First Rental Property

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are doing well.

The picture you see below is a picture of me!  This was taken on top of a “Harvester”.  A “Harvester” is a $300,000 dollar machine used by Wine Makers to ‘harvest’ grapes.  This Harvester was being driven by the son of the Owner of this Winery!  Hang on!

Here I am…

Here is what a ‘Harvester’ looks like…

This past weekend I attended a wine tour in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

For those of you not familiar with this area, this is an area in Southern Ontario, Canada, where a lot of grapes are grown and a lot of wine is produced. (This area is very well known for ‘Ontario Ice Wines’)

Regardless of where I am and what I am doing, I have reached the point where my eyes and ears are always looking and listening for anything “real estate”.

Even when I am here, I am thinking real estate…

Primarily, what I was thinking about when I stood here and took the picture above, was how much the land I was standing on must be worth.

Wine is produced off of hundreds upon hundreds of acres of farm land in this region.

Land values have historically proven that they go up in value with time.  In a stable political and economic country, if you buy land and hold it for the long term you will prosper as the land increases in value.

My interest was peaked during this wine tour when I got an opportunity to speak with one of the owners of a Winery.

The owner was a very vibrant and well spoken lady at 77 years young!

Since I was taking the tour with a large group (approximately 30 people in total), we had an opportunity to sit down with the owner and taste a number of wines.  She told us about the history of the region as well as the history of her winery.

After she addressed the group, we were then guided into the store, where we were able to purchase some of the wines that we had been tasting.

Since I always try to capitalize on interviewing successful business people, I took this opportunity to speak to the owner of the Winery in further detail and in an impromptu fashion while in the store.

Here she mentioned some amazing things that we can all learn from.

• She said that in 1955, when her and her husband were 22 years old, they bought 26 acres of farmland there for $13,000 Canadian Dollars.
• I asked her what she thought was the single thing that had contributed to her success and the success of her Winery over the years….She responded that she had been able to remain successful for so many years because she always focused on the quality of her product (wine).  She always produced the best product possible.

If we examine the 2 points above, we can obviously realize the tremendous benefits that result from buying and holding real estate long term.  Today’s value of that land surely is worth many times over what the land was bought for in 1955.

If this wine maker were every to sell her land, it would be bought in a heartbeat.  I would not be surprised if the selling price was in the “millions”.

So what were the lessons learned from this Ontario Wine Maker?

1. Buy and hold real estate long term, and
2. Always focus on producing the best quality product you possibly can (no matter what your line of work is)

Best Regards,

Neil Uttamsingh

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