oh again going back to what I you have to go out you have to get out there and look this is exactly what happened with the scheduled.

Erwin Szeto [00:39:50] Time with you.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:39:51] Yeah, you have to. Yeah, it, it’s in, you know. What is this. A lot of different things. One, I think it’s a really good experience to see all the different types of properties, especially for a lot of our investors trying to get acquainted with the neighborhoods. I learned the neighborhoods. You know, we did that as a realtor. I remember when we started going out to well, and I would drive out there by myself purposely all the time just to constantly see houses. So I was an investor doing that as well and coming out and I found it every time I’d go out with an investor and talk about these properties and let’s say a conversion, for example, all the rules and everything. Every time we were out, they’d absorb something new, new, new, constantly, and it was so important. So I think just honestly, getting out there and always looking and I tell my clients to, even if they’re not ready or they’re in a window where they’re waiting for financing, if they want to go see houses, I’ll do it. I love it. I love looking at houses. I would go by myself. So if you want to go, let’s go together, right? It doesn’t mean that they have to go because they have to buy right there. And then it could be a lot of a really good learning process as well. And it’s nice for us to meet in person, you know, so many times we have a phone call and a chat and it’s nice to get out there face to face and look at look at everything. So I think that’s probably the most important.

Erwin Szeto [00:40:56] Get out there.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:40:57] Yeah, get out there.

Erwin Szeto [00:40:58] Because sometimes you might get out there and you see a house and the price might not be right. And then the house fails to sell. And then. And then that’s an opportunity, right?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:41:08] Absolutely.

Erwin Szeto [00:41:09] And we just happen to have one of those.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:41:10] We did. Yeah, we just had one of those happened with Emily and Emily. And she’s always hustling. We’re always looking for houses. And it’s fantastic. And I remember when Emily first called me, she had so much energy and so excited to jump into investing. She didn’t have any properties before we had gotten together. And now she’s and that was just oh, she actually did a post on Instagram that she’s been doing it now for one year was when her first purchase was. And I was like, Wow, a year has passed already. I can’t even believe it. But I do remember her being super excited and going out and we’ve continued that way. And so we went to go see this property in the end of May, I believe it was in the May beginning of June, and the price point was a bit higher and it had a tenant in there that was paying low rent. So when we worked out the numbers, it really just didn’t quite make sense right now. And so I’ve been keeping my eye on this property and I noticed that in the listing remarks it said that the tenant was living at some vacant possession, was going to be available.

Erwin Szeto [00:42:10] For the update, but that they updated it.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:42:12] They updated the listing to say the tenant would be moving out.

Erwin Szeto [00:42:15] Yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:42:16] So I called her, I called her immediately because I knew she had seen the house. And actually I think I texted her. I think I sent her a text saying, hey, remember that house we saw such and such? I just found out that the tenant’s moving out and staying in possession. Her response Let’s put an offer in. Immediately she goes, Let’s work out this, this, and this was like late at night because tomorrow morning, this offer. So we were able to jump on it and we were able to act on it because we had already seen this house. So it was great. I actually just put in a conditional offer because we put a condition to see it again, but it’s been a while and we want to make sure everything is still really good and do it, do our due diligence there and it’s been a bit of time and so we did have that condition in there, but the agent did tell me that she had four showings booked that weekend. So if we had that up when we did.

Erwin Szeto [00:43:06] Yeah, this is August 4th showings booked.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:43:09] Well, they dropped the price and I was back in session. And it’s funny because this is the kind of house that’s been sitting on the market for so long that probably everybody’s seen this house. Mm hmm. Even her own team. When I didn’t have anybody buying it, I remember talking to it. And we’re having people that look. But again, with that tenant, just it really makes sense. But second, I saw that. Yeah, we jumped on that.

Erwin Szeto [00:43:31] Was it a disruptive tenant or the rent was low? Why? Why would the total impediment for the house to sell.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:43:37] Was a longtime tenant? They had been there for about 14 years. And paying 750 a month. I know. And then it’s like, what do you do?

Erwin Szeto [00:43:46] 754 What? What they get all inclusive, three bedroom.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:43:52] I don’t know if it was utilities. I did that that wasn’t disclosed. Yeah, we didn’t get that far. But it probably was all inclusive actually. And it was two bedroom. It was the upper unit of a house. So this is a two story house and it was the whole upper level. So these are two it’s a duplex and it’s above grade, both units.

Erwin Szeto [00:44:12] So I mean, Square Feet was a service. I thought it was pretty nice.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:44:15] Oh, shoot. I forget. I forget what the square footage is. It’s quite large. Yeah. I mean, it was probably at least 17 plus. Yeah. Is huge. House is big. I would say about 17.

Erwin Szeto [00:44:27] Maybe so. Look it up, duplex.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:44:30] So this house here is a duplex with what the city recognized and was possibly purposely built that way. Actually, this owner had been the owner for the most of the time. This house had been built and she had owned it and lived there since she was five years old. So her parents then gave it over to her and she was the one that lived on the main floor and she is now in a nursing home and she had the upper tenant there that was there for the long time. So there is actually no way to access the units from inside the house.

Erwin Szeto [00:45:02] Obviously, separation.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:45:03] Complete separation. Exactly. And it’s on a double, a very large lot. So it’s 60 by 120. We did look into the options of severing, but that’s not going to be our best route. So we’re going to go ahead with our original plan, which is to turn the again existing detached garage, which is about 550 square feet and turn that into a garden suite.

Erwin Szeto [00:45:24] Sorry, it’s 550 square feet for a garage. Yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:45:27] It’s a big double car garage.

Erwin Szeto [00:45:29] And what’s the budget for the conversion?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:45:31] So the garden suite there is probably going to be about while we’re still waiting. We got to get some quotes on this one, but I think it’s going to be about 150.

Erwin Szeto [00:45:41] 150.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:45:42] Yeah, I mean, I know one we’re building from scratch for roughly estimating numbers around 250 approximately. There’s nothing written in stone there. Obviously that could be some give and take and lots of things put in involved there. But this one here just had it did have some electrical to it. And then, um, so I’m, we’re thinking it’s going to be a little process obviously to get everything done. It’s going to take a bit of time. So, you know, we’re rents are then we’ll see. As of right now, I’m going to probably say at least 2000 because I know within this last year our properties, our duplexes are the bungalows, three bedrooms on a main floor and well, and we’re renting for about 1900. That was like a year ago. And they go up. So let’s say, you know, they’re going up getting towards the 2000 then and again gardens with similar as well and then the inside of this particular house we’re going to do a big renovation of everything. It’s completely outdated. Everything’s what.

Erwin Szeto [00:46:43] Everything’s with. Can we share with you but what the house sold for.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:46:48] I don’t know. Can I share that? I’m allowed.

Erwin Szeto [00:46:51] Six.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:46:52] Let’s say we got it. Well, under asking. Yeah. The asking was five, 525 is what they got down to. So when we originally went to go see it, it was 650. Gone down to 600. That’s when we saw it at 600. Then it went down to 550 and then 525. All right. And we paid well for.

Erwin Szeto [00:47:10] Well, interesting.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:47:12] Well, yeah.

Erwin Szeto [00:47:13] And then what’s the renovation budget for the main house?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:47:16] Uh, it just actually needs some updating, so it’s probably going to be a good, I’m going to say is still might be about a hundred, because they’re going to do the two full units. Mm hmm. So typically, that could be 40, 50,000, and she might have some extra plans. So it’s a little a little hard to say. Everything’s this just happened like a week ago. So we do have some ideas, but the ideas are constantly kind of changing. So we might put some extra bedrooms in the basement and so on.

Erwin Szeto [00:47:44] Okay, so let’s use 500 for the house. It’s not what you paid for the rental. Plus 150 for the basement. For the garden suite. Yeah. 50. And just for the audience’s benefit. Tammy knows renovation numbers better than almost anybody. She’s just looking for trying to be extremely exact versus, I would say, ballpark something. Yeah. So we’re talking about.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:48:07] Like, I had our contractor so much.

Erwin Szeto [00:48:10] Yeah. Tammy’s talking to contractors every other day.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:48:13] Constantly.

Erwin Szeto [00:48:14] Yeah. Constantly. Every other day to a minimum. Right.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:48:17] Yeah. Because there’s a couple of contractors, and I would say we’re definitely speaking every week.

Erwin Szeto [00:48:22] And then what’s the duplex going to rent for?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:48:25] So we’re probably going to get you know what I’m going to probably it depends on. It’s hard to say right now because it depends on if we’re going to put some extra bedrooms in the basement or not. Obviously, that’s going to change things. So assuming all of that, I’m going to aim for maybe about 2000 on the main unit of the main unit, plus the basement, and then maybe 18 for the upper. And I probably match the garden suite to the main. Just for argument’s sake, right now.

Erwin Szeto [00:48:51] So it’s not a five 5800 a month in rent. Okay. Okay. Hang on in the calculator again. All right. So 5800 a month. That works at two times 12. That’s almost $70,000 divided by. We’re in for about 750. Wow. That was 9.3. The rent annual rent to price plus rental ratio is about 9.3, which is extremely high. So this is going to cashflow really well? Mm hmm.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:49:24] Yeah. And you know, the other thing I’d like to add, too, is that, you know, every investor is a little bit different on how they run the numbers and their risk or comfort levels and so on. This time around, I know that Emily wanted to be like super conservative on our numbers as well. So we knew going into this that our big thing that we wanted to look for was going to be definitely that third unit. We wanted the third unit, whether it be in the house, attached to the house or detached in the garage. That was key for us.

Erwin Szeto [00:49:51] So how easy it is to find this type of deal like six months ago?

Tammy DiTomaso [00:49:55] Yeah. No, we weren’t finding a whole lot. Six months ago. Six months ago was definitely pretty tough. I remember looking at properties to penciled in that date with the with an investor to go out, look at the properties and there’d be maybe two. And one of those two I knew probably weren’t going to be great but getting out there and seeing houses was nice in itself. But yeah, and we’re now I just went out with another, another great client of ours. Coach went out with him just recently. He’s ready. So he’s we bought last year and he did a duplex and he just got all his groove permits for a garden suite on his Hamilton property. And so we were going to get back out there, look again. And I was looking at the list to go through and I probably had about a dozen to choose from. And then from there I just really shrunk that list up. So I think we ended up seeing about seven properties that day and we were looking particularly for garden suite potential properties for sure. And they weren’t they weren’t all winners. Once we get there and you’re kind of measuring things out, of course it’s a little bit tough, but just the fact that they were though we had the listings to go look at was perfect.

Erwin Szeto [00:51:00] So you know, how to measure for you understand, zoning and setbacks and all that.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:51:04] Yes. And I’ll be honest, I’m definitely still. Yeah. As far as gardens, we still learn learning. Like I don’t have it all completely memorized, but I do have my cheat sheets and I’m ready. Definitely.

Erwin Szeto [00:51:15] Again, hang on 1/2. Tell me again, being modest, please go poll. If you know ten agents, go poll them. Ask them what their zoning requirements are for gardens. We see how they know the answer. Yeah, we know because I don’t even know the answer.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:51:30] And then duplexes. Yeah, definitely know.

Erwin Szeto [00:51:33] That that’s what they want us. Tammy here to change your name. But I want, again, like, you know, famous golf mainstream. Tammy knows zoning better than any other realtor she’s ever met. So there you go. So tell me, you talk a lot about the buy side. The sell side is really interesting in this market as well. Like we’re recording this on late August 20, 22. Yeah. Like, for example, like since the pandemic started, it seems tens of properties were way more difficult to sell. They wouldn’t sell. It’s all a discount. I’d almost wonder if we’re seeing that even more like vacant properties are selling for a significant premium over tenants property properties just kind of wild. Any insight into that? Like you have experience in this as well? Yeah.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:52:16] Yeah, definitely. Like when I would say when the market was at its peak or we talk about that right earlier in the year in 20 2022, honestly, I don’t even know if it matter to how much you had tenants. It’s always better to not, but that market is a little bit.

Erwin Szeto [00:52:34] You get a bit of a deal of things if you’ve ever heard there’s tons.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:52:37] Of tenants, right? So but when the market started changing, it started changing. We started really realizing the importance of why we didn’t realize it, but we knew the importance of vacant possession. And it was massive. I would probably say that if I had somebody sell a house earlier on with tenants, that it would have had to been discounted, but people were going to take them. I think there is investors out there that are obviously being sneaky, taking them and then cash for keep. And I shouldn’t say sneaky, but they’re doing cash for kids and they’re doing the things they need to do to remove the tenants. But we would see that a little bit more. But then if.

Erwin Szeto [00:53:13] I had let’s just gloss over that. Homeowner landlords whatever are offering money to tend to move out and that removing them. Yeah. Yeah. You know, for me to get paid, someone offering me money, I’m not often offended. Especially when you’re talking about thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands of dollars.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:53:34] Right. And so those might have been some of the means of what people were looking at the time to be able to get a property, even though it had tenants at it in it. And then let’s say they were paying, for example, at the peak with vacant possession, might have been over $1,000,000 for these duplexes were if they had tenants in it, maybe they were looking at like 900 or less where, you know, if you’re in a slower market right now and you have it vacant, you’re going to be at least similar to that and or do even better. Mm hmm. So it depends, because it was a little bit of a challenge in a game, like, you know, do we sell some people or do we sell it at the P even though as tenants? But then they felt like they were taking a loss because it was selling for lower because they had the tenants in there. Then you take the time to get the tenant out. But during that time now the market’s changed and the market started dropping. So there was that a little bit of challenge. Obviously, we did have a client, though, recently where they had to remove the tenant. It was a troubled tenant they had to remove. It was not going to sell. It was going to sell no matter what market you put it in. Right. Right. So we definitely had to go through those challenges with that one.

Erwin Szeto [00:54:37] Right. So like we’re seeing significant discounts if the property’s tenanted, like, for example, I believe you sold the property for about 10% more than the comparable because it was vacant for 10% more than that. Apparently, that is tenanted. That’s insane.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:54:52] Yeah. Yep. There was another property we sold recently where the upper tenant had decided that they were going to move out. They were moving into another one of the same landlord’s property, but larger. So that was all great. But it became vacant and it was a game changer. It was hard shopping it around at the time. But the tenant and once the tenant was gone.

Erwin Szeto [00:55:11] So it’s crazy. And again, it’s not always like this. Folks like, you know, sold our sole tenants and property before, but I had wonderful tenants there. They already to give notice. That’s probably our trigger for selling it. They are wonderful to work with. Even our photographer said the same thing. A photographer said, Normally I won’t shoot tenants properties, but he said this was great. So I mean.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:55:31] The other key thing is if you have a tenant and they’re paying pretty good to great rents, well then that’s fine and they’re good tenants then. Yeah, there is no problem there. It’s obviously the ones that are troubled tenants or tenants that have wrecked the place or.

Erwin Szeto [00:55:45] Or access to the property for people to see for sale.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:55:48] Yeah. Well, red flag.

Erwin Szeto [00:55:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:55:55] I just heard a story recently. Can I just say it’s a real farce? I just heard a story of. Of a property that there’s a gentleman trying to sell a house. It’s exclusive right now because he refuses to even try and put it on MLS. He said that the tenants that are there right now are not only refusing, but when they put a lock box in the house, they took a torch to it and they melted all of the numbers on the front of the log box and nobody can open and get it.

Erwin Szeto [00:56:17] Well, this.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:56:18] Is so there’s some crazy stories out there.

Erwin Szeto [00:56:23] Okay.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:56:23] So I wasn’t I was scared. Yes. Forget that part.

Erwin Szeto [00:56:28] No, because.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:56:29] So you’re right. It is good to hear that kind of side. But yeah, for the most part, knock on wood, we’ve been great. We really, really have. And we’ve been and I think for a couple of reasons why we’ve got good tenants is, one, we’re really good at screening them or we’re really good at helping our clients learn how to screen them or to we refer them to great property managers that do tenant placements. And these are people that we trust as well. And then they do well. So for all in all, for the most part, I mean, it’s just a small handful that we’ve had to encounter. Some of these other stories have been other long time tenants that have been in, and maybe the landlord could be absent here. Who knows what the story is right from everybody else. But I mean, if it wasn’t so great for the most part of it, then the money would certainly have to be so great to have to put up with all of that. Right. So obviously is a big advantage.

Erwin Szeto [00:57:19] But there are some bad apples out there, but there’s bad apples and everything. That’s why screening is incredibly important and we help our clients out with that, or we hand them over to property managers who do go straight to the screening for them. And that generally is a good experience. It’s considerably better than what I see amateurs do. And just from as an observation with even with a bias, even though I am biased, our clients, their tenants are typically better. Even if they don’t use any help, their times are generally better than what we see out there from other landlords. You seem to be way pickier. I think our systems might help. Tammy, any final thoughts? And I’ve hooked up to you for a while.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:57:56] But ah, that’s okay. I just think that if anybody is out there and, you know, thinking about it and wanting to get into real estate, you know, call us and make that connection. Because I find that, you know, we do we do a lot of meetings and we do our webinars and we do all this kind of stuff. And a lot of people think that we’re putting it out there saying, Oh, let’s do a one on one, call me. And it’s just all 100% just based on sales. And I get why people would think that with all the businesses out there that that’s how it goes. But just starting with that connection and contacting us and having those conversations to get the ball rolling because, you know, we got somebody like Joe Costanza, who’s 24 when he started and, you know, he had a real fire under his butt and he was ready to get going. But, you know, for most of us, we look back and wish that we had done that and wish we had started. And at any age, myself, I was 40, you know, when I started as well, just getting out there and getting started and get talking to people and then get to the point where you’re looking at properties and learning and surround yourself with the right people. It’s just so important and so key because, you know, I remember being 20 and seeing somebody who a friend, like a boyfriend’s mom’s friend who had an investment properties thinking, that’s smart, that’s what you need to do. And then I didn’t do it and I’m like most doing it and I didn’t do it. So, you know, and if you’re nervous, you know, call us. We love it. We’ll talk about all the real estate. I love it. I love talking about that. And I’ll talk about everything else too. But yeah, I think that I think that’s just a really important thing for people to take away and just make sure that they know that it’s not as scary as it needs to be and call us and just have that, that initial conversation. It’s or, you know, call someone you trust and give them that.

Erwin Szeto [00:59:38] And I think elderly people pick that up as well. We’ve never seen turnkey duplex for this cheap before. They’re so cheap it almost doesn’t make sense to buy something that needs renovation because they’re going to cost 250 for the basement.

Tammy DiTomaso [00:59:52] Right? Yeah.

Erwin Szeto [00:59:53] Why not just buy something? Something. That’s right. Turnkey is partly that the turnkey property is they paid a lot less for the renovations that we did. It’s just with inflation, you know, to me, it just makes so much more sense to buy turnkey. So it’s easier than ever to be a real estate investor, in my opinion. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Thanks, Tammy. Thanks very much for doing this.

Tammy DiTomaso [01:00:11] No problem. Thanks, guys.

Erwin Szeto [01:00:13] Probably. Pardon me. The puppy’s awfully quiet.

Tammy DiTomaso [01:00:18] Oh, I have kids have will have her all occupied out there. She’s a puppy. Says to still sleep at night.

Erwin Szeto [01:00:25] Go enjoy your puppy.

Tammy DiTomaso [01:00:27] All right. Thanks. Bye, guys.

Erwin Szeto [01:00:36] Before you go, if you’re interested in learning more about an alternative means of cash flowing like hundreds of other real estate investors have already and sign up to my newsletter and you’ll learn of the next free demonstration webinar I’ll be delivering on the subject of stock hacking. It’s a much improved demonstration over the one that I gave to my cousin Chubby at Thanksgiving dinner in 2019. He now averages 1% cash flow per week, and he’s a musician by trade. As the real estate investor myself, I got into real estate for the cash flow, but with the rising costs to operate the rental business. It’s just not the same as it was 5 to 10 years ago when I started. Never forget that cash flow reduces your risk. The more you have, the more lumps you can absorb. And if you have none or limited cash flow, you’re going to be paying out of your pocket like I did on a recent basement flood at my rental in St Catherine’s, Ontario. If you’re interested in learning more about Stitcher for free from my newsletter at WWW. Truth about Real Estate Investing dot CA into your name and email address on the right side will include in the newsletter when we announced our next Free Stock Tracker demonstration. Find out for yourself with so many real estate investors are doing to diversify and increase our cash flow. And if you can’t tell, I love teaching and sharing the stuff.

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