Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. It's Adrian Pinozo here with the more to life real estate investing podcast. Welcome back to season two of More to Life. We've taken a few months off summer months and whatnot just to little bit of R R and recharge our battery, so to speak. But we're back and I'm so excited for this next season of the podcast. And I can't wait, guys, to share with you some more amazing guests like the one we have here today on our show for season two. So join us as we continue a journey with some incredible people in this industry who can share what they've done. Do's don'ts wins, losses, because there's wins, there's always losses, and so on and so on. We've had such a great following our first year.
Some amazing feedback, some amazing guests, some amazing comments which encouraged me to come back for season two of the Mortar Life Real Estate Investing podcast. Before we get into our guests today, I'm going to give you a quick rundown. Some of you are probably wondering what has Adrian and the EPC team been up to since we last heard from them in season one. So guys, we've been busy. I know the market's a completely different market right now with interest rates and everything like that, but I'm a firm believer, practice what you preach. And I know things will turn around and I know we will see cash flow again one day. And I know rates will come down one day. And I know that right now is an incredible opportunity to take advantage of some great deals out there. Not every deal is a great deal, but I know there's great deals out there to take advantage of right now. So again, I'm a perfect example of practice what you preach. So we've shifted into the apartment building space for a number of reasons and we're going to do an episode just on the reasons why EPCs shifted into the apartment building space. And I'm not going to get into that today, but we've been busy. So we already purchased six buildings, six apartment buildings this year in 2023 and just the apartment buildings alone. We've added 60 doors to our portfolio this year alone. So we've been busy. We're taking action and I'm super excited to hit our goal for 2023 and that's to take that 60. Our goal was to improve our portfolio by 100 doors in 2023. We're at 60 out of that hundred and we're just getting into this last quarter. I know we're going to be able to do it whole other episode itself. So let's get back to our guest who's waiting patiently. And thanks for that. Safe. Today I want to welcome Safe from new Four. Safe is a visionary dreamer and a master renovator behind tiny homes, garage additions. Safe has renovated over 100 get this one, guys. He's renovated over 150 units in three years. A self pronounced workaholic when he's not at the office. He's on the hunt for abandoned real estate that can be turned into luxurious rentals in great neighborhoods. Tons of experience here, guys. Armed in boundless creativity and unwavering passion, safe breathes new life into these abandoned properties, transforming them into awe inspiring homes. So a ton of knowledge in the construction renovation industry. Glad to have him here and share his knowledge with all of our listeners. Welcome to the more to life real estate investing podcast. Safe, how are you today?
[00:04:13] Speaker B: I'm great, Adrian. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Amazing. Thank you for being here and thank you for being patient as I went through that whole introduction and whatnot. You've just been sitting there waiting to rock and roll, and I appreciate that. So why don't we get right into it and I'll tell everybody a funny story at the end. How I met this gentleman two years ago. Yeah, two years ago. Tell you a funny story at the end of the podcast because I know everybody wants to hear what are you all about, right? What is this guy all about? Why is he so great? So why don't we get right into that? Tell us a little bit more about your business, your company, and the projects that you and your company take on.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Sure. So we are general contractors. We're based in Hamilton, and our bread and butter is investment properties, typically full guts where we go in, completely gut them. But we don't do the bare bones renovation. We typically do something that's a little bit nicer, so we do the layouts a little bit better, a little bit nicer material, nicer tile in the bathroom and things of that sort. So, like you already mentioned, in the past three years, we've done 150 units and a unit.
It could just be, for example, two units as a duplex, but sometimes we have end users call us in for full home guts and obviously commercial spaces as well. So the scale of one project varies drastically, but we've still nonetheless done quite a bit in the past three years.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it sounds like it.
I think you mentioned before when we were just chatting there before we started recording, you obviously even got single family homes. But I guess that's your smallest renovation per se and scaled your knowledge in renovations and in working with investors. What's your biggest project, per se that you guys worked on?
[00:06:13] Speaker B: The biggest project was one on Barton Street where we fully got a building, and then we put eight brand new units, and the total was including exterior building upgrades, was 1.3 million.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: So that project alone was a $1.3 million contract.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So it was a completely complete gut of a building. The existing masonry was falling over flat roof was done, all the windows were done, two commercial spaces downstairs and eight residential upstairs. Everything needed to be redone. All the common elements, like absolutely everything new fire escape had to be craned in. So it was a fairly good job.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Massive job.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: So obviously an abundance of experience, from taking a single family home gut to a mixed use apartment building on Barton Street and a $1.3 million contract. Amazing. So obviously a lot of different, I guess, experience in that space, which is great. Obviously, a lot of our listeners are investors. Probably they're all investors in one fashion or another. So nice to know that they can potentially lean on somebody like yourself who has an abundance of experience. Amazing. What got you I understand you're also a real estate investor yourself. Is that accurate? What got you into real estate investing?
[00:07:44] Speaker B: I used to work full time job up north doing mining and metals and super long hours, and I did the fly in and fly out. So I work 21 days straight, and then they fly me home for seven days, where I take a break and then go back and work another 21 days for ten to 12 hours a day. And then I had saved a bit of money, and I said, you know what? This may not be the lifestyle that I want, because I saw the people around me, all of them were quite a bit older. I would say the average person up north was about, call it 20 years older than me. And it becomes very clear that once you're in that sort of life, it's very hard to pull out because they pay a lot. You're just simply working double the amount of time as well. Plus there's a premium on you working up north and having no expenses. So it was very hard to match that pay. So when I said, you know what? I want to get my life back together. Let me leave this thing fairly early. I did it for about a year and a half.
I came to the city, got a job in the city. The job was half the pay.
And then the part that I didn't realize, the expenses were quadruple. So at the end, I was left with, like, nothing. So I said, you know what? There must be a better way where I can at least invest something and then do something to the side where I have multiple streams of income. So I saved a bit of money and I bought a rental that needed a little bit of work, had pretty solid bones where I could turn it into two units, and that was my first one.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Beautiful. So you started right from the bottom?
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: If you don't mind me asking, so when you were working up north in those camps and whatnot, what were they paying you guys back then?
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Well, let's just say the bus driver makes six figures, so it's pretty crazy. But the reason for that is because when you work in the mines up north, depending on how harsh the conditions are, there's something called an uplift. So your uplift may be 1.2, it may be 1.5. All that means is whatever your salary is with the company, you get an additional uplift for being in that area. Over and above that, you work at base hours, which is bare minimum 70 hours a week. So whatever overtime there is in that province, that is also added on top of it. So you can see very quickly where the average pay is going to be around 150,000. But they also pay for your food and accommodation.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah, nothing to do there. Right?
[00:10:10] Speaker B: So it's literally all savings. It's amazing, right?
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Food, the roof over your head, everything is paid for, right?
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you're kind of living in like, I don't know, it's like a container. Call it's a camp.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: My office right now.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Right.
So tell us a little bit about on a personal level, what are some of your Hobies and passions?
[00:10:41] Speaker B: I exercise a lot, like a lot. So I wake up super early and then I'll go up the mountain and do those. Went to a stairs all the way up and down a few times. Then I'll go on StairMaster for about 30 minutes. I'll do anywhere from like 100 to 150 floors every morning on an empty stomach and then start my workout. So I'm super active. I've been doing that for years.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: Good for you.
It's good for mental health, physical health, so many great things that will come from that.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: One of the best benefits is also mental because sometimes things get really stressful, and especially in this industry when you actually don't have as much control as you think because you're one rate hike away from a project, you know what I mean? Not breaking even type of thing. It's really good for you to be able to go out and still stay disciplined and let off some steam.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: Absolutely.
So obviously, is it safe to say your construction company again for the listeners, what's it called?
[00:11:42] Speaker B: New Four.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: New form.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: New four.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: No, m new four. Sorry.
Is it safe to say your construction company strictly or at a high level, just works with investment properties?
What do you specialize in? How about that?
[00:12:06] Speaker B: We have a lot of experience and yes, our bread and butter is those investment properties. I say the landscape changed a lot from 2019 to 2023. Ever since the rate hikes, there's a big change in landscape over there. And then when COVID hit, there was a big change in landscape there as well. So back then we did a lot of homeowner end user renovations and we still had investors as well. And then right now, the homeowners and end users is reduced, investors are still around and then tons more commercial. So you'll see what's common in both cases is there's still investors because whether the market is going up or it's going down, you have investors that are still jumping in.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Now.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: I find that the more experienced investors are a lot more active.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: They're taking advantage of the great deals that are out there where the novice, maybe not so experienced, are gun shy and not pulling the trigger on anything. And then you have the people like myself and our company that are still being able to seek out the deals. There's deals out there, guys, and I'm sure safe, you can comment on that too. There's deals out there. Yeah, there's some not so good deals, but there's some fantastic deals out there right now. And when things turn, because as we all know, it goes in waves, it'll come up, it'll go down, it'll come up. How long is the wave going to last? Maybe that's the question. Everybody, if you had a crystal ball, you could answer.
But we all know real estate goes in waves. And yes, there's deals out there. And yes, the landscape's changed. I completely agree. I'm seeing more and more of our JV partners and our clients shifting to commercial.
Absolutely.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Tons more commercial work right now. We're doing a lot.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: So segwaying into finding the right property, right. Talking about pulling the trigger and buying stuff and deals out there, how do you go about in your opinion, how do you go about finding the right investment property?
[00:14:12] Speaker B: For me, if I'm buying something, I'm buying this for a minimum of five years. So I'm a bit longer term. I don't look for an overnight return. I don't want to recoup all my money right away because it's just those deals are much, much harder to find.
So I would say the best recipe for success is I buy the worst condition house in the best neighborhood. So I only go for a neighborhoods. That doesn't mean that you can't invest any other way. But for me specifically, I'll buy the worst house in an A neighborhood, fix that one up, and bring it up to market standard.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: So there's lift, there's value add in that property through strategic renovations.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: Exactly. And that doesn't mean you just buy the cheapest house no matter what. Because for a number of years, for many, many years, you know just as well as I do how much that's been happening and the market has been saving. A lot of these investors, you can overpay on day one, because it doesn't matter. Next year, no matter what you do, that house is worth 100 more, and the year after it's worth another 100 more. So you kind of recoup your cost there. But now more than ever, you have to be very careful what you're buying and what your entry level price point is. So if I'm going in an a neighborhood and I know a turnkey triplex is going for 950, and I look at a place I'm like, this needs 250 in renovations, you better take that off to 950 and make sure you're getting it closer to maybe the 600 or 650 mark. Because anything more than that, you're out of pocket.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Right.
Good advice. Yeah.
What criteria and you kind of touched on this in your last answer, but I'll ask it anyway.
What criteria do you use when you evaluate a property?
What are you looking at when you're evaluating that property? Obviously to be a good investment.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, it's the same worst house in the best neighborhood. But if I were to add to it, if I'm looking at specific criteria, I want to make sure that the bones are solid. Why? Because the bones is the most expensive part of construction and the biggest unknown. So I don't want that big question mark, and I don't want that additional cost that I have to put into it. The more you can just stick with lipstick work or just cosmetic work, the less the unknown, quicker you can get the job and the cheaper it's going to be. But once you have to start removing walls and taking things down and repairing brick, it gets expensive and lots of surprises.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: So structurally sound, the base kind of sets the pace. That kind of the base sets the pace for that project.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: You got to get something with solid bones. You don't want to buy a house with five foot ten in the basement and you have to underpin spend $60,000. Why would you do that?
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Right. But for something that meets that criteria unless the price is right?
If the price is right and you got the home at a deal where I've done that, I knew I had to underpin, so I factored that into my numbers. It's all about how you're running your numbers and you're analyzing them. Right. If the numbers work, even with that $60,000 underpinning expense, I've done that deal over and over and over again. I've done that deal, and then I haven't done it if the numbers don't work. Right. The end of the day, it's all about the numbers.
So let me ask you this.
What advice I love this question. What advice can you give investors who are looking to pick a contractor for their renovation? What advice can you give them?
[00:18:06] Speaker B: Get your three quotes. After you get three quotes, make sure you're only talking to the ones that are within a similar price range. For example, if you have $100,000 worth of work and someone is coming in, two guys are coming, one is coming at 95, one is coming at 100 or 105, and you have a guy that's coming in at 50, believe me, this happens. You did not find a gem. That person just does not know what the job is, or there's cutting way too many corners.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: Then start talking to the people that are within a reasonable cost that is close to each other, and then make sure that they have similar experience. So at one point, you have to take this off the paper because there's only so much you can spell out in the contract.
Then you start picking contractors with similar experience and you have to visit their projects, ask them to go see one of their active jobs because people talk a big game. And then at the end of the day, they may not have any active sites or they may not have any similar experience or that quality of work may not be what you expect.
I say, oh, the drywall is going to cost $5,000.
How good is it going to look? Is it going to look like glass? Is it going to look like a dog's breakfast?
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: At some point you have to count on the reputation, so make sure they have similar experience and go see their projects.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Have you had any personal before becoming as large as you have over the last few years? Have you had any stories from the past where you faced challenges and some negative stuff with some of the contractors you hired before you got to where you are today? Can you share maybe one story with us or an example?
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Yes, the second property I bought was in 2017. That was the first property that needed a substantial amount of renovation. It needed $30,000 worth of renovation. For me, that was a lot at the time because that's more than the down payment of the house. So it was substantial at that time. So I needed to make the basement proper, change all the layout and everything. So I said, you know what? At the time I had a job, so I saw the value in hiring a general contractor. I'm like, at least they'll be able to push. So yes, it costs a little bit more than me hiring all the subtrades, but then I'm not going to have that carrying cost mortgage cost this much, and it just makes sense. So let me get that done. I hired that GC. It was supposed to be a three month job. It's only 30 grand. It took six months. And then he only finished 80% of it and it looked like a dog's breakfast. So I said, you know what? I think I could do a better job myself. And the guy laughed. And so then at that point, obviously, I got rid of him and then I started working myself. And then we started posting pictures of the work and stuff like that. And it turned out that it looked half decent. I thought at the time it looked fantastic, but right now I would just say it's half decent. So yes, that was probably one of my experiences where I understand the value in bringing a GC that's experienced with this work.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: Everybody has a bad story about a general contractor, and I've had the same experiences before we started our own construction management company. Everybody has a bad story, whether they started and they didn't finish. They told you it was going to take this long and took that long.
They told you it was going to be this much and ended up being this much and on and on and on. Or typical, they took all our money and they never finished the job. And then they said they wanted more money to finish and I said I wasn't going to give them any more money until they finished. So then they just took off anyway.
Typical contractor game.
And it really gives the industry a bad reputation for honest guys like yourself who have to prove themselves to investors. Because again, everybody's got a bad story. Everybody's been, one way or another, screwed over by a contractor in the past or at least knows somebody. That's been part of my language, but screwed over in the past.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: You got to really be careful who you pick. I've had rarely now at this point, I think we have a good enough reputation, a good enough name. We're active enough online for people to kind of know about us that we don't do these things. But every now and then I'll say maybe one in 20 clients or jobs that close, they'll ask not out of any bad intention. It's because maybe they've been burned before or they have a bad experience and they're a little bit paranoid or they're listening to too many people and we tell them, look, our office is right here. It's right off the highway. It's a stony creek. You can see us right off the highway. Where are we going? Right here. So we're not hiding anywhere. So again, when you hire a contractor, be careful who you're hiring. Because if you're hiring two guys in a truck with just some articles of incorporation and an HST number, then get ready for the risks. But if you're hiring a full blown team where you have people that have been around for years and the same people, and you could see them online, site supers that have been there for 2345 years, people in the office been here for three years, four years, you know what you're getting into. They're not going to treat you the same as the two guys in a truck.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. And like our organization too, we have our own office, we have our own staff, we have our own team. And like yourself, when I'm talking to potential business partners or joint venture partners, I continually invite them, come down to Hamilton, come see our office, come meet our team. Let's give you a walkthrough of some of our sites. I'm offering it to them. I'm an open book. Come on down, see whatever you want to see. Those are the kinds of relationships we want to build. I'm sure you build too. As opposed to the two guys in a truck who their quote came in $50,000 less than your quote. Like you said, you haven't found the needle in the haystack. You're probably about to go through a really bad experience.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah, but some people, they can't. And I think that's why we align ourselves with long term investors, because when you're looking to make a quick slip and a quick buck, you're working with very slim margins. Just think about it. You're buying a single family home in Hamilton and you want to flip it in a year for profit. You just paid land transfer tax, you just paid closing costs. You're going to pay closing costs when you're selling and 5% realtor fees.
The numbers just don't work out. It's not a very sustainable business in this region.
I think that's why we align ourselves with long term investors a little bit more. But if you're doing a renovation, $200,000, yes, it's going to be maybe 10% more. What's 20 grand to you in five years for having no headache, no project overrun, and you're not going to get any headache with the work because we simply don't cut corners because we're here. We're here for a long time. Anytime something goes wrong, people can call us back and we don't want that call back. So what's an extra 20 grand?
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Does it really? I'd rather pay the 20 now and have that peace of mind than pay 50 later to fix all these mistakes. And no, I've had a bit of experience in this because I got burnt a few times, but no other contractor really gets up and excited in the morning to go figure out someone else's mess.
That guy bailed, he took off, he left you 70%, completed the other 30%. It's a dog's breakfast. And now your team has to go in there and sort all this shit out, fix all the mistakes, everything like that. It's very tedious and time consuming and not a lot of contractors even want the job. They're like, I'm not interested, this thing's a piece of shit to figure all this out. I'm going to be here for like, no thanks, but no thanks. So now you're stuck.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: You're 100%, right? It's basic supply demand fundamentals. If you can get ten people, if you have a nice job, every single contractor wants to bid on it. If you don't have a great job, you're now dealing with a subset. So what do you think is going to happen to the price? You're not getting that if you already spent 70% of your cost. There's 30% left. That price is coming in. It's not going to cost you 30%. It's definitely going to be substantially more. 50% more could be a lot higher than that too, because people just simply don't want to deal with it. They're giving you in the industry what's called the go away number.
It's like, I know this is 10,000.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: What?
[00:27:03] Speaker B: It's a go away number.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: It's a go away, yeah, exactly. I don't really want to do it here. Give me 100 grand. Yes. And if you're stupid enough to agree to that, then fine, I'll do it. But really?
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no, don't get stuck in that.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: And all because you went with the cheaper guy to save 20 grand or whatever it was, when the light bulbs should have went off, being, yeah, there's something wrong here.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: There's a time for you to pick the cheapest and other times where it's not. When you look at a whole job and it's a general. And when I say general, that means multiple subtrades. Call it five plus, including licensed subtrades. That is not something you want to go with the cheapest. If you're getting a guy to just install flooring and all you need done is fresh new floors on your house, the risk is minimal. To some extent. There's not that much risk. What's the worst that's going to happen type of thing, right? If you're picking something that's multidisciplinary five plus trades and you're going with the absolute cheapest one, then get ready for a rocky road.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.
I love this question when it comes to this topic, lessons and Values from Construction and Investment Properties, what is one mistake you will never make again in this area that we're talking about?
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Just that. Coincidentally, I just mentioned it.
I will never pick the cheapest, cheapest GC. And I mean it, because I started off as a real estate investor. Like I mentioned before, I hired one GC for a $30,000 basement rental. He was cheap and apparently he was supposed to be good, but I didn't do enough due diligence because I did not know enough people in the industry to ask around about, right. So I hired him and I learned the hard way that talk is cheap and anyone can over promise. My three month project ended up being six months, 30 grand, budget became 50 grand, and at the end, not even all the work was done. And I can't even get started with what the quality was. So I'll never, never make that mistake of picking the cheapest, cheapest, cheapest. And that's also why today we don't renovate to like bare bones minimum. We always do a little bit better because anything you do, make sure it's a little bit better than the person before, because now you can stand out in the market. Whether it's on the renovation side, whether it's the costs you're going to demand for rent, whatever it is, always be a little bit better than the rest of the market.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Amazing.
Um, another couple of questions before we wrap up.
What advice would you give someone who's just starting out in real estate investing?
[00:29:56] Speaker B: I would say maybe the advice I would have liked to be given at the beginning.
At some point you're going to get comfortable with the numbers, but then you got to look past the numbers a little bit, because when you first start, you have the tendency to get into analysis paralysis where you're just crunching and no matter what, it doesn't work. But if this happens, the cost of the improvement is going to be double. And then I may. End up getting the super low rent for it, then this property doesn't work out at some point. Once you look at the fundamentals. And that's why I like to stick to the worst house in the best area, and you say, okay, this area is good. I'm holding this thing for five years. You got to take a step back and stop crunching numbers. Have a look at the place, walk in the streets, see the neighborhood, and if the property feels right and the fundamentals are good, you buy it.
[00:30:50] Speaker A: Awesome.
I ask this question to every guest that we have on our show, and I get answers from this level to this level and everything in between. But I love knowing what people, what makes them spark, what makes them tick. So I ask them, what is your why?
Why do you do what you do every day?
[00:31:13] Speaker B: I think real estate and construction are obviously they're a tangible asset, and I love building value and the sense of purpose that it gives me. And I love seeing that physically grow before my eyes. Like you're able to take a space that's not developed and turn it into something habitable. That tangible component really gives me a sense of purpose.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: Amazing. Sorry, one of my guys just was coming in here telling me there was somebody wanting me, but I'm in the middle of this, so no, I completely agree. And like I said, I've gotten answers, everything from my children to my family to myself and everything in between. And it's just interesting because every successful person has a why. Every person has a why, what they do every day, in and out. And it's just interesting to see what makes successful people tick, what makes them get up in the morning and do all this and be entrepreneurs. Because let's face it, you and I, we're not on a salary, right?
We once had that life, and we chose the life of an entrepreneur and running your own company and your own business, which could bring you a whole set of other beautiful things in life. But it comes with stress.
It comes with ups and downs, some good days, some bad days, and most of the time, the good outweigh the bad, which is awesome.
So, yeah, thank you for that last question. Before we wrap up, we're just hovering at about 35 minutes, and I like to keep it there just for that drive in to work or drive home from work. People listen to the podcast and whatnot when you picture more to life?
What do you see when you picture more to life?
[00:33:24] Speaker B: I see myself living between two countries. So Canada is always going to be home, and I'm never going to completely leave here. But it would be nice to balance out the winters somewhere else and then have enough assets built up with them not being that leveraged. So there's enough cash flow, and for that cash flow, to be enough for myself and immediate family to live completely, comfortably beautiful.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: I'm very similar to those, I guess, visions that you have along with me, but I appreciate you sharing that with us.
And on a personal note, obviously, what you see when you see More to Life in the name of our podcast, More to Life, we're all looking one way or another, I'd like to think, and that's why I named the podcast this. We're all looking for maybe a touch of something more to life that maybe we don't have right now that we want or a lifestyle that we want more to life.
And I can appreciate where you're coming from because I'm in the same mindset. I'd love to have a property in two different countries and be able to go back and forth and everything like that. That's what it's about. That's why we work so hard and sometimes working hard and taking chances where we are on that. I really appreciate your time on the Mortar Life podcast. If you don't mind sharing with our audience, one last question. How big is your team now? What kind of size is your team to take on? I'm sure you guys are busy, probably got a lot on the go. How big is your team to take on several projects at once? What's your team looking like these days?
[00:35:28] Speaker B: We have about 20 staff in house, so that goes from the trades in the office, and then we have a lot of obviously our licensed trades are subcontracted, but they're the same subcontract that we always use. So we have sort of like fixed unit rates with them. So it's not like we have to send out an electrician to go look at the job. To quote the job, it's like when the super calls, tell us electrician to come, they just come. They get the work done, they bill us after because we already have relationships with them. And then after that, we have our other subcontractor trades in house that help when it gets really busy. So those are for the finishes. So we will have anywhere between 14 so I think right now sorry, between twelve to 20 sites. Right now we have about 14.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Wow. So, yeah, you guys obviously have the right amount of people behind you to be able to navigate 14 sites and everything else that goes in between it. So congratulations on that. That's amazing. Good for you, man. Good for you.
Well, how do people get a hold of you? If somebody, an investor, wants to do some business together, wants you to come out and look at their stuff or just hire you guys, obviously a very reputable company.
How do they get a hold of you?
[00:36:43] Speaker B: You can visit our website, newford.com. Click the quote me button. It's pretty straightforward. We'll be in contact with you within less than 24 hours. Or you can just visit us on Instagram. We're super active on there, send us a message. Or again, it can take you to our website, where you can go to quote me button.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: So new for spelled newfore.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: New for awesome. So, guys, there you have it.
Easy. Easy peasy. How to get a hold of him?
Send them a message. DM them go to their website. I'm sure they got everything they need to make that project successful. 150 unit turnovers rentals in the last three years. They obviously have no stranger to the game.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Definitely not.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: Definitely not. Absolutely. So, on that note, Safe, thanks again for being on the mortal life. I hope you have some great contacts from this episode and you're able to help our investors out there with their renovations and do a fantastic job.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, Adrian. I really appreciate it.
