The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

On today’s show we’re talking about one of the most important questions when evaluating a potential project. You’ve received the executive summary. The glossy pictures are great. The pro forma looks enticing. If the project is so amazing, then why would the seller be selling? If it’s so great, why would you ever let go of such an amazing asset? Or maybe its not an amazing story and the seller clea...

On today’s show we’re talking about another aspect of short term rentals. I’m in the short term rental business. My partners and I operate our units legally and at a very high level. The consistent 5-star reviews are not an accident. They’re the result of hard work by our team and our staff on a daily basis. Now, I don’t know about you, but my social media feed is filled with advertisements for tr...

On today’s show we have an update on a story that we’ve been following for some time. The topic is short term rentals. The staff at the City of Ottawa completed their public consultations on the short term rentals and have issued their recommendations to a committee of City Council which I will be speaking at this coming week. At the end of 2018 there were an estimated 6,278 listings. Listings inc...

On today show we are talking about conversations with potential funding partners. If you are in the marketplace for capital, you will invariably meet new people and develop relationships that a long way down the road could become a source of capital for your future projects. The initial positioning of the person you meet might be unclear. Are they an individual investor who has capital to deploy?...

Sterling White is based in Indianapolis, Indiana. He grew up in a tough part of town without the advantages of connections or capital. Sterling's story is highly inspirational.  You can reach out to Sterling at sterlingwhiteofficial.com.

On today's show I'm talking with Billy Keels from Barcelona about the specifics of the Buy on The Line, Move The Line Strategy. 

On today’s show we’re talking about the predicted extinction of realtors and mortgage brokers. It used to be the case that in the old days, knowledge was power. In many ways it was perceived that in order to complete a real estate transaction, or a real estate financing, you needed access to someone with inside knowledge of the process in order to navigate the complexities of a transaction. It use...

On today’s show we are talking about the meaning of investing versus speculating. In 2017 the global value of all bitcoin in existence soared from $20B to about $320. Bitcoin was making headlines all over the world and it seemed like crypto currency had transitioned from the technology world into the mainstream. One of the benefits of cryptocurrency is that the transaction history is fully contain...

Conclusions based on flawed assumptions are ultimately flawed conclusions. That makes sense. But when governments are involved, they don’t seem to adhere to that basic law of nature. Real estate developers will soon have to create or fund social and affordable housing if they want to build in Montreal. Projet Montreal passed a new housing bylaw in June of this year, following through on a campaign...

On today’s show we’re going to be doing some math. That’s right. The real purpose of today’s show is talk about the importance of financial education. Some people, notably lawyers, mathematicians, accountants, engineers and statisticians will find this math fairly simple. But for the general population, the inability to perform basic financial math is one of the reasons that wall street and the ma...

Alexandra asks: “I’m considering investing in the Toronto market that has an extremely low rental vacancy rate. Since the demand is so high and Toronto is a growing city, do you think this is a good idea?” Alexandra, this is a great question. It is true that vacancy in Toronto is extremely low. The city continues to add about 125,000 population each year, and there are about 35,000 units of new co...

George Ross is my guest again today and we're talking about the opportunity that may exist in the aftermath of the disaster at WeWork. 

Adam Taggart is one of the founders and principals at Peak Prosperity, an organization dedicated to helping people build a sustainable life. The headwinds and dislocations facing us as a society are numerous. On today's show, Adam gives a first hand account of what it was like to evacuate from the fires in Sonoma County in Northern California earlier this week.  To learn more, reach to Adam a...

The book this month is Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity by David Allen. This is not a new book. It was first published in 2001, with numerous revisions. The most recent edition is 2015. Since technology and tools are moving so quickly, the most recent edition removes a lot of the tech tools that have a short shelf life and what remains is a timeless edition the focuses on t...

On today’s show we’re talking about interest rates again. Yesterday, the Federal Reserve announced another 0.25% drop in the benchmark lending rate. A number of listeners are wondering what the Fed rate has to do with every day lending rates. Some consumer credit card rates have increased in recent months at a time when the Fed rate was falling. So on today’s show we’re going to read directly from...

On today’s show we are answering a question that I receive frequently. The question is how I spend my time. What is an average day? So today I’m going to do a deep dive on what I did yesterday. My day started at 6:15. First thing, my wife and I spend about 20 minutes together. We have a meditation practice that we do. We have a couple of different ones that we use. We sometimes use an app called C...

James from British Columbia asks: I have been scouring a lot of Canadian town and cities and have not come across any properties that rent at 1% of houses value let alone 2%. What do you recommend for Canadian’s and am I focusing my search in the wrong areas? I live on the west coast, so I have been primarily looking in the interior of British Columbia and Vancouver Island. James, that’s a great q...

On today’s show we are talking about cyber security. October is the annual cyber security awareness month. As more and more of our lives seem to have an online connection, there is a tug of war between convenience and security. Our mobile devices are always listening. My phone using location information tells my thermostat when nobody’s home so that we save energy on heating or air conditioning. W...

Tamera comes all the way from Stockton California where she has mastered the art of remote lifestyle investing. 

Anne Amagrande hails all the way from Pasadena California. She can be reached on LinkedIn or on her website at Amagrande.com.

On today’s show we are talking about how to speak to bureaucrats. This past week I attended a public consultation meeting with city officials. They are trying to gather community input on the question of housing quality, availability and affordability. Tenant advocacy groups showed up at the meeting in force. They had lots of stories of problems with their property that quite frankly should not ha...

Entrepreneurship is a hot topic these days. The story of the startup founder turning a great idea into a thriving business is the raw material of modern urban legend. Then there’s the dark side. There’s the stories of greed, of jealousy, and of insecurity. These are all human traits that make up part of the human condition. Movies like the Big Short have documented the headwaters and the aftermath...

On today’s show we’re going to run a small experiment. Let’s imagine that you went into the casino in Vegas wearing a baseball cap that says Federal Reserve. You sit down at one of the card tables and start playing. But one player, the one with the baseball cap has some special powers. They can print cards at will. Moreover, they don’t exactly deal out the newly minted cards uniformly at the table...

Yesterday was the Federal Election in Canada. The incumbent Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau had a majority prior to the election with 177 out of the total 338 seats in Parliament. At total of 170 seats are required to form a majority. There were 6 parties vying for position in the election. The two major parties are the Conservative party which is a little right of center, and the Liberal party...

Today’s show is a case study of a specific project which my wife and I visited this weekend. It seemingly has all of the right elements. The location is one of the best in the city. It’s directly across from the Rideau Canal one of the most historic and picturesque waterways in North America. During the winter months, the canal is the site of the world’s longest 7 mile skating rink. The property i...