Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:02 Hey guys, it's Penoza here with the More To Life Real Estate Investing podcast, where we help you get more to life through the power of real estate investing. I wanted to take a quick minute here this morning and deliver this solo, um, factual interview with myself, um, about how grateful I am, the support, uh, and feedback and positive reinforcement and support through all of our listeners since we started this podcast has been incredible. Um, we just surpassed a year in recording our episodes. We're on episode number 41, so we've delivered 41 episodes in that first year. And you know what, Amazing, amazing statistics I want to share with you, and again, super grateful for this. We're just at 11,135 lessons in our first year of recording. So, like almost, uh, like crazy numbers that I never thought, you know, that I would see a year ago when we started this podcast.
Speaker 0 00:01:13 I hadn't, I really didn't know what to expect other than I wanted deliver some great content. Um, obviously all the knowledge I have 11 years being in the business, plus bringing on some amazing speakers that, you know, we've done. And it's indicative of the feedback I'm getting from listeners and whatnot on, on how they're enjoying, uh, the information, the episodes as they roll out, uh, week after week after week. So, you know what another p uh, piece of information we're just in the last 90 days we're at almost 5,000 listens, which is incredible. And again, guys, I'm super, super grateful, um, for all the support and positive feedback that we're getting. So I'm gonna continue pushing and I want to continue putting out some great content. I mean, some of the, some of the guests we've had have been incredible sharing their knowledge in the industry, right from the dos and don'ts to some great tips to their experience, the mindset component of all this.
Speaker 0 00:02:18 And, you know, failing forward and, uh, just sharing everything they've been able to accomplish, some great successes they've had that obviously you can put in your toolbox and, and do the same, or, uh, just help you in general. So that's the goal here is just deliver that great content that we've had and continue to help you. On that note, um, again, thank you so much. It's been a great first year. Accomplishments have been superb, and I'm over the moon grateful for, for all your support. Continue to leave our comments and rate us on iTunes and everything. It helps modern podcasts like us. It, it obviously goes a long way, and we'll continue to put out some great content, Great, great guests. Uh, and we look forward to trickling what we've done this first year in our second year. On that note, let's get into this next episode.
Speaker 0 00:03:11 Cheers. Hey everyone, it's Adrian Penoza here with the Mortal Life Real Estate Investing podcast, where we help you get more to life so you can start living your dreams through the power of real estate investing. No worries. The guest today is Fel Sui Wall Fel, I'm proud to say, is one of Canada's top real estate brokers and is ranked within the top five in the world of Remax FI's career in real estate began at the early age of 18. He consistently earned a reputation as a top producer from the outset. In 1994, he joined Salesforce of Remax Twin City Realty Ink, and has continued to be a top producer there for the past 12 years. Susi Walla covers a large sector of the Cambridge and KW market and attribute to success, to a strong marketing plan with extensive advertising state of the art technology and experience, support, and a loyal clientele base F has excelled ever since by providing extra ordinary service and delivering outstanding results for over 30 years. We're very welcome and very happy to have FI here today on our showroom. Welcome to the Mortal Life Real Estate Investing Podcast. How are you today, sir?
Speaker 1 00:04:48 Fine, thanks, Adrian. How are you?
Speaker 0 00:04:50 I'm awesome. It's Monday morning, uh, summer. Today's August 29th. Summer's almost over, but we had an outstanding weekend of weather, so it always puts us in a better mood, so to speak. Um, but why don't we get right into it? Viel. Um, for those of you who are not super familiar with your story, please introduce yourself and tell us about your journey and how this all started and your experiences along the way.
Speaker 1 00:05:21 Sure, absolutely. Well, thank you again for having me on the show. So I started at, uh, a very young age, as you mentioned. I was 18 years old. I was in high school. I was between, uh, grade 12. And my final year in those days in 1988 was the Ontario Academic Credit. Um, one night watching late night television, I stumbled across an infomercial on a gentleman who was talking about building wealth in real estate and to buy his course and seminars. And I, I looked into it and the course was very expensive. So I thought I'd, uh, go down to the local community college and see if they, they had a course on real estate, which I could learn on how to invest. And being entrepreneurial from a very young age, uh, you know, it sort of sparked that interest in me. Um, little did I know that the course that I was enrolling in would be a licensing course in real estate, so I was just trying to get some information and learn and educate myself on investing.
Speaker 1 00:06:19 I had saved up a little bit of money and I always was sort of intrigued by the world of real estate. And, um, so that led me to this course, which was a six week in class community college course, which I did over the summer before I went back to school, uh, to complete my file year of high school. Well, at the end of this, I wrote my exam and it was a licensing exam. And I thought, Okay, well this is kind of neat. Maybe I'll just get my real estate license and do this part-time. Um, going back into school, I, uh, one of my friends, his father owned a local franchise real estate franchise and said, Hey, why don't you go see my dad? Maybe he can license you. And I didn't have a vehicle at that time. So I walked down, uh, from my high school to the real estate office, met with the gentleman and his partner who owned the real estate company and asked them if they would, uh, consider licensing me and looking at me at that point, they're like, Hey, you know, you're very young.
Speaker 1 00:07:12 You look like you're 12, and it's not something that, you know, um, young people get into this business to do. So why don't you go to university or college, come back in four or five years and see us? Well, while I was waiting for the, for the local bus to take me back home at the terminal, I recall that my dad had a friend who owned a real estate company, independent company, had helped my father when he first immigrated to Canada. So I thought, I'll go see Mr. Manary and see if he's, uh, still around and can, can give me some advice. Um, Mr. Manary was 73 years old at the time. I was 18 at the time. I knocked on the door, I asked Mr. Manary if he remembered my father, and he did. And I said, Look, I've, I've finished my courses, I'd be interested in getting into real estate.
Speaker 1 00:07:56 Is there something that you can advise me on? He said, Well, I, I'm retiring in a in a few months, but I'll license you, which was music to my years. And he said, But every day after school, you need to come in here and sit down with me and sort of let me teach you the ropes here. And, um, of course I was delighted again to hear that. And that's exactly what I did. So I started my journey with Mr. Aria was with him just over a year. He stayed open longer than expected, and, uh, it was the best mentorship that I could have asked for and had some early on success in 1988 through to 1990 until the recession of course hit. And then it was a different story and I, uh, second guessed my prior, uh, decision process, but I persevered and continued on the journey. And here we are today, 34 years later.
Speaker 0 00:08:45 And, um, well, well, we'll get a little into it maybe a little bit later in the show, but how have you scaled this business? Obviously from a young 18 year old to where you are today, obviously being super successful in the industry. Um, how did that all kind of grow organically or aggressively? Can you comment on that?
Speaker 1 00:09:09 Well, you know, I, I took the approach of actually scaling down and, you know, tendency for most people getting into a business or into a career is, you know, I gotta be everywhere. I gotta try to get a piece of every little pie that's out there, and you're spreading yourself too thin. So what I did was I started with a very localized, um, geographical location, which was my farming area, let's call it. And, and it's a geographical area where I would like to become known to my neighbors and friends in sphere. So I chose 300 homes in my neighborhood where I started just marketing flyers, um, just, you know, door hangers, um, post, uh, posting flyers to their homes, direct mail to them. And by doing so, what I started doing was started consistently getting into those, uh, mailboxes where I started becoming known as the guy in those 300 homes.
Speaker 1 00:10:02 It was a neighborhood that I lived in. So I did not believe in cold calling. I did not believe in door knocking. I just believed in passive marketing, but consistently passively marketing. So what I watched was other people in my industry doing that, but it was fester famine. They would do it for three months, cash out, not do anything for the summer, get back into it in the fall, and then you would see, well, you know, it was a hit and miss. So I thought, okay, if I can hit the 300 homes consistently, then I scaled that up to a thousand, then to 1500. By 2014, I was hitting 33,000 homes every three weeks with a flyer or a magnet or something of value every three weeks that created sort of branding top of mind recall. And it's like that background noise that you don't really hear until you, you need to hear it.
Speaker 1 00:10:51 And that's when you think, Oh, well what do I know in real estate? The guy in the mailbox, I added buses, I added benches. Um, and what that started doing was creating a really large brand for myself. My name started becoming synonymous with my industry, but I did it in a population of 130,000 homes. Um, and that way, you know, you want to be a household home, a household name, you wanna be a local sort of celebrity status in your industry. And that's kind of what I was trying to create. Then came in 2014 social media and that was the evolution and using technology. And, you know, being in the business 34 years, being 52 years old, you know, you wouldn't think social media would be top of mind. And you know, in those days, 7, 8, 9 years ago, people thought, well, social media, that's for kids.
Speaker 1 00:11:38 You know, they're doing TikTok videos and it's just, you know, it's pictures and it's just storytelling. But what I started doing was really engaging on those platforms, sponsor to ads Google Retarget marketing, and using technology whereby I completely removed myself from all print advertising, no flyers, no newspapers, no magazines, real time advertising for my real estate platform online. And at that time it was unheard of for a realtor not to be in a paper or a newspaper or a magazine cuz that's where, but the information that was being given was already sta dated before it was even published. So social media allowed us to, to engage in real time and market in real time, and upload those listings in real time. Fortunately, my clientele followed my lead on that, and it just exploded. I was able to reach audiences and target in and hone in on people that normally would not have even been able to see, uh, listings that I had in my marketplace. So, you know, really using technology and not being stuck in your ways and, and being open to learning new strategies and implementing those strategies was really the key to my success. And scaling my business up to a point where, you know, last year I sold 462 homes and I would not be able to do that kind of volume if I just depended on localized marketing, localized networking. Um, so expanding your, your marketplace, but being scaled down in where you actually work is really the key to balancing and having a life as well.
Speaker 0 00:13:14 Amazing. How many homes did you sell last year?
Speaker 1 00:13:17 462.
Speaker 0 00:13:20 Wow. And you're, I'm assuming obviously you run your own team.
Speaker 1 00:13:25 No, I don't. So that's the big surprise that people have. So that's without having a team. I have a network of agents that I refer business to, but my listings, which is what I sold last year, um, they are all mine. I personally show up at every single client's home. I do not refer my business out. I do not take from an agent anything that I have not generated for them. And those six agents, it's a referral network, therefore they have their own business. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I'm not entitled to anything that they earn or they procure on their own. It's only business that I send to them. So for example, if somebody came into town and said, I'd like to see 10 or 12 homes, that's business that I would refer out to an agent. But if somebody calls me and says, Pfizer like to sell my home, lease my home, I'm personally working with that individual. There's not a, uh, a team situation where I send somebody out there to go and evaluate a home. And that's one of the reasons that, you know, I've enjoyed the success that I have and people are quite surprised often when they call for me, they actually get me. And that's 90% of the win is showing up.
Speaker 0 00:14:33 Wow. That's incredible. I I know teams of 10 15 strong that aren't producing those kind of results. That's incredible. And your, your market center is, what is it kw, Kitchener Waterloo,
Speaker 1 00:14:50 Or, Yeah, so Cambridge, Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, um, I, I, I keep my region very tight so that I'm exposed in that market and I'm able to reach that market. And that's what I talked about when I say scaling down, you know, yes, I mean, I'm licensed for all of Ontario, but if I'm spreading out throughout Ontario, I'm not going to be focused or an expert in any one area. And that's where I chose to really hone in on my localized market, geographical location. And I use the same strategy as I did with marketing. You know, if I'm gonna market in a certain area, then let's be in that area and not spread out to that point.
Speaker 0 00:15:24 Amazing. Wow. Amazing. Um, so two years ago you published the Real Deal, uh, that reveals, uh, to the readers, the Susi Wallace system, and many other powerful principles behind what works and what doesn't work in real estate. Tell me about the creation of this book and this Susi Wallace system. Can you comment on that? Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:15:52 Absolutely. So, you know, I started writing, um, a lot of notes and sort of a journal of, of, of my, my journey in, in this business, right from 18 onwards. And I started writing about 10 years ago. And of course, life gets ahead of you and, you know, things happen. You're busy and, and you know, you know, the unintended consequences of, uh, Covid, uh, gave me some time. So March, 2020 to July of 2020, I had lots of time. So I took two to three days a week and I spent it at my cottage, and I thought, I'm, I've got the framework already. I wanted to write this journal or this journey that I had been through. Um, three reasons really. One was to give back and inspire young people who don't fit that box, that don't fit into, you know, my mom and dad, you know, wanted me to be a lawyer, an engineer or, or, or a doctor.
Speaker 1 00:16:47 You know, that's your typical, you know, immigrant family, uh, South Asian family, you know, these are the three choices. Which one are you gonna make? I didn't fit that mold. I didn't fit into that, that, that framework. So I wanted to inspire young people, um, that, look, there is, there are other options, there are other ways. If you're passionate about what you want in life, it doesn't matter what you choose to do, you can be hugely successful. Um, you know, I have a high school education, I have no post-secondary beyond that, um, right from high school into real estate. And fortunately I've been able to be successful in what I, because I've been passionate about enjoy what I do. So I talk about that journey and about the, the, the successes and failures. You know, at the age of 19, I went bankrupt and I write about this in my book, but I didn't let that stop me.
Speaker 1 00:17:36 And, and I talk about why I bank went bankrupt and what the, what the reality of that was and what the effect of that was on my life moving forward. Um, I talk about certain turning points in my life that created, um, uh, an environment, uh, where I had to pivot and shift my mindset. And I went from mindset to hard as opposed to just sticking all business all the time. Then I want to talk to my investors and, and my, and my clients who are not expert investors, but to create wealth and to build generational wealth and to create a portfolio that they can retire on. So I wanted to, you know, discuss different strategies that I've implemented. So everything that's in that book are experiences that I've had, or experiences that I've learned from. Sometimes you learn from your own experiences, sometimes you learn from the experiences of others.
Speaker 1 00:18:27 And I thought my experiences were valuable to share. And lastly, I'm, I'm, I'm often asked by real estate agents, new agents, uh, companies to come and speak with them or for them to come in and speak with me. Of course, I don't always have the time to be able to devote a one-on-one with people. So the last part of the book is, is called the Susie Wall System, and it speaks precisely to the system that I've implemented in my business life, uh, right from how I take a listing to how I work with a buyer, to what steps I've take in, in building my office structure, my my support staff, and, um, the networking system, the lead generation system that I have that is a team without a team. Because in a typical team scenario, the agent who has the team members is feeding off of that team regardless of whether or not that team member, uh, procured that lead, even if it was their friend or brother or sister, they're getting a piece of that pie.
Speaker 1 00:19:30 So I wanted to create a system where, um, there was not that discontent amongst team members where I'm only taking from you what I'm generating. So I talk a lot about that system in there. And of course, the books available on audio as well. So for those of us who like to sort of drive and listen like I do, um, the audible section is a audible option, is a very good, um, uh, way to go. So that was sort of the catalyst in, in creating this book, was to be able to share a lot of different things about my life, about investment life and about my business system.
Speaker 0 00:20:05 Amazing. So goals and dreams used to drive you at the beginning of your career. What drives you now?
Speaker 1 00:20:17 What drives me now is community. For one, I've been hugely grateful for the support, you know, an 18 year old kid coming outta high school, getting the type of support that I got from my community. So I've made it a mission in my life to give back to my community in any way I can and to support so many different initiatives that are within the localized community. And I encourage others to do the same because we feed off of that community and you have to give back to the hand that feeds you. And I, I'm a firm believer of that. Uh, so that's my number one, uh, goal right now. Number two goal is to con continue, continue creating, uh, generational, uh, wealth and assets for my family and my loved ones because, you know, we are in very challenging times right now where our children are probably not going to have the opportunities that we had.
Speaker 1 00:21:09 And it is our responsibility as parents, um, and, and as, as, as people that have family to do something to help get them on their way because the journey that they have ahead is very, very turbulent at, at the least. And the, the barriers to entry into real estate, into investment, into any sort of growth is going to be very difficult. And, you know, we, we have to look back at, at generations and we have to look at industrialization, and then we have to look at the great, great, uh, depression that that, that our grandfathers may have gone through and see what those cycles were. And we're sort of, you know, um, bordering some of those cycles now. And if we don't have a strong foundation footing in for our kids today, I think, uh, they're gonna suffer a lot. And, and what, and I don't mean handing out to them, I mean educating them, you know, financial literacy for young people has to be at the forefront of education in high schools.
Speaker 1 00:22:05 And I've been a huge supporter of that. And I, and, and I see it starting to happen. I speak at local schools quite often as well, but I do believe that as parents, as, as people that have experienced, um, you know, helping our kids, giving them even a partnership role, small 5% partnership in some of your own investments, and I've done that with my own kids, I've done that with my nephews as well, to make sure that I encourage them to start putting some of their earnings or some of their savings or some of the gifts that they've received into an asset so that it can eventually grow into something tangible.
Speaker 0 00:22:40 For sure. So based on that answer, and, and we have one thing in common for sure, other than both being realtors, um, and investors and the generational wealth component about our investments, I'm assuming you're still active in growing a portfolio or maintaining your portfolio. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 1 00:23:04 I have been very active in that and, and I did pause to be completely honest, for the past two years. I saw where the market was going. I saw, and you know, it didn't make sense if you, it made sense for anyone who's looking for home ownership to enter at the, you know, historically low rates. It made complete sense. But when that was happening, and when there's bidding wars as a, as as an investor, you know, you have to take the emotion out of it. And I'm sure Adrian, you've said this to your clients that you take the emotion out of it because it's not a home that you're going to be living in. So you have to make sure it makes sense. And when, when I say it makes sense, I don't only mean cash flow, Cash flow is not, and I write about this extensively in my book, you know, cash flow is not the reason to invest in real estate.
Speaker 1 00:23:50 The reason to invest in real estate is appreciation. You know, you may have negative cash flow of $300 per month that equates to $3,600 negative, uh, equity or negative cash in your pocket annually. But if the value of that $500,000 asset is going up 5%, you've made $25,000. So that trumps cash flow all day long. And, and, and people get caught up in cash flow. As long as you are earning money, you don't necessarily need the cash flow to pay taxes on you. What you want is that capital gain and the appreciation that you're going to enjoy over time. And that appreciation will allow you to have a mortgage free asset at retirement that you can live off of the rents. But not only that, you can leave that in trust to your children for them to now continue building upon that. So this is sort of the plan that I talk about a lot in my book as well, is that it's not about buying and flipping, it's about long term and play the long game because that, that is where it's at and you can leverage those assets to continue.
Speaker 1 00:24:55 So I am looking aggressively in the next six months to get back into investing in real estate and, and getting into the market because we have seen unbelievable rise in, uh, rental rates. You know, we are up 40% even in our market today, We're seeing bidding worst on rental properties. And that's because there's still a crisis and people don't realize there's like, oh, you know, we're heading into a recession. Well, this recession is mainly artificial driven by the interest rates. Um, and I believe that's going to be a two to two and a half year timeframe. So as an investor, this is an excellent time to start looking at getting back into the market because you're getting, you know, uh, for, in our area, $650,000 town home, look at $3,000 a month rent, which is huge. Um, we had projected $2,300 a month rent for those properties, and we're getting $700 more per month.
Speaker 1 00:25:50 But when appreciation occurs, we had tested $950,000 on those same town homes only in February. So we are in a housing crisis in, uh, in Canada. We are 1.5 million homes short, We're half a million homes short in the golden triangle, or golden Horseshoe I should say. Uh, immigration is at 500,000 people per year. We still have these 25 year olds living in mom and dad's basement that are gonna need a home eventually. So when you look at the overall need for housing, it's not declining. And that's the difference between what we may face during this recession, if we want to call the r word out right now. And what happened in 19 90, 19 90, there was low employment, there was low immigration, and there was an abundance of housing. Today is the opposite. We have no housing available for the population. We have immigration at all time high, and we have employment. We don't have enough people for the employment that's out there. So this is why I believe that what we're facing right now is gonna be short lived, and we're gonna see creation of wealth by investing in real estate and using that. And people are renting, unfortunately for them that they're renting because there's putting all of that money that they could be putting towards a mortgage into rent.
Speaker 0 00:27:04 Absolutely. So your portfolio itself, do you typically just invest in single family, multi families? What, what do you typically invest in?
Speaker 1 00:27:15 So in the beginning, I invested in anything I could get into. So it was multifamily, it was in areas that were not very desirable, but it got my foot in the door. I multi-level partner, and I talk about this in my book. I didn't have the funds to do this myself. Uh, being 18 years old, I partnered up with a couple of friends. We put our money together, we got a first mortgage, a second mortgage. We did everything we could to get into that first property. Then we leveraged that property, bought another property, and we continued, you know, repeating that cycle. Um, over the years. And we went through some really, really tough times. We went through some high, we went through 14 and 15% interest rates. We hit 16% interest rates. But we continued on that cycle. We did not exit. We never exited.
Speaker 1 00:27:57 We still owned almost every property we ever bought. So I still own the first property I bought at 18 years old. I still own that property today with my partners from high school that I bought that property with. And, and you know, that's the beauty of, of leveraging real estate is that you can continue, it could be a long term and keep extracting the equity. I then, um, had an opportunity to buy some land. I built a plaza back in 2007, but I bought the land back in 2002. So it took me five years to get to the point where I was able to build that plaza, which I still hold today. In fact, I had a sep separate parcel on there, which I was able to sever off and build 26 town homes on. And currently I have half an acre on there that I'm building 10 stack town homes on where I'm gonna keep for my own portfolio to as rental properties.
Speaker 1 00:28:45 Um, beyond that, I've been, I've been buying up land over the years and just land banking. So I've always had a 20% rule, 20% of my income needs to go into investing in assets. Um, and, and typically those are real estate assets. So, uh, plazas development properties, uh, rental properties. So I have a vast array of, uh, real estate holdings, uh, commercial and residential and land. Nothing in the industrial sector yet. Uh, but I believe that, you know, storage units, storage centers are going to be the next big thing. So I'm certainly looking at those as options right now as well.
Speaker 0 00:29:22 Yeah, and you kind of segued into my next question with respect to the investing in the land, Um, from my, I guess from my knowledge, um, some of the land you've purchased, have you developed at all or there's still some vacant can parcels there just sitting there, um, as we speak.
Speaker 1 00:29:44 So I, I've been accumulating in land banking for most of my career, and I've been doing it in through partnerships because it's very difficult to just buy land. You, it's very difficult to get mortgages on land. So I've multi-level partnered, I've had, you know, uh, different people come in on different parcels of land, whether I take a 25% stake in it or 50% stake in it, typically I won't get into anything less than 25% stake. Um, and what I've done is I've just held onto this pro, these properties, um, every two to three years will develop one. I have eight properties right now that are undeveloped that I'm still holding onto. Um, there were a couple that we were going to start developing now, but looking at the market, looking at construction costs, the lack of material, the lack of labor force, um, it doesn't make sense for me to invest and, and start building right now.
Speaker 1 00:30:35 So I'm looking at timing and I'm, I'm always trying to time things properly. Um, the one thing with land is it, you know, you get paid to wait, um, in, there's no more creation of land. Um, and as the urban sprawl occurs, as in, um, you know, high density development happens as intensification occurs. Um, if you are within, you know, 5, 7, 10 kilometers of an urbanized area, um, and if you can invest today and wait, you, it's going to happen. It's going to catch up. You've gotta make sure you do your due diligence. You look at the township rules that, you know, it's not a township that's protected from development and we have that and people have, you know, gotten into things that they shouldn't have. But if you do your research and you look at the official plan and you really get the right planners and engineers involved, um, and talk to your local, uh, you know, ward counselors and, and, and local municipality um, planners, you know, you can get a pretty good idea of where the growth is going to occur.
Speaker 1 00:31:38 And don't try to get into something that's developable tomorrow, cuz you're gonna pay a huge premium. So if you can get into something 5, 7, 10 years out, you're gonna get paid to wait. And the, you know, it's not cash flow. Yes, there's negative, you know, equity as far as you're, you're paying out money every single month and it, it hurts. But when the pay back comes, when the return comes, or if you're able to zone change it into a zoning that's going to create higher density than what it's meant for. Um, and, and you know, I've had some great success in doing things like that.
Speaker 0 00:32:11 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> amazing. I'm not too knowledgeable. So most of my portfolio, um, is in the apartment building multifamily space. I, I've never invested in land. What kind of finance, like how does financing work on a vacant parcel land? Can you get a mortgage on that or is it all, are those all cash deals?
Speaker 1 00:32:33 Those are all cash deals. I, I've never had a mortgage on a land deal. Now, let me say this though, if you can find a home on one acre that's just at the border, you can get a mortgage on that home. Yeah, yeah. Now you may not get the value, like you may be paying a premium. So, uh, you know, we've paid, you know, maybe a 40 or 50% premium on a, on a home because of its land value. But the bank is only financing the home value. And when they're financing the home value, let's say the land, you're paying a million dollars for it, but the home is only worth half a million dollars. You may only get 80% on half a million dollars, but that gives you $400,000 now towards your $1 million purchase. So now you've gotta come up with $600,000. What have I done?
Speaker 1 00:33:20 I've partnered with two or three partners and said, Hey, I'll put in 300,000, you put in 300,000, we get a mortgage for $400,000. We'll get rental income on that. So if you can find parcels of land that have a residential dwelling on there or a, or a building on there, then that can be fine. It may not be finest to a hundred percent of what you need, but you will get the percentage of that. And then vacant land, of course, your only option is to really come in if there are people out there that will finance privately on, um, on, on, on vacant land. But in, in that case, my, my recommendation is not to go for private financing, it's to partner with people that are able to put in the cash as opposed to you. Cause you don't really wanna have that monthly payment looming over you, uh, when there's no revenue coming in.
Speaker 0 00:34:09 Yeah, good advice for sure. Um, all right, last question here. As we get to, uh, the end of our show, we try to keep it around 30, 35 minutes for that drive into work or, or whatnot. So from starting your career, the odds were against you for sure, Uh, it sounds like to coming from that platform to selling over 3 billion in real estate doesn't come without an immeasurable amount of difficulties, including burnout, diversity, mistakes, learning curve, so on and so forth. So fi how much have you focused on developing a strong mindset and how important is, has that been through your journey and your career,
Speaker 1 00:34:55 Your mind? It, it, it's, it's, it's 50% mind and 50% heart. And when you can have your heart and your mindset and alignment, and you live your life with gratitude and you don't forget how you succeeded to where you are today, and when you check your ego at the door, you know, our industry is full of egotistical individuals that have sold a little bit and enjoyed a little bit of success, and all of a sudden they're not approachable anymore, and they're not real with people. So, you know, if you can go back, and I always say this to a lot of the new agents, is like, don't forget the basics. Don't forget the basics. Make sure you continue recalling the struggles that you perhaps had. And don't take anything for granted when somebody's struggling. It is a big deal to them. And don't, you know, diffuse that by saying it's not a big deal.
Speaker 1 00:35:53 Like acknowledge what they're going through. So my, my career has been based on lots of peaks and valleys. Um, but each time I go back on my past successes to drive my future, and look, you're going to have failures. You're going to feel bad about things, but it's not getting caught up in that moment and being stuck in that moment and trying to, you know, snap out of it and doing the things that you need to do, whether it's, um, you know, taking a short break or, or, or, or take unplugging for three or four days and, and recalibrating yourself. But those things have to be done in order to have success because this is a 24 7 business. It is, you know, prone to burnout. And if you don't balance your time, um, you, you could have those issues. So, um, you know, just, just stay focused, stay consistent, and don't forget that you're dealing with people who are always struggling just like you had. And be sensitive to that
Speaker 0 00:36:53 Amazing advice. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. So our final round here, um, getting back to the more to life concept, um, you're very successful now, and we say that relative to how the world views success, do you think there's still more to life for yourself? And when you picture more to life, what do you see
Speaker 1 00:37:20 More to Life for me is elevating my sphere, helping those around me. Um, as I said, I've been very, very fortunate and I'm very grateful for what my community has done. And I don't just mean financially elevating, I mean elevating them in every aspect of their lives. Uh, my friends, my family, my community, my support system, uh, to make sure that, you know, I'm doing everything I can to help and give back. And I think that's part of the universe. You get what you put back in. And, um, and, and I also want to, you know, fortunately I've been able to enjoy a system and implement a system that has allowed me freedom of time. And when you can gain time, there's nothing more valuable than that. And that time is to reflect, to relax, to travel, to spend with my loved ones, to spend with my friends and enjoy, you know, those years that, you know, it's easy to like work yourself to the grave, but if you're not enjoying what you're doing and not enjoying your life, and, you know, I make a conscious decision.
Speaker 1 00:38:21 I I'm not working Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and when I say I'm not working Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it's odd as a real estate agent to be able to say that, but I'm be able to do that because Monday to Thursday, I'm putting in my time, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, when I say I'm not working, I'm not off. I'm physically not present to visit a client on whatnot. And, and what that does, it allows me to, to at least, at least unplug or disconnect a little bit. Uh, but I'm on, you know, I'm not going to ever say to someone, Oh yeah, I turned my phone off on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and I don't take calls. I don't have a team, so I have to take those calls. But if I don't take those calls, I wouldn't reap the benefits or the success that I have. I wouldn't be selling 462 homes. So it's, you know, it may look easy, but it's not, you're mentally still on. So it's important to tap off sometimes and still, um, be able to enjoy your life and create that environment where you have peace as opposed to, you know, you're just burning out all the time.
Speaker 0 00:39:22 Amazing. Yeah, I'm the same way. I think I've reached a level, kind of the same thing, and weekends are for the cottage. You know, I'm, I'm still on the phone, I'm still responding to emails. I'm on the beach, uh, you know, at the cottage, and, uh, I got my laptop on my lap, so as that may sound, but hey, I'm staring at the water. I'm sipping a Corona and I'm catching up on some emails, which is great. But yes, I agree. Um, when, when you've put in your time, the, the, the, for me, those weekends are sacred, uh, with my family and loved ones as well. So I, I couldn't agree more. Um, one parting word of advice for people listening out there, real estate investors, agents, entrepreneurs who are looking to make a difference in, in, in whatnot, one parting word of advice coming from you, what would you tell 'em?
Speaker 1 00:40:18 Go. Don't get stuck in your ways. You know, be open to educating yourself, learning and evolving. And I'm a prime example, 1988, there was no internet, there was no technology, there was no Facebook, Instagram, or Google. So had I stayed stuck in, you know, the old ways of doing real estate, um, I would not be in the position that I'm in today. I would not be able to survive. So evolve consistently, evolve and stay consistent in what you do, and make sure that you become the brand and you become synonymous with the industry that you're in, regardless of which industry. That is
Speaker 0 00:40:59 Amazing. Yeah, I couldn't agree more the, when we started the show, how you said, um, just starting with flyers and farming that you started with 300 and then this and doubled and bigger and bigger and consistency, you know, eventually paid off as opposed to the one guy that says one flyer and got no leads from it or responses from it and says, Well that didn't work. But yeah, I can agree more. Um, adapt to change in consistency for sure is, is definitely a big tool in the toolbox for sure. So listen, people listening, I know there's obviously a lot of good, good advice here, not only for agents, but investors and just entrepreneurs themselves in hearing their story and growing and becoming, um, an absolutely mega agent of selling over 460 to homes. How do people reach you? How do they get ahold of you?
Speaker 1 00:42:01 Sure. Uh, so my email address is fi home shack, H o e s h a, cck.com. Um, follow me on Instagram, that's the best way to reach me at Pfizer Suwa. So my name with the, a sign in front of it. And, uh, that those are the two best ways to get a hold of me and, uh, love to collaborate with, uh, anyone that wants to reach out. And of course, my book is available on Amazon for those who are interested in learning a little bit about my journey.
Speaker 0 00:42:29 And guys, everybody out there listening, I'll spell, I'll spell you the, uh, for those of you driving in the car or, um, just sitting on the beach at the cottage, sitting in a Corona fi spelled f a i s a L and his surname is spelled S u s I w A l a Fi. Thank you so much. Congratulations to all your success and continued success. I'm, I'm sure, and really, really appreciate you coming on our show today. Thanks so
Speaker 1 00:42:59 Much. Pleasure being with you, Adrian. Thank you.
