Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:03 Hey everyone. It's Adrian. Penoza here with the mortar life real estate investing podcast, where we help you get mortar life through the power of real estate investing. So guys, I wanna share with you before we get into our episode today, um, with some really, really cool guests who are crushing it in the Airbnb world. I want to talk to you about one of our most recent refinances that we've just completed and how the numbers played out. And here's just another example of what we do and how we do it. And the kind of returns we continue to get for our joint venture partners like infinite return on investment. So we'll take it from the top. We purchased this property towards the end of 2021, and it's four units, uh, multifamily residential four unit property. We purchased it for $600,000. Um, this property, this particular property was off market at the time.
Speaker 0 00:01:05 Uh, so 20% down payment, 120,000, which gave us a first mortgage of $480,000. We spent the total of $235,166 on renovations, massive renovation project. Our caring costs were 29,700 and our holding costs, sorry, our closing costs were 10,500 total of eight and a half months. Construction here, refinance, um, new value of the property. We forced the appreciation guys get this from $600,000 to 1 million, 210,000. So let's work the numbers backwards purchase, uh, sorry, refinance 1 million, two 10 subtract 20%, right? 20% for your rental property down payment gives us a new mortgage of $968,000. So now we just subtract. We work the numbers backwards. So 968 minus our original down payment of one 20 minus our original first mortgage of four 80 minus our renovation budget of 235,000 1 66 minus 29,700 caring costs minus 10,500 closing costs. What does that all mean, guys? When you take that and you subtract and you subtract and you minus and you minus, what does it all mean?
Speaker 0 00:02:46 Well, for this particular property, I'll tell you what it means. Every single nickel we got out of that property that we put into it, our joint venture, property acquisition, JV money, every single nickel, every single penny we got out of that property. Plus we walked away drum roll. We walked away with $92,634 surplus, infinite, infinite return on investment. And this particular property cash flows over a thousand dollars a month. True story. So guys, if you're interested in learning more about how to crush, how to create infinite return with the power of the Burr strategy, reach out to me, send me an email. Adrian, invest with epc.com or find us on social media. Definitely can walk you through these numbers again and explain to you exactly what happened in this project and how we crushed and so on and so forth. Love to chat with you.
Speaker 0 00:03:59 We definitely can work the same kind of numbers with you with our company, uh, and joint venture partnerships. So reach out, we'll explain to you how the joint venture partnerships work, how we can work together, how we can create these kind of infinite returns with you. I mean, it's a no brainer own a house, none of your money. Plus what I say, $92,634 surplus creating infinite return on your money. Look forward to hearing from you and getting involved in maybe doing some business together, or at least maybe bare minimum, giving you some advice now onto our episode. Hey everyone, it's Adrian. Penoza here with the more to life real estate investing podcast, helping you get more to life. So you can start living your dreams through the power of real estate. Investing our guests today are Spencer Giles and Ashley anti dormy. They are real estate investors with a specialization in the Airbnb rentals, predominantly in the Niagara region. Spencer and Ashley have stay luck properties have had tremendous success with their short term stay strategies in the nag region and still manage to travel and live a freedom lifestyle, which I can definitely say is what we are all after to achieve. So guys, Spencer nationally, welcome to the more to life real estate investing podcast. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 1 00:05:30 Thanks for having us stadium. We appreciate it. We're we're looking forward to this.
Speaker 0 00:05:33 Awesome. Awesome. How was your weekend guys? It is Monday morning here. Uh, May 30th.
Speaker 2 00:05:40 Um, it was a, it was a good one. One for the books, I think.
Speaker 1 00:05:43 Yeah, definitely very busy. And uh, you know, this past weekend actually, um, on Friday was my last day in the corporate world. So back to the free life, we're officially free. Now. We, we were doing a lot of, of travel cause I was working remote, but now I don't have to, uh, I don't have to get more creative. We can just go. Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:06:02 <laugh> amazing. And you guys are a few years younger than me, I think. How old are you guys?
Speaker 2 00:06:09 I'm 34.
Speaker 1 00:06:10 I'm
Speaker 0 00:06:10 29, 29 last day in the corporate world.
Speaker 1 00:06:15 You got it? Yeah, my goal was before 30. Uh, no more nine to five.
Speaker 0 00:06:19 Wow. Congratulations. That's amazing. So I was 36. Um, when I left the police department, I was a police officer for a number of years, but I was 36 when I started, um, uh, my journey. No, that's, that's actually wrong. I was 36 when I started buying rental properties and I left the police department a lot, a lot older than you <laugh> I was, uh, 43. So 29 43, uh, Spencer you're you're well ahead of the game. Congratulations. And so are you actually for that matter, but yeah, congrats guys. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 00:07:00 Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:07:01 Amazing. So let's get right into it. If we can, obviously a ton of information you guys want to get out there, some golden nuggets, stuff like that, but let's start nice and easy. Both of you guys can, uh, pitch in here and there, but tell us how it all started. Tell us about your journey in this space.
Speaker 2 00:07:18 Uh, so it kind of started, um, I bought a property, the one that we're living in now about 12 years ago and I really just wanted to get outta the house. I'm born and raised in Niagara and I wanted to get outta the house and feel like renting made sense in the same area. So I bought a house and kind of house hacked. I had roommates upstairs. They basically paid for me to live here. And then when I met Spencer, he kind of got into it by a good buddy of his,
Speaker 1 00:07:43 Yeah. So about three and a half, I guess, almost four years ago. Now I had a friend that had four or five student rentals and he was still working his full time job. And it was a pretty decent job, but this guy was buying a few properties every year and I'm like, I know that job pays well, but how are you? How are you forwarding multiple houses each and every year? So I, I reached out to him. He was a good university friend of mine and I said, look, you know, let's, let's grab lunch, just grab a beer. I want to hear what's going on. And he kind of introduced me to the whole bear method on how he was buying these value, add plays, um, you know, renovating it, getting the rents up, getting, you know, four or five students in there at 500 bucks a pop, you know, this was back in the day when you can buy a property for 2, 2 50, um, and then pulling that equity out to continue to, to move on.
Speaker 1 00:08:32 So when he opened my eyes to that, I was, I was kind of blown away and the next step I, I had some capital and said, look, let's partner on it. Uh, you're the expert. I know nothing. I want to, you know, do it right the first time because you know, the start's super important. So his realtor who is also a very successful investor in this area had a bunch of Airbnbs and he basically sat down with us and said, Hey, look, you guys should consider doing some short term rentals. The cash flows insane. So looked into it a little bit. It, it checked out and, you know, nervously, we found a, a very nice property. Well, wasn't nice at the time, but a, a property in a very good area. It was right across from a beach that had so much potential. And, uh, it was a value add, play, same thing, the Burr. And it did extremely well in Airbnb. We were blown away with the, the cash flow that we were getting on. It, it was north of two grand net a month, which, you know, I was originally gonna be happy with 800 to a thousand with a regular rental at the time. And we were hooked from there. Um, I
Speaker 2 00:09:36 Was a little jealous and I wanted in, yes. So I, uh, took a HeLOCK on the house I have now. I had a lot of equity in it at the time and we purchased another one down the street, did the exact same thing, bird, a short term rental like did so much. We actually partnered with, um, someone else and purchased one in the same area around the corner bird, a short term rental as
Speaker 1 00:09:55 Well. Yeah. So with about a year, and I'd say just under a year and a half, we had three all within a two minute walk from each other just because that area was, was so good. And, um, yeah, that's, that's just kind of how we got started and we we've, we've grown ever since using that method. And we, we informed a property management company, uh, to scale even faster.
Speaker 0 00:10:15 Amazing, amazing. So couple steps there, you're finding. So your first couple, there you're two or three here that you're talking about. Um, so they're distressed, you're you're incorporating the birth strategy. Yes.
Speaker 1 00:10:31 Correct.
Speaker 0 00:10:33 Okay. So what was the average purchase price if you don't mind me asking?
Speaker 1 00:10:38 So the first one that I purchased my partner was just under three 10 is like 3 0 8, 3 0 9. Um, we put about 60 to 70 into it, and then we were financed it at, I think it was four 50. Um, so we got a decent chunk. It wasn't a perfect bird, but we got most of our money back, um, plus the great cash flow and it was enough to have enough liquid to move on to, to the next project. And then what did we get? This 3 93 was the one down the street, like about a year later. Mm-hmm
Speaker 2 00:11:08 <affirmative> we didn't, uh, refi that right away. We waited a year.
Speaker 1 00:11:11 Yeah, no, that one, that one was more, but we bought it. I think we close on it in may and high season starts in may. So we did like a very fast, I know we were
Speaker 2 00:11:20 Like 20, 25 K
Speaker 1 00:11:21 Working our rear end off just making it more cosmetically appealing, like granite countertops. We added a, you know, custom bathroom, the backyard, we fixed up a lot and it was just a matter of just getting it ready for the high season and making sure that, you know, it was, it was ready for success. Like we didn't want to rush it, but we were also <laugh> in crunch time. So then the, the one down the next one, that one was a much more distressed property. That one we got for three,
Speaker 2 00:11:47 It was condemned.
Speaker 1 00:11:47 Yeah. That one was for 3 43. The banks wouldn't touch that one. It's actually been our best one to date if I were to, if I had to pick one mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, so we actually had to go private on that for the six months rentals. It was, it was in really, really rough shape. Um, but like I said, that one, we, we pulled all of our money out and from a cash flow perspective, it's been our best property, just the location, where it is and how the finish has worked out and played. They, uh, it does really well.
Speaker 0 00:12:14 Yeah. Amazing. And what did you pay for that last
Speaker 1 00:12:17 1, 3 43 for that last one?
Speaker 0 00:12:21 And how much did you put into it? Roughly,
Speaker 1 00:12:24 Probably around a hundred. I mean, we, we partnered with, um, like one of my good friends and his father who's extremely handy. So we were fortunate to have that side of the partnership where, you know, we saved a ton of money up front because he was doing a lot of the work. Um, the labor, this guy could build a house from ground up and now, you know, inherently, they have a very successful flipping business that was the, the start of, of their journey. And, and they flipped like, I think 10 houses this year already, and they're doing really well
Speaker 2 00:12:52 <laugh> and then we got a mortgage on it. Uh, it was appraised at 5 0 1.
Speaker 0 00:12:57 Nice, nice.
Speaker 2 00:12:59 Wow. And it does over a hundred K a year as a short term rental.
Speaker 0 00:13:04 Wow. Yeah. That's pretty good return on your money. I'd say. Oh, bad. Amazing. So what year was it that this all started 2020
Speaker 1 00:13:15 18? I think right. 2018 was the first one when you did. Yeah. And then the next two we bought in 2019. Yeah. So not that long ago, but it feels like a long time ago. Yes.
Speaker 0 00:13:24 Yeah. So between those three, what would you say a month you're bringing in, in cash flow approximately?
Speaker 1 00:13:33 Uh, I mean, if you were to average it out, probably about 2,500, the, the, the last one does upwards of 35 to four net. Um, and then the other time a month. Yeah. Yeah. And in the summertime, obviously it flex works. That's averaging it out over a 12 month span cuz you have your slow season in the summer. They'll they'll make like 15 grand in cash flow. But um, yeah, I would say probably about if you were to average it out, the other two, do you vote 2000 and that the last one does close to four mm-hmm
Speaker 0 00:14:01 <affirmative> a month. A month. So between those three, you're bringing in, let's say four, two and two. Is that give or take? Yeah. So you're bringing about eight pay a month.
Speaker 2 00:14:12 Yeah. On that. He's been there since, uh he's since uh, sold his first one. Yeah. Last year. So we just have the two now.
Speaker 0 00:14:19 Oh, I see. Okay. Okay, cool. That's pretty good money. Well, that's really good money actually. Yeah. <laugh> what about like, are these duplexes one up one down or what single family homes or what
Speaker 2 00:14:35 They're single family homes. We find that, uh, single family homes are better for Airbnb. Um, what people wanted, especially with, through the pandemic and now after is they want their own space, including an outside backyard space. Right? High season is our summer and people wanna be outside and they want to be outside just with their own group. So we're finding a lot of people are getting together. Like two families are coming together with some kids they're renting out these houses, they wanna cook their own meals. They wanna have a backyard space for everyone to run around and have fun. Um, and we find if you, you can, you do a duplex, but you can't charge as much. And then you have the issue. If one side is too loud or causing havoc, it's going to hurt the review on the other side. Right. Right. And then if the backyard is shared, it's not always a great thing. It always
Speaker 1 00:15:26 Work. Yeah. Like I think that it's more in this location. I, I know there's like the bigger cities and mm-hmm <affirmative> um, where you're getting a lot more people coming for work than multi families. We've seen a lot of people have a lot of success. So not to say that it doesn't work mm-hmm <affirmative> um, but we've kind of tailored our, um, I guess like who we're marketing to is more of like a higher end family stay. So we want to charge more, we don't necessarily care about occupancy rate. We'd rather just get to that top dollar. And if we can get there with 55% occupancy and have less wear and tear, you know, we'd much rather prefer that and keep, you know, the home in really good condition.
Speaker 0 00:16:02 Gotcha. Yeah. It sounds like a plan for sure. Um, something I just kind of thought of right now, as you guys are talking, um, how did COVID affect you? How did COVID affect your business?
Speaker 2 00:16:15 So in the areas where we own those particular rentals business sword, it did really, really well because, uh, people who would normally go away, uh, just went down the highway for the most part and wanted to be by a beach. They wanted their own space, their own house, buy a beach in a quiet neighborhood, um, buy trails. That's what these homes have. So they did really well in terms of the management business, the man, the ones we managed in Niagara falls took a really big hit because that you're getting more international tourists and we didn't really have as many.
Speaker 0 00:16:51 Right. So the one by the beach, where is that?
Speaker 2 00:16:55 North end? St Catherine's.
Speaker 0 00:16:57 Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. For sure. And on average, so now obviously the business has sustained itself. You guys are doing well, like a single family home there in Niagara that you have on the Airbnb. What do you on average? What's what's going right at night. I know, obviously weekends, maybe do you rent by the week or do you guys go dating? No,
Speaker 1 00:17:20 We're we, we protect our weekends. So we're a minimum, two nights stay on weekends, minimum three nights on like the long weekends. Um, so we have that in effect, but I would say like in the summertime, in the weekends, we're getting anywhere from 800 to 1500 plus, um, you know, I guess some of our ones and I are gonna lake do more than that. Um, and then during the slow season, probably anywhere from 1 99 on like the low end to 5 99. Yeah. Just, you know, we, yeah. For, for pricing, when there's high demand, you want to be last to book, right? People are always looking for a last minute getaway and willing to pay more and you kind of have to bite your tongue. And again, it's a little nerve wracking, but you know, it's gonna book up versus the slow season. You actually want to try to market too far out in advance because there's less people searching mm-hmm <affirmative> so you wanna make your pricing a lot more appealing there. And I it's one of the most important things when running a, a short term rental is your pricing strategy.
Speaker 2 00:18:19 And we usually pivot, um, try to pivot to more midterm rentals during the slow season. We get a lot of people down for work and we'll negotiate a monthly, um, rent. So for us, usually that's around 5k a month, which is still good cash flow. It's just not as good as the high season.
Speaker 0 00:18:39 Yeah. Mm-hmm <affirmative> well for here in Hamilton, you know, we typically need minimum of triple plaque fully occupied to even come close to maybe just a little over than 5k a month. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, so yeah, you're, you're producing that with a single family home, which is again, probably a, a lot less headache than running a multifamily space in that regard, who do you use, or I guess you have your own company now with respect to cleaning and getting it ready for the next guests and whatnot.
Speaker 2 00:19:16 We work with different cleaning teams. We don't hire or like own those teams. Our management team just works with other cleaning teams in the area. And we, we work with a few main ones and then quite a few other small ones as we was, we're getting larger. But cleaning is your number one. It's the backbone of running a short term rental without them, you are nothing, right. Like if there's not good cleaning reviews, if they're not there on time, when they should be, um, if everything's not perfect, you will literally be shut down from Airbnb.
Speaker 1 00:19:46 And we, when we started, we were looking for, I mean, a lot of the, the companies they weren't already like massive or, or, or I guess really established, but they were very eager and open to take on more business. And, and since then they've grown with us, which is great. And that's kind of what we look for when we're entering like a new area and, and partnering up with a new cleaner, like we'll help train them on what they need to do and kind of the expectation that it is. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> obviously they get paid a lot more than a typical once a week cleaner would go in and, and get. So there's, it's lucrative cuz they're there two to three times a week. Um, but yeah, we, you know, we've since then given them the opportunity to grow their business and you know, basically we're, we're keeping, 'em so busy it's uh, you know, it's a good partnership. Good.
Speaker 0 00:20:33 Yeah. Awesome. All right. So 2021 seemed to be a big year for the, both of you preparing you both to leave your jobs around the same time. And if I'm not mistaken, um, we heard from Spencer, Ashley, what'd you do before? Um, full time.
Speaker 2 00:20:53 I was in HR and I left in September of 2021.
Speaker 0 00:20:57 Oh, okay. So recently as well. Yep. Amazing. How long were you in HR for like how long did you hold that career?
Speaker 2 00:21:06 Uh, I believe it was seven years.
Speaker 0 00:21:09 Gotcha.
Speaker 2 00:21:10 With the same company.
Speaker 0 00:21:12 Right. Um, and obviously we heard from Spencer at the young age of 29. He put in his last, uh, Friday of the, before the weekend, which is incredible. Yeah. Let's talk about the mindset cuz your story sounds very similar to mine. As my company started to grow and my portfolio started to grow, we started to, um, incorporate all these companies per se. What was your mindset on starting travel Lux, property management company.
Speaker 1 00:21:43 Yeah. So we're always looking to scale, right. And we, we try to surround ourselves with people that are doing better than us and we've done a good, good job thus far. And there's a, there's a common correlation between all of them and they all, they all think bigger, right? They always, they're always looking to get out of that comfort zone. And we had these three in about a year and a half, which seems fast, but to us felt super slow after we had the first one we wanted 10 tomorrow. So Hey, how can we scale this? We have the tools, we have the knowledge, you have the expertise. We have the team. How can we, how can we get 10 in the next five months? So we got the idea of, you know, there was the arbitrage that was, that was thought of, which is still a great method, but then there's the other idea of like, Hey, we can do these for other investors.
Speaker 1 00:22:32 Like obviously if it was this, you know, uh, attractive for us, this must be equally attractive for other investors. So I started just by putting a K Gigi add out and we got our first one via that way. It was like a very informal Tim Horton's meeting. Um, that was going really well. And then I have some friends that have a, a, a digital marketing company they've been doing it for at that time. It was already six or seven years and they're very good at what they do. We were golfing and I kind of explained the business and they were super interested as well. And basically came to us saying like we could below this up. So we actually ended up partnering with them and that's
Speaker 2 00:23:11 How travel X got
Speaker 1 00:23:11 Created. That's that's, you know, long story short, how it, how it got created was basically K Gigi and then the golf course. Yeah. <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:23:19 And you know what guys, I love that story because it just, for everybody out there listening, like it, things have a way of growing, but you know, sometimes it's just the simplest of things and the ideas that kind of just bring to the forefront and then, you know, having the courage and the drive to push and start, uh, and some people turn around and say, ah, we could never do that. Nah, it's probably not gonna work. Ah, this, ah, that one excuse after the other, but what started out as Kijiji and a day on the golf course turned out too. So what, how many properties or how's that business grown over, I guess since you started it,
Speaker 2 00:23:59 That's uh, that's really blown up. I think we've onboarded about 35. We're at 35 clients here. We have more coming in the next few weeks. We've also expanded out west. We have someone who is running a division of travel X out in the BC area and he's up to 10.
Speaker 1 00:24:19 So yeah, we'll be, we'll be just over. We're gonna be over 50, 50 properties managed probably by the end of I say next month. Yeah. We just have a few that are getting their supplies and furniture and stuff in place, but we've been basically onboarding two or three every week, the last few weeks.
Speaker 2 00:24:36 And we're expanding out into Alberta and recently we'll be expanding out into Nova Scotia as well.
Speaker 0 00:24:43 Incredible man. Absolutely
Speaker 2 00:24:46 Incredible. And honestly, just as how, how did you start this? Uh, two years ago and honestly two years ago. End of 2019. Yeah. Like to speak to what you had said before. We didn't think that it would take two years for this to blow up to the point where we could leave our job. I feel like leaving our job was more of like a five year plan and last year just kind of got to the point where we're like, we can't continue to work two full-time jobs. And um, it, it kind of speaks to definitely thinking bigger because it happens faster than what you believe it could possibly happen in. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:25:20 Like again, it didn't necessarily feel like we were, cuz again, we both had full time jobs. It didn't necessarily feel like we were working from, you know, 5:00 PM to 2:00 AM every night. It was, we were just doing small things every day mm-hmm <affirmative> and then, you know, it's kind of crazy, but you wake up one day and you're like, Hey, we've got 50 clients now. Like how did that happen? It's like, it's, it's, you know, hard, hard to explain. It's just, it's the power of taking action, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:25:47 Yeah. And you hit, you hit the nail on the head taking action. And then one, one of the things you said when we first started the interview, you said something like, uh, you know, surrounding yourself with the people, the right people around yourself and networking with the right people and starting with the right team and the right network of people around you and then taking action. I mean, you're, you guys are living proof and you're so young and you're living proof that yeah, if you have a plan and you have an idea and you have the right people supporting you and you take action and you have some courage too to, uh, maybe fail, but you know, what, what do they say? Um, fail forward. If you're gonna fail, you only grow by failing. You never really look at it as a positive cuz you'll never make that mistake probably again. So yeah. 50 properties under management or managing 50 properties. And it started out as a kid Gigi out in your first meeting was at Tim Horton's.
Speaker 1 00:26:46 Yeah. Yeah. You got it. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:26:47 Guys. That's that's
Speaker 1 00:26:49 I'm glad you showed up for that. <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:26:51 Yeah, yeah, exactly. So to find time, freedom and a lot of us are in the game for the time. Freedom, obviously financial freedom is, is great as well, but time freedom, you have to put a focus on outside management to help with your portfolio and have the right systems in place. Um, how do you properly run and cash flow with St?
Speaker 2 00:27:21 So one of the big things we we're all about time, freedom, like you said before, we're big travelers. We wanna be able to travel more, um, is we put systems in place where we don't have to be here in order for the business or to run the short term rentals. One of them will be automation. Um, that includes with your cleaners. We do not schedule our cleaners. They schedule themselves and they have access to the calendar of every property that they clean and they go in twice a week and they make a schedule for themselves. Anything within a, that comes in within 72 hours is a quick text. Like, Hey, just making sure you saw that because they also get an email when a booking comes through and they schedule themselves. Um, another one we have are contingencies, like having, um, a door code. So it's self check in at the door. You don't have to meet someone at the property, but then having a backup lockbox with a physical key in case cuz technology will fail in case that door code fails. So you don't have to run over and, and supply it.
Speaker 1 00:28:21 Yeah. And then just having contingencies for everything, you have to assume that, you know, everything will go wrong. So what's, what's your backup plan. So even, even just having like a hidden key somewhere for like an additional supply closet that has extra supplies, like, you know, we're all human, we've all made mistakes Claytons will make mistakes too. Um, they're especially during high season, they're super busy. So having, you know, adequate supplies, we always have like three to five months worth stocked away at our properties. Mm-hmm <affirmative> you try to, at least if you have the space that way, like if a guest ever has an issue, they run outta something or they, or they need something you can most likely troubleshoot it or whoever's running that property can troubleshoot it from the phone. So it's all done remotely because that was our goal. We love to travel. And you know, when we're, we're in Southeast Asia, it's gonna be, uh, quite a long flight to get some toilet paper over to our guests. So we, uh, yeah. Yeah. We have things in place like that.
Speaker 0 00:29:15 Amazing. Awesome. Um, are you guys still looking for deals now?
Speaker 1 00:29:22 Always. Always. Yeah. Always. We just closed on one on the lake. We really like that area right now. It's more expensive, but again, we're tailoring to the more high end luxury. Cause that's where I think like the biggest profit margins in cash flow is now. Um, but yeah, we're, we're always looking all over. Not in just this area. You have to be careful with certain, um, municipalities and their bylaws. Mm-hmm <affirmative> ni Nire and the lake is they're firm, but they're fair. They have a three bed, three bedroom cottage rental, uh, permit that you can get. Um, so as long as you play within the rules there, it's, it's pretty straightforward. But you know, there are other areas like Niagara falls that are a lot more strict. You have to be zoned in a specific area. And St Catherine's recently implemented a, um, licensing program, but they're, uh, they're being a little difficult to, uh, to obtain. So there's, there's, there's definitely workarounds and there are some people that have got it, but it's, it's more difficult in St Catherine's for sure.
Speaker 0 00:30:19 Right. So how are you finding good deals? Are you guys working off market on market, both? How are you guys finding your deals?
Speaker 1 00:30:29 Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit of everything. Like we're constantly browsing the MLS. Like we work with a, you know, a specific realtor that owns a bunch of them himself. So when he, he, he gets a lot of off markets that he'll send our way, if it's, uh, you know, something too small for him. I like to say <laugh>, but, uh, honestly it's just like word of mouth. We have relationships with a lot of flippers that they might have gotten a really good deal on a house. We can work something out with them, um, where we get it off market and it works out where it's mutual, usually beneficial for them. Um, but yeah, that's, I'd say that's pretty much it like the, we, we like specific locations, so we're, we're really targeting those areas if you just want to go to specifically the Niagara region, but we've also been looking in the states, we've bought a few in, across the border already, so we're starting to, uh, starting to broaden the horizon diversify a little. Yeah. Expand the, that way.
Speaker 0 00:31:27 Cool. All right. So we're gonna get to our lightning round quick Q and as, um, tons of information there. And I'm sure people will reach out to you to pick your brain and, or potentially get into business with you guys. But before we, um, before we end off here, um, nobody can be an overnight success in this real estate game. I think we all know that if you had to restart your career, and I know it's only been a short career and you've done extremely well to date, where would you do it? And how would you start over again, if you could take what you knew now and start again from scratch, would you do anything different? And if so, what?
Speaker 1 00:32:16 I don't really think so, like we've, we've kind of gotten it to a point where it's systemized and we can scale as fast as we want. Now I would just, again, in terms of where I, from an Airbnb perspective, I would go where the municipality is, you know, more for it. And they're more open to it just to limit risk, but we've always purchased with exit strategies, mind too. Like that's a big one that that's like, that's our biggest staple is like, Hey, don't just buy this $2 million property and don't have any other option. Like if you're gonna, you have to sell it at a loss or you can't rent it for enough to at least cover, then it's, it's not something we usually like to entertain unless like the city is like a hundred percent for it, but you always have to assume that that things can go wrong. So I would just keep that in mind on like the location and honestly, just continue to, to do what we are, what we're doing now. Just we'd be able to do a little bit faster. Yeah. Cause we've, we made the mistakes along the way to, uh, to kind of saved some time there.
Speaker 0 00:33:18 Yeah. And for everybody listening, um, out there, Spencer just said something absolutely amazing. The mistakes we've made along the way. So guys, for everybody listening, everybody makes these mistakes. You just have to take action and allow yourself to grow by making those mistakes. Right. And here's a here's Spencer and Ashley that have openly admitted the mistakes we've made, but here they are, and they're still successful and you guys are still growing and you're still pushing forward. So speaks volumes. What is your, why, why do you do what you do?
Speaker 2 00:33:55 Um, time freedom is our big why we want to be able to travel more than just the four weeks a year that we were traveling before. Um, we're both very similar in terms of, we, we just don't like being told what to do. So it was never really great for entrepreneurial minds to be stuck in an office from nine to five. We want to, if we wanna fly to Bali tomorrow, we wanna be able to do it. Um, time freedom was a hundred percent our why?
Speaker 1 00:34:23 Yeah. We're, we're big experience people. Yeah. And I will say it was, it was a lot of motivation, but it also really frustrated me is like, again, a lot of our friends are already entrepreneurs and successful in working for themselves. And a lot of the times it would be two or three weeks before like, Hey, we're going to Florida for a week or, Hey, we're going to Arizona. We're going to Las Vegas. So we're doing this trip to Spain. Do you want to come? And we'd have to say no, cause we've used our vacation time. So yeah. I'm really glad those happened because it fired us up. It's like, okay, this time, next year when someone asked that question, like yeah, yeah, no problem. When when's the flight. Um, but yeah, just that, that was our big driver. And
Speaker 2 00:35:01 We've experienced that this trip, cuz we actually leave on Wednesday for five weeks where in Europe and that trip has been extended twice already. And we just love that people are like, Hey, I'm actually gonna be in Greece. Um, when you're in Europe, do you wanna meet? And we're like, yeah. <laugh> cause we can. Absolutely.
Speaker 0 00:35:18 Wow. Awesome. So you're very successful now guys. And we say that relative to how the world views success. Do you think there's still more to life for you both and when you picture more to life, what do you see?
Speaker 2 00:35:39 My goodness, that's such a, a loaded question. Obviously there's more to life. We are both very driven and competitive people. We would never be able to just say, you know what, we're good here. Um, we have big, big dreams. We would love since we love to travel. We, we would love to own a vacation rental in other countries, multiple other countries and expand our management business international. Um, yeah. You
Speaker 1 00:36:05 See, I mean the, the one thing that we've really tried doing, cuz like obviously things have been going very well, but to my point there we're surrounding ourselves with people who are always doing bigger and better things. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so it's very easy to see that and go, oh crap. Like we need to step our game up. Like you constantly have that almost anxiety of like, we're not, we're not working hard enough. We're not doing this and that's also not necessarily good either. So we have to practice, you know, take a note outta Gary V's book here, but gratitude. Yeah. We have to take a step back and say like, Hey, we've come this far, we've done this and this amount of time. And, and, and kind of really like, you know, be appreciative of what we have, but at the same time, you know, find that perfect balance of like, you know, enjoying what we have, but also continuing to grow cuz we are competitive or we're not just gonna be staying it and happy with what we have that's for sure.
Speaker 2 00:36:54 We also have a couple, um, buildings, um, six unit buildings. So we wanna get more into the multifamily, get bigger in terms of that as well. So just, I think more like diversifying,
Speaker 0 00:37:05 Amazing, amazing guys. Well we're just at 33 minutes. So that's been an awesome, awesome episode. Um, call to action for everybody out there who wants to talk to you guys, get into business with you guys. Um, start a, start a conversation with you guys. How do people get a hold of you too?
Speaker 2 00:37:30 We're very active on social media. So you can find us on Instagram at Spencer and Ashley. That'll probably be the best way to get us
Speaker 0 00:37:38 Awesome. Well, that's it guys. I there I'm like overwhelmingly impressed and I've been at this game now for 11 years and 375 doors, um, in my portfolio. So I'm over the moon, impressed at such a young age and everything you've acquired. Um, and God knows sky's the limit. If you keep up with this attitude. So congratulations guys, I appreciate you coming on board and talking to our audience and I wish you nothing but continued success. And if I can help you out down the road or just touch paths, you guys know how to get ahold of me, but congratulations again. Enjoy Europe for the next five weeks. Is it
Speaker 2 00:38:25 Five weeks?
Speaker 1 00:38:26 You got it? Yeah. Thanks Aiden. We, we appreciate you having us on this is great.
Speaker 0 00:38:31 All right guys, take care.
