Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to season two. Episode Four of the More to Life Real Estate Investing podcast come a long way with us as we embark on our ongoing journey accompanied by experts, enlightening discussions, and practical studies that illuminate the ever changing world of real estate investing. Whether you're an experienced investor or newcomer to the real estate world, mortal Life podcast serves as your guiding compass for navigating everything from your first rental property to your second to your 50th and everything in between.
What have we been working on lately? I have a really cool guest here that I recently bumped into at an investor meetup and I thought, he's an amazing guy and I want him on our show. So I'm about to introduce him. But before I do that, we are rocking and rolling in the last week, talking about going out last quarter of 2023 with a bank. But within the last week, we tied up. We have conditionally under contract. Both of these deals are off market. We locked up a 14 unit in the downtown core of Hamilton.
And Friday of last week, just before Thanksgiving weekend, we locked up a twelve unit in the downtown core of Hamilton. So fingers crossed we can bring those two deals to the finish line. Both off market deals. Kind of excited about that. I'll share some more statistics on them and details if and when we get those to the finish line. So Manny's occasionally waiting there. So let me introduce to you this amazing guest we have today. Manny is a down to earth individual who loves learning, spending time with his family, and playing a bunch of different sports. Manny is always trying to learn more in order to grow in the world of real estate.
Very, very popular.
For those of you who don't know him, he's very popular in the Hamilton space, a very successful realtor and investor. More importantly, in the Hamilton space, like I said of real estate investing, like myself, Manny's favorite investing strategy is typically the Burr strategy, but he also has a ton of experience in flipping houses throughout his career.
When it comes to real estate investing, Manny is no stranger to that world. He has his own properties, but he also enjoys partnering in joint venture partnerships in his projects.
Very similar to what we do. But he's obviously an industry expert in that world of JV partnerships, burrs, flips, you name it, he's done it. Manny, welcome to the more to Life Real Estate Investing podcast. Thanks for being on our show, pal.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, Adrian, it's a pleasure.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah, awesome.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: And it's nice to be asked to come onto your show and thanks for the introduction. And I think we do similar things in the similar market of Hamilton.
Yeah, I've focused a lot on flips for a lot of years, and now we're kind of strategizing to do different things as the market shifts, as you know.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome.
So how long you been in the game, Manny? Like, of real estate investing, how long you've been a realtor, so on and so forth?
[00:03:50] Speaker B: So I've been in the game for. I've been a realtor for twelve years. I've been an investor for a little bit less than, let's say, nine years.
But I've learned a lot through clients. I was dealing with a lot of investor clients and I asked a lot of questions and learned through their journeys and their wins and their losses and their trades, and I was just fascinated by it and I had to get involved myself.
So I haven't looked back since then. It's been an amazing journey.
I've helped a lot of people purchase properties and flip properties and I decided to do it myself.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Amazing.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: It's been a great ride.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Changed your life.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
It's been amazing.
One of my first clients was a flipper and I learned a lot from them flipping and how courageous they were taking on tougher properties back then in Hamilton. Hamilton used to be a tough city, as you know, Adrian, you've been investing in Hamilton for a while. Twelve years ago and I'm a Hamiltonian, like born and bred. Pretty much twelve years ago, people were not investing in downtown Core.
People were scared away from downtown core. They were shying away from it, especially Hamiltonians. There's the out of towners that were kind of investing and opening our eyes, really to the possibilities of what could be.
We have this stigma, the Hamiltonians, with downtown, and I don't understand it too much, but I know in the 80s it was a little bit of a riff wrap, then the 90s got better.
But yeah, the out of towners actually opened the door for the locals to invest in the market.
I remember when properties were 70, $80,000 and people weren't buying them and those same properties are 500, $600,000 right now. So I've seen the changes in the city, I've seen the gentrification and I'm actually proud of the city. I'm happy, I'm super proud. I'm super happy the city has gone through all the changes and I'm happy for all the flippers that I've helped flip the city and actually have a huge hand in gentrifying the city. Right?
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Absolutely.
I bought my first investment property in Hamilton twelve years ago, believe it or not, right down in the downtown core, major intersection was Maine and Wentworth, Maine intersection.
And it's actually right next to the stints and lots.
Okay.
Anyways, I paid 310,000 for a fully renovated. It was somebody split, fully renovated, triplex 310, brand new. I just had to put tenants in it.
Vacant property, 310,000, still have it today. I think it's. Well, in this market it's probably worth mid seven.
In this market it's probably worth a bit more, obviously before rates did what they did.
So I got in an amazing time, obviously twelve years ago.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Twelve years ago was phenomenal time to get in and I was telling people to jump in, but they just couldn't get over the stigmas. If you grew up in Hamilton and you knew Emerald street and you knew Barton street and you were part of that riff raft of the kind of you made up your mind about, no, it's not a good place to invest, but Torontoian seen it before and I don't know if you were from Hamilton, Adrian.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Never. No, I wasn't. I'm from York Region.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: So Aurora, Richmond hilL.
I never knew the first thing about Hamilton other than I started investing there because my mortgage broker at the time told me, you got to invest in Hamilton, it's going to be a city on fire and all this stuff. Twelve years ago, but I didn't even know all these one way streets in Hamilton and stuff like that. So to answer your question, no, I didn't know the first thing about the city.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: But see, people like yourself investing in the city and people like the clients that I had from out of town, investing in the city helped in the hand of gentrifying the whole city, right? And bringing up the rents, cleaning up the blocks, cleaning up the streets, and it hasn't looked back and it's still not at peak. I think it's got a lot of space to grow. And now the focus downtown is the condos, right? So all the condos are popping up. And you remember what happened in Toronto when the condos started popping up. Now, I know it's not that big of a scale as it was in Toronto, the condos popping up, but those detached and semi detached homes around those condos are definitely going to jump up in pricing once those condos are fully occupied, right? So I'm super excited about LRT coming and a lot of great things are happening in the city and I love seeing investors like yourself gentrifying the know. And I know Sandy did that. I know Mark did that before, and it's great. It's great to see that because Hamilton gets a lot of bad publicity and it's changed a lot now. But my friend, back in the day in Toronto, I'm like, come to Hamilton. They're like, for.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I've seen massive change, massive change in the city from when I first bought my first one to now. Like, incredible change, for sure.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's going to keep growing, right?
[00:10:18] Speaker A: There's still a lot of room. Like you said, I read a stat the other day with the development happening in the downtown core, in the condo market, in the high rise, there's something like. I read it, there's something like 23,700 units coming to the downtown core of Hamilton. And this, I can'T remember the project name, but it's supposed to be completed within the next five years. And that doesn't even touch on the LRT and what that's going to do for the city. So if you have property in Hamilton and you can hold onto it for another five years, you're going to look like a genius, in my opinion.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: And that's what I've been saying to people. Multi units, the single families, I'm not really that keen on. You can sell them, not a big deal. But the multifamily, if it has the duplex, Triplex, Fourplex, Fiveplex holding on to them beyond the storm, which I call now the storm, I think it'll be worth it, especially if it's in the downtown core. I think downtown is just starting. It's just starting.
It's just going to grow. It's going to grow. And like I was telling people, I took my wife downtown Hamilton, and she was like, we're going downtown. She thought, we're going Toronto. She's like, Hamilton. Why are you taking me to downtown Hamilton? To eat? It's different now. She's seen people dressing up to go downtown.
Things have changed a lot. So I'm proud of that and happy that it's finally happening in our lifetime. So that's great.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Awesome. Let's talk a little bit about joint venture partnerships. And I touched upon that in your introduction, and you've done and you've been involved in some JVs, so obviously I have as well. And I have my own opinion on the good, the bad, the do's, the don'ts. But anyways, in your opinion, why is a JV partnership important in real estate investing?
Why is that JV partnership important to that investor? What can that do for them. What does that do for you? Why is that partnership important?
[00:12:44] Speaker B: So JV partnership is important for multiple reasons.
One of the main reasons, I would say, is because when you're JV, it's usually one person's asylum partner. One person is a working partner, and usually the silent partner has money, but they don't have time. And then the working partner has the knowledge and the connections. So I think it's super important because there's people out there that want to invest in real estate, but they don't know where to start. They don't know who to turn to. They don't have the connections.
They don't know if they want to get into a duplex or they want to get into Fiveplex. They don't know where to go.
And I think it's super important for them to connect with the JV, because connect with the person they can partner with, because that person probably has knowledge of doing that, and they have the connections, and they have the know how. They've done God knows how many properties. They have a portfolio, and that's super important because everything comes down to experience. Everything in life comes down to experience. Everything in business comes down to experience, because the more experience you have, the more you've dealt with the ups, the downs, the changing of the market, the rates going up, and you know how to navigate through the muddy waters. But if you're a new investor and you're doing it on your own, I definitely think that you should consider JV before doing it on your own, because you may lose a lot of money after that.
I've seen a lot of people get involved and think it's easy to flip properties, see a lot of people get involved and think it was easy to do a Burr strategy, and they lost money because they didn't have the right team around them, and they didn't have the right JV. So, going back to your point, it's extremely important to connect yourself with someone that doesn't, that's been doing it, that has experience and has the portfolio and has the connections. Right? At the end of the day, life is about connections and your network. And if your network isn't strong, your connections are not strong, then you can't really help anybody. So I think that's super important. Adrian, when you're jving with someone, and if I was to start again, I would JV with someone that's knowledgeable and has a portfolio, and that could walk me through what they've done, and they could tell me what I shouldn't be doing.
A lot of people do that.
A lot of people.
The Secret which you give, you'll get, right? So I think that first thing you should ask the JVs, what have you done? What's your portfolio?
What are you working on right now? Can I see some of your projects?
What are your trades charging? Right? Like, these things are all super important questions that you should be asking.
And when I was helping people flip properties, I would always say, hey, you call your contractors or call people out of wherever, yellow pages, wherever, and get some quotes from me, and then I will give you my quote of what I could get. So you could compare the two apples to apples.
And do you beat the other people's quotes? Because the bigger the company, the more they have to charge, right. The more overhead, the more expenses and stuff like that. So I always gave people the option. That's why they decided to work with me, because I be completely transparent with them. Right. So going back to your point, JV was someone that has experience, that has a portfolio, that is doing what they're talking about, not just talking about it.
There's a lot of people in the industry, agent, talking about it that are not doing it right. They may have been doing it in the past, but they're not doing it right now. Things change, right? So I'm sure when you started twelve years ago, things have changed a lot, right? With the properties that you purchased then and how they are now.
The landscape changes. Right? So even the cost of renovations, it's not the same flips. Seven, eight years ago, I could do a full house for 40, $50,000.
Those days are done.
So it's always good to get in contact with someone that knows what they're doing and has the crew and won't be BS, right?
Extra layer of protection can't be BS by a contractor, by engineers, by all the traits, right?
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Absolutely.
So if you don't mind sharing, approximately how many JV's partnerships have you had over the years?
[00:17:52] Speaker B: I've had probably.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Approximately.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Approximately, like I would say nine or ten that I've a fair.
It's usually. It's usually clients that want a JD after you do it, it's like you're doing it, Manny, I want to do it with you. We're already your client and we already trust you. And you can't say it's.
Go ahead.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: You said some really important words there that are so true. And I resonate with them.
People do business with people they like, they know and they trust. They trust, right. It's one of those three, or typically all those three, they know they like and they trust you, so they do business with you or two out of the three or whatnot.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Right?
[00:18:46] Speaker A: And you mentioned those two, and it's so important for people to have that to joint venture with you, because, obviously, I'm not sure how you structure your JVs, but you have the sweat equity and you have the capital partner, so to speak. And obviously, I'm assuming you're the sweat equity guy and you're the brain.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Most of the time. I'm the sweat equity guy because I'm doing it every day. We're doing it every day. Right? We're realtors.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: So let's jump back into it. Let me ask you this, because I get this a lot.
I get it a lot when I'm talking to potential JB partners, and maybe you do or maybe you don't, but you have a conversation with a JB partner, and the JB partner says to you, so, Manny, yeah, I really want to do something together. I like you. I trust you, this and that, but I just don't understand why I'm bringing all the money.
Like, I know you said, there's a capital partner, a SWAT equity partner, but you got no skin in the game.
I got all the skin in the game. I'm bringing all the money.
I don't think that's fair. I think if we went in 50 50, then, yeah, I would do some business with you. What do you say to that?
[00:20:12] Speaker B: So what I say to that is it took a long time and a lot of stress and pain and experience to go through what I went through, to learn what I've learned, and to connect with the people that I've connected with when it comes to money.
Like I said earlier, you can attract money.
I've attracted multimillion dollar JVs by being who I am, knowing what I know, and having the trades in my pocket, that could save us 20% to 30%.
So to me, if someone was to say that to me, I would say, okay, let's sit down and let's talk about all of the things that I'm going to be bringing to the table. I'm a realtor. I'm an investment focused realtor. I run the numbers, I deal with the trades, I manage the trades. I stay on budget. I deal with any fires. How much is that worth to you? I ask them, how much is that worth you? Is that worth the peace of mind to know that someone's dealing with everything?
Is that not worth your money?
So I put it back on them to kind of be like, hey, you're right. I'm not really having to worry about anything.
Yes. Now, if we're 50 50 partners and you're putting 50% in and I'm putting 50% and I'm doing the work, then you're going to have to pay me.
Then it doesn't really make sense. Right. You're going to have to pay me because what about that time that I'm putting that energy, all that extra maintenance, and all that extra stuff that I'm going to have to do? So it's not going to really work beneficial for you in that regard. Right. So you got to try to make them understand the pros and cons. And it usually happens with newer investors that don't understand the concept of it.
It doesn't really happen with experienced investors. I've met with million dollar investors, and what they say, Adrian, they say to me is just, they're pretty much betting on winning horses.
Can Manny be a winning horse? Does he look like a thoroughbred horse? Can he get us there to the endpoint and can he get us what we're looking for, the projections, so they understand they have to invest in people. Right. But it's the newer investors you got to make them understand kind of like the kind of work that happens behind the scenes. Right. I don't think that they really understand that. They don't grasp that. So you have to kind of go through it with them. Right. What are you going to do if this happens? Are you going to wake up in the middle of the night? Who are you going to call? You're going to end up calling me.
I'm going to have to take care of it.
They got to just understand how much work is involved, really. Once they understand the work that's involved, they'll be like, no, I'll be the money partner. Right? I'll be the money partner. You be the working partner, and we'll appreciate that in the long run. And most people do appreciate it after they understand how much work is involved with it. Right. And I love the experience of it. I do. Because the experience is priceless. It's priceless.
The headaches that I've gone through, the troubles that gone through. I've learned so much from architectural drawings to criteria that you have to have to driveways, everything that you got to learn through the process. Dealing with contractors.
The biggest component of this is dealing with contractors, Adrian, if you've never dealt with contractors, you're trying to flip a property. You're going to get taken.
Someone's going to take advantage of you.
If you're dressed fancy and you're coming in a fancy car, contractor is going to take advantage of.
That's the biggest value there. Having someone boots on the ground, that's from that city that knows that city. If the contractor is from the city, they can't bs you. So I find a lot of my Toronto investors, they used to get BS a lot by contractors in the city and there's a lot of price gouging happening, right, where something would cost $100 and they charge them 250, the investor would think that's a great deal. They're basing it on Torontoian pricing. They're not basing it on Hamiltonian pricing. Right.
So there's a lot of things. It's like a layer of protection, having a working partner with you.
I think anybody that's getting involved, you definitely need to partner with someone that's doing it because they have the team, they have the connections and they're not going to allow you to get hurt.
The skin in the game is, I'm putting my time. Time is more valuable than money.
You're never going to get time back. You'll get the money back.
To your point. I'll tell you about a situation where we're losing money on a property that I flipped, that we're supposed to sell. Market went belly up. Investors like Sell. I doN't Care about A 20, $30,000 loss. Well, wait A Minute. I do because I put all the time, energy I spent how many months running around.
I don't just lose 20, $30,000, I lose 70, $80,000 for the time and energy that I put in.
This is the kind of stuff that you're going to have to deal with when you're dealing with JVs. But as long as there's an open line of communication where you understand each other and you talk frequently, it'll be like, okay, this is what's happening. That's what's happening, but I'm dealing with it. You have to have that open Mind of communication. So I don't know how your experience is. I'm sure you've had lots of experience with that, too.
Where some JVs just don't understand. ThEy just don't understand.
They think that things fix themselves on their own and they don't know that you had a hand to play with plumbing. There's an issue with plumbing. I dealt with it. There's an issue with electrical, I dealt with it. Right.
And that's the thing. It's all about relationships, Adrian. If you have good relationships, people will kill for.
Like, I have people that if I call them five in the morning, they'll get up out of bed and they'll do things for me because they know that if they take care of me, they'll be fed and they'll have business forever. And that's the kind of relationships that I build. That's the kind of relationships I want to build with networking with people like yourself and other people that are in the industry, and maybe we can help each other. And that's the best way.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: You're partnering with an expert at the end of the day, and you touched upon it when you started answering the question. You've been in this game, you've been a realtor for X number of years, been an investor for X number of years. So you're bringing not only the sweat equity, but you're bringing ten plus years of experience that has cost you a lot of money to acquire over the years. The ups, the downs, the goods, the bads, and everything in between that. Now you're the teacher bringing all this experience above the sweat equity.
What is that worth? It's like if a plumber comes in and he fixes that tap, he charges you $100, and it took him two minutes.
You're right. He charged you $100 for two minutes worth of work. But maybe, have you ever thought about it? He was able to complete that project in two minutes because he's been a plumber for 15 years. So it took him 15 years to learn how to do that in two minutes. You have to pay for that.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: So if you're coming to the table with ten years plus of real estate investing experience, that's worth a ton of money. A ton of money. Just the money. It could save you from making all the same mistakes. Right. So you're coming to the table not only with your sleeves rolled up, but with an abundance amount of experience that's worth a ton more than, oh, you don't have any sweat equity. Sorry. Any skin in the game and whatnot. So I agree with you. Obviously, there's always two ways to look at something.
But on our side, the other thing.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: The last point I wanted to mention is, if someone wants milk, they'll go to a convenience store and they'll pay double. You know why they're paying double?
For the convenience.
They're paying double for the convenience. Right. They know it's cheaper if they go further, but they're wasting time going further. Right. So you got to kind of wait time, money.
What means more to you as an investor as anybody? Time is money.
Time is double money. So if you could save time, spend your money, and, you know, as an investor, if something's wrong and, you know, you can wait till Saturday to get it cheaper, but you got a tenant moving in tomorrow.
You're going to get it done now. It's going to cost you, but you're going to get it done now, right? Because you got a tenant tomorrow. So you got to weigh the pros and cons of time and money. And the huge thing that sweat equity guy brings is their time, their experience. And you missed the nail on the head with experience and the time. Time is so precious.
Being a realtor for twelve years, I've missed so many things that I wish I never missed. I missed birthdays, parties, spending time with my wife, my fiancee at the time, getting in trouble, getting yelled at.
I put in all that time for my clients, that energy. People only see the beautiful soul signs and the sold riders, they don't know how much work has been put into that.
Same with contracting. The contractors do so much work until they get it to the final point.
But when you do the final walk through, all you see is the final. You don't really understand what it took to get there, right.
So that time is so valuable, you'll never get it back.
If you could save your time, spend the money, you'll make the money threefold back.
I'm a fond believer in that. You'll make the money. Like back in my earlier days, I was like, no, spend the time, do it. But now I'm just like, no, your time is more valuable. Spend the money and have an expert with you and believe in their expertise and their experience, because that's what they're bringing to the table. So you hit the nail on the head.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: Absolutely.
All right. How do you navigate the ever changing real estate market with flipping properties? So, I e, do you still flip in this market? And what strategies have proven most effective during market fluctuations, in your opinion, or what are you doing in this ever changing market to make the numbers work, to make deals happen, so on and so forth? Are you still doing flips? Are you not? What are you doing now in this kind of a market?
[00:32:44] Speaker B: So we've paused off the flipping right now because the numbers, they don't make any sense at the current interest rates.
We took a step back from the flipping.
We got caught with a few.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Where.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: The market was doing really well. Last year we were buying and some of them we didn't even have to renovate. We put it back on the market three, four months later selling for 100,000 more, 50,000 more. It was just such a lucrative market last year where everybody was making money and it didn't even matter if you ran the numbers or not, the market was going like that. Right.
So my partners and I, they got a little excited. We got a little excited. Instead of buying two or three, we bought four or five and we got stuck with a few of them. We took a loss. The first loss I took in twelve years recently with church, because I never took a loss before and I took a loss on a property and a few other properties were holding onto. The ones that I'm holding on to I converted to duplexes. So they're kind of covering themselves for the rent.
But to go back to your question, how do you navigate?
The way you navigate is if you make it a multi unit and you could just withstand the storm, as you said, right now is a tough time in the market and withstanding it is if it covers itself or if you're negative a little bit. Right. It's okay because there's going to be light at the end of the tunnel. I think that with the population coming in, not enough housing, the green belt, there's so many factors working in the favor of an investor that has properties. It's just withstanding the storm that we're in right now. I haven't seen anything like this in twelve years, my whole real estate career, I haven't seen anything to this level.
So it's new to me too. And learning to hold on is, I think, going to be very tough for a lot of people.
I think in real estate you lose money when you panic, and you panic and you sell or you panic, you buy and you don't take the time to do your numbers or make sure that you're making a safe and sound investment or you're selling off something. So I think that right now, if you can hold on with the multi unit paying for itself, that's the way you should do it. But in the long term, flipping right now is out of the question for myself, unless I find something. That's a phenomenal deal.
But it's not like it was.
You renovate something beautifully and you list it a little bit lower and you get a biding one.
It's not there anymore.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: DefinitelY not.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: You got to shift your strategy to buy and hold.
[00:35:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
All right.
Just out of curiosity, because everybody's probably wondering, obviously you did a ton of flips, or a number of flips in your career. How many of you would you estimate you completed? Big, small, whatever. How many do you think you've taken part in over the course of your career?
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Probably around 26 or 27.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: Amazing. Obviously, there's no stranger to the flipping world.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: 27 flips I've done for myself, I've done for my clients, I've done for my partners.
One of the flips, we got really fortunate. I met a client, and we bought a property, very cheap, 430,000, the start of the pandemic. And we renovated her for 80,000. We sold it for 830. We made the front page of the newspaper. Her first very flip, first ever flip. She quit her job, and I got a lot of great phone calls from realtors, like, how did you do that? And that was the start of when it was just starting to get going.
May 2021, it just started to fly.
Anything is possible if you have the right team, Adrian, if you have the right team and they have the right connections and they know what they're doing, anything is possible. You just have to gain their trust, gain the JV's trust.
That's the main thing. They like you. I've always said this to my agents. I have a small team, and I've always said this to everybody. People are not going to work with people they don't like. It doesn't matter what they know. You can be the smartest person in the room. They don't like you, they're not going to work with you.
So if they like you and you're personable and you have knowledge and you gain their trust, that's it. They're going to work with you, and they're going to have a long lasting relationship with you because they feel like they can call you and tell you anything, right? And that's the kind of relationship that I build with my clients and my team and also with my partners, because if they're not open to tell you everything, then they're going to keep it inside, and then you're going to have bigger issues. Right? So you want everything to be out the open. So going back to what you said with the flips, I've done quite a few. I remember buying properties at 70, 80,000, the good old days.
Our first flip was like $70,000 on Harmony street, like, many years ago. And I seen that house actually sold for five something.
I've seen the city change. But back then, you weren't making that like you're making you're lucky to make 40, $50,000 on flip.
You're happy, right? You weren't making the amount of money you seen last year, the year before, which was like 200, $300,000. It was pretty crazy, especially if you're doing duplex flips. Duplex flips were doing really well. I'd seen duplexes actually go over a million dollars last year, and I was like, wow, I couldn't believe it.
But if I was getting started again, doing it again, I would have probably held a lot of, I wouldn't have flipped them.
I wasn't aware of the burst strategy.
You learn, right. You learn later on. Right. So once you learn, then knowledge is power, right. So now I've kept a few of them through the burst strategy, and buying and holding is the way to go. If you can somehow refi it out and get 80 or 70% of your money. You did well. You've done well.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Awesome.
Well, last question. We're just teeter tottering on 40 Minutes, so time when you're just kind of going back and forth, but obviously you're successful now in the way the world views success in real estate and real estate investing. So congratulations to you for that.
But when you, Manny, see and you picture and you think more to life, what is more to life?
When Manny visions that, what do you see for Manny?
[00:40:46] Speaker B: I want freedom of time to spend with my kids. I have a newborn, and I have a four year old, and missing things with them is like, what is it all for? At the end of the day, it's all for your family and your wife and your kids. And if you can't be there for those special moments, what are you doing, really? So more to life, to me, is about family, friends, being able to do things you enjoy outside of investing, which is like sports. I love sports.
A few years back, I started playing hockey again. I miss hockey. You know what mean, like, these things.
If you just work and nonstop work, it's a passion. Of course.
There's no end to numbers, Adrian. There's no end.
You can make so much, and then you'll be like, want more and more. And then it becomes greed, really. And what is it for? At the end of the day, it's for your family. You're trying to buy freedom. Really?
At the end of the day, we're all trying to buy freedom. We're all trying to buy time that we could spend things with our family or our friends or going on a vacation or going on a boat or buying a boat, right?
So when you say more to life, to me, it means spending time with my loved ones and working another ten years. I've already told myself I'm working another ten years and then I'm out. I'm not going to be doing what I'm doing now because that's why I'm going so hard right now, because I don't want to do this in another ten years beyond the ten years. Right. I want to be doing the things that I really enjoy. I really enjoy investing. I really enjoy real estate, being a realtor. But being a realtor is very taxing.
I know that you're a realtor, too. It's very taxing because you're kind of on call, and it's okay. When you're single, it's hard. When you have small children, it's hard when you're married, it's hard when there's family vacations booked and you could have a team, you could have all of that. And that's what I'm trying to build better and delegate a lot of the stuff, but it's taxing.
If you want freedom, it's taxing. So when it comes to more to life, it's about family.
At the end of the day, everything we do is for family. I think for me, it's all about family. As long as they're good and they have everything that I never had, my kids are happy and they run to me and they say, daddy, I missed you.
That's what it's about. At the end of the day, that's what it's about. Doesn't matter how bad of a day I have, my kid runs the door and, Daddy, I miss you. I love just you. Forget about.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: Absolutely amazing. So, Manny, thank you so much. How do people get a hold of you if they want to do business with you? Pick your brain on Hamilton and everything else to go with investing and JVs and so on and so forth. How do they find you so they.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: Can look me up on Instagram? It's Manny, u r realtor.
My phone number is 905-745-9966 it's on there. You look it up on Instagram.
We're pushing media stuff a lot. We have a podcast, a real side of real estate, which I'm going to have to have you on, Adrian. I have a chat there.
So we're pushing the social media. I have a team marquee, team marquee real estate advisors on Instagram, so you guys can look us up there. But no, it was a pleasure to be on. I appreciate your time, and thank you for having us on. Having me on. And it was fun and can't wait to have you on ours.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Yeah, man. No, thank you for being a guest, and I'm sure people will take value from it. Just the kind of casual fireside chat we had. It's like 43 minutes.
[00:45:23] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:45:24] Speaker A: Like time flies.
Yeah. Thank you for sharing your story and your experiences in the investment world, and we'll catch up soon.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Adrian. Thank you. Take care. Cheers.
