Setting Ambitious Real Estate Investment Goals & Raising the Bar with Calvin Hexter & Shane Unruh
Calvin: I am here with Shane Unruh. And Shane, you’re one of those guys. You’re one of those guys, and you have one of the most interesting stories that I don’t think a lot of people had the opportunity to ever hear about. And if you have, it’s pretty remarkable, and I would say at the very least, very inspiring. Can you tell everybody a little bit about your story and what got you to where you are, you know, today?
Shane: For sure. First, thanks for having me.
Yeah, so I started, I ran a business out in Manitoba, and we got into real estate in the mobile home park space. So it was kind of fate. You know, I read an article called Mobile Home Park Millionaires, and it just happened that the one in my town went up for sale. We were able to buy it. That got the foot in the door. We thought it would be a passive investment. Far from it, right?
About four years ago, we transitioned. We sold the parks, moved out to Alberta, and got into multifamily. Started the company we have today, so Excess Asset Management. And in the last couple of years, we’ve scaled to just under 400 units. We also have the property management company that manages the property as well.
Calvin: Amazing. Amazing. You have, you’ve done more in the time that you’ve been in, how many years, sorry, how many years in Edmonton have you been?
Shane: This is our fourth year, I guess.
Calvin: Fourth year in Edmonton. So you’ve done more in four years than I feel like someone could achieve in a lifetime. What do you think, what do you think sparked that? Why is your vision and dreams, it seemed to be so much bigger than the average investor?
Shane: Yeah, I thought, I think a lot of it starts with having that big vision, right? If you, if I had set the target to move here, and in 20 years have 100 units, I probably would hit that target, right?
I set the target a lot bigger. And we’re not even where I want to be, right? We’re not where I wanted to be at four years. But we’re a lot closer than if we had set a lot smaller target. So I think that’s a big part of it, setting the correct goals, setting the right vision, and working backwards, building a plan out how to get there.
Calvin: Fantastic. Shane, you’re one of those people that invest a lot in education. And you’re definitely one of those people that tend to surround yourself with very large achievers, big thinkers. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? And some of the things that you do? And what, what got you on that mindset?
Shane: 100% that that’s, again, why I want to be a part of this. Anytime you can get around people that are more successful and hear their story, it can have a for me, it’s had a huge impact on my life, it’s changed the whole trajectory of my life. I grew up in a very small town, you know, there wasn’t the level of success wasn’t really there.
And the first time I ever went to a conference, and I got to hear someone, you know, it was a billionaire, actually, and he spoke, and it really did reinforce that anyone can do it, right? He didn’t grow up with a silver spoon or getting anything given to him. He had a way worse story than I did. And and he was way more successful than I was. Now he didn’t come across as overly intelligent, right? He was just a regular person. And that, you know, getting in rooms with people like that just can have a huge impact. I went to a real estate conference. And it was very similar that one, I took one little thing away from it that changed our whole investment thesis. And had we not done that, we’d probably be two or three years behind where we are today, right? And it was very hard to spend the money on those tickets. I didn’t have it when we first started right, to spend the first conference I went to was $100. And I was like, I didn’t want to do it. And then the next course I took was $2500, and I didn’t want to spend the money. So I was like, just how can you quantify that return? But it’s been, you know, hundreds or thousands of times over that, that I’ve got repaid back. And I still spend a lot of time on, you know, coaching and anything that I can where I can just get knowledge from people and, and just try to compress the timeline, right? If I can do something someone else did in 10 years in five years, that’s worth a lot of money long term. And that’s what putting on, you know, conferences and events and coaching, all that stuff’s about is trying to just compress the amount of time and mistakes that you make.
Calvin: I would definitely say that the ROI has been really strong for what I can see from an outsider’s perspective. And you’ve literally gone to more training than almost anybody that I’ve known.
