The 6 Best Ways To Find Real Estate Deals

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Canadian Real Estate Investor, where hosts Daniel Foch and Nick Hill navigate the market and provide the tools and insights to build your real estate portfolio. Are you looking to find your next investment property but feeling overwhelmed, constantly asking yourself, where can I find a good deal?

[00:00:21] In today's volatile market, good deals are popping up every day, but you might just not be in the right place or the right time or have the right skills or network to see them. Now let me ask you this, what if you could find deals before they hit the market or what if you could spot a motivated seller before your competition? What if you could build a network that brings deals directly to you?

[00:00:48] Finding great investment properties boils down to three key strategies. Number one is direct searching, both on and off the market, including online listings, for sale by owners and driving for dollars. Number two is strategic networking, building relationships with landlords, power team members and other investors who can bring you deals. Number three is targeted marketing, establishing a clear niche and communicating it effectively to find exactly what you're looking for.

[00:01:14] Welcome back to the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast, where we're going to do a deep dive into the best ways to find real estate deals. Love it. My name is Nick Hill. I'm a mortgage agent with owlmortgage.ca and we help investors, business owners, first time buyers and honestly, just about anybody secure financing for their real estate. Whether it's your next investment, whether it's your next investment, a commercial space for your business or even a condo or a home, please reach out for any mortgage needs.

[00:01:42] We help people across the country. I am also one of your hosts for today, joined every Tuesday and Friday by my good friend, Daniel Foch. And that's me, Daniel Foch, Chief Real Estate Officer at Valerie.ca, Canada's first AI real estate brokerage. And we're changing the way traditional real estate works. So please reach out if you want to buy or sell or you're looking for a good agent, or if you are an agent looking to join a new and exciting brokerage. Any reason, give me a shout.

[00:02:11] Yeah, love it. And before we get into the rest of today's episode, Dan, which is a great one, we're going to be doing a deep dive and with real ways to execute on some of this stuff on how to actually go out and find real estate deals. The number one thing that obviously all real estate investors have to do all the time. I want to say a huge thank you for tuning in. We've had a ton of new listeners. Recently, the show is growing by double digit percents kind of month over month.

[00:02:39] So if you want to lose new listeners, thank you so much for joining us. I'd urge you to go back and check out some of the older episodes. We have covered so many amazing topics over the years, Dan. Yeah, episodes like fixed versus variable mortgages, the best investing strategies, all the ways to make money in real estate. Of course, we've had a lot of experts on to share their knowledge and insights as well. So if you like what you hear or you want to work with either of us, send us an email. Okay, enough of that. Let's get into how to find deals.

[00:03:08] Dan, let's go to that core strategy. Number one that you brought up direct searching. Now, this entails a few different approaches. Okay, and we've kind of split them into two arching themes on market and off market. So on the market, pretty obvious place to start. On market approach would be utilizing traditional listing platforms, the ones we all know, right? Some of the most common like a Zolo or Realtor.ca and working with an investor focused agent.

[00:03:37] Now, over the years, I have found a ton of great properties listed just right out in the open there online and publicly and on any number of those sites. And I've either found them myself or I've had a agent work with me who's brought me on market deals as well. Yeah, I've found a lot of properties like this in the past. There are some deals online. One of the good things like I think for Zolo and House Sigma is you can see properties that have been listed in the past.

[00:04:06] Or there might be a property even that you see listed today that you feel like you might be interested in. But maybe the price is too high or whatever. It's interesting because like in a lot of cases, those ends up being expired listings and then they kind of just go away. But you already know that that seller had the intention of selling. And in a lot of jurisdictions, real estate professionals can't actually approach expired listings. And so the only person who's ever going to end up buying that is maybe just a regular person who goes and approaches the seller themselves, right?

[00:04:35] So that's one way you could kind of think about doing it. There's often something called a holdover clause where like the realtor would still be entitled to commission from that marketing activity. These are kind of the things that you want to think about. And there are a lot of deals online just sitting there out in the open, right? In many cases, you need to be the one to see it as a deal, right? If something's been on the market and it's come and gone, if it was a really, really good deal and it had a lot of good potential, somebody probably would have snapped it up already.

[00:05:01] And so that creativity or the ability to realize its potential, that can be as simple as making that lowball offer that nobody else is willing to do. Going in under list price at whatever price makes sense to you. Maybe structure. Maybe you're the only person who thought to approach the seller with a VTB or maybe it's adding value. So just because it doesn't immediately look like a deal online doesn't always mean it isn't one. Yeah, exactly.

[00:05:31] And we've been saying this for so long. Great deals are made, not found, right? So if you can know what to look for there, that's your automatic advantage. And there's a lot of other just normal, like not even like, again, sitting right there out in the open, like days on market. Or again, being able to go back and looking at the sales and listings ratio or using keyword searches on some of these platforms like zoning or multifamily or VTB or anything like that, right? Right.

[00:06:01] Yeah, exactly. And you could be doing this yourself, but you should also be using the help of a savvy investor focused agent who understands the market and asset class that you're targeting. I mean, you know, it's one of the few, like one of the few, you imagine this, right? Like if you're running a big business, where can you hire a consultant or an employee who would get paid like hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for zero upfront costs, right?

[00:06:30] Like realtors get paid a success fee. And so if you find the good ones who are really going to help you, that can be a huge make or break in your success as a real estate investor. It also just takes time, right? This can be a lengthy process, especially if you're just starting out and trying to execute your first deal or you're in niche product like self-storage or midsize apartment buildings. So you have to go through a ton of deals and kind of narrow them down.

[00:06:51] We actually have a great way to do this in our realest.ca course, which is called the five-day challenge, where we show you how to funnel through a list of potential investments by using calculations like the DSCR, the gross rent multiplier, cap rate, and much more. Yeah, I remember when we first launched that challenge and we had investors from all across the country looking at different types of assets, funneling them down.

[00:07:15] I think it was like start with a hundred and then you ended up getting all the way down to 10 and then it kind of showed you your final three. Really great exercise and just great for any investor to kind of go through. So pretty obvious first two though, right? You know, look online, look on the most obvious places and get an agent to help, right? Main platforms, utilize real estate and professional. But here's the caveat. To do this productively, you need to know what you're looking for.

[00:07:44] And you should have a well-formulated investment thesis. And of course, this includes things like what kind of tenant profile you're looking for. Geography. Now that's just not location, location, location. But what kind of geography surrounds that property that you're looking at, right? Are we looking at schools or other types of amenities like hospitals or highways? What type of asset class and asset quality are you looking at? What are your return expectations? Your risk tolerance? What investment and involvement level do you want to have?

[00:08:15] And, you know, finally, what are your overall goals? So in order to productively look in even the most basic fashion, right? Even if you're just literally perusing online or getting that agent to help, you need to get educated and form that investment thesis to even do the most basic stuff productively. Now, let's take a look at some of the more interesting ways to find deals off market.

[00:08:41] So the first one on the list here is a FISBO or for sale by owner. We've probably all seen the ugly sign on the lawn that reads for sale by owner and that kind of red-orange color. You can pick them up at Canadian Tire, right? Oh, yeah. In most cases, there's just like a phone. You've picked up a couple of those things, haven't you? Yeah. You know, there's some phone number or email written with a Sharpie marker and it's probably faded because the sign's been up for a long time. Beaten down by the rain and the snow and the sun. Yeah.

[00:09:11] I mean, sometimes these can be deals, but in some cases, you can also be dealing with an emotional seller or someone with unrealistic expectations. The kind of person who's like, I don't need anyone or any help or realtors are overpriced, which like, look, most of the market agrees with that, but like not enough to go do the little red sign on the lawn thing. They're obviously some sort of, you know, difference of opinion with like the way the free market has agreed to work, right? So that presents a challenge.

[00:09:41] I think that's maybe the most diplomatic way of saying it. Yes. And so in a lot of cases, it's not easy to have a productive negotiation, but I have had good deals that have been done this way. And in other circumstances, you can meet a lovely person and it's a win-win deal. Maybe they just, you know, they were waiting for the right person like you. You can also provide the seller with comps in the area and some hard numbers. And this is really where, again, you want to be an expert analyst. And like you were saying, that five-day challenge is a really good jumping off point for people who want to learn and absorb as much information as they can.

[00:10:11] Like the real way to succeed as a real estate investor, you can make most of your money as a buyer, you know, and buy the property really well. That's where you can insulate yourself from a lot of the risk. And the easiest way to do that is to find market inefficiencies, but also to be the most competitive buyer in your market, to know the market better than anybody else, to have all the information, to have seen all of the comps, toured them all, know all the data points. If you can always outwit and outsmart your competitors, you'll always win, right?

[00:10:40] And you need those kind of things like, you know, an estimate of the needed renovations or again, comparable properties that sold nearby to reinforce your potential starting offer for negotiating. Yeah, I love that. Great, great call, Dan. And kind of what you said there, I know the market. Well, that brings us to our second point here, which is driving for dollars, right? So that's number two here on more kind of off-market interesting strategies.

[00:11:04] I have honestly such fond memories of doing this when I first started, you know, just getting in your car, driving to a market likely a few hours away if you live in one of Canada's major cities. And just driving around and looking at properties, likely properties that are in rough shape or maybe vacant or maybe the worst house on that good street type of thing. Or maybe you're looking for properties with a very large lot or that are close to public transit or close to a school. Whatever is important to your investment thesis.

[00:11:32] And when you find something or find a few things or an interesting area, write that address down or, you know, type it into your search immediately. Get a list of 10, 20, 30 properties, a couple of different neighborhoods, and then go home and research them, right? Try to find out who owns those properties and reach out to those owners and try to get to know as much as you can. The other great thing about this is you get to experience a little bit of the market that you are potentially investing in, right?

[00:11:59] You can go drive around and find a park or that cool restaurant or a local coffee shop close by. You get to do things like see what the traffic is like or see if there's people out walking the streets or walking their dogs or kids playing. You know, do you feel safe in that part of town depending on what time of day? It kind of allows you to get that gut feeling for it. You know what I mean?

[00:12:22] So, I mean, a few of the things that you're looking for are tall grass, you know, any kind of like, you know, a bad roof or beat up siding, bad landscaping, you know, bad driveways. Hunt for properties that don't look like they're getting the love anymore or hunt for properties that you have specifically targeted. And, you know, that's where you can go and literally start to find some diamonds in the rough while at the same time having that kind of boots on the ground experience already having been in that neighborhood.

[00:12:51] So, I love the driving for dollars option of trying to go out and find deals. Yeah. And I think that, you know, the next strategy kind of that you're mentioning is that driving for dollars and, you know, what are you going to do when you're out there, right? Yeah. And I like to do a lot of it remotely, which is, you know, which is cool calling. But I will say there's nothing that beats what you've put in the list here, which is the good old-fashioned door knock. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:19] It is still probably the most effective, one of the most effective yet often overlooked strategies in real estate investing and even lead generation for sales for real estate professionals as well, door knocking. You know, you see one of those unloved properties, the ones that you've identified. And the nice part about door knocking that, you know, when you compare it to cool calling is if you're an investor or if you're a realtor representing an investor and you know what the property that you're looking for looks like,

[00:13:44] then you can knock on the door of the one that is that property and not knock on the door of the one that isn't. It's a little bit harder to do from cool calling. And so, a lot of people feel like door knocking is like a lot slower because you have to walk. But I actually find it more fast-paced than cool calling. It's also not as hardcore because like people will just like scream at you, hang up on you, all this stuff on the phone because they're tough. There's a phone between you, but they won't do that in person.

[00:14:13] They're a lot kinder. I've only ever had one person. Yeah, I mean, I've had some crazy stuff happen before when I used to door knock all the time. But we'll get to those stories maybe in another episode. Now, I know what you're thinking. Isn't this a little bit old school, right? But here's the thing. When it's done right, it is incredibly powerful. The key is actually approaching homeowners with genuine interest and respect. You know, you're not just going in with a hard sell mentality or somebody who's trying to rip someone off, right? Instead, you want to start a friendly conversation and offer to be a resource for them.

[00:14:41] Maybe they have questions about the local market or they're curious about the value of their home or maybe they are eventually hoping to sell the property. You know, maybe they want to downsize or upsize or whatever. I mean, everybody's got a plan to do with their property at some point, right? So, if you can position yourself sort of as a helpful expert and a potential resource to them when they do need liquidity, when they do need to sell the property rather than a pushy salesperson or like, you know, I think that you'll much more naturally build trust.

[00:15:09] And I would say that not everyone's going to trust you right off the bat. Like there are going to be some people just rub the wrong way. And I think that's just more a reflection of either them or the society that we live in. And so, I just wouldn't take that personally. Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, you know, one of my crucial tips having done some of this and been in and out of sales roles essentially my entire life and having businesses where I've had to sell myself and my services.

[00:15:31] You know, you never want to when you're doing these things in person, you never want to kind of go in for that brute force, you know, pushy salesman, especially here in Canada. But like, never try to close that deal on the doorstep. It's not like you're selling some kind of widget or, you know, a pest control or a lawn maintenance type of thing where it's a couple hundred bucks. You're literally, you're trying to build a relationship with someone to either, you know, eventually buy their home or sell their home on their behalf. You know, be genuine, right?

[00:16:01] Make an observation or if you can, a compliment about their property. Maybe it's a nice tree in their front yard or a unique door or you have some commonality kind of thing, you know, show that you're paying attention and you're there trying to break the ice naturally. And, you know, that you're not just there again to try to make a quick sale because that likely is not going to be the case when it comes to this. I mean, Dan, we've done a couple of these together and, you know, it takes a few meetings. Usually they want to talk to their lawyer, which they should.

[00:16:30] Usually they want to talk to another family member, which they should. So, you know, don't rush it. Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, your goal really should be, and we talk about this a lot on the show, provide value. Provide value as a landlord. Provide value as a potential purchaser of a property. Come prepared with anything of value, whether it's, you know, hey, I'd love to buy your house. Okay, well, what do you think it's worth, right?

[00:16:53] I mean, that would be a good number for you to have had in your head and maybe some insights, some recent sales data, some neighborhood trends. You know, even if they're not ready to sell, they'll remember you as someone who knew their stuff and was genuinely helpful for them and valuable as a resource in their journey. Yeah. I mean, look, we say this all the time, man. And this is why we've done so many of the things that we've done here is that real estate is all about human connections.

[00:17:20] And, you know, in our digital age where cold calling and social media and podcasts and YouTube, you know, we've seem to have forgotten a face-to-face interaction can really stand out. And it builds trust in a way that, you know, an email, a text or a flyer and social media simply just can't match. For sure.

[00:17:41] And I think that belly-to-belly, that intimate, like, in-person connection, while it can be bothersome to some people and sorry to them, the people who really will or who do see the value in it are going to be – Like, the relationships that you'll build will be way stronger. The context of, like, the process that you'll have will be way better.

[00:18:02] And so, it's probably the best way to actually be – like, have a greater degree of control or a better experience throughout the entire process is to start with what I would say is probably the most, like, I don't know, high efficiency, let's call it, way of relationship building, which is getting to see that person face-to-face right off the bat. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So, the other piece is this targeted approach thought, right? You can focus on specific neighborhoods that align with your investment strategy or specific things that you're looking for.

[00:18:31] And you can do this, you know, when you're cold calling. You can do it kind of by clicking through Google Maps. But you can also really do it, I think, when you're going through that door knocking, you know, looking for specific things like a corner lot or major road, et cetera. Yeah, for sure. And the other thing, you know, I guess the last piece of love about door knocking is you get immediate insights about the neighborhood and potential opportunities that you might miss through those other methods, Dan, right? Like walking around on Google Earth.

[00:18:58] It gives you direct insights into even the neighborhood demographics, right? Like, how old are a lot of these people? Do a lot of them seem to be renting? Are there a lot of cars in this neighborhood? Are there a lot of bikes? So, you know, never dismiss door knocking. Yeah, in a lot of cases, you end up getting that kind of like, I don't know what they, what do they call them? Like, is it the town crier or like the person who knows everybody? Yeah, like the mayor. Yeah. Yeah, the local mayor of the street. And like, they're like, oh yeah, I'm not selling, but like Jimmy over there is selling.

[00:19:27] Yeah, he's been talking about it for years. Go out, Tom. He's in a fight. Be always fine. And so, yeah, I think that's one of the things. There's always one of those people. Yeah, I love it. I love it. There's some beauty, like, yeah, for sure. Anyway, so you get to meet those folks, you know, who are eventually going to be your neighbors. Or maybe they'll say, oh, you don't want to buy in this neighborhood. Like, you know. So, let's talk about the next method to find deals here, which you've probably gotten one of these if you own a property.

[00:19:57] Call it the mailer. The mailer. Yeah, okay. So, it sounds like after these, it kind of sounds like we're introducing like wrestling characters or something like that. We've got the doorknock versus the mailer. The mailer. Versus Fizbo. Just a mailman costume. Like, there's like super Marvel characters. I'm still in Disney a little bit. The real estate line up here, yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, look, real estate is a sport. It's also, you know, a little bit of a superhero thing.

[00:20:24] Anyway, back to these, you know, these mailers, also known as a flyer. This is where you would canvas a neighborhood with or directly target certain homes and addresses and send them info or an invitation to contact you if they wish to sell their home. I've seen people do this as like sophisticatedly as even sending written offers like with a potential home evaluation on all of the properties. But, you know, so there's that. That's one way to go about it.

[00:20:51] You've seen the ones that like are clearly printed but are pretended to look like they're like written on a- Someone wrote it in blue pen and then photocopied it 100,000 times. Classic wholesaler strategy. What are the other ones? I don't know. I mean, we do them in real estate, like a real estate profession. We just have one that's like house wanted and then it explains our client's need on the back and it's just a big house wanted sign. You know, this is a pretty popular method. You can either send it through Canada Post, right, directly.

[00:21:16] They have like a flyer distribution program or you can send it by like actually addressed mail or you can hand deliver them and put them in like the seam of somebody's door or whatever which forces them to actually grab it. If you actually want to run a very interesting experiment because I ran this experiment, I put a recycling bin beside the super box. Like for those of you who have super boxes in your neighborhoods to see like what spam gets thrown out before it even leaves a super box. And it's very interesting. A lot of real estate flyers in there. But I know the Koreans- Real estate and fast food?

[00:21:46] Yeah. Well, but like fast food, at least you get the coupon, right? Like again, they get it. They're marketers. They know it'll lead with value. Give this person two bucks. If they throw this, they're not going to throw it away. Even if they're never going to use it, they're still going to grab it because it's worth $2, right? And that's why they put the dollar value on it. But the- 10 bucks off a house doesn't have the same ring to it or buy a condo, get one. No BOGO deals on condos anymore, I guess. Right. So the ones that people do actually grab is often like it's never like the market report or anything like that.

[00:22:16] It's always the for sale ones or the sold ones where it shows a picture of their neighbor's house with a price. Like that's the big because people are nosy, right? So anyway, I ran this experiment. I would advise anybody who's either in the real estate profession or thinking about sending mailers so that you're figuring out which creatives work. You can save yourself a bunch of money and not getting stuff thrown out by looking at what other people are wasting their money on getting thrown out at the Canada Post super boxes. But anyway, so there is this one.

[00:22:44] It's obviously a pretty popular method and it's popular with the next method that you're going to tell us about, Nick. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I mean, this next method is pretty much this on a, I guess, professional level, right? That's wholesaling. Now, you know, it's this is a strategy where an individual known as a wholesaler puts a contract in place to purchase a property and assigns it to another buyer for a profit.

[00:23:09] Now, more often than not, this involves finding undervalued or distressed, you know, those classic off market properties negotiate probably by, you know, implementing a lot of strategies we've already spoken about door knocking, driving for dollars, negotiating a purchase agreement and then connecting at the same time with sellers. So you got to have that deal locked up as well as a pool of buyers ready to purchase it from. You know, there's two pretty common methods of doing this here in Canada where it is legal to wholesale properties.

[00:23:39] And that's assignment of contract, which is kind of that first one where the wholesaler contracts to buy a property likely at a bit of a discount because there's no realtor fees and they're saving you time and energy. And then they transfer to that buyer for a fee, which would mimic that real estate commission. But you've likely still saved some money there. The other one, the other method is the double closing on this method.

[00:24:03] The wholesaler buys the property from the seller and quickly resells it to the end buyer at a higher price, often in the same day or very, you know, very short term. Not usually just require short term financing. Now, again, you can try this method out on your own or if you're just looking for deals and not trying to actively make money. In a real estate related job, but more getting into trying to find and attract deals. This is where you just go and make some relationships with those wholesalers, right?

[00:24:33] Maybe you get one of those mailers from them and you're like, okay, well, I'm not selling my house, but maybe this person has a bunch of homes that I might be interested in buying. So you still call that number and introduce yourself as an investor. A hundred percent. I think I've never done a deal, like bought a deal off of a wholesaler. I have had a wholesaler sell a deal for me. I think that they're very good at finding deals in competitive markets. I think a lot of them are struggling right now when the market's less competitive.

[00:25:03] But all of that being said, definitely worth considering. The one thing I will say is like they aren't really – if you're an investor who's kind of like just thinking about it or like testing the waters or whatever, they're definitely like – you have to be really certain. Like, okay, I am looking for a deal. I've got the cash set aside. For sure, yeah. You have to be ready. You have to be really ready to act if you want to get a good deal in that way.

[00:25:30] And so it's more for the decisiveness phase, less for the research phase of your strategy. So the next one is online but off-market approach, right? So this can be from an investor email list or newsletters, similar to the wholesaler approach. Initially, you should try and get on as many of these as possible while you formulate your investment thesis. It can suck and bog up your email inbox. You're not speaking from experience, are you? Yeah, for sure.

[00:25:56] So what I would say now, especially with AI, is like get a Gmail inbox, like cut special for that and then use Gemini maybe to like compile it into a list or something like that. But if you already have a market and an asset class pick, then you probably just want to focus on that. There are a lot of these like more non-traditional sites, like Facebook Marketplace, I've found a lot of deals on, especially land deals. Kijiji, Craigslist, I feel like it may be just more of a US thing, but Kijiji's big.

[00:26:21] Craigslist, I guess, is still there, but more for some – you might find some stuff you're not looking for there as well. Don't dive too deep on that one. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think those ones, you can find people kind of listing homes for sale or for rent and reach out to them directly and just kind of have a conversation with them online through like Facebook Messenger in a lot of cases. It seems to work pretty well, to be honest with you. Yeah.

[00:26:49] And because it's listed, you know that they're actually thinking of selling it. It's like that's the kind of one drawback about cold approaching someone is you don't know whether or not they're intending to sell their property. If somebody's listed their property for sale, they're probably intending to sell it. Yeah, 100%. And that's where you can just take one of those kind of like curveball approach too and just say, okay, this person is renting this entire house or this person is renting a portion of this larger building or this person is renting a cottage. You know, just be like, hey, would you ever be interested in selling this as well?

[00:27:16] So that's where those kind of conversations and those unique paths, those unique channels that you can follow. Now, the next action that you can take to find real estate deals is to shout it from a mountaintop. This guy's just out here living in a Ricola commercial with his big Alporn. Ricola! What are you talking about? Shout what and what if there are no mountains? Okay, okay. Only like two provinces in Canada. All right, all right, all right. Okay, let me clarify. Okay.

[00:27:46] What I mean here, yes, you're right. If you don't have a mountaintop and if you want to protect your lungs, your vocal cords, what I mean is just let everybody know. Okay. Wherever you hang out with other people, let them know you are into real estate investing and you are looking to buy rental properties. Let them know your criteria for those investment properties as well. People want to help you in most cases.

[00:28:11] So, you know, and whatever social clubs and groups or wherever you're in, this could be your workplace, your gym, your church, your golf course, your pickup basketball league. I don't care what it is. Start telling them. Start, you know, shouting it from those mountaintops. Okay. And I mean- You don't like that analogy? No, I do. Yeah, it makes sense. You know, it's funny because like I was in Sirhan, like Ryan Sirhan. I was in his like, he has like a course for realtors. This was a while ago.

[00:28:38] But that was their thing actually, was shouting it from mountaintop. So, I do know what shouting it from mountaintop means. I didn't even know that. My first experience isn't just the Ricola commercial. But, you know, their thing and it seems to be for most real estate professionals is the online community as well, right? You can create a Facebook page or join one. Same with a lot of the social media platforms from TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram. Just let people know that this is what you're doing.

[00:29:07] And in a lot of cases, deal flow will start to come to you. And I would say that this is one thing that I really think is an important thing for you to think about. If you're afraid to do this, like if you're afraid to identify yourself as a real estate investor on Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever, you might want to ask yourself like why? Like why am I embarrassed to put this on my stuff? And maybe it's just not really like – maybe it's not going to be your thing, right? That's fine.

[00:29:35] It's just if you're having an identity crisis about it to the point where like you don't want to go and shout it from mountaintop metaphorically, truly or digitally like on your social media profile, it's going to be really hard for you to have the level of commitment required to take this like to really be the best at it, right? And I think that that is a big part of what's necessary to find really good deals and make a good amount of money.

[00:30:03] Maybe just not lose money actually in this. Yeah. Yeah. No, really, really sound advice. Okay. Now, it looks like we're only about halfway through, but this last one is just – it's the best one without a doubt. Always has been. Always will be. So, you know we got to talk a lot about it, Dan. And that is your network. So, let's quickly look at what networking is and what a network even is. And then we're going to break it down and tell you how to utilize it, how to build one, and where to find them.

[00:30:31] I totally thought you were going to say morning routine and we were just going to talk with that guy on Twitter. Have you seen this thing? The guy who's up at like 2 a.m. and like face baths his like ice face bath. Yeah, rubs a banana on his face. I got to just do one of those things. For sure. I don't even sleep. I do my routine like after lunch and then, you know. Just lay in bed and then just get up and do my morning routine. So, in regards to networking, once you've done your morning routine, you go out.

[00:31:01] You have several types of networks. You've got your personal network, your business or professional network. You've got networks from sports or community involvement. These can all be valuable networks. To be honest with you, this is crazy. I know a guy who gets all of his deals, okay? All of them from the dog park. No lie. Okay? Wow, look at that. Totally geographically targeted. High traffic, off-leash dog park.

[00:31:27] He has a sick dog that's like super well-trained and super friendly with other dogs and just takes him around and he just hangs out there all day. No lie, man. I'm like, this is brilliant. That is brilliant. And I guess you know that they've got a little bit of money regardless because they've got a dog. Maybe they're probably looking to upsize at some point with a backyard or bigger, some space. Yeah. So, and his picture on his card is just him with his dog. I'm not joking. It's literally- Targeted marketing.

[00:31:57] Oh, yeah. Yeah. And man, so anyway, I'm just putting that in as an illustrative example of like how easy it is for a network to exist. No matter what type of network it is, it is all about building and maintaining those relationships with others. And who's better at building and maintaining relationships than a dog? Well, hopefully people are pretty good at it too. I hope because I have met so many amazing people and key figures in my real estate journey over

[00:32:25] the years at networking events. It's allowed me to enact that one of my favorite things, Dan, we talk about all the time, the who not how principle. And that is when you shift your mindset from how do I do it to who can help me do this. So trying to figure everything out yourself, you focus on finding the right people and success, at least my success and a lot of those successful people around me has come from surrounding yourself with skilled people who complement your abilities. And you do that through networking.

[00:32:54] That's where you find those crucial team members who will help eventually bring your vision and your investment thesis to life. Yeah, I completely agree. And our networks are so diverse that there can be so many different touch points. Think about all the people that a real estate investor has in their network. They have dogs. They have friends from the off-leash dog park. They have real estate agents, brokers, real estate brokers, mortgage lenders, lawyers,

[00:33:20] paralegals, accountants, tax advisors, contractors, tradespeople, property managers, inspectors, appraisers, insurance agents, stagers, photographers, and the list goes on. And each one of these people can be a form of lead generation for you. Just let's look at the last one on the list. Photographer maybe says, hey, I know so-and-so, I just took a picture for this agent who's listing this property, but it's in really rough shape. Maybe they don't really want it. The sellers don't really want to put it on the market.

[00:33:46] Those little tips, like in the stock market, stuff like that would be like insider trading. It's literally against the law. This is an industry that operates on that type of information, right? All you have to do is have a clear thesis and tell people what you're looking for. Hey, do you mind keeping an eye out for this thing for me? Sure. Dan, I would love to do that for you because I'm a nice person. And that majority of people on earth are nice people. 100%. You said it right there, right? I mean, utilize every single person on that list.

[00:34:14] They are all going to be legion for you. Tell your photographer the next time you shoot, say, cottage property that might make a good Airbnb to let you know. Or the next time your plumbers at a rundown multifamily shoot you a text. The next time your inspector is looking through a property that may check your boxes, they should be reaching out to you. This is a funny one actually because I know one of the better investors that I know does a lot of paralegal work in the landlord and tenant space.

[00:34:42] And they get a lot of deals from the landlord and tenant board because who else is at – I mean, the landlords who are at those properties are pretty fed up at that – or sorry, are at those courts. They're pretty fed up at that point. Yeah. It's kind of like waiting on the court steps. You know what I mean? Yeah, it is. It's like, yeah, whatever they call that. What's the ambulance chasers? Is that what they call them? It's kind of, yeah. Pretty much, yeah. So your entire power team should know what you're looking to buy.

[00:35:10] And you do this by having conversations and building relationships with them or just asking them for their advice. Like maybe you don't know what you want to buy. Involve them in that process. They'll be very happy. And then they'll be like, oh, Dan took my advice. And then they'll find something and be like, oh, Dan, this is exactly what I was talking about when I told you what I thought was a sick investment. You should buy this one, right? Exactly. You got on the radar already. Now, Dan, you just, when you talked about our, you know, the network of a real estate investor, you listed, I don't know, 10, 12 things right there.

[00:35:38] The list is probably, I don't know, 20 to 25 people that you might need at some point, touch points in your career, depending on what type of real estate investing you're doing or where you want to get to. You might be wondering, okay, that sounds good, but I don't know any of those people or I don't know all of those people. I'm missing some key people from my power team and maybe from a new market I'm going to explore. Well, it sounds like it's time to grow your network. And that's the next main place you can find those deals is within your network and within

[00:36:08] your growing network. Yeah. Yeah. And we on this podcast have tried to make that very easy for you over the last two years. We've been growing both an online and in-person community. Yeah. And we host free events across the country. Our meet hub, Dan, now almost 9,000 people from coast to coast, from Victoria to PEI. So if you want to get involved or don't see your city on meetup, reach out, let us know.

[00:36:33] We'll find a way to get you involved or to make sure that there is a meetup for you to go to close by. So I'm just going to go through a list here because it just feels really cool to say all of these names. Also a shout out to all of our amazing hosts who help us run these. We could not do without them. They are the local market experts. Also make sure you tune into our monthly market update calls with them. But we've got meetups right now running. Some of them are off and on, but most of these are running every single month.

[00:37:03] Second Tuesday of every month, Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Windsor, London, Kitchener, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Toronto, Mississauga, Devon, Barry, Peterborough, Sudbury, Ottawa, Montreal, Moncton, Halifax, and Charlottetown, PEI. Wow. That is just awesome to see. And the mix of people that we get at these events is always amazing to me as well.

[00:37:30] I mean, think back to like the Montreal one that we were at as an example, an investor with thousands of doors who's there. Yeah. Just hanging out, talking to other investors. He actually met – I introduced him to one of our students out there, Phil, who's an absolute beauty and is going to be hosting our other meetup. I think we're going to have a second one. Probably I think Montreal and Laval probably command two meetups based on what they're telling me out there. And I introduced the two of them and they're looking at doing a deal together because one

[00:38:00] guy had a property that he was looking to offload and our students looking to buy, right? So you get that and then you get – so the people have been doing it for decades and maybe looking to offload in a cool way to the people who are just getting started, right? Yeah. Yeah. To be honest, that's probably my favorite thing to see at these events is when one of those like seasoned veterans, whether it's dozens or hundreds or thousands of doors or

[00:38:27] they've exited a portfolio or something like that, and I see them connect with one of those brand new people, you know, one of the really young people, one of the people that doesn't even own something or just owns one property, he's trying to figure out how to get to that next one. And you see these kind of worlds collide and it's just awesome, you know? That's where things really start happening. I completely agree. I mean, any business would tell you that, you know, your network and your customer base

[00:38:55] and the other strategic partnerships is where business really grows. These meetups centralize that, right? So for people who are starting out early in their journey, the events are perfect for exploring the industry and its people. You can discover what real estate investing really has to offer. For those in their growth phase, it's an ideal time to build connections, learn from others and provide value in the community and be telling everyone what you're doing, right? That shouting from a mountaintop that Nick's all about these days since he picked up that Alporn that he bought.

[00:39:23] And for the seasoned veterans, you know, you use these to hire talent, find mentees, connect with potential GPLP partners, investors, or meet someone interested in buying or taking over your portfolio. Yeah. Love it. Okay. Let's talk about another way here, Dan, something that you and I have become quite known for and that is by starting something yourself, right? Maybe you're doing a lot of these things already on this list, right? Maybe you're out doorknocking, you've tried the flyer game, you're attending our events

[00:39:53] or other events, or you maybe have your own event, but you can start something and maybe that's a podcast or a YouTube channel. Maybe it's a newsletter or an Instagram or LinkedIn page. Whatever it is, make sure that you are doing it with intention and be specific enough that you are attracting the right kind of deals. And maybe that's the best and final piece of advice on how to find and attract deals is there's a market for everything. Niche down.

[00:40:23] Yeah, exactly. From door knocking to mailers, podcasts to networking events, even your power team. You cannot just go out and tell everyone when, of course, you shut up from a mountaintop that, you know, quote unquote, I'm looking for real estate deals because at the end of the day, what the hell does that even mean? Yeah, it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And in most cases, when you are exposed to a bunch of different deals across markets and

[00:40:49] asset classes that could have all have potential, chances are we do nothing with any of them, right? You kind of get information overload. The more specific you can be, the better. Yeah, exactly. I'm looking for waterfront cottages in this area. I want large student rentals on bus routes close to this college. I'm looking for mid-sized apartment buildings under $4 million, or I'm looking for single family homes on major streets with detached garages. These are all the things that you should be telling.

[00:41:16] Well, actually, not all the things where you should be telling people one of those things instead of just saying, I want real estate deals. You got to know what you want. Yeah. And so maybe, you know, at the end of the day, you're shouting it maybe more from a cafeteria table than the top of a skyscraper, the top of a mountain, because there's too many people. Well, there's nobody around on the mountain, but there's too many people around on the skyscraper. Or, you know, you want to be like, what's that guy say anything? Is it Lloyd Dobler? The guy, you know, the guy holding the stereo. Oh, oh.

[00:41:46] You know, shout it from the top of a cafeteria table to your small community of people who know what you're looking for. And one of the best tips, be prepared to act quickly if need be. Actions speak louder than words, right? So being prepared to make a quick decision is indeed a great way to get a great deal. And doing it off the market especially, it's going to be necessary for that. I hear so many times prospective buyer has to ask their spouse, ask the bank for financing, get appraisal, get inspection, and all this goes on.

[00:42:13] In today's market, I mean, the best investor, like I would say best investor or investors that I know, I mean, the reason they get deals, and I've been part of some of these deals because we've gotten sent deals because some of these individuals are involved with them. They got sent the deals because the person knew they were going to close, right? Yeah. And that was it. 100%. And we've beat out prices and we've beat out people with better prices because we had a firm offer and they knew we were going to close.

[00:42:40] And in that regard, it's really interesting because if you beat out somebody who has a better price simply because you have better terms or you can close faster or the buyer or seller has more faith in you as a buyer, you literally just bought the property for less than market value, right? Because if there's another buyer, the market is willing to pay more than you. You paid. That's like, I mean, so there's a clear reward system for action in this industry, I would say. So do your due diligence, build out your thesis, grow your network and be ready. Yeah. I love that.

[00:43:08] The reward for action piece, I think, is so crucial here, Dan, because the last thing you want to do is if you've done all this work, right? You've listened to this podcast, you've enacted this stuff, or you've heard this podcast and you're like, I'm already doing a lot of this stuff. The one main thing that you need to avoid, especially if you're just starting out, what can really ruin reputation and build that power team is if you just never pull the trigger on any of this stuff. Then you've just wasted your time and everyone else's time. You don't want to be that old story of the boy who cried wolf like, hey, send me a deal, I'm looking at it.

[00:43:37] Send me another deal, I'm looking at it. Eventually the people sending you those deals realize that you've never purchased one for them and they start sending them elsewhere. So if you are actively looking for deals, do it with intention to purchase. And as Dan said, due diligence, build your thesis, grow your network, and let's all have a big year together. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you soon. The content of this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as financial, legal, or investment advice.

[00:44:06] Always consult a qualified professional for advice tailored to your unique circumstances. The views expressed are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of affiliated organizations. Daniel Foch is a real estate broker licensed with Valerie Real Estate Inc. Website is Valerie.ca, V-A-L-E-R-Y.ca, and a member of the Canadian Real Estate Association, the Ontario Real Estate Association, and the Toronto Real Estate Board.

[00:44:35] Nick Hill is a mortgage agent and partner at OWL Mortgage License Number 10317, Agent License M21004037.