Hi Everyone,

I am very happy to share with you some good news.

Fellow Real Estate Investor and Blogger, Julie Broad of Rev N You is now a regular contributor on the BiggerPockets Real Estate Blog.

Her introductory article called, The Great Canadian Real Estate Opportunity is a must read for any aspiring real estate investor.

If you are an aspiring real estate investor, I highly recommend that you keep up to date with Julie’s articles on the BiggerPockets Real Estate Blog.

Here are the reasons why you should do this:

One

Julie is an experienced Canadian real estate investor. By following her articles and her comments, you will be able to gain an insight into the Canadian real estate market.  If you are looking to buy a property in Canada as your first rental property, pay close attention to what she has to say regarding Canada.

Two

In her article series, she will be commenting on certain States in the US where Canadians are buying real estate. If you are an American real estate investor, this will give you an insight into where Canadians are purchasing property.

Three

Julie is a well respected real estate blogger and investor. She presents the facts and is well intentioned. It is helpful to learn from people like this, because they are always willing to share their knowledge.

Four

Separate from her articles on the BiggerPockets Blog, she has 31 Free Real Estate Investing Videos that you can benefit from.  I have watched a number of these videos.  I think that the videos are very helpful to aspiring real estate investors looking to buy their first rental property.

Five

Finally, I believe that Julie is the best Canadian representative that we can have representing fellow Canadian Real Estate Investors and Bloggers on the BiggerPockets Real Estate Blog.

There you have it. Julie Broad has made the ‘big time’ on BiggerPockets. Keep up to date with her article series and you will learn a lot!

To keep up to date with my blog you can click on the orange RSS button at the top right hand corner of the blog. Or you can type in your e-mail address on the left hand side of the blog.

Greetings Everyone,

There was a time, not too long ago that I thought that people who intentionally chose not to keep a  Television in their home were absolutely weird.

I felt that if someone had the financial means to own a TV, they should.  No questions asked.

Whenever I came across the occasional person who did not own one, by default, I thought that they were some sort of hippie. I could not understand why someone would chose NOT to have a TV.

Over the years, the more I stared to network with successful real estate investors and successful people in general, and the more I started to learn about their habits.  As such, it started to  become clear to me why some people don’t chose to own a television set.

A common belief that these successful people would express was that,

“There is no shortcut to success.”

Because there is no shortcut to success, one has to use up all of the time in their day very wisely.   Afterall, there is an equal amount of time in the day for every single person.

It goes without saying that most real estate investors, and aspiring real estate investors are ‘cut from the same mold.’

These are people that generally try to overachieve and obtain ‘more’ than they currently have.

When you look at the population on the whole, these people are definitely in the minority.  In fact, it is not uncommon that these people feel that they are outcasts.

Personally, I feel like an outcast a lot of the time, as my level of motivation and overall ambition is quite high.  This often intimidates people, OR, this makes people think that something may be wrong with me…

Have no fear my fellow and aspiring highly motivated real estate investors because,

It’s Okay To Be Weird

So much of whether we become successful as real estate investors, or not, depends on how we are using our spare time.

In order to achieve success, we always have to be making the decision to work during our spare time, as opposed to relaxing during this spare time.

It is obviously okay to relax now and then, but if you are always relaxing and never working, success is not just going to fall into you lap while you are on the couch.

My fellow blogger and real estate investor, John Fedro, a.k.a. J-Fed, hit the nail right on the head with a blog post earlier this week on this very topic.

J-Fed is a hard working man and because of his hard work, he has realized much success investing in mobile homes.  I really encourage you to read his thought provoking article titled, What Will You Do For Success In Real Estate?

So what do you think?  Are there any exceptions to the rule?  Does success only come to those who work hard?  Or, do you know of a shortcut to achieve success?

Keep up date with my blog First Rental Property.  Enter your e-mail address on the left hand side of the page, or, you can click on the orange RSS button on the top right hand corner of the blog.

Greetings Everyone,

Today I had a very interesting conversation with a fellow real estate investor. Our conversation was by chance, as neither one of us knew that the other was involved with investing in real estate.

I was very fascinated by this individual and the way in which he was investing in condo units in downtown Toronto.

In point form, here is a quick summary of his investment strategy:

• He is currently a part time real estate investor

• He works full time in the entertainment industry (on the set of movies, commercials, etc.)

• Specifically, he buys pre-construction condos in downtown Toronto, and flips them once the unit has been constructed.

As an aside, I know that investors with deep pockets do this. Instead of purchasing single condo units in a building, these deep pocket investors will buy entire floors in a condo building. Or they will buy a specific type of unit in the building. For instance, they may buy all of the bachelor units in a particular building and then flip them at a later date.

• This particular investor was just buying single units in a given building

• His long term strategy is to eventually invest in pre-construction condos as his full time job
  

What I found interested about this Condo Flipper was that he initially started out as a traditional real estate investor, buying and holding properties long term.

He told me that he started out investing in buy and hold properties approximately 15 to 20 years ago.

He also added that he moved into purchasing pre-construction condos because he wanted to invest his money in a ‘different’ way.  I got the feeling that perhaps he became bored of the buy and hold strategy.

Here are some important take aways that I got from my conversation with this investor.  This is the most important part of my article, as this gives an insight as to what is really going on ‘in the head’ of this particular investor.

• As fascinated as I was talking to him, and asking questions about how he was investing…he was equally as fascinated about how I was investing.

This insight led me to believe that as cool as condo flipping must be, there was a part of him that still wished he was buying and holding properties for the long run.

• He was very bullish about certain condo developments in downtown Toronto that a lot of traditional real estate investors would run screaming from.

His perspective here made me realize that opportunity truly exists everywhere.  Whether you are buying properties to hold for the long term, or pre-construction condos to flip, there is an opportunity to make a profit with both scenarios.

Often, I find that many traditional buy and hold real estate investors don’t like certain ideas.  For instance, they tend not to like the ‘buying pre-construction condos and flipping them’ strategy.  Many of them disregard this idea completely as a money making strategy.

*Neil’s Wisdom* — Sometimes when we have our eyes closed (to certain investment strategies) we tend to miss these opportunities, as we are in the dark and we don’t see them.

Just some food for thought for my traditional buy and hold investors/readers.  🙂

In closing, there was one other point that this Condo Flipper made that I found fascinating.  Anyone who has been watching the Downtown Toronto condo market knows that parking spots are now selling for a premium.  A few years back $25,000 for a parking spot was the going rate.  This going rate, depending on where you buy a condo in Toronto could now be $35,000 a spot.

The Condo Flipper told me that with his recent condo unit that he purchased at Front St. and Jarvis St. in Toronto…

…he bought a parking spot for $41,000 one year ago.  A year later, the same parking spot was selling for $50,000.

$50,000 for a parking spot?!

As the kids say… OMG!

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of this Condo Flipper’s Investment Strategy. Do you like it?  Do you hate it?  Do tell.

Also, keep up to date with my blog.  Enter your e-mail address on the left hand side of the blog, or click on the orange RSS button at the top right hand corner of the blog.

Greetings Everybody,

There are many skills that new real estate investors have to pick up quickly as soon as they start investing in real estate.

I have talked about the importance of organization as one of these skills in a previous article.

Another very important skill that a new real estate investor has to become good at fast is Marketing.

A real estate investor will have to market in the following ways:

1) Market the property as a rental to prospective tenants
2) Market the features of the property to prospective tenants
3) Market the property again in the event that the property goes vacant
4) Market the property for sale to prospective buyers, once the investor is looking to sell the property

In point number 4 above, the real estate investor may use the service of a Real Estate Agent in order to sell the property.  However, the real estate investor needs to understand the fundamentals of how a property is marketed for sale.  By knowing the fundamentals of how a property is sold, the investor will be able to determine if their Real Estate Agent is doing an adequate job or not.

Viral Marketing has increased dramatically with the birth of social media.

Real Estate Investors use social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in order to market their properties for rent or for sale.

If these advertisements go ‘viral’, this is great for the real estate investor as a tremendous amount of people will view the particular advertisement.

At the bottom of this article, I have included a video that had gone viral over the Internet.  It was a commercial that was created by Old Spice that I first saw on Chris Davies’ Blog.

Watch this video and write a comment in the section below.  Why do you think this video was so popular?  Why do you think so many people liked the video?  Why would people be willing to ‘share’ this video versus the thousands upon thousands of other videos out there?

Here is the video:  (don’t forget to leave a comment)  🙂

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE[/youtube]

2008 – The Year of The Investment Group

At the very end of 2007, I finally realized that my true interest in real estate was with real estate investment and not real estate sales. It was at this point that I began to start reading a lot more about real estate investing. As I continued to real more about real estate investing I began to learn how little I knew about the topic. I also discovered that there were so many real estate investors out there in the real world. I committed to myself to seek out and learn from these people.

The more I read about real estate investing, the more I kept on coming across different real estate investment groups.

Joining a real estate investment group seemed like the next logical step for me, as I found that it was very difficult for me to come across and meet real estate investors any other way.

In April 2008 I joined my first real estate investment group. I was meeting as I had never before very impressed with the first meeting as I found myself in a room full of real estate investors…approximately 500 in total.

Heading into the meeting I was a bit sceptical as to how many true real estate investors would actually be in attendance. I also had my back up, as I thought that the real estate investors meeting would just be a high powered sales pitch in order to get you to join the group and pay membership fees.

Despite having a terrible memory, I can remember that first meeting like it was yesterday. I was sitting at a round table with 5 other people. We all took turns introducing ourselves. At this time, I had one investment property. I introduced myself and described my property. By reading my About Page, you know that my first rental property was a freehold townhouse in my hometown of Oakville, Ontario.

I was amazed when I found out that everyone else sitting at the table all owned at least one rental property.

There were 3 people that I remember from my table very clearly. They each had an interesting real estate investing history.

There was one guy who owned a six-plex in a suburb east of Toronto. The building was owned by his family. He managed the property, and collected the rent. His brother helped with the management as well, and mainly looked after the repair of the building. This particular gentleman found managing the property difficult at times, but he was committed to the investment, and understood that the benefits to real estate investing are realized over time.

There was another lady who had purchased a large home in downtown Toronto as a rental property. It was a very expensive purchase, and after hearing her tell her story, her analysis of the investment property did not make any sense to me. It seemed to me, by her explanation that she was not realizing a positive cash flow with the property. It was evident to me that she had purchased the property without doing much due diligence. It was definitely an emotional purchase.

There was another lady who owned a condo in a suburb west of Toronto and another multi-unit building southwest of Toronto.

This lady was very concerned as she was trying to sell her condo, as she was not realizing a positive monthly cash flow from this property. She was trying to be a little bit cheap as well, as she was not willing to hire the services of a real estate agent, and she was trying to sell the property herself.

About 2 years after this initial meeting, bring us to today. 2 of these 3 people are still members of the real estate investment group. I have not seen the guy with the six-plex in several months, which leads me to believe that he has left the group.

Joining a real estate investment group was definitely very instrumental for me. I joined the group at a time when I was ready to learn and embrace the teachings of other real estate investors.

The most important take away that I had from joining this real estate investment group can be explained in a few sentences.

I felt that if other people were investing in real estate and were successful doing it, there was no reason that I could not do the same!

Actually, I explained that in one sentence.  A run on sentence…

To keep up to date with my blog, you can enter your e-mail address on the left hand side of the blog.  Or, you can click on the orange RSS button at the top right hand corner of the blog!

Business Life Story Part One
Business Life Story Part Two
Business Life Story Part Three
Business Life Story Part Four
Business Life Story Part Six

2006-2008

Very eager to begin my career in real estate sales, I joined a real estate brokerage in my hometown of Oakville, Ontario.  I had met with several real estate brokerages, in order to make sure that I was joining the best brokerage.  I ended up joining a particular real estate brokerage, as the owner had known my Mum for many years.  I chose this brokerage due to the personal connection.  At the end of the day, I was happy with the choice that I had made.

I lasted about one and and a half years as a real estate agent, before I threw in the towel. I had mentally checked out, and as a result, I knew it was time for me to move on.

During this time, I had made enough sales in order to sustain myself.  My eventual departure was not due to the fact that I was not making sales, rather, the departure was caused by my lack of due diligence in learning about the profession before I entered into it.

I will be the first to admit that I threw in the towel too early, and if I had stuck it out longer, I would have achieved consistent results year over year.

The reason that I ended up exiting the profession was twofold.

1)  I realized that I really liked real estate, however, it was not real estate sales that I liked.  It was real estate investment.

Also,

2)  The lack of structure that I had during my working day, and the lack of routine drove me a little bit crazy.  I felt that I was being unproductive with much of my time, and this feeling made me extremely uneasy.

It was best that I exited the profession when I did.

All was not lost during my days as a Real Estate Agent, as I made some decisions that helped to propel my real estate investing career to the next level…

Business Life Story Part One
Business Life Story Part Two
Business Life Story Part Three
Business Life Story Part Five
Business Life Story Part Six

Greetings Everyone,

I hope that everyone is doing well today.

I have a very important tip that I would like to share with all of you.

Any experienced real estate investor will tell you that the true learning with respect to real estate investing only begins after you have purchased your first rental property.

The more properties that you acquire, the more ‘things’ you will have going on that you need to stay on top of.

Even if you only ever purchase one rental property, there are many ‘things’ that you need to deal with. An inability to deal with these ‘things’ can be detrimental. In the worst case scenario, not staying on top of these things can even result in you losing your rental property.

So what is this valuable tip that I am talking about?

It really is quite simple. In fact, it is so simple, you would think that it should be common sense. However, unfortunately it is not. I am going to tell you what the tip is and then I am going to give you examples as to why you need to take this advice. I will also give you some personal examples that I have with regards to practicing this tip.

The tip is…

“As a real estate investor, you have to be organized. “

This sounds like ridiculous advice, does it not?  On the contrary, it is very important advice, and here’s why…

A lack of organization will defeat real estate investors, EVERY TIME!

A lack of organization can often be the begining of the end for a real estate investor.  When you have no organizational skills, little problems very quickly become bigger problems.  If these big problems are not dealt with properly, the impact to you as the real estate investor can be severe.

Example

With my most recent rental property purchase, I obtained a rental policy through my insurance company.  This rental policy covers me in the event that anything terrible happened to the house. (house fire, natural disaster, etc.)

I gave my insurance company the necessary details for the property that they had requested.  Since this was the 3rd rental property that I had insured through this company, I thought that everything was ‘smooth sailing’ after I had submitted my information to them.

I thought wrong, as I got a call from the insurance company saying that I had not submitted the necessary details.

I knew that I had submitted the details that they had requested.  So instead of getting mad at them, I simply decided to reproduce the documents that they were requesting.

Fortunately, I was able to do this with ease, as I had kept very good records.

In this example, even though the insurance company was the one that made the error, at the end of the day, if I was late in producing these documents a second time to them, or if I decided not to produce the documents again to them, I would be in big trouble.

I did not want to run the risk of my insurance company being discontent and challenging my insurance coverage. So, I jumped into action and produced the documents that they needed.

My organization skills helped me to deal with this problem quickly.

As a real estate investor, it is so important to be orgnized.  I have learned the importance of being organized, the longer I have been investing.

My advice to new investors is to get organized from the very beginning.  Keep good records, and know where to find things when you need to.  This will save you a lot of frustration down the road.

If you are just starting out as a real estate investor, I encourage you to sign up for the Rev N You with Real Estate newsletter. Julie and Dave do a very good job explaining the fundamentals of investing to new investors.  Check them out!

In order to keep up to date with my blog, you can enter your e-mail address on the left hand side of the blog.  You can also click on the orange RSS button on the top right hand corner of the blog.

Happy investing everyone!

2003-2006
The Real World

Despite putting forth a tremendous effort towards my academics in University, I ended up with sub par grades.  Since my grades were nothing to write home about, I felt that the window of opportunity was closing for me with regards to attending a law or business school of my choice.

Nevertheless, one month after I graduated from university I began to study for my Law School Admission Test (LSAT).  I studied for 6 months and wrote the test in October of 2003.  I put in a great effort studying for this exam, however when all was said and done the grade that I got on the test was not good enough for me to be accepted to a school of my choice.

At this point in time, I was getting the hint that it was time to forget about law school and move on to something else. I decided to test the job market, and see what type of job I could find.
In early 2004 I landed a job with Canada’s largest bank.  The job that I got was an entry level role for new graduates.  It was a job as a personal banker.  In this role I was able to lend the bank’s money to people and invest people’s money in investment vehicles such as mutual funds and Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs).    It was maybe one month into my job at the bank that my interest in real estate began.

I had always been a very driven individual.  Not performing well on my LSAT or academically in University left me disappointed.

Finally realizing that perhaps I did not have the academic smarts in order to perform well on the standardized entrance exams (LSAT), I believe that I subconsciously focused a lot of effort into proving to myself and proving to others that I could succeed in life even though I did not attend law or business school.  It was at this same time seven years ago, when my interest in real estate started to develop.

Sometime in 2003…

…I became aware that a family friend purchased a new home in my home town.  They had purchased a pre-build home off of the plans from a Builder.  As a result, we witnessed this home being constructed.  They had actually purchased the home from the builder is 2002.  The home was completed in 2003 and that was the year that they moved into the home.

From the time that this friend had purchased the home until they moved in, the home had appreciated significantly in value.  They resided in the home for a while before they ended up selling it.  While they resided in the home, it continued to rise in value.

Watching this happen before my eyes, I thought to myself….

“Wait a minute. If they are doing this, and making money at it, why can’t I?!”

This is where the light bulb went off for me…

…It was through this realization that my interest in real estate was born.

I didn’t jump the gun

As interested as I was in real estate, it took me some time to build up the courage before I ended up purchasing a property.

For about one year, owning real estate as an investment was on the forefront of my mind.  I spent this entire time studying the real estate market in my home town, as this was the area that I decided I wanted to invest.  I exclusively focused my efforts on the new homes sales market.  As a result, I spent countless weekends visiting with Builders who were constructing new developments in my home town.  During this search period I was mainly interested in finding out what the prices were of these homes that were being sold, as well I was interested in the floor plan of these homes.  At the time, I thought that the floor plan was an important thing to consider.  However, looking back, it definitely wasn’t.  The most important factor was the location that I eventually bought in.

After about one year of research, I had located the Builder, and the style of home that I wanted to purchase.  I knew that I was ready to buy, it was now just a matter of figuring out how I would actually do it.

I was still working for Canada’s largest bank, as a result, I had made some contacts with people in the bank that were able to help me with this first purchase. Through a co-worker of mine, I was referred to a mortgage specialist that worked for the bank.

Not to be confused with a mortgage broker, mortgage specialists work exclusively for the bank that they are employed by and they only offer mortgage products from that particular bank.  A mortgage broker on the other hand can offer mortgage products from a multitude of differnet financial companies and lenders.

I was now linked in with the mortgage specialist who was helping me organize the financing for this property.  However, before all was said and done,  I encountered one major roadblock.

Based on the analysis that the mortgage specialist did, I was not able to qualify for a mortgage based on my income alone.

It was at this time that the mortgage specialist suggested that I have what she called “co-signers” on the mortgage.  The mortgage specialist recommended that I have some family members go onto the mortgage with me so that our collective incomes would be able to service the mortgage.

Both my Mum and Dad agreed to go onto the mortgage with me.  With their names on the mortgage, we were easily able to be approved for the mortgage.

I have been very fortunate and blessed, throughout my real estate investing career and throughout my life. I would not have been able to get started with real estate investing if it was not for the support of my parents.  My continued success in real estate investment has also been a direct result of their support, encouragement, and guidance.

With this initial property purchase under my belt, I began to think that I loved EVERYTHING real estate.  As a result, I thought that it made sense to obtain my real estate license and become a Realtor.

So I did exactly that.  While still working at Canada’s largest bank, I began to study for and I eventually obtained my Real Estate License.  I left the bank at the end of 2006 and started a new career as  a Real Estate Agent.  Little did I know at the time that this would be a very short lived career…

Business Life Story Part One
Business Life Story Part Two
Business Life Story Part Four
Business Life Story Part Five
Business Life Story Part Six

1999-2003
Bigger and Better Things

I applied to four universities and got accepted to all four of them. I applied to McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario, Canada.  Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario.  Wilfred Laurier in Kitchener, Ontario and The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.

My older brother was attending McMaster University. I didn’t really like McMaster, so I ruled that school out from the start.  Also, I didn’t want to go to McMaster JUST BECAUSE my brother was going there.  I think that was the main reason why I did not like McMaster.  🙂

Brock University was my last choice, so I did not want to go there.  In the event that I did not get in anywhere else, I would have gone to Brock.

My decision was between Wilfred Laurier and The University of Western Ontario. Although I liked the Wilfred Laurier campus, I thought that the school was too small.  It almost felt to me like another high school.  I ended up choosing The University of Western Ontario, because I liked the campus.  The campus was huge and it looked kind of like a golf course.  In addition  I knew so many people from my graduating class that were attending school there. There were 20 people in total from my high school graduating class that chose Western.

While in University, I was laser focused on studying and getting high marks. My game plan was to achieve really high grades and then apply to graduate school. I was either going to go to law school or business school…that was the plan.

I had never studied harder in my life, than I did in my first year of university. After a few of my first exams in university, I received sub par grades, and I realized quickly that this could not continue. As a result, I increased the amount of time I spent studying in order to increase my grades. The increased time that I spent studying did not translate into increased grades, rather I was getting the same results.

I struggled academically throughout University.   I invested a lot of time studying but never got the results that I was aiming for. All was not lost in University, as I really hit my stride with social networking and again involvement with the University Students Council.

I ran for the President of the University Student’s Council in my final year of University.  One of my closest friends, Parag Shah of Garage Living convinced me to run in the election.

With this experience, I had a campaign team of over 40 students working hard for me, and we had a target audience of 26,000 undergraduate students.  Throughout this campaign, I made some really great friends who were very unselfish and who helped me every step of the way.  I could not have succeeded in the campaign, if it was not for the hard work from these friends.  At the time that I am writing this article, it has been 7 years since the campaign, and I am still very good friends with many of the people that helped me.  This was an amazing experience because it showed my how unselfish and helpful people can be when you need them.  It also showed me that sometimes people that you think that you can rely on disappear when you need them the most.

For the first 23 years of my life, I did not think much about real estate at all, in fact I was not interested in it at all.  It was not until after University that my interest began to develop in real estate.  I also have a very good theory why this interest developed in the way that it did…

Click here to read Neil Uttamsingh’s Business Life Story Part One
Click here to read Neil Uttamsingh’s Business Life Story Part Three
Click here to read Neil Uttamsingh’s Business Life Story Part Four
Click here to read Neil Uttamsingh’s Business Life Story Part Five
Click here to read Neil Uttamsingh’s Business Life Story Part Six

Click here to read Neil Uttamsingh’s

1980-1999
The Beginning

I was born on June 5th 1980 in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada. Growing up I was a pretty talkative and fun loving kid with my family. Once I began attending school, I took on a much different personality. Throughout all of my elementary school days, I was a fairly quite kid, who was not much of an attention seeker.

Things changed for me quite dramatically in high school where I became very involved with the Student Council. Looking back, when I look at my years in high school, I realize that the saying, ‘success leaves clues’ is very true. I began to accomplish many things in high school that I am still very proud of today.

I was voted Student Council President during my final two years of high school. I was elected Valedictorian by my graduating class, and I was also voted as the nicest person by my graduating class.  In addition, I received the Principals Award upon graduation.  It was an award given to only 2 members of the graduating class who had demonstrated student excellence throughout their years in high school.

I left high school excited about the possibilities that existed out in the real world. Although I was sad to be graduating, I was looking forward to going onto bigger and better things.  At this point, I had absolutely no interest in real estate.  If anything, I thought that I was going to become a lawyer…

Click Here to read Neil Uttamsingh’s  Business Life Story Part Two

Related Articles:
Business Life Story Part Two
Business Life Story Part Three
Business Life Story Part Four
Business Life Story Part Five
Business Life Story Part Six