A Million Podcast Downloads & How We Got Here

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Canadian Real Estate Investor, where hosts Daniel Foch and Nick Hill navigate

[00:00:06] the market and provide the tools and insights to build your real estate portfolio.

[00:00:13] Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast.

[00:00:18] What's your name?

[00:00:19] Daniel Foch.

[00:00:20] There you go.

[00:00:21] My name is Nick Hill and we are back with another episode.

[00:00:25] And today is special.

[00:00:27] We're going to do something that we haven't really ever done before here on the show.

[00:00:33] I felt it was time.

[00:00:35] We are going to share with you more about who we are and how we got here.

[00:00:41] Now if this is your first time tuning in, welcome.

[00:00:45] These episodes usually aren't about us.

[00:00:47] They usually focus on things like the latest and greatest news in the real estate and

[00:00:52] mortgage markets or reports that we distill down and discuss, money making and investing

[00:00:58] strategies in real estate and more.

[00:01:02] So we also look at investing fundamentals and principles and we chat on macro.

[00:01:09] We do cover a lot of macro and policy and things that have effects on the Canadian

[00:01:14] housing market.

[00:01:15] And we even look at subjects like true crime in real estate.

[00:01:20] Yeah.

[00:01:21] We, I guess we haven't done one of those yet but we're working on that.

[00:01:25] Kind of.

[00:01:26] We've touched on it but yeah, we haven't done a deep dive.

[00:01:29] Deep dive into true crime.

[00:01:30] Yeah.

[00:01:31] And we also cover a lot of lessons learned by industry thought leaders and great investors.

[00:01:36] And so we felt it was time to do an episode like this because we just hit a special

[00:01:40] landmark for us here at the Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast which was a million

[00:01:45] downloads.

[00:01:46] One million downloads.

[00:01:48] That is one million audio downloads which is apparently quite the accomplishment in the

[00:01:54] podcast space.

[00:01:56] And actually we hit it a few months ago but there's just so many other things that we

[00:02:00] had to cover on the podcast, some episodes we had ready to go.

[00:02:03] But definitely a big milestone and Dan if you had told me or us a few years ago that

[00:02:09] we'd have the biggest podcast in real estate in Canada, I don't know if I would have

[00:02:14] believed you.

[00:02:15] It was a mutual goal of ours years ago to start creating content and to build a community for

[00:02:21] the next generation of real estate investors here in Canada.

[00:02:25] So if you had told me a few years ago, I might have believed you.

[00:02:27] I would have been very excited about the thought of where we are now.

[00:02:32] Yeah.

[00:02:33] And you mentioned the community piece to me that's probably like really the whole

[00:02:37] guiding principle behind this whole thing where we want to connect people who are

[00:02:44] interested in real estate investing with one another.

[00:02:47] Like this isn't just about us, it actually goes far beyond us.

[00:02:50] And so if you listen to this show and you want to meet other investors, you can go

[00:02:56] to a meetup and you can meet them.

[00:02:59] You can connect with them through our online community, the realist.ca course or probably

[00:03:03] the easiest way to do it is actually take a screenshot of you listening to this

[00:03:10] episode or any episode and post it to your Instagram story and tag Nick and I.

[00:03:15] And we'll share it.

[00:03:15] And then somebody else who listens to the podcast, who follows us on Instagram,

[00:03:19] will see that and they'll tap on your share, the shared story that we shared

[00:03:23] and they'll follow you on Instagram.

[00:03:25] And now all of a sudden you can get to know each other.

[00:03:27] It's probably the easiest way.

[00:03:28] It also does us a huge favor by helping to promote the podcast, but go and do that.

[00:03:31] So anyway, we are just getting started and we're happy that we're kind

[00:03:37] of building something pretty special.

[00:03:38] I think for the community real estate space, a lot of people come up to us

[00:03:42] and say that they're fired up because these events that we're creating are so

[00:03:45] approachable or the content that we're sharing on the podcast is different.

[00:03:49] And that's what our goal is really to stand out and to make it something

[00:03:52] that like the real estate space is incredibly well built up.

[00:03:56] Right?

[00:03:57] There's a lot of formal events.

[00:03:58] There's a lot of podcasts that discuss things different than ours.

[00:04:01] A lot of interviews style.

[00:04:02] It was hard for us to find a niche in the space where we weren't competing

[00:04:05] with people who were already doing that.

[00:04:07] And some in some cases, like I'm not going to lie.

[00:04:09] There's a lot of a lot of those are saturated, but a lot of them are also

[00:04:13] already being done well.

[00:04:14] Like you and I go on a lot of interview podcasts.

[00:04:17] We couldn't compete with a lot of those people.

[00:04:19] And so we chose not to.

[00:04:20] What we do is we're doing something very different where it's just Nick

[00:04:23] and I sitting in a studio talking about real estate, sitting in a dark

[00:04:26] room, talking about real estate to a sweet.

[00:04:28] Yeah.

[00:04:29] Actually, like literally just in a dark room at the back of my garage

[00:04:32] talking about real estate.

[00:04:33] Very glamorous as all real estate is.

[00:04:36] And so, yeah, I mean, we're really happy and we feel that this is

[00:04:41] something special.

[00:04:41] And we say that because of the amazing people that we've met along the way

[00:04:44] and that have been attracted to what we're doing here from every corner

[00:04:48] of our amazing country, the people we do deals with, the people in our

[00:04:52] realist course, the community.

[00:04:54] And those are things that we feel are changing the game.

[00:04:56] We are trying to disrupt the real estate space and what we're doing here.

[00:05:00] Yeah, exactly, Dan.

[00:05:01] And I mean, we're lucky because not only have we been approached

[00:05:04] with and are now part of a lot of amazing prop tech companies,

[00:05:08] property technology.

[00:05:09] And that space is really exciting and changing because they're

[00:05:12] revolutionizing the way that we engage with real estate through

[00:05:16] technology and AI.

[00:05:18] And then again, of course, the bad ass people to come out and attend

[00:05:21] our events and the amazing host that have now signed on across the country.

[00:05:26] So so much to be thankful for could not have gotten here without a

[00:05:30] lot of those people mentioned.

[00:05:31] For sure.

[00:05:32] And so today's podcast is a little different than the others.

[00:05:36] And that's because we aren't really covering a report or breaking news

[00:05:40] or looking at investing fundamentals or strategies or how to hunt deals.

[00:05:47] What's it about today?

[00:05:47] Yeah, it's about us.

[00:05:50] Who we were before the podcast and our journey on how to get here.

[00:05:57] The successes and the failures and the lessons that we have learned

[00:06:01] along the way and how we built this podcast and the community around it

[00:06:06] and how we have built our other businesses and our real estate portfolio.

[00:06:13] So I guess it is kind of about real estate after all.

[00:06:15] Well, let's just say real estate is a major theme, right?

[00:06:18] Hard hard for us not to talk about it.

[00:06:21] So Dan, this is how we're going to start things off.

[00:06:23] Why don't we get a bit of a background on you?

[00:06:27] So tell me a bit about yourself, your background in business and entrepreneurship.

[00:06:33] Go as far back as you want, but don't go anywhere past after we met.

[00:06:39] And then I'll do the same. OK?

[00:06:41] Sure, sounds good.

[00:06:42] So my name is Daniel Foch.

[00:06:44] I guess we got to go way back.

[00:06:48] I mean, like we don't need toddler type stuff, but maybe, you know,

[00:06:52] university always is universities, maybe even high school would be good.

[00:06:55] Whenever when you start your first business,

[00:06:57] I discovered my passion for real estate that while I was in the womb.

[00:07:00] No, yeah, I in high school, I I actually got I was part of something

[00:07:07] called Summer Company on Ontario Summer Company.

[00:07:09] Weren't you in that too? No. No.

[00:07:10] So Ontario had this like grant program for people who were starting businesses.

[00:07:14] So at the end of high school, I got this.

[00:07:16] It was for like students to start summer companies.

[00:07:18] They gave me like three grand startup money.

[00:07:20] I bought like an iMac.

[00:07:21] I think about an iMac, which was because I was running a social media

[00:07:24] business for realtor's. This is true story.

[00:07:25] So this is why I'm good at social media, by the way.

[00:07:28] And I waited a long time before I did anything in social media

[00:07:31] when I first got my real estate license.

[00:07:33] But I did that business for a long time at a high school.

[00:07:38] Let's just assume your life kind of begins at high school.

[00:07:40] But I also worked on a farm and I lived there.

[00:07:43] Cowboys and people.

[00:07:44] And man, when I tell the story, when I tell this story,

[00:07:46] people actually don't believe me.

[00:07:48] I was at the farm over the weekend too, because

[00:07:51] I they were doing like an Easter egg hunt there.

[00:07:54] And I brought the kids to do the Easter egg hunt.

[00:07:56] But I moved out of my parents' place right after high school

[00:08:01] to live on this farm.

[00:08:02] And I and I worked there just shoveling horse poop

[00:08:04] and turning out horses and doing like not classic yellow stone.

[00:08:09] Yeah, no, I wasn't like that.

[00:08:10] Like it's more.

[00:08:11] I mean, horseback riding is very different from Yellowstone.

[00:08:13] But I guess for people like you who don't know.

[00:08:16] Ouch.

[00:08:17] Yeah, then TV cowboy over here.

[00:08:19] Yeah, that it was, you know, but I love that world.

[00:08:22] Like it was I was obsessed with.

[00:08:24] I could have I could have stayed doing that forever.

[00:08:28] Honestly, no word of a lie.

[00:08:29] I thought you did because I can't host this thing by myself.

[00:08:32] I could have shoveled horse poop forever.

[00:08:33] But miraculously, the farm that I was at was hit by a tornado.

[00:08:38] No joke.

[00:08:39] It actually tornadoes seem to be a common thread here.

[00:08:44] Yeah. For those of you who don't know, Nick and I.

[00:08:47] I'm not allowed to talk about that because it's after we met.

[00:08:49] But Nick and I were working on this deal

[00:08:50] and the deal got hit by a tornado, not the whole deal,

[00:08:53] but really, really annoying thing to happen.

[00:08:56] But in your and you know, some you guys lost some trees

[00:08:58] in your yard and the whole area in Oxbridge was just like leveled.

[00:09:01] That was two what? Two years ago now. Yeah, it's got to be crazy.

[00:09:04] So anyway, similar thing, not too far from there as well.

[00:09:08] So I guess tornadoes pretty common over there.

[00:09:10] But so I lived at this farm.

[00:09:12] It was my job and and I had a car too,

[00:09:15] which this is important to the story because the tornado killed all of those things.

[00:09:20] My car, my house and my job, which sounds like a country song, right?

[00:09:26] Boss law in one shot.

[00:09:27] So so anyway, I after that, I started traveling a little bit.

[00:09:33] I was I was living in in a station wagon

[00:09:36] with all of my clothes up top of my station wagon.

[00:09:39] Not that I was like I could have gone back to my parents' house or something

[00:09:42] like it wasn't hard done by any means, but I was just a little bit of a vagabond.

[00:09:46] And I was traveling around to different horse shows

[00:09:50] and just working in the horse industry as long as I could.

[00:09:54] And then I got a letter in the mail from from Switzerland.

[00:09:58] Yeah, like literally Switzerland sent me a letter saying,

[00:10:01] hey, you know, because you're a citizen, a Swiss citizen,

[00:10:04] you have to come and do military conscription and enough horse and around

[00:10:08] enough horse and around.

[00:10:09] Get back to get up in the so and I'm not I've never like I never lived there

[00:10:12] or whatever. But I guess in like the 90s, they had this citizenship

[00:10:16] repatriation kind of thing going on where because my dad was Swiss,

[00:10:19] they gave me a citizenship or my mom became Swiss and then they gave me a

[00:10:23] citizenship. And so I was like, well, you know what?

[00:10:26] I got nothing else. It was either that it was like literally either that or I was

[00:10:29] going to basically fully commit to going in like lifetime lifer in the horse

[00:10:34] industry. And I met a couple of lifers in the horse industry during that

[00:10:37] period of time from when I before I got in the tornado to when I was like

[00:10:40] working the horse shows. And I was like, I don't know if I want to be one

[00:10:43] of those guys, no offense to them.

[00:10:45] But like a couple of those guys just wasn't really the vision that I had

[00:10:47] for myself. And so I got this letter and I was like, you know what?

[00:10:52] This sounds like just whatever, you know, screw it, just send it.

[00:10:56] And so I did. I was like, yeah, OK, cool.

[00:10:58] I'm let's go. And so I went to Switzerland, did a couple of like

[00:11:02] on boardings and stuff like that.

[00:11:04] And I don't know how they let me in because I couldn't speak the languages

[00:11:07] like I remember doing these like courses on their computers there.

[00:11:11] They're asking me a bunch of questions.

[00:11:12] I had no clue what it was going on.

[00:11:14] And anyway, I made it into the Swiss army without speaking any of their

[00:11:18] official languages. Went there briefly.

[00:11:20] I didn't didn't finish my conscription because of I was honorably discharged.

[00:11:25] I have sleep apnea, which I didn't know wasn't allowed in the army.

[00:11:28] I was the only person in the whole army that wanted to be there, by the way,

[00:11:31] like everybody else's, you know, honestly.

[00:11:33] And of course, the one guy that gets kicked out.

[00:11:34] Yeah. So then there was like a outbreak of like norovirus and

[00:11:38] am I going to granular here? Like no, no, not at all.

[00:11:41] Hey, yeah, it's a funny story.

[00:11:42] So so there's outbreak of norovirus in the in the barracks.

[00:11:46] And then when I was getting checked for that, the doctor like pulled my file

[00:11:50] and he was like, you have sleep apnea?

[00:11:51] And I was like, yeah, he's like, you can't be in the army.

[00:11:52] And I was like, OK, so this was a couple months in.

[00:11:54] So anyway, I got honorably discharged.

[00:11:56] Was no longer in the army.

[00:11:58] And then I was chatting with my parents while I was away and whatever.

[00:12:01] And they were kind of like, well, you probably should go to university

[00:12:04] or something like that. And I was like, oh, sounds like sounds like

[00:12:07] something sounds like something I shouldn't be going to fail at.

[00:12:10] Right. And my my mom found this program that was a co-op program.

[00:12:15] Guelph has a B-con with a co-op.

[00:12:17] And that's what I was like, OK,

[00:12:21] like if I'm going to get through university, it's going to have to be a co-op.

[00:12:23] I got to work, you know? Like, I got to make some money.

[00:12:25] I got to be able to be out in the field because otherwise I could

[00:12:27] like I couldn't couldn't get through school.

[00:12:30] This probably surprises some people because I sound like I am into like school

[00:12:33] and like the like academics and stuff like that.

[00:12:35] But I'm like, no, I suck at it. I'm like, actually, I'm not.

[00:12:37] I'm not bad at it, but I I just like didn't thrive in that environment.

[00:12:41] Anyway, went to Guelph, did a B-con, majored in real estate and housing,

[00:12:46] worked at a bunch of different shops during my co-op and like really got

[00:12:49] a grasp for like what I wanted to do in the industry.

[00:12:52] I got to touch and feel a bunch of different roles,

[00:12:54] a bunch of different asset classes.

[00:12:56] I learned a ton about real estate.

[00:12:58] And because I'm not very good at school, I learned it in such a way that

[00:13:03] it was like, what's the bare minimum to get by here?

[00:13:06] And now me starting this podcast with you is

[00:13:09] me reiterating all of that bare minimum information back to people.

[00:13:13] Honestly, it's mostly just stuff I learned in a B-con real estate and housing.

[00:13:16] And a lot of guys we brush shoulders with in the industry took the same degree

[00:13:19] as me, but, you know, they know it way better than I do.

[00:13:22] And so they actually have real jobs

[00:13:25] whereas mine's just like this, right? Talking.

[00:13:30] So when did the first real estate investment happen?

[00:13:32] Oh, yeah, this is another funny story.

[00:13:33] So first year university, me and my buddy Tim decided to scale

[00:13:39] South residents at Guelph.

[00:13:41] And they weren't very fond of that.

[00:13:43] And so we were no longer allowed in South residents at Guelph, which is where we

[00:13:47] was about right yet.

[00:13:49] Yeah, I don't know if I should be telling that story

[00:13:51] in case I only get into politics or something one day, but I guess it makes

[00:13:54] me more relatable for all the rock climbers out there.

[00:13:57] Yeah. And I don't like lying anyway.

[00:13:59] So yeah, it was they they kicked us out of res.

[00:14:03] So which was interesting because res is very expensive.

[00:14:06] And so they and we hadn't paid our deposit for second semester yet.

[00:14:09] So they let us finish because it took them so long, like the bureaucracy

[00:14:12] so long to get it processed.

[00:14:14] And we took the deposit and we got a really sweet place just me and him.

[00:14:19] And on like the far end of town, all of our friends are like came

[00:14:22] and would you know, our house was like the place to party at and whatever

[00:14:25] because it was off campus. And anyway, you know, through that process

[00:14:30] I was chatting with my parents and they were like this like these student

[00:14:32] rentals are like a rocket, right?

[00:14:34] Like holy crap, it's expensive.

[00:14:35] And so my dad came up with a deal with me where it was like,

[00:14:39] let's do a student rental together.

[00:14:40] And so we did.

[00:14:42] And that was my first deal came because I got kicked out of res.

[00:14:47] There you go. Lesson lesson kids.

[00:14:49] Get kicked out of res.

[00:14:49] Don't do that.

[00:14:50] Your parents goes not a deal with you.

[00:14:52] That's awesome. So do you still have that one?

[00:14:54] No, no, but that funded my first owner occupied.

[00:14:58] So I took, I mean, back when I was buying it was like,

[00:15:01] I think I got 50 K equity out of that.

[00:15:05] Yeah, I want to say 50 K equity out of that.

[00:15:06] And I rolled it into my first owner occupied that I bought right after that

[00:15:13] and then put two units into that.

[00:15:15] So I bought, I think I bought that with like the next one.

[00:15:17] It was in the new market.

[00:15:19] 90% loan to value CMHC insured 10% down.

[00:15:23] I think I paid like 480 for it.

[00:15:25] But that that one in Guelph.

[00:15:26] Yeah, I had it for like four years and it was kind of like it was before things

[00:15:29] went crazy because I bought my second property in 2016.

[00:15:32] But it was a while and then I got some capital appreciation

[00:15:36] plus some principal pay down from it.

[00:15:38] And that really helped me to buy my next place. Right.

[00:15:41] So what other businesses?

[00:15:43] Because I know you've started several businesses

[00:15:45] and you've got your hands and a lot of things.

[00:15:47] Talk to me about some of the entrepreneurial things

[00:15:52] within or outside of directly investing in real estate

[00:15:56] that you've been a part of over the last decade, let's say.

[00:15:59] Yeah, so I would say I think that social media business was like

[00:16:02] I always sleep on that one.

[00:16:03] But whenever I mention it to people, they're like,

[00:16:06] oh, like that makes a lot of sense now, you know?

[00:16:09] So I didn't even really consider it a business.

[00:16:11] Like I remember somebody bought like my clients off of me

[00:16:14] and somebody is like, you sold the business.

[00:16:16] And but it wasn't like I didn't have it.

[00:16:17] It wasn't a corp or anything.

[00:16:18] Yeah, you just sold a list and you're like, OK, whatever.

[00:16:21] Well, I sold like all the contracts that I had with those clients.

[00:16:23] So I had a bunch of realtors who like this.

[00:16:25] So I basically this this is how old the business was.

[00:16:29] Like it was when social media was literally like YouTube,

[00:16:33] Twitter and Facebook.

[00:16:35] And I and I would the good old.

[00:16:37] Yeah. And so I would charge I would charge agents

[00:16:38] like a five hundred dollar setup fee to like create all of those accounts

[00:16:42] for them and like build SOPs on like how to use them

[00:16:44] and like create a nice like little I think Facebook pages

[00:16:47] didn't even have like the banner at that point.

[00:16:49] Yeah. So it was like just you know what I mean?

[00:16:51] But Facebook pages are our kits, basically.

[00:16:53] Yeah. And then I would charge them a monthly management fee

[00:16:56] and I would populate them with content and then I would

[00:16:58] have our way back then off social media.

[00:17:00] Yeah. Plus a per listing.

[00:17:02] And then yeah, I had these these guys actually one of the guys

[00:17:05] that I met from from that incubator program,

[00:17:07] the summer company incubator program was running like a more established

[00:17:11] or got I don't know, I ended up partnering in a more established

[00:17:14] marketing agency and they purchased the all the clients off of me

[00:17:18] because they wanted to get more into the real estate space.

[00:17:20] So that really gave me like I didn't even really like it was

[00:17:23] I didn't even really acknowledge it.

[00:17:25] And then somebody asked me about it because it was on my LinkedIn.

[00:17:27] And I was like, yeah, I guess that really is where all of my ability

[00:17:30] to do social media came from other stuff.

[00:17:33] Like, I don't know if I really give much to my other

[00:17:36] like any other business things.

[00:17:37] Most most things that I did it was like just because I have ADHD

[00:17:40] and I was like bored with what I was doing.

[00:17:42] So I was like, here's my side thing.

[00:17:43] I guess I'm reasonably successful as a real estate professional.

[00:17:47] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:48] Don't sleep on that.

[00:17:49] Yeah.

[00:17:49] A ton of transactions, both

[00:17:52] a lot of residential, a lot of small cap investment stuff,

[00:17:55] but some crazy.

[00:17:56] Do you feel comfortable sharing any of the more crazy stories

[00:18:00] or really unique deals that you've done?

[00:18:04] Yeah. I mean, there's there are definitely some some wild

[00:18:06] deals that that I've worked on with like with Johnny or with some other

[00:18:11] folks in the space.

[00:18:12] I mean, probably the most notable one.

[00:18:14] I remember I had two clients who were

[00:18:16] this is during like the Bitcoin craze, the first one,

[00:18:19] not the most recent one, like 2016, 2017, which is fortunate

[00:18:22] because I started getting introduced to to Bitcoin

[00:18:25] during that period of time and getting exposure at that point was good,

[00:18:29] obviously.

[00:18:30] But we were looking for like Bitcoin mining facilities.

[00:18:35] And so myself and Sina, you know, Sina and some other folks

[00:18:40] were flying around the country, like looking for going to cold climate

[00:18:43] areas where you could run these Bitcoin miners for a long period of time.

[00:18:47] Like, I remember I was going to like rural parts of like

[00:18:51] Newfoundland or not Newfoundland Labrador,

[00:18:53] while Northern Manitoba, yes, Sina was flying all over the place too,

[00:18:56] because he Johnny and I both had kids.

[00:18:58] So he was kind of yeah.

[00:19:00] And so yeah, so he was he was out there just like Newfoundland,

[00:19:05] Labrador, a lot of Manitoba stuff, some crazy, crazy deals

[00:19:09] that were going on during that period of time.

[00:19:11] I've done quite a few like other like development stuff,

[00:19:14] development advisory and financing, but probably better to keep those ones

[00:19:17] in my pocket, I would say.

[00:19:19] Not not for any other reason, just that they're they're pretty private deals.

[00:19:22] So yeah.

[00:19:24] And then and then I guess jumping forward, we'll keep a lot of that stuff.

[00:19:27] But now you know you and we've got our hands in several different things.

[00:19:32] So I think, you know, early days, real estate family

[00:19:36] got involved in real estate investing almost a decade ago

[00:19:40] and have just been building unique businesses or providing unique services

[00:19:44] around real estate related products.

[00:19:47] Yeah, I mean, I suppose I didn't I didn't mention that that both my parents

[00:19:51] are in real estate.

[00:19:52] And so like I grew up surrounded by this stuff.

[00:19:54] And I think that gave me like probably a pretty big competitive advantage

[00:19:57] and just like learning things very quickly that both my parents are

[00:20:01] very successful in the real estate space in their own right.

[00:20:03] So you know, some might say that I would be a rider of the coattails.

[00:20:07] And I have no like I'm not like one of these people who like is super proud

[00:20:10] of being self made, you know, like I'm not I don't I don't it doesn't really matter to me.

[00:20:14] You know, I would say, yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:15] Like what would you have done in my scenario?

[00:20:18] You know, like, yeah.

[00:20:19] So then and I can tell you that that's not the case.

[00:20:22] I think you're very you are very self made specifically speaking

[00:20:26] because I'm self made stuff with you that certain other people have had

[00:20:29] no influence on whatsoever.

[00:20:31] So, you know, again, being very humble.

[00:20:33] Yeah, I think why I don't know.

[00:20:34] Like, I mean, there was obviously like some advantage and privilege.

[00:20:37] Some people might call it to like, you know, growing up the way that I did.

[00:20:40] Like that is what, you know, I like I it would have been silly to not

[00:20:44] capitalize on that and compound all of that, you know, growth and knowledge

[00:20:47] and exposure that I had.

[00:20:48] So that's what I did.

[00:20:50] It is funny though, because when you're a teenager, like you're like,

[00:20:52] I hate whatever my parents do, you know, like I remember in high school

[00:20:55] being like, I'm never going to be in real estate because it's like

[00:20:57] I saw, you know, how much it like how much my parents worked

[00:21:01] and how hard it was, you know, how stressful it was.

[00:21:04] But then I just like, I think it just I'm glad that I decided

[00:21:10] that was the wrong mentality to have because I obviously am really

[00:21:14] like really, really passionate about this industry.

[00:21:17] So yeah, I don't know.

[00:21:18] I couldn't imagine anything else like that I would be this passionate about

[00:21:21] really, honestly.

[00:21:22] Yeah, major conservatories or big trucks maybe.

[00:21:26] Yeah, I'm big into like heavy equipment for sure.

[00:21:28] But like, you know, you kind of always make an assumption.

[00:21:31] Like you say you think you're going to be into something.

[00:21:33] This happens to me a lot in like these spin off businesses that I'll

[00:21:35] like play around with for like a week and then or not a week, but like

[00:21:39] it's like, oh yeah, like just, you know, mess around with like a friend

[00:21:42] and think about like doing a business and then you actually play

[00:21:45] the tape to the end and you're like, oh, actually, you know, this wasn't it.

[00:21:47] And then you kind of just falls off the side of your desk.

[00:21:50] Right. I'm sure you've had a ton of examples like that too.

[00:21:52] Couple. Couple. Yeah.

[00:21:54] Yeah. So now do you do I get the same privilege

[00:21:58] of you telling me your story or did I it was I exhaustive enough?

[00:22:01] I would be on. Yeah.

[00:22:02] I mean, if you feel if that I don't think I left anything out.

[00:22:05] Yeah. I mean, it probably did, but probably for the better.

[00:22:07] And maybe it'll come up.

[00:22:08] I mean, we'll do another one of these episodes at two million.

[00:22:10] Yeah, sure. You can finish the story then.

[00:22:11] Yeah. I mean, I'll take mine back to a pivotal year in my life, which was

[00:22:16] so I was born and raised in Vancouver.

[00:22:18] My parents moved us over to Ontario when I was in grade seven.

[00:22:22] I come from a middle class family.

[00:22:25] My dad's a teacher.

[00:22:26] My mom's a social worker.

[00:22:27] Really amazing people group in a very loving household, but not much business

[00:22:32] acumen between the two of them and mom and dad.

[00:22:34] I know you're listening and so I'm sorry I love you.

[00:22:36] But I moved out to Vancouver and moved back out to Vancouver in my early 20s.

[00:22:42] Actually, when I was attending university at Guelph, I'm a year

[00:22:45] or two older than Dan.

[00:22:46] So we were never in the same classes, but I moved out there

[00:22:49] and worked underneath my uncle who is a very successful businessman.

[00:22:52] And that's when I realized I was OK.

[00:22:53] I was going to school for to be a lawyer at that point

[00:22:57] and just totally switched everything and was like, I need to be an entrepreneur.

[00:23:01] I had this like the strongest force in me to become an entrepreneur.

[00:23:06] First business I started wasn't really a business called disposable camera project.

[00:23:10] We would buy cameras, buy disposable cameras, put them in a package,

[00:23:14] go and hang them in cool spots.

[00:23:17] Started in Toronto in Vancouver.

[00:23:20] We'd go hang them in cool spots with a sign that said,

[00:23:22] take the camera, take a picture, put the camera back, find your photos here.

[00:23:26] After a few months of working on that, it had kind of changed my life a little bit.

[00:23:30] We had volunteers working for us across the globe.

[00:23:34] We are in like 14 cities and like eight countries.

[00:23:38] It was super cool.

[00:23:39] I was having meetings with like Vancouver tourism.

[00:23:41] I was on TV.

[00:23:43] I was in like the newspapers, but I was actually extraordinarily broke.

[00:23:48] OK, I would I would at this point

[00:23:51] I had finished working for my own goals, working in an architecture

[00:23:53] and engineering firm as like a junior associate.

[00:23:56] I would work there all day, change out of my suit attire

[00:23:59] and then go work all night on this stuff, spend all my money on building

[00:24:03] this business up. And I remember at one point I was eating like one meal a day.

[00:24:07] It was like a big bowl of that was like 14 bucks.

[00:24:10] Then it filled me up all day.

[00:24:11] Anyways, that business unfortunately kind of died out

[00:24:15] because it was me and three other young broke guys.

[00:24:17] We couldn't really figure out a direct path to monetization.

[00:24:20] But after that, I was like, you know what?

[00:24:22] I just love being an entrepreneur.

[00:24:23] I love creating businesses and starting.

[00:24:25] So a couple more things like that.

[00:24:28] Then I bounced around back and forth.

[00:24:30] I was in construction for a little while working on like capital projects

[00:24:34] at a large medical facility that created its own drugs and what not.

[00:24:40] So I was on the capital projects team there.

[00:24:42] And then I decided to leave that very well paying job

[00:24:45] to become a broker in commercial real estate.

[00:24:48] So I was still living at home at the time.

[00:24:50] I just moved back home because I just moved back from British Columbia.

[00:24:53] So I was living at home with my parents, started this job

[00:24:57] in in construction, then left for a commercial real estate as a junior associate there.

[00:25:02] Started hitting the phones, making cold calls every day.

[00:25:04] And on top of that, I decided to start another side business called Goodwood,

[00:25:09] which was live edge, charcuterie boards, live edge tables and that kind of stuff.

[00:25:14] So at one point that businesses was doing really well at an amazing

[00:25:17] partner who's now private chef in Turks and Caicos, but we we ran a pretty good

[00:25:23] business there. And we were kind of head of the curve on on that

[00:25:26] live edge charcuterie board that you see everywhere now.

[00:25:28] Right now you see them at like you invented those.

[00:25:30] Yeah, we kind of invented another Nikola original.

[00:25:33] Yeah, that was the original Nikola original.

[00:25:36] Yeah, it was awesome, man.

[00:25:38] I mean, we did we did stuff for like Gord Downey.

[00:25:40] We did a bunch of stuff for like Hockey.

[00:25:41] Because we actually one of our biggest sellers was home builders

[00:25:45] who were using them for home home like gifts, right?

[00:25:48] Like you get your home, you get here's an engraved, you know, cutting board, whatever.

[00:25:51] So that went really well.

[00:25:53] We had a storefront, a bunch of equipment and everything.

[00:25:55] And then as my commercial real estate

[00:25:57] responsibilities started to increase, I kind of started to we sold some shares

[00:26:02] to another partner.

[00:26:03] Anyways, I kind of worked my way out of that business.

[00:26:05] And then before I got in a real estate, the the last business I had

[00:26:09] that really gave me a decent amount of cash to kind of keep on investing

[00:26:13] in my own personal portfolio of rentals was a company called Mist,

[00:26:17] which I started with another guy that I met when I was doing business

[00:26:20] development for tenant fit out projects.

[00:26:23] So a big bank or eBay in this instance wanted new office space.

[00:26:29] My job was to go and be friends with just about everybody involved from

[00:26:32] designers to architects, engineers, brokers, put the project together.

[00:26:37] I met a great guy there.

[00:26:38] We started right when COVID started.

[00:26:39] We kind of both of our corporate jobs got really messed up.

[00:26:42] I decided that was the last time I was ever going to rely on someone else

[00:26:45] for a paycheck.

[00:26:46] When we started importing from China, these things called Mist.

[00:26:50] We came up with the name and everything was great.

[00:26:53] Essentially, remember the days when everyone was touching the hand sanitizer bottles

[00:26:56] and it was all kind of disgusting.

[00:26:58] We literally started bringing these things over that you poured liquid,

[00:27:02] nice smelling hand sanitizer with with like lotion in it.

[00:27:05] And you'd put your hand over and it missed it upwards onto your hand.

[00:27:08] So we did quite well with that.

[00:27:11] And that is basically up until I met Dan, which is, I guess, chapter two of

[00:27:19] of of this story that we're telling here.

[00:27:23] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:24] So I guess in movies, mostly rom-coms when people meet, it's known as a meat

[00:27:29] cute in a they guess that's a scene where two people will meet for the first time,

[00:27:34] usually under these unusual humorous or cute circumstances and go on to form

[00:27:39] a future romantic couple.

[00:27:40] Now, obviously this didn't work out for us.

[00:27:42] Yeah. Well, I mean, the romance part, it didn't.

[00:27:45] But well, it is the way that most modern romances start, which is from a DM slide.

[00:27:50] Right? Exactly.

[00:27:52] So again, you know, kind of unusual, funny way in which we met and became

[00:27:56] business partners, but not the romantic part.

[00:27:59] Unfortunately, it didn't work out between Dan and I like that.

[00:28:01] Now, Dan, before we go on with the story, we need to come up with

[00:28:04] like a meat cute version, but for like business partnerships.

[00:28:08] So like meat corp or meat biz or meat bro.

[00:28:13] I don't know. You got any ideas?

[00:28:15] No, I don't honestly.

[00:28:16] Like even when I was writing those down, it was hard for me to come up with a good one.

[00:28:19] I did want to.

[00:28:20] I was trying to think of this good pun when you were talking about

[00:28:23] a mist about how it wasn't a missed opportunity.

[00:28:26] Yeah. Damn.

[00:28:27] There we go. But it was a missed opportunity as the thing.

[00:28:29] Well, yeah.

[00:28:30] Yeah.

[00:28:31] So my pun thing is not on today.

[00:28:34] That's OK. That's OK.

[00:28:36] We got we got we have other things to discuss.

[00:28:38] They.

[00:28:40] So why don't I tell everyone how we met and then you tell everyone

[00:28:46] kind of how we initially started working together.

[00:28:48] Yeah, sounds good.

[00:28:49] So I was at this point, I decided I was I've always been in real estate.

[00:28:56] I had spent time on construction sites in architecture and engineering.

[00:28:59] I had been hitting the phones and doing cold calls for a commercial real

[00:29:03] estate brokers and close a couple of deals.

[00:29:04] It was great. But at this point, I was like, OK, I'm all in on real estate investing.

[00:29:11] That's going to be what I what I do with my life.

[00:29:16] And there's Dan into my life.

[00:29:18] Now, I had had mutual friends go and actually share one of his stories

[00:29:24] to me on Instagram.

[00:29:25] Thank you mutual friends.

[00:29:26] And they had been like, hey, you should connect with this guy.

[00:29:28] He's trying to put together this deal, whatever, whatever.

[00:29:31] And he's doing some cool stuff.

[00:29:32] So I was like, OK, interesting.

[00:29:34] I don't know. That's a tornado deal, by the way.

[00:29:36] I don't know on Instagram and we've got a bunch of mutuals

[00:29:39] and he's got some interesting content.

[00:29:42] This is years ago.

[00:29:43] So nothing like the content that you're all used to seeing years ago, years ago.

[00:29:46] He's got some interesting stuff.

[00:29:47] He's got you see, like, was IGTVs.

[00:29:49] I would just like put my phone on the table and just like IGTV stuff.

[00:29:52] Yeah, it's like 45 minutes of him ramming on like, who watches this

[00:29:55] shit and three people?

[00:29:56] Yeah. And then it was all yeah.

[00:29:58] Me was one of them.

[00:29:59] Yeah, one of the three views.

[00:30:00] And then the other stuff it was like, you know,

[00:30:01] you were taking photos of beautiful homes and whatnot.

[00:30:03] It was a lot of very different world back then, but I like it.

[00:30:07] I only went through like an edgy photographer phase.

[00:30:09] Yeah, a lot of black and whites and reds and yeah,

[00:30:11] I was obsessed with like red brick houses.

[00:30:13] Yeah, but it was cool.

[00:30:14] And it spoke to me and I like, you know, I loved architecture, right?

[00:30:16] I had spent time in architecture and engineering.

[00:30:18] And that's what I wanted to initially be one of the things I wanted to be.

[00:30:21] It's such a big component.

[00:30:22] So I keep interrupting you, but like the design element is like one of the things

[00:30:25] I think that it's like why people get obsessed with real estate so much

[00:30:28] because there's such a creative aspect that like really can

[00:30:31] give you that like creative fulfillment.

[00:30:34] And you can you can you can realize that fulfillment in so many different ways,

[00:30:38] right? Whether it's interior, exterior,

[00:30:40] hard scaping, landscaping, any type of the ad value stuff.

[00:30:44] Anyway, so I reached out to Dan by doing what everyone does.

[00:30:47] So every great couple meets every great person meets another one

[00:30:51] by sliding into his DMs on Instagram.

[00:30:54] That's the second Nick Hill original, by the way.

[00:30:56] And at that point people at that point, Dan,

[00:31:00] it was COVID had just started like literally maybe maybe we're like

[00:31:05] a couple months into COVID and Dan was doing these things called COVID

[00:31:09] Yo chats. Yeah, so it's funny because I actually started.

[00:31:14] I started podcasting before the COVID COVID Yo chats

[00:31:17] and I got a sneeze here. Give me a second.

[00:31:21] Oh, maybe not. Three, two. OK, there we go.

[00:31:23] You're supposed to look at the light now.

[00:31:25] I thought you're supposed to say elephant under your breath.

[00:31:26] Oh, really? Worst for me sometimes.

[00:31:28] If I if you see me going to sneeze, just take over for me.

[00:31:34] So I started I started doing a podcast.

[00:31:37] It was called Brick and Mortar, which is like, you know, trying to be creative.

[00:31:40] I always thought I'll create all podcasts and you'd have these catchy creative names,

[00:31:44] which it seems like most people are still doing it that way.

[00:31:46] I have been converted to the very literal SEO friendly name

[00:31:53] crowd now by by Braden and Samo who created

[00:31:56] Well, Canada's number one investing podcast, the Canadian investor,

[00:32:00] which naturally became the Canadian real estate investor.

[00:32:04] But I won't jump ahead of us.

[00:32:06] So I had this thing called Brick and Mortar.

[00:32:08] I want to say the first the first I think the first guest I had was Joey.

[00:32:13] I was just like Joey and then it was like,

[00:32:14] Scricco was on there nice and no, that was no, that was no.

[00:32:17] Scricco was like that was post COVID like.

[00:32:20] Oh, really? He was not so I had so.

[00:32:22] So I originally was going to try and start a podcast with Joey.

[00:32:26] That was our first our first episode was me and Joey, I think.

[00:32:28] Yeah, I remember I watched it.

[00:32:30] Yeah, we're talking about.

[00:32:31] I was like, wow, this is pretty brutal.

[00:32:32] It was bad. It was really bad.

[00:32:34] And then and then I had my buddy Mike, who's a he's like killing it now.

[00:32:40] He's he's going to get a PhD.

[00:32:41] He's like an actuarial scientist.

[00:32:43] And he's one of the smartest people I know in finance.

[00:32:45] But him and I were doing some some crazy stuff with like hedge funds.

[00:32:50] And well, not not me.

[00:32:52] I'd not smart enough by any means.

[00:32:54] But anyway, so I had a bunch of people on and then COVID happened.

[00:32:57] And then I was like, OK, well, this kind of changes that.

[00:33:00] And I was like, I was like literally following Gary Vee's

[00:33:03] like thing to a T where he was like, yeah, just put a phone on the table.

[00:33:06] And you know, and so my audio was like horrible, like the whole thing was horrible.

[00:33:11] And that's very on brand for me.

[00:33:12] Like even now I have the podcast, which is

[00:33:15] which is produced well.

[00:33:16] But like my other content is just horrible, right?

[00:33:18] Like bad audio, bad.

[00:33:19] Like I'm just like, you know, whipping it together in the middle

[00:33:21] of between appointments or whatever.

[00:33:24] Anyway, so COVID started.

[00:33:25] I started this thing where I was just like, oh, everybody knows how to use Zoom now.

[00:33:28] So I'm just going to hop on Zoom and just start recording

[00:33:31] these conversations that are happening with everybody.

[00:33:33] And so I started doing that.

[00:33:35] And I was just the same set of questions over and over.

[00:33:37] I was literally doing one of them a day during COVID at the beginning,

[00:33:40] like for the first little bit during COVID.

[00:33:42] Yeah, because I was just like, whatever, like it's so easy.

[00:33:44] I just go on Zoom, hit record, have a chat, put it on YouTube,

[00:33:48] get like a couple hundred views eventually.

[00:33:50] Like I think I was peeking at like I was getting like

[00:33:52] 1200, 1500 views per per conversation.

[00:33:56] There's still a huge like roll of decks of all those if anybody wants.

[00:33:58] If anybody is curious as to how COVID impacted 10 different industries

[00:34:02] like in real estate, I was doing that.

[00:34:05] And then I kind of like stopped doing that and started going back into

[00:34:10] more of like the oh, and I was uploading those to audio as well.

[00:34:13] And then I guess you reached out and I was personally like

[00:34:17] running out of steam with the content.

[00:34:19] Like I was like, I don't know how much longer I could do this.

[00:34:21] And so I was like, Nick, if you want, like it would really help me.

[00:34:23] It would really resurrect, like, you know, if you can help me take this over.

[00:34:26] And I kind of showed you all the systems and whatever.

[00:34:28] And then I think you and I ran this brick and mortar podcast for a while.

[00:34:32] Yeah, right.

[00:34:33] It'd be like at least eight months or doing the interview style stuff

[00:34:36] and which didn't really work all that well with multiple people,

[00:34:39] like two interviewers.

[00:34:41] And anyway, I think we were both running out of steam too.

[00:34:44] Like we were literally thinking about like why we had a conversation

[00:34:47] at one point where like, man, it might be time now.

[00:34:49] Well, I was like, yeah, we just got to pay it.

[00:34:51] We just some more interviews.

[00:34:52] Yeah, and let's let's put the attention somewhere else.

[00:34:54] And we were both getting pretty busy as a mortgage broker

[00:34:57] and as a real estate investor and as a real estate broker at that point.

[00:35:00] We had small portfolios of our own stuff to look after.

[00:35:04] I was doing a bunch of renovations on my own properties at that point,

[00:35:07] like sleeping on the floor and Cornwall and doing mortgage deals,

[00:35:11] like, you know, hot spotting off my phone.

[00:35:13] And it just got to the point where I remember I came out

[00:35:15] and did a video with you.

[00:35:16] We've seen that.

[00:35:16] Yeah, that was like that was one of the first pieces of content

[00:35:18] we ever made together.

[00:35:19] And that was years ago.

[00:35:20] So what was the pivotal moment between brick and mortar

[00:35:24] and the Canadian real estate investor, Dan?

[00:35:26] So the Braden, the Braden.

[00:35:31] So the pivotal moment was Braden from the Canadian investor podcast

[00:35:34] reached out to me and he was like, hey, you know, we're interviewing agents for.

[00:35:40] I just found out like that that he actually had contacted a bunch of people

[00:35:44] because he's very methodical, right?

[00:35:45] Like, you know, he is really like systems based business

[00:35:49] and runs a big great business, man.

[00:35:50] And so he obviously wanted to make sure he was making the right decision.

[00:35:53] And and I guess because I was doing a bunch of stuff on Twitter

[00:35:57] and they were pretty active on Twitter, Twitter is pretty popular

[00:35:59] for like inbounding for for podcasts.

[00:36:02] And I showed up on their radar and he asked me

[00:36:05] and and I just didn't let him like even think about anyone else.

[00:36:09] Like, I was like, yeah, let's start like we can go right.

[00:36:10] And I think everyone else was like, yeah, like, I'll think about it.

[00:36:12] Like, let's let's discuss the opportunity more or whatever.

[00:36:14] And I was like, no, for sure.

[00:36:16] Done. Like I'm in.

[00:36:18] Let's go. I'm your guy like and I didn't really let him take no for an answer.

[00:36:22] And so his big condition was like the style, which is their style.

[00:36:27] And I listened to like when he first reached out, I must have listened to like

[00:36:30] 80 percent of their podcast.

[00:36:31] Like I just had it on constantly at all times.

[00:36:33] Whatever I was doing is just listening to their podcasts

[00:36:35] because I wanted to know what I was talking about.

[00:36:36] And I think I had heard a couple of their episodes before, but not many.

[00:36:39] Anyway, so he was like, you need a co-host.

[00:36:41] Like this is the thing. And I was like, OK, well,

[00:36:43] fortunately, like that's exactly what I have, you know?

[00:36:46] He's not great, but no, I'm just kidding.

[00:36:47] No, he was like and they need to be really good.

[00:36:50] And it's a lot of work and whatever and explain the relationship

[00:36:52] that him and Samo have and whatever.

[00:36:54] And I was like, OK, like this is the guy like this was like.

[00:36:56] And I remember sending you a screenshot and I was like,

[00:37:00] I don't know what we're getting ourselves into here, but it was like,

[00:37:03] how about timing? Right? Because yeah, it was it was

[00:37:06] we were in the middle of like figuring out what our succession was next from.

[00:37:10] Yeah. And then I got that message and I was like,

[00:37:13] would you be in? And then Nick and I got on the call with them the next day,

[00:37:16] I think. And then it was literally like there was a contract two days later.

[00:37:20] And then moved fast.

[00:37:21] And we didn't know what we were getting into at that.

[00:37:23] No, we didn't know how much work it would be or how much it would change.

[00:37:26] I mean, so basically, you know, this help

[00:37:30] because we worked on it for, I think, three or four months before we even

[00:37:32] launched like we had several episodes ready to go.

[00:37:35] Yeah. Heavily, heavily researched stuff.

[00:37:38] Like I'm talking like the early episodes are like a like it.

[00:37:41] Yeah, we probably each spent a full week on that and it had like a full slide deck.

[00:37:45] Oh yeah. It's like 40 plus hours.

[00:37:47] And it was like 80 hours or where to put the first episode,

[00:37:50] then maybe 60 hours for the next two episodes.

[00:37:52] And now we've gotten it down to a couple hours in episode.

[00:37:55] But so let's call it almost 24 months.

[00:37:58] But we launched 18 months ago.

[00:38:00] Probably get the date wrong, depending on when you're listening to this.

[00:38:02] But 18 months in we we had no idea what was going to happen.

[00:38:06] We were super excited and shocked when we did launch.

[00:38:08] We launched at number one in the business category.

[00:38:11] We stayed there for weeks, which was awesome.

[00:38:13] Yeah. Help us get back there, by the way, folks.

[00:38:15] Yeah, I think we're now like five.

[00:38:17] Yeah, five now.

[00:38:19] And then we started to grow from, you know, 1000 a couple thousand.

[00:38:22] And then, you know, we started to look at the monthly's and we were hitting 20 grand, 20 K a month.

[00:38:26] And, you know, now we're up between 60 and 75,000.

[00:38:29] 65 to 75,000 listens a month.

[00:38:32] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:33] And so from there, I mean, I think we we learned what worked

[00:38:36] and we kept on researching and writing the best episodes with the goal of delivering

[00:38:40] as much value as we possibly could.

[00:38:42] I mean, our goal was to take a different approach

[00:38:45] the same way that the Canadian investor podcast does it, the two host show.

[00:38:49] And it's almost like really exploring topics, news and creating almost like a school.

[00:38:53] Yeah, literally exactly like real estate school.

[00:38:56] You listen to us.

[00:38:57] You don't need to go anywhere else.

[00:38:58] We're going to keep you updated and informed on the latest and greatest.

[00:39:02] But we also are going to go over the fundamentals and the foundational stuff

[00:39:05] that you need to know.

[00:39:07] So after two episodes a week, I was about 16 months in, we hit one million

[00:39:12] downloads, which is crazy to think about it because my ego forced me to run some math

[00:39:16] here, million downloads times 45 minutes, which is the average episode length.

[00:39:21] That's 45 million minutes or 750,000 hours of people listening to us talk

[00:39:26] about real estate.

[00:39:27] So if you were one of those people, which you likely are

[00:39:30] because you're listening to this episode, thank you so much.

[00:39:33] That's 31,000 days, 4400 weeks and 86 days straight of us talking about real estate

[00:39:39] and kind of messed up but beautiful when you put it like that.

[00:39:44] Yeah.

[00:39:44] And honestly, like I think people say this a lot, like they talk about

[00:39:48] gratitude and like being grateful as I like thank you.

[00:39:51] But it is like when you think about it, it's really profound to have had

[00:39:54] all of these people, all of you listening to us right now, like actually

[00:39:58] paying attention to what we have to say, but also supporting us, you know,

[00:40:03] joining the course, communicating with us, following us on Instagram,

[00:40:07] coming to the meetups, starting the meetups, hosting the meetups,

[00:40:10] like believing in what we have to do or what we've been doing.

[00:40:13] It like I can't discount how grateful I am for our audience.

[00:40:19] It's like it's huge.

[00:40:20] And so thank you for all the reviews over 500 five star reviews on Spotify

[00:40:25] and over 350 on Apple, the thousands of messages, emails, DMs and written

[00:40:31] reviews for the show we've gotten.

[00:40:33] You know, the world that this is open up to us, having conversations

[00:40:36] with some of the most amazing people, you know, people like Chip Wilson,

[00:40:41] working with partners and advertisers like Airbnb, Canva, Sherwin Williams,

[00:40:46] which we should be announcing right now as well.

[00:40:49] Who Sherwin Williams, we, you know, look, we we know that landlords

[00:40:53] love painting over everything.

[00:40:54] It's a meme at this point, you know, paint over a light switch,

[00:40:57] paint over a power outlet, whatever.

[00:40:58] So we thought it would be an amazing fit to have Sherwin Williams.

[00:41:01] I'm sure you're hearing their ads on the show right now,

[00:41:03] but they've also come on to sponsor our meetups coast to coast

[00:41:07] and they're going to be giving away swag, cool t-shirts.

[00:41:10] They have like some sick vintage t-shirts and stuff like that.

[00:41:13] So we wouldn't have opportunities like that if it wasn't for our audience.

[00:41:17] Yeah. And so again, extraordinarily grateful, you know,

[00:41:20] we've got so many funny stories and amazing memories

[00:41:23] from from the last two years doing this podcast,

[00:41:26] literally constant technical difficulties from the power going out to,

[00:41:31] you know, an episode getting randomly deleted and Dan,

[00:41:33] like the amount of episode doesn't happen too often.

[00:41:35] But Dan, you and I have done episodes at four and five a.m.

[00:41:38] to get them out on time.

[00:41:39] We've done episodes at 11 and 12, one o'clock in the morning,

[00:41:43] you know, nights, weekends.

[00:41:45] We have rain chime.

[00:41:47] We have not missed an episode.

[00:41:49] I remember the one fateful time I had to literally go

[00:41:51] and rent a hotel room for two hours to get an episode done.

[00:41:55] We've done episodes across the country and I'm going to be heading

[00:41:57] to Italy in a few weeks and I'll do episodes there.

[00:42:01] So the podcast has truly changed our lives.

[00:42:05] We are now doing deals across the country, literally from coast to coast to coast.

[00:42:10] And I mean coast because we're doing deals in the territories

[00:42:13] truly changed our lives.

[00:42:14] And you know, we want that again, when we started doing this thing,

[00:42:19] we were doing it, you know, at our desks separately.

[00:42:22] Now we, you know, then we did it in a garage

[00:42:25] and now we've got a full studio built around us.

[00:42:27] So yeah, you know, my major takeaways from from the podcast are,

[00:42:31] you know, the grit to keep on going has has been unmatched

[00:42:35] in any other business I've done. Right.

[00:42:37] I mean, this has been an absolute grind at some point.

[00:42:41] A lot of ups and downs.

[00:42:42] Like if you look at the chart, if you if you looked at the back end

[00:42:44] chart of like pot who like podcast listens, it's like literally a roller coast.

[00:42:49] Yeah, it's like, oh, wow, we just had our best week ever.

[00:42:51] And then like two weeks later, it's like no one likes us anymore.

[00:42:54] It's it's it's crazy.

[00:42:55] But you know, what's next for us is special.

[00:42:58] Right. I mean, this has allowed us to bring in equity partners

[00:43:01] and scale our portfolio that we're a part of to well over 50 units.

[00:43:06] We're we're negotiating another 26 portfolio right now.

[00:43:10] Dan and I are now likely going to be

[00:43:12] GP or LPs in many different deals across the country.

[00:43:15] We're opening up new markets for ourselves

[00:43:18] and our investor partners and our students and people in our community

[00:43:24] to to get involved.

[00:43:24] And we've built out an incredible amount of content

[00:43:28] between the two of us and the experts for the people in the realist community.

[00:43:32] We're building out an event series across the country,

[00:43:35] which has over 2000 people attending monthly events.

[00:43:39] And our goal is just to keep on growing and providing as much value

[00:43:43] as we possibly can so that we can help have a meaningful impact

[00:43:47] and a meaningful change on the Canadian real estate environment as a whole.

[00:43:54] So a sincere thank you for the growth with the podcast.

[00:43:59] If you liked this episode and you maybe want a few more of these,

[00:44:04] where Dan and I tell you a bit about more about us,

[00:44:06] where we came from, what we plan on doing next, all of those good things.

[00:44:10] Let us know what you think of this one and we'll start to mix these in every once in a while.

[00:44:15] And hey, if you didn't like it too bad, it's our show.

[00:44:17] You only have to listen to one of them when we won't do it again.

[00:44:21] Any closing remarks, Dan?

[00:44:23] No, I think that's everything I would just say,

[00:44:25] like I think that when you talk about sort of like the next phase for us,

[00:44:28] it's like we're building a community here.

[00:44:30] And that means, you know, these events, the realist course,

[00:44:35] you know, hopefully and on social media as well.

[00:44:38] So I mentioned earlier, like share a photo of you listening to this

[00:44:42] and tag us because we want to connect listeners.

[00:44:45] One of the things that we see or that makes us the most happy is seeing

[00:44:51] listeners connect with one another organically.

[00:44:53] Right? Like without we don't need to sit there

[00:44:55] and be like the conduit for that to take place.

[00:44:58] Seeing people just meet one another and do deals together

[00:45:01] and get to know everyone through this community that we built.

[00:45:04] That's why the platform exists.

[00:45:06] It's not we don't want to be involved in everything.

[00:45:08] We don't want to take an equity stake or brokerage fee or whatever

[00:45:10] and making we want people to have meaningful connections around real estate

[00:45:14] and worthy around real estate part.

[00:45:16] Right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:17] No, well said.

[00:45:18] So we'll leave it there for now.

[00:45:20] A sincere thank you.

[00:45:23] You have changed our lives and in return,

[00:45:26] we want to continue to do what we have been doing

[00:45:29] to hopefully change your lives as well.

[00:45:33] So thank you so much for a million downloads.

[00:45:37] And here's to the next million.

[00:45:41] The Canadian real estate investor podcast is for entertainment purposes only

[00:45:45] and it is not financial advice.

[00:45:48] Nick Hill is a mortgage agent with Premier Mortgage Centre

[00:45:51] and a partner in the G&H mortgage group.

[00:45:55] Licensed number 10317 agent license M21004037.

[00:46:03] Daniel Foch is a real estate broker licensed with Rare Real Estate,

[00:46:07] a member of the Canadian Real Estate Association,

[00:46:11] the Toronto Real Estate Board and the Ontario Real Estate Association.