Real Estate Investing Out of Province
Calvin Hexter
Good evening, everybody. Thank you guys for joining me, my name is Calvin with Calvin Realty. And today we’re going to be focusing on investing in real estate out of province. And if you’re from Alberta, you know how much interest from our neighbors to our east and neighbors to our west are having with investing here. So today, what I’m gonna be doing is we’re gonna be talking about investing in Alberta. But I mean, we’re gonna keep it broad, we’re going to talk about how to invest in a different province other than your own or a different city, maybe something that’s not in your backyard. And I’m gonna have two very special guests. They’re from Ontario, and they’ve been investing in Edmonton now for the last little bit, and I’ve seen some really good success from it. So we’re gonna go ahead and take these this fantastic one of my favorite couples that are currently doing it right now and doing exactly what a lot of people want to do. And they’re going to show you guys how to do it. Now. Again, we’re going to keep this to like 15-20 minutes. So get ready. It’s going to be action packed a lot of good information. Let me go and introduce my fantastic guests, Wilson and Jessica. Hello, guys. How you guys doing today? I totally muted you guys. Ready? Okay, I’m going to try it again. Wilson. Jessica, how are you guys doing today?
Wilson & Jessica
Excellent. Excellent.
Calvin Hexter
So as you guys notice, Wilson and Jessica are hustlers. And do you guys know how they’re hustlers? Well, first of all, they’re doing the meeting from their vehicle. And by the looks of it. You guys went to Home Depot or Lowe’s earlier and you guys have a whole bunch of like bathroom fixtures in the back seat. Can you see it? What do you guys got back there? Is it like the box full of like renovations?
Wilson & Jessica
Kitchen Sink, kitchen sink.
Calvin Hexter
So these guys are out and they’re taking action. And this is proof. And I actually love that you guys are like, I think we actually caught you guys. Are you guys and the guys in the parking lot still of the Home Depot or a home or hardware shop or anything?
Wilson & Jessica
We’re just at one of the properties. we’re renovating – literally in front of it.
Calvin Hexter
I love it. I love it. Well, thank you guys so much for joining me. So today we’re going to talk about how to invest in real estate out of province, something that you guys have been doing now. How long have you guys when did you guys start investing outside of outside of home?
Wilson & Jessica
That would have been May of 2021. So almost a year?
Calvin Hexter
And where abouts in Ontario you guys from?
Wilson & Jessica
We’re from Milton, Ontario,
Calvin Hexter
Milton, Ontario. Okay, so I know that we have a lot of clients from Ontario. So I’m sure anybody in Ontario knows exactly what it is. I’m sure our neighbors to the West in BC probably don’t know where that is, but I mean, I’m sure it’s fantastic and super happy to have you guys investing in Edmonton. So we’re gonna go ahead and grill you guys with a bunch of important questions today. Okay, on how to do it. Are you ready? My first question is, why are people investing in Edmonton? Like why is it a hotspot right now? What made you guys want to invest in Edmonton?
Wilson & Jessica
Cash Flow. That’s it, it cash is king. So when we started our journey of real estate investing, our goal was to reach financial freedom. And the way you obtain that is through cashflow. Yes, depreciation was fantastic in Ontario. But it got to a point where it just didn’t make that much cash flow. And the risk that we were taking there was not really satisfied by the cash flow that we needed. Our financial freedom literally was being being prolonged and prolonged further and further down the road, just because of the less cash flow each property. When we decided to start looking for high cash flowing cities, Edmonton was the place to go.
Calvin Hexter
How did you guys hear about Edmonton? Just out of curiosity, because I know a lot of investors. I mean, not even investors, I mean, everyday people right now are investing out of province in Alberta. Like I’m talking those that have never invested before in their life. And instead of investing in their backyard, they’re like, No, I’m going straight to Edmonton. And these are, you know, I’m dealing with with those that are, you know, some guys and girls that are 20 years old 3040 50 I think I have like a 65 year old that’s never invested before. That’s calling me and saying Calvin I want to learn about investing in Edmonton. How do I do it? What are my steps look like? So I’m actually hoping he’s watching the video right now, because that’s a pretty cool call out. And I know he’s going to do great. But what put Edmonton on the map for you guys?
Wilson & Jessica
So when we couldn’t find the cash flow, we literally like went home frustrated, was probably like our 5th offer in Ontario 100,000 over asking, we know conditions that was rejected. And we said okay, we can scale like this. So we actually brainstorm many ideas. Invest in Europe, invest in Mexico, invest in the US invest out of province. How we were going to accomplish that. No idea, but we just have to come up with solutions. After analyzing each scenario, we realized that investing out of province was the next logical step to do. And so we started looking at each Canadian market using CMHC. For both vacancy rate, price points, that type of stuff. We had a couple other major Canadian cities, we reached out to different Facebook networks, investors who are investing in that area, we ask them for numbers, their experience. And Edmonton just when we reached out here in Edmonton to investors, realtors, lawyers, just to say, hey, we’re interested, what’s your experience like? What tips and tricks do you have? After hearing their feedback that’s when we said okay, we have to fly over there. And just, let’s see what we can do.
Calvin Hexter
Gotcha. Amazing. So I get to deal with a lot of clients that invest from out of province and let me know if these reasons have also helped. Okay, so we talked about price now, a typical single family detached house that you see in Edmonton that maybe sells for about 400,000 – 450,000. What do you think that house would sell for? You know, in Ontario, Toronto, what do you think the house sale price would be? Roughly?
Wilson & Jessica
I think Calvin, I’m gonna say the average price. Well, we know, for example, we also we invested in London, Ontario. And we know for sure an average house price would be about 800,000. That’s London, Ontario. And that’s all even London. So the GTA, the GTA, my mom, for example. She has a detached home in Milton, Ontario. 50 kilometers from Toronto. Same model home sold last week or last week for 1.5 million. It was one day on the market.
Calvin Hexter
Pretty crazy. Hey, yeah. When I’ve been seeing my some friends and colleagues in Toronto, I know that like a $400,000 house here could be $2,000,000 / $1,500,000. So it’s crazy. So it makes sense. And the equity in Ontario or BC, has literally skyrocketed. And so a lot of people are like, What do I do with all this equity, I can’t buy in my backyard, it doesn’t make any sense. Because a lot of people feel like the price is already overinflated. And they don’t want to, but they don’t know if it’s going to continue whatever it is, then they look over, you know, then they look west over at the province of Alberta. And like, hey, the prices here are way more affordable. It looks like their economies also going up. But it’s in a position where you can actually cash flow, you can buy a property for 400,000 with a basement suite. And I know in Ontario, the common terminology is duplex like an uptown duplex. Yeah. So investors, you got to be careful because the terminology is different from province to province. So if we’re speaking of an uptown duplex, I mean, you can cashflow $600 to $800 fairly easily with an investment of about $400,000 to $450,000. So I mean, downpayment wise, if you’re investing It’s 20% down, it’s about $80,000. So for about $80,000 plus any kind of renovation costs, inspector costs, closing costs, I mean for like $90,000 to $100,000 you can get a cash-flowing asset about you know, $700 a month plus you’re getting mortgage pay down plus you’re getting appreciation. And the other benefits – let me know if this helped you guys – so we have no land transfer tax at all in Edmonton or Alberta. What’s your land transfer tax? I mean, it sucks there. It’s very favorable for the homebuyer, would you guys agree?
Wilson & Jessica
Very favorable. Well, I’m gonna say the last land transfer tax we paid in Ontario, we paid over $5,000.
Calvin Hexter
So anybody in Alberta or Edmonton that’s watching this, be grateful because we don’t have that, what is it P S T.? One other thing you guys got in Ontario. So I mean, that’s another couple of reasons were like closing costs alone are a lot more affordable. We don’t have PST, we don’t have land transfer tax. And our landlord rules are a lot more favorable to the landlord versus the tenant in, in Edmonton as well. Where I know, you know, in Ontario, you have limits of how much you can increase the rent after 365 days. It’s extremely cumbersome when it comes to evicting tenants. I mean, it’s very weighted towards the tenant. And very, I mean, very one sided for the tenant and not really advantageous for the landlord. Here tends to be a little bit more of a balance, which which makes it easier if you do run into any kind of turbulence with a tenant. Did those reasons help support you guys come to Edmonton as well?
Wilson & Jessica
Yeah, 100% we’ve had some horror stories with some of our tenants, no names, of course. But at our London property in London, Ontario, you know, they had two dogs, they were special service dogs and they were fine. You know, that’s nothing wrong with that. But they ended up over time, they inherited like eight dogs. And there was nothing we could really do about it. And 4 cats. But you got to the point that if you start bugging them or exercising your right that this is just not right for your brand new property. They could retaliate in the sense of not paying rent paying late, just removing, even though they were, they had their utility services under their name, they can easily just call and say, I’m gonna ping them, transfer them to the landlord. And so there’s many ways you can retaliate back, and I mean, it’s not like we were being unfair. It’s just eight dogs for cats, and they were trying to get two more dogs. It puts you in a position where your investments are not really being protected. Unlike in Edmonton, where we have had people who have broken their lease terms by say causing damages, we have been able to evict them. And it’s not like we want to evict people, an eviction costs us money. And we’re trying to provide housing, right. So that’s not our main goal. But you also want to protect your investment at the same time. So do we have scenarios here where property was damaged – wasn’t the first time – and would say “okay, you know what? You cause damages? Here’s your eviction notice.” And literally, they were gone within 48 hours.
Calvin Hexter
So I mean, much, much easier. So I’m noticing, again, not just investors are purchasing, you know, investment properties in the area. I mean, investors are have always been investing here, more investors are picking it up, especially through word of mouth and everything like that. But what do you recommend for people? What’s like, you know, anybody that’s watching? What do you recommend for out of town investor, their first step, or first steps? If there has to be one or two? What would you recommend? I mean, there’s lots of steps, what would you guys recommend?
Wilson & Jessica
What I recommend, to everyone who wants to take a stab at the Edmonton market is to just, you know, main thing is networking, ask questions, bother people, if you if you want to say that, because you know what, no question is a stupid question. We’ve had tons of questions. And we’ve learned so much from, you know, people who are more experienced. And just by word of mouth, it’s not even, you know, taking coaching classes or anything. It’s just networking with everyone else’s, you know, like minded individuals who want to be almost in the same spot.
Calvin Hexter
Gotcha. So, I mean, you could reach out to like Facebook platforms, real estate platforms. I mean, they can go to events, like zoom events, I use them in person events that they can go to, I guess, more zoom events if you’re out of province. And that’s other ways, I guess you can get connected. I know, if you go on many of the different investment platforms, you can really just Google you know, who’s who’s a good person in Edmonton for this, who’s a good person in Edmonton for this that’s investor focused, and that can help them as well. Yeah, that’s perfect. What has been your guys’s biggest challenge? If I was to sum everything up in a big ball of investing in Edmonton from out of province? What would you guys say that is?
Wilson & Jessica
Supply. You know that we have had a shortage of supply. I guess the oversupply has been bought by a lot of out of province investors. And being that we were we have been in the winter for the last couple of months, people haven’t really put houses for sale. So yeah, that’s I think one of the biggest challenges has been the supply side. And it’s getting I believe, I mean, Calvin, you’re the expert here. But when it comes to housing, houses, it’s, it’s more competitive now. You know, you put an offer, and if let’s say, you don’t want to go through with it, there’s already a backup offer. So you have like more competition now. So it’s always good to keep that in mind as well.
Calvin Hexter
Definitely. I mean, from where you guys are, you know where home is. I mean, this is only like a small sample of how hard it is to get into housing where you guys are, because that’s like extreme. I mean for so you guys are kind of conditioned where it’s like, you know, this is kind of a little bit more of a piece of cake Edmonton versus like a big city that you guys can be investing in. But you guys are navigating good you guys recently, you guys are having projects all the time, you guys are busy, it’s good to see you guys are taking action. So and that’s why I’m so happy to have this. This chat with you guys today is is chatting with those that are taking action making things happen and are making an impact on the community. So you guys are definitely doing that. And making a huge splash back in Ontario. I mean, my phone is ringing when you guys were over there. I knew you guys were just passing contacts into into Alberta so appreciate that as always. What’s on the horizon for you guys? What else you guys up to you? What’s your plans for 2022? If you don’t mind me asking.
Wilson & Jessica
So we’re helping investors out of province as well. People who want to learn how to get started and they don’t feel comfortable or they just don’t have the team to start by themselves. We’re a joint venturing partner. We’re doing joint venture partnerships with them. We help them tap into this high cash flow and market, the high cash flow from here helps them reduce the risk of the low cash flow back home in Ontario, mostly. Also just helping families who just don’t want to relocate. And they just want to want to go through the hassle of long, long distance investing. That’s where we come in. We provide, you know, different services from obtaining properties under market value, producing all the general contracting as well as the property management. And that’s all at no cost to the investor. That all comes out of our own cost. We’re just trying to find Win Win situations for investors just to be able to tap into here. And I mean, we’re boots on the ground like he was saying. So you don’t need to move here. We did it. And we’re so happy we did it. So we moved here, so you don’t have to type of thing right? Yeah. So
Calvin Hexter
Does anybody have any questions for these guys? While they’re live? We’re gonna have like, a minute and a half Wayne, Wayne, put a comment up and he said 15 to 20 minutes haha, there’s no chance because he knows that. And normally we can be speaking for a long time. We’re gonna make it happen. Just trust me on this. But for Wilson or Jessica, let me know. I mean, he’s saying that it was very informative. Just a short amount of time. I think she wants more she probably wants like an encore. I mean, we’ll see if any questions come in. I mean, you can always ask questions on this video link afterwards. And then we’ll just notify you guys to make sure that you respond and at least get connected.
Wilson & Jessica
Absolutely.
Calvin Hexter
Okay, my last and final question for you guys, because I know it’s freezing cold outside and we have your vehicle off because the cameras literally rattling. Can we show them the thing? Can you show them what’s holding up the camera your phone right now? Can we do like a little turn-around? This is the life of an investor they have a Moen faucet for a bathroom sink holding up their phone. I mean, here’s a true test. If you’re a true investor, you know you have these type of fixtures in your vehicle because you’re going from one house to another. If you don’t, I don’t know if you’re a true investor or not! My last big question for you guys is what’s your biggest tip to anybody that wants to get started? I know that. Jessica, you talked about getting involved in like networking events, connect with those that are taking action, professionals that might be able to help you out with their investor focus. Any other last closing remark when it comes to a tip for investing in a province?
Wilson & Jessica
What just came to my mind actually was do some research on the Edmonton market. So you you’re more comfortable with an investment and so you know that you’re making a great decision. Don’t doubt yourself. And don’t think that you can’t do it? Because you can. We did it, and we’re not big risk takers. But look at us now we have a few properties under our belts. And it’s you can’t go wrong with real estate really. What I’m gonna say is that your your biggest enemy. The battles that happen between your ears are the ones that decide your future, your outcome. And with that being said, you’re capable of achieving so much more than you actually think you can. If you had asked me a year ago, would we move to Edmonton and reinvest long distance? I would be like, there’s no way we can do that. I’ve never done it. And yet we were able to do it. So identify those limiting beliefs. Find solutions. Every problem has a solution. You’re afraid to invest long distance? Network. You don’t know a realtor? We can recommend you one. Need a whole team? We can recommend you one. There’s a solution to everything. So don’t let those battles between your ears be the ones that decide how you live your life. No.
Calvin Hexter
Absolutely. Great finish. I love it. I love it. And I mean, we’re such a good like strong like almost like family of investors here. So if anybody needs any help has any questions. I know that you guys are it sounds like you’re very open to answering them getting them connected. So I mean, we’re just gonna prove Wayne wrong and we’re gonna finish right before 20 minutes because I said we would. That was action packed lots of really good golden nuggets in there. Thank you guys so much. And thanks for taking the time to to help everybody out and understand some basic steps of how to get started in out of province investing. So you guys have a good evening. It sounds like you guys have a busy one in front of you. And we’ll see you guys very soon, okay?
Wilson & Jessica
Thank you. Thank you so much. Take care
