Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: If you're looking for the skills and.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Tools to succeed in real estate investing, you've come to the right place. This show is about breaking through barriers.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Breaking through limiting beliefs, and breaking through.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: To the life that you want to.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Live through the power of real estate investing. You're listening to the Breakthrough Real Estate Investing podcast. And now here are your hosts, Rob.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Brake and Quinton D'Souza.
Welcome back, everybody. Thanks for joining us again. I really appreciate you all coming back time after time to get some more knowledge and listen to some of our new guests that we've been able to get. But today, we're not talking to a new guest. We're talking to somebody that we've talked to quite a few times. Quentin, a good friend of the show and someone that we always enjoy talking to because he's really done what we sort of set aside as the motto for the show and created the life that he wants to live. So I'm very happy to have Michael Dominguez with us today, and we're going to bring him in in just a minute. But, Quentin, how are you doing?
[00:01:05] Speaker C: I'm doing well. I'm. I'm pretty excited. Always love to speak to Michael and all our guests. You know, there's just so much going on in the last little while and craziness everywhere. It's nice to refocus on the real estate front and on improving ourselves and with every guest that we listen to and talk to. So I'm excited about that. And remember to like and subscribe and make sure that you go it and leave us a review. Right.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: You like and subscribe on YouTube. We don't push our YouTube channel. No one really watches the YouTube channel, but most people listen to it in audio. Right. Because they're driving in their cars. They need something to do. They want to get a little bit of extra real estate knowledge. So that's where most people consume this podcast. But you know what, if you actually want see Quentin and I and like, you know, see all these times where Quentin makes fun of me and holds up his bobblehead Rob that he has there, you know, nobody. Nobody knows what that looks like. You can go over to the YouTube channel. It's just Breakthrough Real estate. Breakthrough Real estate on. On YouTube. But other than that, yeah, go over to Breakthrough, reipodcast, ca. We got a new website, and you can still connect with everybody that we've spoken to over the past 11 years and get their contact information, also listen to their episodes. And then you can go over to itunes and leave us a Rating and review. We really appreciate that. You know, there's less and less people doing that now. I would encourage anybody who hasn't done that to please just take a couple of minutes. It doesn't take long. You don't have to give us five stars. Tell us what you honestly think. I think we provide some good content here. You know, we're always trying, and we want to keep it real. Right. So that's our main point here. A lot of people come to look at the show, and they're looking for a magic bullet. And if they don't get that in the first five minutes, they're like, I'm moving on. I can't. You know, I can't waste my time learning actual practical knowledge. I want to know, how do I get rich now? Where's my yacht? Where's those models? Right. But that's not the way it works. So, you know, give us a chance. Listen to this. Michael's like, no, it's not the way it works.
But some people think that it is. You know, they want a magic bullet. Right. Whether or not it's like, get. Get super rich quick. But they don't want to put in the work. They don't want to learn that. Yeah, you do have to deal with the tenants, that kind of thing. But that's the reality. And so we do our best, and we want to hear what you think of the show. So go over to itunes and leave us a rating and review, please. That helps us a lot, helps us get people like Michael come back and do the show again.
[00:03:36] Speaker C: Yeah. And let me give you a little background on Michael. So he's an investor. He's a former realtor, traveler, conservative of life. He wants to live life, and he doesn't care who's watching. I don't know if he has a medicine cabinet.
He says, I have a medicine cabinet. Asking if I'm doing anything scrapbook worthy today. Oh, that's cool.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Yeah, sorry, I was. I think I was drunk at the time. It was.
No, I. I put a note on my door, on my bathroom medicine cabinet door that said, just reminding myself just to keep plugging away. Even though I'm retired now, I need to keep doing stuff. So.
[00:04:14] Speaker C: Yeah. And time is your most valuable asset, which I think is true for everybody. Not everybody realizes it. And I don't want to waste my time on things that don't bring me joy. So very good message for sure. Michael, why don't you start off with just saying, like, how did your journey in real estate begin? And like what got you hooked?
[00:04:37] Speaker A: I became a realtor in 08, which was actually just before the recession coincidentally, but that had nothing to do with anything. I was already north of 40.
I'd had a career in middle management in, in retail management and was doing okay. Like I was probably a middle income to above middle income in family. My, my wife was doing pretty good, but I just wasn't feeling any passion or joy in my career. I just didn't feel like I'd accomplished what I really thought I was capable of doing. And so I decided to become a Realtor and become self employed and it was a pretty scary decision to do that. Within about a year or two that I, I just became enamored with the investor world and I really gravitated towards that end of the, the real estate spectrum and I became absolutely committed to being the best investor Realtor I could be. If I'm being honest with you, the first couple of properties I bought were just as much to make me a better Realtor and make me a better able to, to support and provide guidance for my clients as it was to build wealth. But, but I quickly realized, attending so many different investment group meetings, including Durham rei, I just realized that there was a real end to the rainbow here in terms of building wealth and reaching my retirement goals at a much quicker rate at the numbers I thought. And like you both know, I became pretty obsessed with becoming the best realtor I could be and the best investor agent I could be and felt I reached a level and said I don't want to do that anymore and that's where I am right now.
[00:06:13] Speaker C: So when you left your job and you became a Realtor, did you have any savings? Did, did you have like a large net worth before you got into real estate?
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Well, did you leave your job as soon as you became a realtor or did you kind of. Yeah. You did?
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it was actually I'd already taken my phase one and I believe even phase two realtor course before that and I went to my employer and sort of told them that, you know, I actually, I was, even then I was hoping to incorporate being a Realtor in my middle management job. I thought maybe I can move over to the real estate division of the company, but there wasn't any openings for us for it at that point and, and honestly my role had kind of disappeared over the last few years before that. And so I just, I got a package, I took it and by the time my money stopped coming in, I was already an active real estate agent at that Point. So. And as far as to answer your question, Quentin, we did have our mortgage paid off for the most part, and we did have some savings. Absolutely. So we did have a window. And then the other component which I had, which put me in a position where I wasn't in my first marriage is I had a spouse that, that had a really strong income and I knew in a worst case scenario we could live off of her money while I was building my business. So, you know, I certainly had some advantages that I might not have had, you know, eight, ten years before that. But nonetheless, I still had to take action and start moving forward.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: And so when did you start to look at it from an investor point of view and get interested in on that side?
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Honestly, it was probably within two or three years. I became far more active. Even within a year, the first couple of deals I did, I started meeting investors. This is back in, you know, 09, 2010, when there was just deals aplenty in, in Ontario and everything was cash flow positive. And I just saw these people just coming one after another after another. They weren't smarter than me, they weren't wealthier than me, they weren't anything more than me, but they were taking action. And that was really what I started to see. And I realized that I can do this too. And, but I'm not one to just sort of jump on the bandwagon. I want to research the heck out of it. And, and that's exactly what I, what I did. And I started to read a number of books, which is not my, my go to. I listened to various audiobooks. And then of course I, I attended a lot, a lot of events and just, just kept networking with people. And again, it was twofold. It was building my business as well as building my knowledge base.
[00:08:47] Speaker C: Okay, what made you realize that, okay, you've done this deal and you can say, oh, I, I can, you know, really build some wealth from this, or did it, did it ever occur to you that that would be the case at the very beginning?
[00:09:02] Speaker A: At the very beginning, maybe not so much, but shortly I, I did. And I think what I learned was what I didn't want as much as what I wanted. The first two properties I bought were, there was a six plex I bought, which was my first property. And then, and then I bought a, a second tier or, you know, a, a mediocre property in a mediocre neighborhood. And because that's what all the investment gurus always taught me to do is you buy the piece of crap. And in a You know, and get it for a good price and move forward. And I realized that's not how I wanted to run my business. I. I was quickly focusing on buying. And you know what, what became sort of my mantra was to buy a quality property in a quality neighborhood, attracting quality tenants, and then holding it long term and making quality profits. That became sort of my mantra. And once I developed that, working with, you know, the legends like Don Campbell and, and even Quinton was certainly very helpful in, in the early days and a few of my friends who had more knowledge than I did, and yeah, I became, that became my, my skill set. And then I sort of shared that with my client base because I found there were a lot of people like me who were in the investor world that didn't necessarily want to take on a lot of headaches. They just wanted to build wealth through real estate and, and make it to be a little bit more passive than the. The more active, crappier properties.
[00:10:30] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: And that's exactly. And I'm just gonna, I'm gonna mention your book because that's kind of exactly what you go through in the book, right? You explain your book is called Armchair Real Estate Millionaire, right? I got, I got one right here.
[00:10:43] Speaker C: You can get it on Amazon, right?
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, perfect.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Yeah. But that's exactly what it goes through. Basically, there's a million ways to do it. Use Goldilocks story as like, sort of the, the way to best describe, like, really there's. There's a bunch of ways to do things. There's like maybe three different choices, let's say, you know, and then Goldilocks picks the one that's just right. Right. So you got to figure out which one's just right for you. And so you go through basically all of the kind of, all of the different things that you come through in real estate investing as far as, like, what kind of properties there are, what kind of financing there is, and what kind of property management there is. And you sort of use that model to explain it all. It's pretty. And it's really layman's. It's easy to understand and everyone can follow along, so I recommend it.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: That's why people like us can understand it. Right?
[00:11:35] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. That's a book I like. One that I can actually understand. And, and honestly, that Dale Carnegie, it's.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Just like, you know, I appreciate it, guys. I really do. It's. It's one of those things that, honestly, I, I'm. I'm a pretty simple guy when it Came to like, we don't need to make it overly complicated. I just get so irritated when financial advisors just talking goobly gock or whatever the word is, and, and they just try to confuse their clients to the point where they say, well, I gotta work with this guy because he's the only one understands it. Because it's not that complicated. Financial management is not, is not this crazy, scary thing. You just start learning and one step at a time and, and you know, there's, there's a lot of quality education out there. And I'd like to think that my book is part of that in terms of just providing common sense stuff that maybe can work for you.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Could you maybe just share like your property purchase journey as much as you can remember it? I know like it. So you started off with the six plex. You said you bought a duplex next, and then maybe just share how you kind of grew and at what point you stopped.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Yeah, everybody has obviously different goals. I, I made a decision fairly early on that I did not want to be a full time real estate investor. I thought about it, you know, I thought about doing a model more similar to what you did, Quinton, but maybe focusing more on, on the duplexes and such and just have a series of joint venture partners. But I, I quickly discovered that I really just don't like partnering with people that have money but not a lot of common sense. And so, so I decided early on that that's not the way I wanted to play it. I wanted to build a portfolio that was either on my own or with my wife or with partners that were intelligent, active partners. So someone like Rob, for example, you know, when we were both growing, developing our portfolio together, he had been the perfect person to partner with because he was still growing, I was growing, we were buying comparable properties. We both could have been fairly active partners in the, in the property. And whether he was on title or I was on title was, was not as relevant as that we were working together on it. So my goal was to buy a property a year for 10 straight years. That became my quest. And about half of them I bought just on my own. The other half I bought with joint venture partners, which were active partners, primarily focusing on duplexes that were either already legal but needed some cosmetic work or ones that needed a basement renovation but were always in a very good neighborhood. That was my, that was my number one thing I kept thinking to myself, before I buy it is the tenant profile that I want to have interested in the property that I'm thinking of buying, and if the answer is not really, then then I'd move on to a different property. There were so many different opportunities out there. You didn't have to jump at the front the first one you saw. And that really became my. My mantra growing going forward is I.
I didn't need to buy every property I packed. I wasn't even looking at it. I started to develop a team, and. And I just quickly discovered that the more I delegated to really smart people that knew things better than I did, the. The better my overall business would grow. Because not only did they do the job better than I could have done, but it allowed me to focus on what I was really good at, which was selling real estate for investors. And so my investor realtor business just blossomed at the same time as my portfolio continued to grow. And again, most of my clients, there were a few that got pissed off when I bought a property that they were thinking about buying, but I made it very clear I was only buying, like, one property a year. Don't you want to be working with somebody who's. Who's. Who's actively getting something too? And usually what I would do is I would say, all right, I'm looking at this. Does anyone want it? And if they'd say no, I'd move forward. So. So that was. That was sort of. Does that answer your question, Quinton? Sorry, I cut.
[00:15:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. So you ended up buying, like, one property a year for 10 years. You created this real estate portfolio, and you gained appreciation over that time, but you've also kind of changed your. You know, you're a different. I always say that investors move through different st. Right at the beginning, they're very highly leveraged, and in the middle, they're. They're focusing on growth. They're increasing their systems.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: They're.
[00:16:15] Speaker C: They're. They're getting better with their team. They're refinancing sometimes or not. And. And then near the end of their. The, The. The stages of investing in real estate, often they're really focusing on either, you know, net worth, growth, or they're, you know, trying to create income from their portfolio. So I know that you've moved through the different stages, and, you know, we know you have that portfolio of properties. How exactly did you move from creating this portfolio with equity? But we all know you can't eat equity, and that often means that you're not. You're getting some cash flow from the property, but probably not as much as you'd want.
How exactly did you create income from this appreciation, was it cash out, refinances, helocs, selling something else, a bunch of things.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: I did sell a couple of properties for sure. But I think around 2017, 2018, I really started to change my focus from net worth growth to cash flow growth. And it took a while to get that mindset shift working for me because for 55 years of my life I was, I wouldn't say constantly, but constantly focused on growing my net worth, paying the bills, having more savings at the end of the day, like, you know, investing, reinvesting and, and just focusing on making that net worth number grow and grow and grow. It was around 55 is where I made that decision. I said, all right, now's the time to start thinking about cash flow. And whenever I had the opportunity, I would grab it wherever I could. And, and sometimes it's as simple as paying off some high interest debts and that will do it there. But sometimes it's even using your existing debt, but maybe extending the amortization. Yeah, you're not paying off the mortgage or the line quite as quickly as you might have otherwise. But there's more money left in terms of cash flow that can allow me to do whatever I want. If what I want to do at the end of the month or the end of the year is, is to pay down more debt, then so be it, or reinvest it, then so be it. But I just wanted to have that flexibility. And so it started out as more of a hobby than anything else, to be honest. And I set a number. I said, I said probably around 55. I made this goal, I said, I looked at how many expenses we have and I said, assuming that we don't have any money going towards the properties and we don't have any car debt, how much would it take for us to live a very good lifestyle? And number I picked up, you know, again with a little bit of research, a little bit of just gas and a bunch of inflation thrown in was $15,000 Canadian per month. That was a number I picked. And I said to myself, if I can get to $15,000 a month in ongoing residual income, whether it be from dividends, I started getting into private lending and we could talk about that if you're interested. And then of course, the property values and dividends from the equities I've got, all of a sudden it started to grow, it started to grow, it started to grow and before I knew it, I hit that $15,000 number. And interesting enough, I hit the number at the end of 2019, early 2020, with plans to start my traveling at that time. And then 2020 happened and all of a sudden the whole world shut down. And I quickly realized that all my plans that I did privately and all my strategies of how I want to live my life could potentially be taken away from me by, by another, by a government or a person or whatever, and outside source, Outside sources. And so that, that doubled down my determination to, to put myself in a position where I had the flexibility to do whatever I wanted when I wanted it.
[00:20:13] Speaker C: That's awesome.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Well, and that, that sort of brings us, I think. Yeah, it does. It brings us to pretty close to the last time we had you on the podcast, because you were on July 21, has been four years since you were, well, you've been on since then, but not to really talk so much about your life and, and you know, the way that you've created your freedom. So I really do like that.
Okay, so now you say you doubled down. So how did you exactly do that?
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Well, I put down, I, I, one thing I, I've done for years is a net worth analysis. And, and if anybody's not doing a net worth analysis, you really should do that. And it doesn't matter if you've got, you know, 20 million or $20 or negative 20,000 in your portfolio. It's important to at least write down what you've got and, and call it a starting point. And, and I'm not talking about saying, oh, I've got $365 of, of credit card debt, but I'm paying that off tomorrow, so let's not count it. No, if you say, you know, whatever day in April it is today, as of today, this is what's in my bank accounts, this is what's my, my assets are worth, and, and just make a list. And so I've been doing that pretty regularly for, for about 15 years now, but I've never done a net worth analysis or, sorry, cash flow analysis. And so I started to really do that. I, I looked at each of my assets and how much cash flow they were generating for me, and I quickly discovered that even within my real estate portfolio, there were some that were just kicking ass and there were some that were not doing as well. Now, in some cases, we were able to rectify that by perhaps readjusting some of the debts, you know, maybe extending amortization, refinance, or not refinancing, but basically extending stuff, or maybe getting a new mortgage.
They're working on trying to get a tenant out and increasing the rent that way. There are a number of different strategies you can employ on your, on your real estate portfolio, but you are still limited, unfortunately. As great as Ontario real estate has been for all of us in terms of growing our net wealth, it has never been the be all and end all in terms of cash flow. So I really started to research how I can better cash flow. And, and I found private lending worked for me because of my network of friends and associates. I knew a lot of people out there that were in similar positions to me that were still looking to grow. And so I started to loan on the properties. In some cases I even sold to my clients years before. Now they had a crapload of equity on it. They had a hard time going back to the bank and getting more financing. So it was a win win situation and, and I would generate enough revenue there to supplement me quite nicely. I also was less focused on, on, in the, in the stock market, in the equity market. Less focused on growth stocks, but more focused on dividend paying cash flow stocks. And in every element of my life, I was looking for different ways of getting an extra $100 here, $300 there, and before you know it, you make your, you know, I got to my $15,000 number and then I blew past it. And, and now my new goal, which I have not reached yet, is to reach $30,000 a month in cash flow, which would work out to a thousand dollars a day in revenue whether I get out of bed or not. That would be pretty good. So now I pay tax on that, but who cares if you're making $30,000 a week, a month?
[00:23:52] Speaker C: So yeah, that's, that's amazing. And you must have learned a lot of lessons because private lending is, I know we're, we're kind of talking about it and you know, you come from some experience with real estate and there are people that have lost, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions in private lending. What have you done different that you feel gives you the security and the security of income that you're, you're, you're getting? Because there's, you know, you read them in the paper, $150 million loss by a mortgage broker who, you know, and things like that. Right. So how do you, what, how do you do things differently so that you can, you know, feel comfortable with your private lending? Because that's, that's something we don't talk about too often.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I, I, I'd say I was taught early the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. And, and how many times have we gone to a lender, a bank, and they said all sorts of crazy thoughts and decisions and if you want their money, you've got to do those things. So, you know, and I was thinking, boy, I've been on the other end of the foot or end of the shoe or other end of the thing, whatever, for so long.
Now's my chance to take control and, and not just take every deal that comes my way. So I really focused again on, on, on a few things. What built my real estate career was buying that quality property in a quality neighborhood and getting a quality tenant. So now let me, let me work it this way. I'm going to find quality people who have quality portfolios. I'm going to find a quality asset I can loan on that has a lot of equity. And so if I loan to someone like Rob or Quinton, who are, who are good people and they're giving me personal guarantees and, and, and it's on an asset that I, that I know and I trust and, and there's a lot of equity and I, I trust the, the Ontario real estate market. And again, I only loaned on stuff that I really understood. I wasn't loaning to, to, to some multi unit project in British Columbia, Alberta. I was sticking to southern Ontario duplexes because that's what I knew and, or single family homes. I was sticking with investors only. And then the last thing I did was because I was trying to find a really good borrower. I knew that I couldn't get max rents. The people that I think run into biggest problems, they, they see the, they get greedy and they see opportunities at 15 and 20 and 30% and, and all these crazy numbers where they say, oh, I'm gonna get this kind of return until you don't. And you know, if there's not the amount of protection there, the reason why someone's prepared to pay 18 or 20% on a loan is because they can't get it anywhere else. I want to loan to somebody that they can borrow from 800 different sources, but they've chosen to work with me because I'm a pretty easy guy to get along with. My money's available quickly. I think it's a fair rate. You know, sometimes people even pay an extra percent higher to deal with me because I'm just so easy. I'm not asking for all kinds of nonsense stuff on an annual basis because I know the properties better than most people do. So I'm not saying this is for everyone, man. It's not if you are not an expert in this, in, in real estate to just simply put, your money is gambling. It really is. You need to be knowledgeable, you need to be an expert. You need, and even if you're not an expert, you need to be like, attend real estate events, get to know the people. That's what you need to do just to simply. Unless you've got unlimited money, which I don't. I want to put my money to the best use possible. And, and I'm always focused on, on making sure it comes back to me and it comes back with little friends. That's my goal.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: But again, your agreements too are looked at by, you know, your lawyer and made sure that they're, that they're pretty solid. And you know, if, if anything goes sideways, you're protected.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Absolutely. And you know, but to be fair, at the end of the day the buck stops with you. And you're the one who's taking on this risk and you're the one who's taking on putting your money out for, for an investment. And anytime, whether it's, whether it's in real estate or private lending or, or anything, anytime you're putting your money out, there's an element of risk involved. So you need to be as knowledgeable as you can. And that's, that's the point I'm trying to make.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: I, I don't know what this is here, but you've, you've got like a lifepoint system. I'd like to move into that now because, you know, I, it's really nice catching up, but I want to know what you've been up to, you know, now since we've really talked to you last and I know that you've absolutely created that life that you've wanted to live forever. So I want to hear about it because you're never like, you happen to be at home in Ontario now, but you're not there very often, right. You're traveling quite, quite extensively now and that, that, that income on the monthly basis that you're making has allowed you to do that. So we want to hear about that because that is the whole point, right?
[00:29:23] Speaker A: Well, for me it is, I hope it's for others as well. But yeah, I've been doing a lot of self reflection on that over the last little bit. And, and I think the, the, the thought process between life points, or let me back up a little bit again, when you start hitting your late 50s and 60s, you, you start to see people falling around you like, you know, dying of cancer or getting sick or they can't travel anymore. And, and it's funny, when you're in your 20s and 30s and even into your 40s, you always feel that there is more time that you're gonna be able to do all of these things and you know, I'll get you another year, you know, sort of deal. And I think it was during COVID for me where I realized that it may not always be available. And so all these things that were on my I'm going to do this one day list, all of a sudden, you know, I couldn't do a lot of them. And then, and then I'm nothing if not a statistician. Like I've, I'm, I'm stats beyond belief. I look at, I look at trends, I look at stats. And the one stat that I, that I recognize is that your typical white adult male, by the time you are hitting 70, you are likely not going to be traveling as much anymore. You just, you especially. I've been overweight, I've been, I've been not taking care of myself all the time. So I'm probably down to X number of years. Whether it's 65, whether it's 70, I don't know. I'm hoping to extend that, but I've got to be realistic. And so I basically came up with a strategy, Rob, where, where I want to experience as many once in a lifetime events as I possibly can. I want to enjoy every day, every week, every month. I want to journal it. I want to, I've been doing scrapbooks to sort of, you know, journal my retired life. I've been, I've been really getting passionate about photography and so I'm putting together all of these journal books that I'm doing, journal photo books and. But the key is, is that I can't just go around and take pictures of flowers. I need to, I need to accomplish things. So, so because of that I, I travel and I want to experience things and then I want to journal it afterwards and I want to, I want to prepare for it beforehand as well. So in, in last fall I was in Egypt for two weeks. That was an incredible experience. I spent three months this winter in, in Florida.
Next week I'm going to Greece for a couple of weeks in June we've already got plans to go to, to Newfoundland on a, on a, on a tour there. And then in July I'm going to be going to, to Calgary and Alberta, different parts of that province as well. And then hopefully in the fall I'd like to do something in either in Europe or in Asia. I haven't decided where yet. So. So again, it's. Why not? Like, it's. And you might say, boy, that's a lot. And it. And it is. Certainly when you say it out loud, it is. But. But at the same time, I don't know how many more months I've got left to do what I want to do. And I'm hoping It's over 100 months, but it may not be. And. And so I don't want to be looking back when I. If you've. You know, we've all read the book Die with Zero, I don't want to look back when my go go years are done and I'm into my slow go and no go years, and I look back and I say, shit, I should have done these things because I can't do them now. I don't want to be able to say that, or certainly of any of the big stuff. I don't want to be able to say that. And that's what life points are all about.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: So how do you know.
[00:33:03] Speaker C: How do you sign these? But go ahead.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: Well, I was just gonna say, on a side note, you know what kills me is that movie up. Like, there's. There's. You've never seen it, Quentin.
[00:33:13] Speaker C: Oh, I've seen it. Yeah. I've seen it.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, the beginning, like, he meets the. It shows the whole life of this guy, the old man, right? Starts at the beginning with him meeting that girl, and they're like, I don't know, five years old or whatever. They grow up together, and they have all these dreams, and they keep breaking their jar to fix tires and breaking their jar, you know, whatever. Fix the house. And they never go anywhere. And then she's gone. And then he's, like, 80 years old, finally decides to go do something. You know, that is such. A. Right there. That's. That's it. That's heartbreaking. It is. Yeah.
[00:33:51] Speaker C: Yeah. So I totally get the whole life points idea. And when. So Michael presented on the. The idea, like, last year, I think it was, and how he's kind of collecting all these points, and he's kind of, like, looking at how much he's. He's quantified, you know, for the different goals that he set. And it was really interesting to see, but. But I didn't understand, like, how. How did you assign points to. Is it, like, goals, time, freedom, experiences?
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: And to be fair, I've. I've gone away from counting the number of points. I'm more interested in just really cool, cool experiences. But yeah, that's really what it was, is like a one point thing was just honestly going out with some friends and we go to a show or go, you know, go dancing or something like that. That's a point. Like, you know, that's, that's an experience. That's a point. But a three pointer was something like, you know, going to something that was really significant in your, you know, a bigger thing. Like the first time I went to a spring training game for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I've been wanting to do that for years. So that was in my mind like a three pointer. And then, you know, I, I assigned different levels and up to a 10 point and again I've gone away from my count. It. I don't know if you recall the, the, the show whose line is in anyway. It, it's. It. The points don't matter. It's just. I, But I was just trying to assign it so I can compare month versus month and I really don't do. I had a ten pointer. Like, for example, writing this book was a ten pointer that was in my mind. That's something that's going to be on my tombstone and say, you know, that's, that's, that's a major life event. And that's a true ten pointer. But I don't, like I said, I don't do that as much anymore. I just want to have as many really cool adventures as I can. And, and honestly, a lot of it comes with my crazy level of planning to the point of being obsessively so.
If you don't plan for cool things, you're likely not going to experience cool things. And one, one example, which might put me on some sort of a crazy meter or something, but I turned my 2015 Dodge Caravan, which had been my work vehicle for close to 10 years, and I know Quentin was in that vehicle and so was Rob multiple times trying to, you know, work in real estate and selling stuff. Well, anyway, when my real estate career.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: Look as cool back then, I had.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: My face on it. Which, which was, which was freaking cool, let's be honest.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: Okay, it was cool. It was cool enough. Not as cool as it is now though.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: And so I've had it converted into a, into the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo. And, and so I've, I've hired a, I hired a company that did a really good job with wrap, but I added a bunch of accessories to go along with it. I've completed the Interior. Now that has the matching colors that were in the original Mystery Machine from the TV show and the commercial, the, the cartoon and the, and the movies and, and, and people say why'd you do it? And the short answer is, is I don't know. I just thought it would be cool, it'd be fun and who knows what adventures that's going to come as a result of it. I can tell you, just driving down the street, you really can't. You, you, you kind of forget that you're driving because I've been driving this car for 10 years. So you, you're kind of driving away, you're not really paying attention. All of a sudden behind you and waving. And so you definitely don't want to be showing any levels of road rage.
[00:37:23] Speaker B: Or, or picking your in check when.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: You'Re, when you're in the Mystery Machine because people are watching you, let me tell you. And I've got a vet, so I thought people watch me there. It's nothing like the Mystery Machine. It's a whole nother level.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Are you solving mysteries?
[00:37:39] Speaker A: One. Yeah, it, me and my, me and my meddling kids are, are, are solving.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: You know, solving life mysteries.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: I've got a three foot Scooby Doo in there as well when people want. And people are coming in. Like I've had people driving kilometers just to try to catch up to me. Get me in a parking lot so they can take a photo with me. And, and, and, and honestly, I'm glad I'm, this isn't my interest, but I could tell you I've had multiple girls just randomly go into my van, so it's just, it's just.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: All right, we're gonna edit that out, right?
[00:38:18] Speaker C: No, no, that's definitely, we're gonna highlight it in a highlight reel.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Yeah, don't make that as my highlight.
[00:38:25] Speaker C: So I mean, this is, I mean this is really cool that you've, you know, that you've done this and, and then you continue to kind of, you know, kind of reap the benefits of what you've sewn in the past. Right. Like with all your investments and you know, being able to convert your equity to income in different ways and reduce. Yes, you have, you definitely have your, your coin from the Durham rei, which is, signifies that you've, you know, got your financial freedom. Your, your passive income is much higher than your expenses.
So what's something that you, you wish you knew five years ago.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: 5.
This is something I'm working on as we speak and, and having conversations with some really smart People like, like Quinton, we. We chatted just recently as well, is. I tend to get uber focused on stuff. And when people tend to do things that could potentially affect me in terms of my wealth and such like that, I tend to just fly off the edges and I start to become reactionary. And, and really.
And I.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: That actually does surprise me, though, because, you know, you. You made the very good point that, you know, you can't do that when you're driving, so you definitely aren't doing that driving in the car. So, no, I'm not there. But.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: Well, but I find that I need to be intelligent and to.
The more I research stuff and, and this is by no means analysis paralysis. I. I'm not like, I think, Quinton, you would be the first to tell someone that I'm not an analysis paralysis guy. But at the same time, there's a. There's a fine line between waiting too long and. And not waiting long enough. And, and so I need to. Sometimes, you know, my advice is to just to research to learn, and then to not just take your first answer, but not even the second answer, but really. And then in my mind, I don't think I did enough soul searching, you know, at certain points. And so I need to sort of analyze that. So you said five years. If you'd have said 15 years ago, it would have been a very different answer. But I was already at the point where I was getting ready for retirement at five years. And so I need to.
If I could tell myself anything, it might be, you know what? You're not racing against anybody else.
You're not gonna lose the race by not doing everything every day. But at the same time, I don't necessarily listen to myself very often there.
[00:41:18] Speaker C: No, that's good advice. Like, I. I think sometimes there, we get obsessed by things that we can't control and.
And if we do that, it's just going to make us go crazy. Right. And there's some things that just. We just don't have the control over. Right.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: I think that the reactionary thing is very, very important because you can think that something's coming from somewhere until you stop and, like, look at it for a little while, and then you realize that it's not coming from that place you thought it was coming from. It's not even about you, whatever it was that happened.
But I'm lucky to say that I actually did learn that lesson, I think, pretty early on in my investor.
In my investor years. Once I. Once I became an investor, I learned that pretty quickly. I don't think that it would have served me well to not learn that lesson.
So I'm very. That's one thing that I. That I think is super important because tenants get mad at you all the time. I've had. I've. I've been called everything right. And I'm just like, what yesterday?
[00:42:33] Speaker A: This is from Quinn. And I too, actually.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: Quinn, best landlord, know yesterday, what's going on today? And it's not necessarily the issue that they're telling you it is or whatever, whatever. Just the tenant as a. As a. An example. Right. But you can't be reactionary in those kind of circumstances. You've got to step back and go, okay, what's the best way to handle this? Maybe I need to wait until tomorrow to handle it or give it a minute at least. Right. So that's. I think one of the. That's a really good point.
Thanks. Yeah.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: Yeah. It's something I'm working on. And, you know, honestly, it's an inner challenge that I've got, being a high achiever.
If. If I feel like I've wasted my week or my month, it frustrates me more than it probably should. But. But I tend to. I tend to. I just feel like I don't. Again, I don't know who I'm racing against. I. I just don't know who I'm racing against. But I just. My. Like, there was no reason why I should have graduated from university when I was a kid. Like, I was not a good student at all. And I was on probation multiple times. I failed grade 13 the first time back when there was a great 13.
I got fired from multiple jobs. But at the end of the day, I was always just. I. I just thought of them as. As bumps in the road that's gonna get me to my goal sort of thing. And I just. I just consistently was overcoming them, and it's hard to shut that down in my retirement years. I. I'm just not one of these guys that, you know, I, I see the old, you know, the traditional old guy who's basically sitting in front of the tv, just yelling at the news on a nightly basis, and that's not who I wanted to be. And so I. So, yeah, it's. It's something I'm working on. So this is a good therapy session we've got going on here.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: It's great.
[00:44:28] Speaker C: So I'm just curious, what's next for you? Like, are you going to purchase more properties, more life points, something different?
[00:44:37] Speaker A: Yeah, Well, I certainly am not Going to buy more properties. I've, I, I played that game. I've done that game. I'm, I don't need to do that game anymore.
We're actually, we're selling a few of our properties this year actually. That's going to give me more cash flexibility.
I'm hoping to spend more time, I'm a dual citizen Canadian American. I'm hoping to spend more time on an ongoing basis down in the States enjoying my life. And not even so much in the States, but I love Europe. I'd love to spend more time in Europe as well.
But simultaneously, I don't want to dismiss the fact that I'm still managing my, my, my, my portfolio where back in the day we were working, I don't know, what is it, 2000, 2500 hours a year in, in terms of, in your full time, you know, 40 hour a week job or whatever the heck a realtor was.
Now I'm probably spending only about 3 to 500 hours a year managing my portfolio. It might be negotiating a new mortgage. It might be dealing with a few of our problems, problem problems in our tenants and such like that. Not that we have a lot, but there's always a few. And then other things too. I'm always looking at ways to do different manners. I don't want to ever put, I'm never going to put everything on black and just go all in anymore. I, I want to stay as diversified as I can in my work life so that I can, I can do as many things on my personal life. Don Campbell used to say, make your investments boring and make your life exciting. And I've been following his advice for 15 plus years. So I'm going to keep following it going forward.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: One of the things I find fascinating though, Michael, really, is that like you pointed out that really it's only been 15 years that took you to build your wealth to this point where you can retire at your age. You know, not being an old guy, old guy, being a young guy, old guy. Right. And doing the things that you want to do. And I really do commend you, man, because I just think that this is what everyone should be working towards and, and hopefully people that have listened to this have gotten some inspiration from you and they can go out and try and do the same thing. Because I mean like, look at this, look at how simple this is. Buy one property a year for 10 years.
[00:47:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: You know, and it expands a little bit. It expands a little bit. You know, you've got to maybe get into some Other lending and that kind of stuff like you've done, it's not complicated. Anyone can do it. And I just think that more people should be out there trying. So hopefully people have learned something. I think that this is. There's a bunch of lessons in here that people can take away.
[00:47:25] Speaker A: I appreciate it. And, you know, obviously it's. It is more complicated than that. And if somebody decides to buy my book, it's also, it's on audible for those of us that don't necessarily want to pull out the book. And again, I tried doing some of that myself. I realized that was not my skill set. I do a lot of ums and ahs and, you know, inflections and stuff like that. When you're reading a book, you have to do things a little differently. And so I hired a voice actor to do that, and he did a wonderful job. So if you want to be entertained, he's. He's a really great speaker. But I want to ask you something, Rob. Do you remember close to 15 years ago when you and I were getting together in terms of building some wealth together, something I told you I wanted to one day do in our retirement years? Do you recall that or No?
[00:48:11] Speaker B: I do. I do remember. Well, you've brought it up since then. I believe you said something along the lines of, you know, us both being semi retired, if not retired, and sort of just reflecting on it, sitting in a pool somewhere tropical, something like that.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: And I think, I think. I think both of us being much fatter than we were, I think it was also part of that at the time. And I've certainly held up my end of the bargain.
[00:48:33] Speaker B: So, yeah, I'm trying still. I'm trying to just keep it going, you know, every day. And we're having fun here. So, you know, I want to pull some of these lessons out and start using them myself, too. So that'll be the goal going forward. So, Michael, I appreciate you coming out and, and sharing with us again. We're going to have you on again. Of course. It's always fun. You know, you love to talk. That's one of the good qualities in a guest. So, you know, we appreciate you coming on and sharing.
[00:49:02] Speaker A: I appreciate guys, I really do. And, you know, and I. I really don't do a lot of interviews anymore because I just. It doesn't really interest me too often, but anytime that you. You two call, I'll definitely be able to make myself available for you for sure.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: That's awesome. Thanks so much.
[00:49:18] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: Is there any reason why someone should reach out to you. Do you want to talk to people or you not really want to talk to people? Just, yeah, read the book.
[00:49:29] Speaker C: Yeah, I understand.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: I really do understand.
[00:49:32] Speaker A: If somebody were to read my book and if somebody really found some value out of it and they want to take it to another level and learn a bit more, by all means, if you can find a way of reaching out to me, I'm, I'm all, you know, through the, through the, through this site or, or I'm on Facebook. I don't know. But I, yeah, I honestly, I'm not looking to grow my business anymore. That's not my goal. But if somebody's interested in, in taking their retirement to the next level, or if somebody really wants to look through all of my scrapbooks, I'm more than willing.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: I'm sure nobody could be knocking down your door.
[00:50:09] Speaker C: Yeah, there's going to be like lines pull.
[00:50:11] Speaker B: If you're a lovely lady and would like to ride in the Mystery Machine, that's another option.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: But in all seriousness, I would love to. I don't even know what's going to happen, but if I attend some sort of Car show or ComicCon, I've never done that before. It could be fun. Like, you know, it's like, it's amazing how you do things and then other things come as a result of it. And if you've not done the first thing, all the other fun things would never have happened. And that's kind of what it was. And, and I took a, I took an old beater basically that's worth less than $10,000. And I guarantee you more people take more pictures of my, of my Mystery Machine than, than if a Ferrari was driving beside me. It's just, it's shocking how many people are following it. It's beyond what I was expecting, to be honest.
[00:50:56] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: Well, we've got a picture. I'm not sure. I think we can add extra pictures in the show notes if we can. I'll put that in there because he sent me a picture of that. So yeah, it's super cool.
[00:51:08] Speaker C: I, I've got a picture or some pictures on my Instagram just from yesterday, so.
[00:51:12] Speaker B: Oh, you do?
[00:51:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, so you can check people see those.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: Quentin.
[00:51:16] Speaker C: Ah. So if people want to get in touch with me and I've actually talked to a few people this week from the calls. Joseph called me and we had a 15 minute call about his pre con condos in, in Durham in Toronto. And Angela from Alberta talk to me about some of her properties. And what she wants to do. So if you want to have a 15 minute call with me, go to Quinton D'Souza.com Happy to chat about real estate and seeing if I can help put you in the right direction. And Rob, how can people get a hold of you?
[00:51:49] Speaker B: Very cool. Just email me, rob, Mr. Breakthrough. Ca you want to talk about Ontario real estate? If you want to talk about Costa Rica, whatever you want to talk about, just email me. That's the best way. Robusterbreakthrough CA well, thank you everybody. I really appreciate you spending the time with us again today. It was super fun and we'll see you next time.
[00:52:11] Speaker C: Awesome.
[00:52:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:21] Speaker C: Okay, so let's, let's get started with Michael. I, I, I'm gonna read a little bit of what he, what he, what he has and then a little bit.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: Of what he has.
[00:52:31] Speaker C: Yeah, like the investor, former realtor, that thing. Okay, okay.
[00:52:35] Speaker B: That's called the bio.
[00:52:37] Speaker C: Oh, right. Whatever.
[00:52:39] Speaker A: You know, we should keep, we should keep some of these outtakes for your, for your promotions. Right? So.
[00:52:43] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Look how stupid these guys are.
[00:52:48] Speaker B: I only post the ones where Quentin looks stupid. There's very few of those. Yeah, there's very few. So I gotta keep those. Those are like gold.
