Robert Leonard (02:25):

From a high level, what does your portfolio consist of? Usually, when we talk about people with hundreds of units, 100, 200 units, you’re not hearing the words duplexes and triplexes. So, do you have 100 duplexes?

Mel Dupuis (02:37):

It’s all of the above. We have a villa, we have a condo, we have single dwelling, we have some smaller ones and some bigger 50plex and bigger as well.

Dave Dupuis (02:47):

Yeah. Our biggest building is 50plex. I think we have about 33 commercial units, actual commercial tenants like doctors, pharmacists, psychiatrists, restaurants. We have, I think, 12 or 13 storage units, and then the rest is pretty much residential. But yeah, anything from a single family dwelling condo up to 50 unit’s our biggest as of today, so a mix. And the only thing I don’t have yet, what we don’t have yet is a mobile home park. And fingers crossed, it’s coming in the new year. So working on some deals. So, we’re a mixed bag.

Robert Leonard (03:16):

With such a mix, do you guys have a favorite? Have you found a class or a type that has really stuck out to you that you like the best?

Dave Dupuis (03:24):

The storage is really low maintenance, but it’s not as much of a higher dollar amount. Some of the bachelors, they rent very, very quickly, but they might be a little bit more a headache. So it’s different pros and cons, but my favorite is multifamily.

Mel Dupuis (03:39):

Yeah. Multifamily, I think, is what essentially helped us quit both our full-time jobs and really scale our portfolio. So yeah, I’d say the same, it’s definitely my favorite.

Dave Dupuis (03:49):

My go-to.

Mel Dupuis (03:49):

Yeah, exactly. I do like to diversify my portfolio, but multifamily is my favorite.

Robert Leonard (03:55):

A lot of the listeners are relatively new investors and some of the advice a lot of experts give is that new investors really need to focus on one strategy or one niche before they expand out into all these different things. Obviously, you guys have a lot of experience. It’s probably okay that you’re doing so many different strategies and property types. When you first got started, did you start with just one strategy? And if so, do you think that’s a good approach for new investors?

Mel Dupuis (04:19):

Yeah, absolutely. Our main strategy is buying multifamily properties using none of our own money and no joint venture partners. And that’s definitely how we were able to really scale our portfolio. Since then, as you grow and you have a bigger network why now we’ve been able to diversify, we’re buying outside of Canada, we’re buying worldwide and buying different types of units. But I would agree, get really, really good at one thing, what you’re passionate about, find out what that niche is. And then once you have a bigger portfolio, then exploring different adventures is worthwhile.

Dave Dupuis (04:52):

And Robert, this didn’t happen from day one. From the onset, it was always multifamily. And then as we started to grow our portfolio, all of a sudden we started buying a building that had maybe a commercial on the bottom floor and then apartments upstairs, and then maybe more and more of mixed units building. We only just bought our fully commercial building when we’re in our office building this year. So it wasn’t from the beginning, it was a gradual thing. But definitely, pick a niche excel at that first, that’s my opinion anyway.

Dave Dupuis (05:21):

And then from there, you can branch off as your comfort level grows, but it was multifamily apartments from day one.

Robert Leonard (05:27):

When you say multifamily, does that have a minimum unit count, because like two units is technically multifamily, but are you talking five units plus so it’s a commercial multifamily or even 10, 20, 30 plus?

Dave Dupuis (05:40):

Yeah. And I love that because everyone has a different definition. But yeah, as long as it was basically two units or plus, like you’re saying, and there was actual residences where people are living in, so that’s what we would just call multifamily. So that’s what we basically specialized in the beginning was apartments for people to live in. And then once we got comfortable with that, bigger buildings, and then commercial and storage

Mel Dupuis (06:04):

And our strategy behind it was that people will always need a place to stay. Especially as you’re starting off, if I buy a fourplex and if by chance one of the tenants don’t pay, out of the four units I still have three rents coming in. And that was really important for us as we were trying to replace our income. So that’s why we really went through the multifamily route.

Robert Leonard (06:24):

Tell us a bit about how tragedy struck for you guys and how it changed your mindset around your careers.

Mel Dupuis (06:30):

And this was back, I guess a few years ago now, in 2018, we were actually on our way to a real estate investing conference. And we got into this horrific car crash. We were passengers in the back of the SUV, careless transport driver. He got charged, he was driving carelessly, and he hit a vehicle called that hit us. And we literally started rolling four times across the highway. We landed upside down. It was a day that was one of the scareciests in my life. I have three kids. During that moment, we thought we were dying and we felt so helpless in thinking, “Wow, what are we leaving behind? Are my kids going to be okay?” And all of that.

Mel Dupuis (07:08):

Luckily, we survived the crash miraculously somehow.

Dave Dupuis (07:11):

Yeah. I don’t know how we did that.

Mel Dupuis (07:12):

I can’t believe that we survived, but we did. And it was a day that forever change our lives in so many reasons. We never used to mentor anyone. We didn’t really thought we’d be helping other people. In fact, we used to have the mindset of wanting to keep all these-

Dave Dupuis (07:27):

Scarcity, big time scarcity mindset

Mel Dupuis (07:29):

… secrets to ourselves. But afterwards, we thought, “You know what, we have this large portfolio… ” At that point, it think we had almost 100 doors and we thought, “Why are we not helping other people scale their portfolio as well through the strategies that we’ve been able to do.” And now we’ve been able to help over 1,000 students learn these creative financing strategies as well. And it just gave us that freedom as well. I decided to quit my full-time job. And I was able to do that because I already had created a portfolio for myself. And this is the power of real estate, is that once you start doing it, especially if you start using creative financing, you can scale at a way faster pace than you could ever do it on your own.

Robert Leonard (08:06):

Why did that make you want to mentor people? And why did it make you reconsider your career that you were in?

Dave Dupuis (08:14):

Honestly, a couple of different reasons, and good question. When we were in the ambulance and even in the emergency room after and they were doing x-rays on Mel, because she got the worst of it, we just thought to ourselves, “If we would’ve passed away here, our kids don’t even know how we’re doing this.” They were too young. They have no idea-

Mel Dupuis (08:30):

No documentation anywhere.

Dave Dupuis (08:31):

Yeah, no idea how we’re doing it. No legacy piece. And just, again, the scarcity. We were scared to share because we thought there wasn’t enough deals and wasn’t enough money out there. But then after we had that wake up call, which looking back was, I’m not saying I’m glad that it happened, but it definitely changed our mindset, and now it just feels good. Whenever we have people telling us, “I purchased X amount of doors and I’ve quit my job, and now I’m able to send my special needs child to a special school,” there’s nothing in the world that feels good like that, helping other people change their lives.

Dave Dupuis (09:03):

So the legacy piece, helping people. And again, also helping our kids just understand how to do it. All of that together, if that makes sense.

Robert Leonard (09:13):

With everything that’s going on in the world right now, and even over the past year or so, people are debating whether or not they should hold off on buying real estate. Why do you think people should stop waiting for the perfect time to get started?

Dave Dupuis (09:26):

There’s no perfect time.

Mel Dupuis (09:28):

There’s no perfect time. Best day was yesterday, next best day is right now. And it’s very simple, real estate, and you can literally draw a line if you do any research on it, real estate, yes, there’s zigzags, but always increases over time and value, and that’s why it’s so important to get into it now. And that’s what we do, we’re always buying. Last year, we bought 119 apartments, for example. We’re continuing to buy, we’re diversifying both in Canada and The States and Costa Rica, and looking Mexico and different area as well. And that’s the thing, is that it will continue to increase, even if there are dips in the market.

Mel Dupuis (10:02):

Because we’re buying whole strategists, it doesn’t really matter because we’re going hang onto that property and we know that over time, again, that arrow going up is going to increase in value.

Dave Dupuis (10:12):

Well, and think about it, I’m just thinking, the biggest growth years we’ve had, so 2020, 119 units during a pandemic. That’s not a good time to do things, but we still did it. And in 2017, we purchased 12 properties in 12 months, which came up to about 56 units. Mel dad had like two heart attacks that year, my dad passed away shortly. It wasn’t a good time, but there just isn’t a perfect time ever. If you’re waiting for the perfect time, it’s never going to come.

Robert Leonard (10:39):

It’s an interesting topic for me because I always thought that I was a little bit scarred from the ’08/’09 pandemic. I was young, so I didn’t really have any investments, so I didn’t actually experience it firsthand, but I spent a lot of time studying it. And so I always worried when I became of age that I was going to be buying towards the peak like people did in ’07 and ’08. And so for probably two or three years, I didn’t buy anything. Not because I couldn’t, but because I was trying to time the market, I thought that… This was both in the stock market and in real estate, I always thought I needed to wait for the market to crash, then I would jump in.

Robert Leonard (11:13):

And I just realized that if the numbers make sense today as a rental, especially with a rental strategy, there’s no reason not to buy it, as long as you can maintain that property through a downturn.

Dave Dupuis (11:24):

I 100% agree, Robert. And I love that you have that mindset. Two examples that we always give is, let’s say I buy a building today for a million bucks, and a month from now, it crashes, the market crashes and now that building is worth 850, 800 make up a number. It’s not as if the tenants get a notice saying, “Hey, by the way, this building on paper is worth less, so you should probably pay less rent.” Your debt servicing remains the same. I’m not saying I want my building to go down in evaluation. However, at some point, it’s going to go back up again. It might be worth 1.2, 1.3 down the road, two or three years.

Dave Dupuis (11:58):

And so if the market crashes, it doesn’t mean your debt servicing goes down. Typically, people can’t buy houses and they end up renting and rents go up. And the other thing as well is, because we’re using other people’s money, the exit strategy is huge. And what I mean by that is, don’t have a six-month plan or a one-year plan, your plan should probably be three to five years because if it falls out today and you only had a six-month plan, well now you’re stuck. So it’s just having that long exit strategy, thinking ahead before you actually purchase the asset, and being able to be insulated and weather that storm.

Robert Leonard (12:33):

I’m not sure if you guys have ever heard this philosophy or thought about it. But one of the things that really got me over this hurdle of not trying to time the market is, if you’re not buying when things are good, when times are good, there’s plenty of capital going around, financing is easy, everything is rosy, and you haven’t done a deal yet, what makes you think you’re going to actually buy something when there’s blood in the streets, you can’t get financing, it’s super hard, everything is crashing? What makes you think you’re actually going to be able to do that and willing to do that? That was a really big mindset shift for me.

Dave Dupuis (13:04):

Yeah. I love that. And to compound on that, is, get your [inaudible 00:13:08], get your reps in, build up that real estate muscle while times are good, so that that way, when the market, if it does or when, or whatever, when times get bad, you’ve already been there, done that, and now you can actually not trail blaze, but have those systems and process in place. I agree with you 100%, Robert. I like it.

Mel Dupuis (13:24):

And we’ve seen it year over year, over year, people are waiting, they’re waiting and they’re waiting for that perfect time to come and trying to time the market and trying to time it. And meanwhile, they’re missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in appreciation that they could have got into their portfolio and build their portfolio and build their knowledge and all of that as well. So yeah, absolutely, getting into it now as opposed to waiting and waiting, making sure you’re doing it wisely and strategically that you have your exit strategy, meaning how you’re going to pay people back, especially if you’re going to be using creative financing strategies like we use. But absolutely, the time is always now.

Robert Leonard (13:59):

It just amazes me that people will…you go to be a doctor and you have to study for years, 10 years or so to become a doctor, or professional sports, people spend their whole lives to eventually make it to the major leagues. But with real estate or even stock investing, people think that they don’t have to do anything and then one day they can just jump in the arena. It’s like, if you’re a professional baseball player, it’s like never swinging a bat, never going against a good pitcher, and then one day just hopping in the batter’s box against a major league pitcher and expecting to get a hit. It doesn’t really work like that.

Robert Leonard (14:29):

And so I think getting the experience while things are good, even if it’s not a home run deal, it’s a good way to get some experience so you can dive in when things aren’t as good.

Dave Dupuis (14:40):

I agree with you, Robert. For some reason, with real estate and stocks, people just think, “Oh, I’m going to wing it,” or “I’ll figure it out as I go.” What I find with real estate, people just always find that they’re going to wing it, for some reason, they’re just going to figure it out as they go. And it’s like, well, why is that any different than any other job, like you said? Like Mel and I, to this day, we’ve spent probably over $300,000, and this isn’t boasting or anything, it’s just to show that success doesn’t just happen. We bought knowledge, we purchased experience, which gave us time back.

Dave Dupuis (15:11):

So we spent over 300 K in our own development, coaches, mentors, all that stuff, personal development as well. And that has gotten us so much further ahead so much quicker. And I wish I spent so much more money when I was a lot younger just to gain that knowledge and experience so that I could have gotten even more time back.

Mel Dupuis (15:28):

And reduce on costly consumer saves that we’ve made. We’ve definitely made a lot of those.

Dave Dupuis (15:33):

And that’s the thing, it’s just having that consumer mindset of thinking, “I can do it on my own,” as opposed to having the investor mindset of, “Hey, you know what, I’m going to go find someone who’s been there, done that, learn from their experiences, good, bad, ugly.” So I agree with you 100%.

Robert Leonard (15:49):

How did you guys know that you were ready to quit your job? Did you wait until your cashflow from rental properties was 2X your salaries, was there a metric you were following, or how did that it was, “All right, this is the time, we’re going to jump all in and we’re quitting”?

Mel Dupuis (16:04):

Great question, Robert. And this is something that we went back and forth quite a few times, when’s the perfect time to quit our jobs. And we had quite a few, we had 80-some doors by the time I ended up quitting my job first, and I knew that I could financially. For me, it was fear. It was fear holding back financially where, “Okay, we’re making great money with our rental properties.” But for me, it was that fear of three kids, pension, benefits. Once I cue it, I can’t go back. And I knew I was ready, but I just needed that jump. And then after the car crashed it all, it was kind of a domino effect, but I was off on, I had a very severe concussion and I was off recovering.

Mel Dupuis (16:45):

And during that time, just thinking about work and I had severe anxiety about going back to work, I just couldn’t do it. I’d start crying just thinking about work. I was just in a really bad spot in my life. Everything was telling me that I can’t go back. And then we discussed and Dave’s like, “Well, just don’t go back. We’re okay.” And I still had that fear Of having to take that leap of faith in a sense, but I did, and probably with Dave’s encouragement, like, “Hey, we’re going to be fine. We have all these apartments. We know what we’re doing.” And it’s the best decision I’ve ever made. Now I’m able to-

Dave Dupuis (17:17):

Never once regretted.

Mel Dupuis (17:17):

Not once have I ever regretted. Now, we have the time freedom that I’m able to see my little guy get on the school bus and off the school bus, and that was my big why into wanting to get into real estate and spent time with my daughters. All of that, that came along. And then Dave shortly afterwards was able to quit his job as well. So it was really reversing engineer, “Okay, what’s our expenses. What do we need to live? How much is our pension worth? How much is our benefits worth a month?” Because obviously, now we have to pay for our own. All those things into consideration and making sure that we had extra cushions.

Mel Dupuis (17:50):

Dave still declares himself like an onion, having lots of layers to ourselves. And that’s how we approached quitting the job, we were financially fine, for me, was that fear of doing something different.

Robert Leonard (18:01):

Was there anything you guys did to make sure that your lifestyle didn’t creep up as your rental property income increased? Because I think what of the issues that happens is, let’s just say somebody makes $5,000 a month from their salary, and then maybe they do a great job, they build a great real estate portfolio that’s bringing in $5,000 a month. And so they’re like, “Okay, well I’m making 5,000 a month for my real estate, I’m making 5,000 for my job. I could probably quit.” But what some people will do is they’ll live on that 10,000, they’ll make sure their expenses go up to the 10,000 and now they can’t actually quit because their lifestyle has creeped up as their income creeped up from their real estate. And now their 5,000 from real estate doesn’t cover their lifestyle expenses. So how did you guys combat this from happening?

Mel Dupuis (18:43):

You’re bang on, in great question. I think reverse engineering your goals, absolutely. And also having those extra layers. Pretty much everything that we did when we started off, and I know people that follow us on social media, we have a nice house and we have a cottage and nice vehicles and those things, but now, it was not always like that. I was six months pregnant living in a small two bedroom apartment. Everything was very strategic. So we bought all the rental properties first, we kept increasing our income. And quite frankly, we weren’t really spending any of it. We were saving quite a bit of money, trying to save, save, save.

Mel Dupuis (19:18):

And then after a while, it became to a point like, “Okay, well, let’s buy. If we buy X amount of properties and let’s say we increase our monthly cashflow from 2000, well, maybe that can go towards my Escalade, for example. And then let’s increase it by another X amount, and then we can get into our dream house that we wanted. And then let’s buy another X amount and let’s buy our cottage.” So it was very systematic, but it was almost like the double. “If I’m going to spend 2000 on this, I need to be bringing in 4,000,” because having more apartments naturally come with having more expenses as well. You have repairs to do, there might be non payment of rent.

Mel Dupuis (19:53):

So all those calculations need to be very, very strategic. You need to treat it like a business. Just like any other business, it’s a business. You need to have layers, you need to have cushions.

Dave Dupuis (20:03):

It was the opposite of the rat race. Instead of getting a job and buying the expensive stuff and then being stuck, we sold all the expensive stuff, drove old vehicles, didn’t buy the big house first, bought all the assets first and then quit our jobs and let the assets pay for all our fun stuff. So it was the opposite.

Mel Dupuis (20:21):

Yeah. It was interesting because we started buying all those properties, people were seeing us buying all these properties, but meanwhile, I sold my brand new vehicle, driving a rusty van.

Dave Dupuis (20:29):

For a loss. For a loss.

Mel Dupuis (20:30):

For a loss. And I’m sure they were thinking like, “Oh, I guess it’s not going very well,” but that was not the case, we were just being really strategic and we thought, “Let’s just sacrifice in the short term to live the life we want to live in the long term.”

Robert Leonard (20:43):

I’m chuckling a little bit to myself here because I’m in the exact same situation that you guys were in because I’m the only one in my family that does any type of investing. I’m on my third house hack right now, and I just put in an offer on another duplex for my next house hack. And when I was going to buy that property, my brother’s three years younger than me, and he’s like, “You’re doing supposedly so well out with all these rental properties and the podcast, etc. Why don’t you just go buy like a really nice single family house? I thought you could afford it.”

Robert Leonard (21:12):

And he’s kind of mocking me in a sense. And I’m like, “Just wait five years from now.” And he’s like, “Well, you keep saying that.” And I’m like, “Well, five years from now, trust me.” I already have like 10 units or so, so I’m like, “Just wait another five years and then I’ll buy that big fancy house if I want that, and I’ll have the fancy car then.” It’s just funny because I went through the exact same thing, people on the outside see one thing versus on the inside, what we’re dealing with. It’s so different.

Mel Dupuis (21:37):

Congratulations on your successes. That’s awesome. But success doesn’t just happen. And I think that that’s what happened. People see, “Oh, well this person has this or this person has this. I’m going to go and do that as well.” But they don’t see there was hours put in, there was some work, of course. Any success takes work. There was some sacrifices we had to make to get there, and it was also very strategic. Even our office, we started off in our home office, and then we bought an older building, and now we’re in a nice building that we really wanted for a while, but it wasn’t the first one, it was step towards growing.

Robert Leonard (22:09):

Did a particular purple yellow book happen to influence your guys’ mindset by any chance?

Dave Dupuis (22:15):

Yes.

Mel Dupuis (22:16):

Oh yes, absolutely.

Dave Dupuis (22:17):

In 2017, when we bought the 12 properties in 12 months, that happened after we went on trip to Florida and we listened to the audio books. We had the kids and we were doing pool stuff, listening to the audio books. And that’s when it clicked. That is good, and that’s when we started using OPM, that’s when we started getting mentors and coaches. And the next year, boom, that’s when the growth happened.

Mel Dupuis (22:38):

And we were doing it absolutely all wrong. We used to work all the time.

Dave Dupuis (22:43):

The rich don’t work for money, rule number one.

Mel Dupuis (22:46):

And we were the opposite. I was working three jobs, Dave was working three jobs just to try to get it, we were trying to save everything. Our mindset was completely wrong. And although the book didn’t show us how to do it, the mindset piece, absolutely. It was a game changer realizing that, “Wow, we’re working, working, working.” 56 units, 12 properties, that would’ve taken us probably, I don’t know-

Dave Dupuis (23:09):

10, 12 years.

Mel Dupuis (23:10):

Well, at least if not more, 20 years, maybe, 15, 20 years. I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. But there’s just no way we could have done that at the speed that we were able to do it if it wasn’t for using other people’s money.

Robert Leonard (23:22):

Mel, you touched on an interesting piece of that book that I talk about frequently. It’s one of the most recommended real estate books. I do think it’s a good book, but I don’t like how it doesn’t show you how to do it. The mindset piece is important, and I think that’s a good shift for a lot of people, it’s made a huge impact, but for me, I wanted to tell me how to do it. That’s what I really wanted. And that’s one of the reasons why I didn’t completely love that book. But with that book and The Millionaire Next Door, those two books combined just completely changed my philosophy on how I viewed other people’s possessions.

Robert Leonard (23:54):

I used to think people driving fancy cars must have been super rich because they had a BMW or an Audi or something fancy. And then after reading that, it totally changed my mindset of, they probably have a really large car payment and are stuck in their job because of that. And so it’s been a big mindset shift for me.

Dave Dupuis (24:11):

It’s fun. I remember. And I think that’s why Millionaire Next Door, and what was the other one? The Rich Barber, I think it was that one. I remember being younger and I read that. And I think that’s why I was so okay with us driving the old minivan and selling the brand new car at that point, because it was a little bit of go back to that, you won’t have a car payment. Think about how many more buildings you can buy. In 10 years, five years down the road, who will be laughing then? No one will remember that car that you had, but you’ll be able to do what you want.

Robert Leonard (24:38):

I haven’t heard of that book yet, so I’ll have to go check that out.

Dave Dupuis (24:42):

Wealthy Barber or something like that, The Rich Barber, Wealthy Barber, one or two, kind of the same thing, same thing as Millionaire Next Door-ish.

Robert Leonard (24:49):

Yeah. I’ll definitely go check it out. You guys have a model that you call the new way or the easy way, which is compared to the old and hard ways. In your new way, you talk about how to find your markets’ hidden cash cows. Walk us through this step in your framework. How do investors find hidden cash cows that other investors are missing? And why are other investors missing them?

Mel Dupuis (25:12):

Yeah. I’ll go first. I’m sure you’ll feel free to add. But a lot of people only look at what’s posted on MLS, for example, and I’ll hit the mindset and maybe they can get into the other things. But think of it as an investor. So if you are looking at five deals a week and I’m looking at 20 deals a week, statistically, who’s going to win? Who’s going to find the most cash flowing, the one that can have the most appreciation, the one where you can force appreciation? Statistically speaking, I’m going to win because I’m looking at more deals. So you definitely want to make sure that you’re looking both on-market deals and off-market deals.

Mel Dupuis (25:47):

And that means having the conversation with people, letting people know. When we started wanting to grow a portfolio, we told everyone that we were buying real estate. And that was the domino fact that people all of a sudden, they knew that, “Oh, okay, Mel and Dave.” And now we’re on social media, but back then, we didn’t have a presence. People started knowing that, “Okay, if I have a property to sell, maybe I’ll reach out to Mel and Dave, because they’re actively buying properties.

Dave Dupuis (26:12):

And my other thing is… How do I say this? Not go against the grain… Well, yes, go against the grain, but I’m just thinking, people get spooked easily. So online, I’m just thinking of a couple here. If they were listed for a long period of time, people think, “Oh my gosh, there must be something wrong with that property, I’m not even going to look at it.” Just because it’s been on the system for 30, 60 days, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad property, it just means maybe someone had it under contract and now it’s come back on or whatever the circumstances are.

Dave Dupuis (26:39):

But we’ve picked up properties that have been on the market, like I’m just thinking one, probably the longest, it was on for like nine months, let’s say. Two buildings, side by side. It ended up being an awesome deal. The one building almost doubled, basically doubled, and the other one is going to close next month. We’ve refinanced it now, it’s selling next month for like $200,000 more than what we bought it. And that’s not boasting, it’s just, there was nothing wrong with these deals. It was on the market for nine months, we were able to negotiate seller financing, none of our own money.

Dave Dupuis (27:07):

We actually used, in Canada, here it’s called RSPs, secured funds, just like 401(k). So 100% financed deal. And it was just sitting there on the system for nine months. But probably people got spooked after two, three months of it sitting there, thought, “There must be something wrong. It’s not even worth our time.” So when most people are thinking, “It’s not worth my time,” we’re still looking at the deals because there might be nothing wrong with that deal. It’s just everyone else is spooked.

Mel Dupuis (27:31):

Again, that quantity of analyzing deals, analyzing them quickly and knowing, “Okay, is there potential here or am I passing on as well?” But yeah, taking the time. Just because it’s been there doesn’t mean that it’s not a good deal.

Robert Leonard (27:43):

It’s interesting because there’s this self-fulfilling prophecy there where if a property hits the market and it doesn’t sell in the first couple days, which a lot of properties are these days in this market, but if it doesn’t sell in the first week or so, then people start to be like, “Oh, well, there must be something wrong. It’s been on for too long and or it hasn’t sold.” And then it self-fulfills from there and then it starts to get on longer and longer. And the longer it’s on, people are like, “Oh, there must be really something wrong with it because it hasn’t sold yet.” And it keeps just self-fulfilling from there.

Robert Leonard (28:12):

The property I’m sitting in right now, my house hack, was the exact same thing. Things are selling in my market before they even hit the MLS or within just like a day or two, going multiple over. And I bought this property, I think it was on the market for 60 or 65 days, and there was nothing wrong with it. It’s a great deal, it’s an amazing house hack. And it’s going to be a great rental when I leave. You guys are 100% right, I think sometimes people just overlook these properties for frivolous, maybe, reasons.

Dave Dupuis (28:38):

Yeah, I agree. They follow the herd too much.

Mel Dupuis (28:40):

Yeah. We’ve found deals all kinds of ways. You’ve stopped in and pulled in when you happened to see somebody outside, you thought maybe it’s a landlord and pulled over and had the conversation and was able to negotiate. And the first time he was, “No.” But then he kept going over because he really wanted the building. And when you’d see him, say, “Hey, have you reconsidered?”

Dave Dupuis (28:58):

I saw the plumbers, two plumber vans and I saw him digging up the front yard and I was like, “Okay, he’s ready to sell. He’s fixing this problem and he’s got”-

Mel Dupuis (29:06):

He’s frustrated right now, I have a solution for you.

Dave Dupuis (29:07):

So we negotiated seller financing right on the front lawn. And then we had the lawyers draft it up. So yeah, absolutely. It’s seeing what others don’t basically.

Robert Leonard (29:16):

And you never know what somebody else’s strategy is. Maybe it doesn’t work for one investor so they’re not going to buy it, and that’s why it’s sitting on the market. Maybe they want to do a traditional rental and maybe it doesn’t work for that. Maybe you want to buy it as an Airbnb and it’s an amazing Airbnb. So you never know why it doesn’t work for somebody else. If you are confident in your numbers and it works for you and your strategy, I don’t see why you don’t go for it. And you never know like you said, what the seller situation is. For me, maybe this guy had received a couple offers on this property, but they weren’t good enough. And then once it hit 60 days, he’s like, “All right, I just want this thing gone.”

Robert Leonard (29:49):

And it just so happened that the timing worked out for me. And I know he was trying to offload some of his rentals because we ended up talking at closing because he was getting into some new development. And so it just worked out. But you never know unless you make those offers and try.

Mel Dupuis (30:02):

Exactly.

Robert Leonard (30:03):

The next step in your new or easy framework is to leverage OPM. You guys have mentioned it a bunch of times so far. So first, tell us what OPM stands for and what creative financing is, and then explain to us how we can combine the two.

Mel Dupuis (30:20):

OPM is Other People’s Money, and creative financing is where you essentially use various strategies with OPM, with other people’s money to grow your portfolio. And Dave and I, we really wanted to solely own our properties. So one way of buying is with joint venture partners. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, that is the strategy for Dave and I. We really wanted to solely own, we wanted to keep 100% of the appreciation, 100% of the equity, 100% of the decision making as well. And it was really important to us to solely own, but everybody kept telling us, we won’t be able to grow your own, and kept thinking there has to be a way. And then we realized that there is a way and it’s that we can solely own.

Mel Dupuis (31:01):

And it’s combination of essentially three strategies combined in different ways. But just to keep it simple for today, we do a lot of owner financing where the owner finances the deal or part of the deal. We do a lot secured funds like in Canada RSPs or in the states 401(k). And we do a lot of promissory note as well where somebody has money sitting there, they want to put to work, they want to be investors or they see how profitable real estate can be, they to believe in it, but they may not want to be doing what we’re doing or what you’re doing, Robert, to find the deal and analyze it and whatnot, they just want to invest more passively.

Mel Dupuis (31:37):

So essentially we take those strategies, sometimes it’s combination of all the above and that’s how we grow our portfolio, and that’s where it becomes powerful because if I find a deal and I speak with the owner or we speak with the owner and for whatever reason, he’s not willing to do owner financing, that’s okay. I get a lot of nos as well. If it’s an amazing deal, I’m not going to stop there. I’m going to find a way to finance it because I know there’s other people out there that want to invest in real estate, I just have to show them how I plan on paying them back and making it a win-win of course, with them as well.

Robert Leonard (32:06):

I’ve tried to use seller financing quite a few times in the past, always was told no. So it’s not really being told no that bothered me, but I just made that offer on that other duplex I was mentioning before and I asked for seller financing, and I don’t want to say I had the expectation that they were going to say yes, but I thought that this was the most perfect on opportunity for seller financing that I had come across. The other ones, I expected no because it wasn’t the perfect opportunity for seller financing, but this one I knew was literally, if you could draw it up, this was the most perfect situation for seller financing.

Robert Leonard (32:36):

And so I was really hoping that that was the case and unfortunately the seller said no. So I was a little bit bummed about that, but why was it so important to you guys to own all your properties yourself? Why do you want to keep 100% of it?

Dave Dupuis (32:48):

Three kids, and it’s all about succession planning, and basically the way we’ve structured ourselves, the kids already own the real estate with us. If we passed away, there won’t be probate, there’s nothing, there’s no issues like that. So that was huge as well. And the other thing is, well, I guess Mel and I are very strong willed or-

Mel Dupuis (33:06):

Strong minded.

Dave Dupuis (33:07):

Strong minded, bullheaded I’ve been called before. And it’s just that that element of, I’ve just heard so many horror stories of, “You know me and my partners,” not just like a relationship, “But me and my business partner split up or it didn’t work out.” And we didn’t have the appetite for it. And we just thought, “If there was a way to do it, then let’s find out how.” And in the beginning, like Mel had said, it was frustrating because everyone was like, “That’s the only way you can do it, the only way you can scale it.” It’s like the more people told me that, the more was like, “Okay, well I’m going to find the way to do it the opposite then. I’m going to go against the heard.” That’s what we wanted to solely own it.

Dave Dupuis (33:41):

And to go back, Robert, on your seller financing, it’s a numbers game. You have to ask… It’s doable for anyone anywhere. Think about it, we’re in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, and that mobile home park is in Texas. So I’m literally negotiating a seller financing deal from a little city, a little 50,000 population city in Canada with a seller in Texas. So it’s doable anywhere, it’s just at back. I know you know that, but I just want your listeners to know, just because one seller says no, okay, move on to the next one. That just brings you closer to the next yes. So just keep on doing it.

Mel Dupuis (34:12):

I’ll add on that as well, being able to know what to say, when not to say, and this is something that Dave and I have practiced a lot. And knowing, “Okay, Dave, when you said that, that didn’t came across too well.”

Dave Dupuis (34:22):

It’s like role playing for real estate nerds. We go back and forth with each other.

Robert Leonard (34:27):

Yeah, you guys are absolutely right. This is a numbers game, and in reality, the know of the seller financing really shouldn’t bother me. But one of the mistakes that I made was that I got a little bit emotionally involved in the property in a sense because it would’ve been a house hack for me, so I would’ve lived there. And so it had a lot of land, which is something that I’m looking for, is not super common in my area, especially for duplex. And I already like envisioned what I wanted to do with that land. And so I got a little bit emotionally invested, which I know you’re not supposed to do. And so that was really more of the mistake than anything.

Robert Leonard (34:57):

But when I think about it objectively, you guys are 100% right. It’s just a numbers game, you just got to keep going, keep asking about seller financing, and eventually, somebody will say yes.

Mel Dupuis (35:06):

And just remember, yes, we’ve been able to grow portfolio substantially, but we still get nos, and that’s okay, but we also get a lot of yeses. So exactly, just continue. Sometimes we look back at deals that we weren’t able to close on for whatever reason, and fast forward to three years, now we own the property, or fast forward to three years and now we’re, “Thank goodness we never bought that property.”

Dave Dupuis (35:29):

It really happens, that’s for sure.

Mel Dupuis (35:29):

It happens as it should.

Robert Leonard (35:33):

I was once told that if you’re not getting any nos, then you’re offering way too much money on all your properties.

Mel Dupuis (35:38):

That’s very true.

Robert Leonard (35:40):

Should new investors use OPM or should they wait until they have a bit of experience so that they’re not risking losing other people’s money? Should maybe they do one or two deals on their own, get a handle on it and then start to use OPM? Or do you think it’s okay to just use it right from the start?

Mel Dupuis (35:57):

Well, it’s a very loaded question, and I’ll answer with, it depends. If somebody is going in blindly, they don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t have an exit strategy, I guess essentially good education on how to do it, you probably shouldn’t be using other people’s money if you don’t know how to do it, because it is crucial. You are using other people’s money, you need to make a numerical, logical decision. You need to know exactly how are you going to pay back the lender before you get into it. You should know the benefit, you should know how to explain it to them. You should know, “Okay, by this time, I should be able to pay them back and have the right conditions.”

Mel Dupuis (36:33):

And all those things that are important. So can you do it from day one? Absolutely. But if you’re going to, before you touch a penny from anybody else, you need to make sure what you’re doing and getting that knowledge pieces. It’s like going to college or university to become a doctor. You wouldn’t let somebody operate on without that proper education. Well, I probably wouldn’t let somebody touch my money unless I felt that I knew that they had the proper education on how to do it as well.

Dave Dupuis (36:57):

And not just newbies, Robert, we have people that come to us with four or five, 10 properties and they’re like, “Yeah, I’ve been able to do it with my own money, but now I’m stuck and I want to make sure that… “Hey, I know how to buy properties with my own money, but I don’t know how to build an exit and ensure that I pay people back and have that installation.” And so absolutely. It’s just anyone that’s going to be using other people’s money that should have that. What do we always say? It’s kind of cheesy, but I forget what movie is from, with great power comes great responsibility or something. I think it’s Spiderman.

Mel Dupuis (37:27):

I was going to say, “Isn’t it a cartoon?”

Dave Dupuis (37:30):

Yeah. Because you become limitless, but you can get jammed up pretty quickly if you don’t know how to pay people back and structure properly.

Robert Leonard (37:37):

How are you guys finding other people to invest with you? Maybe more so at the beginning, when you were ready to take in your first money from somebody else, how did you do that?

Mel Dupuis (37:49):

And it’s interesting, and I’ll say a little story here. We had pre-negotiated owner financing with somebody on the phone, but we had the numbers ahead time. So we knew that the deal made sense, we had analyzed it, we just didn’t see the property yet. So we actually went there, and we were newbie investors. Again, we were not the investment Mel and Dave that people know us now as, we were just Mel and Dave, showing up in ACDC t-shirt and flip floss. And we got there in our old meeting van and we went through the property, And you know when you find a property and we walk through and we’re like giving each other the thumbs up behind the scenes, and then we’re like, “Okay, the numbers made sense. Now, that we see it we’re in and we want to do it.”

Mel Dupuis (38:29):

And we started speaking again with the owner saying, “Hey, we’re interested, what’s your next step.” And all of a sudden, he just started pushing back and we didn’t get it because over the phone, he was open to owner financing, we had negotiated, but now-

Dave Dupuis (38:43):

The deal was basically done. It was walking through the property to-

Mel Dupuis (38:46):

Yeah. But now that he met us, it’s almost like he didn’t want to lend to us. And it was one of those things and I think he said, “Okay, let’s make it happen.” I think he said he was going on vacation.

Dave Dupuis (38:56):

I said, “Okay, we’re in. Next step, I’ll contact my lawyer, let’s draft this up.” And he said, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get back to him you. I’m going on vacation. I’ll get back to you in three weeks.” And we were like, “Well, why are we waiting three weeks? You leave three days from now. I can have it to you today or tomorrow.”

Mel Dupuis (39:10):

Let’s close in three weeks from now.

Dave Dupuis (39:12):

By the time you’re back, it’ll be due diligence and everything. He kept put putting us off and we’re thinking, “What’s going on.” And like, “Okay, I guess, we’ll call you in three weeks when you’re back or you call us.”

Mel Dupuis (39:23):

So then we turned around, started walking towards the van and then it clicked, it’s like, “It’s us, it really is us. He’s probably judging us. We’re showing up not dressed professionally,” which is again, first impression probably, but most importantly, I’m not showing him that we know what we’re doing. So we went in the old rusty van and I grabbed our matrix that we always use to analyze our deals, and we showed him our exit strategy. And that was a game changer. So we showed him, “Okay, this is how the deal’s performing, this is how we plan on paying you back.” And he was like, “Oh, okay, well, you actually know what you’re doing.”

Dave Dupuis (39:58):

And then we said, “Don’t let the van fool you, we could go lease or buy a brand new, whatever we want. However, we’re keeping our total debt to income ratios low. So that is actually insulation for sellers like you that, hey, we don’t have those big monthly car payments, we put money back into our buildings.” So all of a sudden he loved the fact that we were driving an old vehicle and it made sense.

Mel Dupuis (40:18):

Yeah. I think it was getting uncomfortable, having a conversation, making sure that the seller in this case felt comfortable because we showed him our exit strategy. And now, funny story afterwards he was saying, “Well, it’s interesting because somebody else had came with,” I don’t know if it was-

Dave Dupuis (40:33):

He said a lady in a Cadillac or Mercedes.

Mel Dupuis (40:35):

Mercedes or Cadillac. And he had her come over, but she wasn’t as serious or it didn’t come to fruition, and meanwhile-

Dave Dupuis (40:40):

He was waiting on her for the deal and never came to fruition.

Mel Dupuis (40:42):

Yeah. Us for the rusty van were able to make it happen.

Robert Leonard (40:46):

It’s funny, I’ve had a similar situation in two different areas. One, when I was a little bit younger in college, I used to work at a credit union and we used to have to wear a shirt and tie. So anytime I would go to a store after work and I was all dressed up, I would get treated entirely different. And if I went to that same store just dressed like on the weekends as like I would normally wear clothes, you get treated totally different just from what you were wearing. And then there was another time with a real estate deal where I was looking to buy a property and I was going to buy it all cash.

Robert Leonard (41:15):

And I made the off or all cash, it was a really cheap property. And the seller wanted proof of funds, which I think is honestly fair of them to ask for, but it was just a hassle because it was in a couple different banks and it was the weekend I think, and I didn’t want to have to worry about getting the letter from the bank. And it was just this whole big thing. And I was like, “You know what, I’m just going to back out of this deal.” And they’re like, “Okay, we have a bunch of other offers, we’re going to take those.” A couple days later, they called us back, ” Oh, are you interested in the property? Do you want to buy it?”

Robert Leonard (41:42):

And sure enough, I ended up actually buying the property. And so it ended up working out, but similar situation to what you guys said. What do the terms of the deals look like with people that you do create a financing with or use other people’s money?

Dave Dupuis (41:57):

Yeah. Great question. And honestly, people will think when we use creative financing right off the hop, they’re going, “Oh, high interest.” And some of the deals will be higher interest, some like that of the 119 units last year that we purchased, first mortgages of somewhere in the eighth for interest only. So no one wants to pay that. No one will double digits. Honestly, it depends on the deal. So we’ve paid 0% interest, we’ve paid two, five, eight, double digits. We’ve done interest only, we’ve done principal and interest, we’ve done balloon payments. It literally just depends on the deal. So that’s one thing when we’re negotiating with the seller, everything we do is a win-win.

Dave Dupuis (42:38):

We’re not going in trying to steal everything from the seller. We did that in the beginning and eventually that catches up with you and then people don’t want to deal with you. So we realized quickly in the beginning, it has to be a win-win. And again, this is not going to be with every deal, but it’s structuring it where hey, what are they looking for? If they’re looking for a quick closing? Okay, well then make it a quick closing. If they’re looking for a longer term for capital gains purposes, they want to spread that gain over a period of five years, then make it a five-year term. It just depends on what they’re looking for, higher down payment, initially.

Dave Dupuis (43:15):

Every deal, and I know that’s not the answer, it’s a very vague answer, it’s just every deal is so different. And as long as it works for us and works for them, and then we have the clear exit, we say it all the time, we want the seller, I know it sounds crazy, but we’re okay with the seller making money or with private lenders making money because if we’re able to buy an asset with none of our own money upfront, it takes a year, 18 months, two years until it comes to fruition, depending on the deal, and then we refinance, pay everyone out. And then we have that asset for the next 20, 30 years, who cares if they made money, and if the deal still makes sense, I’m happy, because, word of mouth.

Dave Dupuis (43:50):

And then that guy worth the van, he actually became a private lender after he got the funds from the sale of that property. So it’s bigger picture, win-win. I know I’m very vague on the terms and everything, but it literally depends on the deal.

Robert Leonard (44:03):

Why are owners willing to sell or finance properties to you? What’s the biggest selling point for them that you guys see?

Mel Dupuis (44:10):

It’s from a tax perspective, and not everybody’s going to do it. You’re right, we have to get some nos because some need their money, some people want to keep buying properties. They’re likely not going to hold financing for you in those cases, but some people who may not have planned ahead of time, this really benefits them from a tax perspective. So that’s one reason. The other reason is because if it’s not listed anywhere yet, they don’t have to pay realtor fees, so of course they save on that as well. So it’s another win. And we pay them interest. There’s a reason from a financial perspective on top of the taxes that they want to do it as well.

Dave Dupuis (44:44):

Yeah. We’ve had widows where, “Hey, this was my husband’s thing, now I’m stuck with it.” To them, it’s a problem. So we come along and it’s succession planning for them. We help them with that, and then they get to sell the asset. We’ve had people as well where it just was bad timing or partnerships have broken up and now they just want to liquidate. But the taxes is one of the biggest thing. I know there’s the 1031, obviously in the states, but not everyone does it. So they basically get to take the money that they don’t receive. So basically the money that they’re holding in the form of a mortgage for you with their equity, they don’t get tax on the year that the building sells, which means because typically when they sell a building, they get all that income in the same year, which brings them up to the higher tax bracket, and then they pay through the nostril.

Dave Dupuis (45:26):

So the money that they don’t receive, they can spread it up to five years, 20% per year, so up to five years, and it just helps them tax wise. And a lot of landlords love that monthly cash flow, and now when their investment goes, some of them don’t know what to do with it. So at least this way they still get a monthly check, they don’t have to deal with tenants or toilets, they get it from investors. So there’s a lot of win-wins in those scenarios. But again, some people if they need their funds for something else, seller financing isn’t even an option.

Robert Leonard (45:54):

The third step in your easy or new way framework is one that I actually wasn’t even familiar with. Maybe I am, maybe I just don’t know the name, but you call it a 97% Tenant in your property. What exactly is a 97% Tenant? And how does it work?

Mel Dupuis (46:11):

We’ve had thousands of throughout the years. And when we started, we’ve done it all. We’ve done it where we were doing our own property management, the viewing, the cleaning, everything, the dump fronts. We’ve done it where we were managing other people’s properties. We had it where we had our own internal staff. We had it where we have another property manager that we hire in our city. And of course now worldwide as well, we have property managers. We came up with this rule that if you do your due diligence, if you know how to carefully and strategically either to the tenants strategically or hire the right type of property management company, there’s no reason why you have tons and tons of tenants not paying rent or damaging your properties.

Mel Dupuis (46:53):

And we came with this 97% rule based on statistics that the majority of people are really, really good. Yes, there are people out there that will damage your property or not pay rent, but if you know how to choose them and select them wisely and strategically, it shouldn’t be much harder than that.

Robert Leonard (47:11):

The last step in your framework is to force the lift, to get immediate appreciation, explain what this means and how you guys do it.

Dave Dupuis (47:20):

There’s different ways. The one that we like the most, the quickest and the least time consuming and labor intensive is basically purchasing, it’s the BRRRR. And everyone’s always asking us we do the BRRRR and it’s like, “We did it before it was called the BRRRR, we just called it common sense.” Because it was buying an underperforming asset and lifting its valuation. So to keep it short and to the point, it’s buying an underperforming asset, trying to find the ones that don’t need these massive gut jobs like you see on HGTV and all these shows.

Dave Dupuis (47:49):

It’s buying the ones that, I’m not saying that they’re mismanaged, there might be deferred maintenance, it might just be a landlord that’s had it for 30 years and it’s no longer the love of their life, so they just want ease. So it’s getting into it, reducing expenses, increasing income so on paper it looks better. And then it’s also doing cosmetic things like paint does wonders, painting a place, maybe changing a countertop, putting it in new vanities, some flooring, nothing earth shattering, but just giving it that fresher look so that a new tenant comes in, pays a higher rent, which means you’ve repositioned, stabilized the asset and then it appraises higher. So there’s that method.

Dave Dupuis (48:28):

There is also, we’ve done gut jobs where we purchased bank repos from drug dealer houses and things like that, and we’ve gutted them and lifted the appreciation. But that’s typically it, we’re lifting the evaluation of the asset through forced appreciation. Or if you’re in a hot market, you can buy an asset. Basically almost do nothing and year over year because of the market evaluation, it goes up as well. So it just depends on where you are and what your play is going to be.

Robert Leonard (48:54):

Very frequently, I have people reach out and ask if the real estate strategies that we talk about on this show apply to countries outside of the US. These are people that are not based in the US, but still listen to the show. You guys have properties in multiple countries, so how do your strategies of investing in different countries? What are some of the similarities, the differences, and what do you guys see as differences from all the different countries you’re in?

Dave Dupuis (49:18):

So far yeah. The states, obviously most of Canada’s fairly similar as the US. We don’t have the 1031. So even if you sell a property, an income property that isn’t your primary principal residence, even if you literally close the deal, take that money and buy another property with like you do with the 1031, you still get tax capital gains on it. There is no way of deferring that tax. So Canada’s very similar. Mexico what we’re doing basically and in Costa Rica, some of the differences is more of how you’re set up. So let’s say Canada, I can’t talk for the states, but Canada does not have a treaty with Costa Rica, but it does have one with Mexico.

Dave Dupuis (49:56):

So it changes how you’re set up structure wise. The other thing as well is to get a loan in let’s say Mexico or Costa Rica, it’s going to be private money at huge percentages. It shows that it’s going to be low, but when you read the fine print, it’s going to be high in the double digits. So the difference is, you can do seller financing, but the difference is instead of getting bank loans or things like that like we do here, we’ll get hard money lenders, we’ll get B lenders, just different people. There, it’s going to be basically borrowing funds. So what we’re doing is borrowing the funds here in Canada, purchasing the asset with those funds in the other country, and then getting that appreciation over time.

Dave Dupuis (50:33):

So it’s buying in those markets that are up and coming, or even preconstruction, so by the time it comes to fruition, it’s already gone up, you can assign to someone else or sell it. So that’s the play there. And it’s more short term rental.

Mel Dupuis (50:46):

Yeah. And when it comes to the property management piece, because of course, once you have it, it’s more or less the same. It’s asking the same questions, making sure they’re doing their due diligence, making sure your properties is being taken care of, making sure that you’re getting the rents at market value to keep the value of your property and all that as well. So we don’t see a big difference between various areas, it’s just a matter of really making sure that you have a strong network and that you’re doing your due diligence.

Robert Leonard (51:12):

How are you guys picking your locations? And I want to talk about this from a couple different perspectives. So within your own country, how are you picking within Canada which areas to invest in? And then other countries, so the US, how are you picking within the US then? How do you pick the countries to invest in? Why Costa Rica? Why Mexico? Why not any other country that you could potentially invest in?

Dave Dupuis (51:34):

Yeah. In Canada, and it comes down to some pretty basic things. So it’s reverse engineering our goals. And one of the biggest things is landlord friendly, states and provinces. Like in Canada, let’s say British Columbia and Ontario is similar to the West Coast, the California is tenant friendly, so is British Columbia. Ontario is tenant friendly like a New York type thing. So it’s picking different provinces. So Alberta is a landlord friendly state, that’s all we’re picking. Texas it’s landlord friendly, same with Florida, Georgia. The Southern, the red states, it’ a quick rule of thumb. So there’s that.

Dave Dupuis (52:12):

And then it just depends on again, what you’re looking for. Like right now we’re looking in Miami because that has just a huge increase. You can buy a property this year, next year, it’s a hot market. So we know we don’t have to do too much, and the property’s going to just appreciate without having to really do too much to it. And then we’re looking at some Northern places in Texas where the price per door is pretty low and the cash flow is decent and it doesn’t take too much to get into it. So it’s just these different plays in different places.

Dave Dupuis (52:41):

As per Costa Rica and Mexico, it’s looking for Airbnb stats, making sure where are people going as the, what are we in again? As the pandemic continues, people keep flocking to different countries. So it’s seeing where people are going and trying to get ahead of that curve.

Mel Dupuis (53:00):

And I’ll just add on as well because I’m sure some listeners are thinking, “But I don’t feel comfortable going outside of my area. Can I still do? Perhaps I don’t live in a landlord friendly province or state.” Yes, it can still be done. We’re in Ontario, we own hundreds of apartments here. So that being said, it still can be done, but this should be part of your screening of course with the property management and to make sure that you’re picking the right tenants, and also should be part of your calculations as well. If you’re investing in a place where it’s not quite as landlord friendly, take that into consideration, because if a tenant doesn’t pay, it might take longer before you get that money if you ever see it at all. So you need to make sure that you’re prepared for that as well.

Robert Leonard (53:40):

A common concern of new investors or those looking to get started with real estate is having so much debt. We probably call it good debt, but it’s still a concern for a lot of people. So how do you mentally deal with having the debt that is often associated with a large rental portfolio?

Mel Dupuis (53:56):

We love good debt. And I really would say, you need to wrap your mind around the good debt piece and knowing that, “Hey, I’m okay if I have this much debt as long as it’s making me this much over here. And I hope to continue to have a lot more debt because I know that I’m going to be buying wisely and strategically and continue to have way more revenue from it as well.” So I think it really comes down to the mindset and also understanding how to make sure to pay the people back. We don’t again, never ever get into a deal, we’ve never been late, we always pay back people early because we know this before entering a deal.

Mel Dupuis (54:35):

And just because you can get, for example, we spoke about owner financing earlier, just because you’re able to get owner financing, doesn’t mean you need to do the deal or that you should do the deal. We have deals on our desk that comes by through our office all the time and will analyze them and it could be a great deal, it could even cash from day one, but I don’t buy it because I don’t have my clear exit strategy. So as long as you know how to deal with debt properly and you know that’s going to make us a lot of money and a lot more money and you know how to pay back everyone in due time, then there’s no reason to be afraid from it.

Robert Leonard (55:09):

We talked about a few books earlier that have been impactful in both our lives, but what would you both say has been the most influential book in your life?

Mel Dupuis (55:20):

Well, the one that we mentioned was a huge one for me, but outside of that one, I’d probably say that The 10X Rule from Grant Cardone. I was always a big thinker and I felt that maybe I wasn’t allowed or why am I thinking so big? And I remember when I was in my 30s, I had a goal of buying 10 properties before I turned 40. And I told everybody my goal. And I remember everybody basically saying how that’s ridiculous, why would you want to do that? Oh, you’re going to be too busy. Every single reason why I shouldn’t do it in these years.

Mel Dupuis (55:53):

But by the time I turned 40, I had 27 properties and I crushed that goal. And I think that book just really allowed me to think big, and we still do. We always think big, and with big goals requires big action, but that also come with big results.

Robert Leonard (56:10):

Before we give a handoff to where people can find you, I like to wrap up the show by turning the tables and letting the guest ask me a question. What question do you guys have for me?

Dave Dupuis (56:21):

I’m curious, why house hacking? Again, Mel did house hacking on our first deal and there’s so many different ways. I think I know what the answer is, but why was your go-to house hacking, out of curiosity?

Robert Leonard (56:35):

When I first started, I was not planning to be a real estate investor at all, I just accidentally house hacked one time by complete mistake. And then by doing that, it opened the doors for me, brought down all the limiting beliefs that I had and made me realize that I’ve become a real estate investor. And then from there, I’ve house hacked two more times going on my fourth soon. And I just think it’s one of the absolute best strategies, you get started with so little money down. And if you buy the right deal, they can cash flow.

Robert Leonard (57:05):

You can buy essentially a rental property with such little money because you only have to live there for a year. And then once you move out after a year, you could have a traditional rental property and it could be great cash flow. And so for me, I just think it’s one of the absolute best strategies that you can do if you’re willing to make the sacrifice to live in what sometimes is not the perfect situation so that you can house hack. So that’s why for me, fell into it accidentally and just have really, really enjoyed the strategy since then.

Dave Dupuis (57:32):

That’s awesome. Falling back into an investment that has now changed your life. I love it.

Robert Leonard (57:39):

Everything happens for a reason like you guys said.

Dave Dupuis (57:41):

I agree.

Mel Dupuis (57:41):

I agree. Exactly. You took advantage that situation and learned from it and grew. So that’s great.

Robert Leonard (57:47):

Where can the audience go guys to connect with you, maybe find you on the internet? Where do you want to point them?

Mel Dupuis (57:54):

We’re on all social media platform, on YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok, on Facebook, LinkedIn. It’s always @investormeldave. So whatever channel you’re on, @investormeldave is always our handle, and we give different content on every single channel. So you can find us there.

Robert Leonard (58:12):

All right. I will be sure to put a link to you guys’ resources in the show notes below for anybody that’s interested in checking them out. Mel, Dave, thanks so much for joining me.

Mel Dupuis (58:19):

Thank so much. It was great speaking with you.

Dave Dupuis (58:19):

Thank you, Robert.

Outro (58:22):

Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin, and every Saturday, we study billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.