We started investing 5yrs ago and are still in our full time day jobs but after joining Keyspire 1.5yrs ago, we have been able to focus and build a strategy to bring us to financial freedom. I work in Stakeholder Relations and my husband and partner works in Insurance.
1. ARTHUR ABRAHAM LINCOLN – ‘NEWEST KEYSPIRE MEMBER’ The first success is a personal one, I was pregnant during COVID and gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby boy in September of this year, the pregnancy itself was not easy and to be in hospital and need a caesarean section during a pandemic was interesting to say the least!! But during the pandemic period, we (husband & partner) still kept pushing our real estate business as much as we could, we were both now working from home in our full time day jobs which gave us a bit more flexibility to plan and react to the market. Since we started investing, Ontario has been our main focus but with house prices always on the rise we had plans to explore the Atlantic area and had flights booked to site visit New Brunswick with an aim to acquire purpose built multi-families but then everything got cancelled! With news of the pandemic, we first turned to Keyspire to tap into all the amazing sessions and tools that were shared during that time, especially the online Coffee with Michael sessions! We knew this crisis could be an opportunity for us to make some significant moves, and wanted to learn from those who had invested successfully through a global/national crisis before!
2. ALEXIS – THE TIMING LOTTERY Our last investing port of call had been Windsor but it had become a feeding frenzy with bidding wars which had encouraged our exploration to other markets. BUT who knew what was going to happen with the announcement and fall out of COVID - so we turned our eye back to Windsor and started bidding on suitable properties that came up and low and behold, we were able to secure a 5-bed single family with a basement suitable for conversion to an additional unit at ASKING!! We’d hit the ‘timing lottery’ plus no other bids had been placed, we still offered asking as the numbers supported the listing price and we wanted to be fair and respectful to the seller. This property was completely turnkey and we had to put in only $950 for a few small maintenance tasks!!
By collaborating with our property manager, we were able to have it rented one day after closing which was June 30th!! The lull in the market only lasted a few days and the bidding wars started again. We had an appraiser review the property and it was valued at $330k, that’s an upswing of $80k from our $250k purchase price!!! We’ll keep it rented as a single family for now with the aim of renovating to a duplex in the future, we currently cash flow $300pm as is!!
3. UNIVERSITY – THE COVID RENOVATION We had purchased a large property in Windsor close to the university which needed some work and a basement conversion on Jan. 30th, we started the reno late February, and upon hearing about the pandemic we mobilized our team and brain stormed how we could keep things moving, we pushed and got all the required permits and our property manager stepped up to oversee the reno project, we foresaw the challenge of obtaining materials and having multiple people on site and had the contractor purchase and deposit the materials at the property which meant the work could continue, our property manager along with the contractor organized a staggered schedule for all trades to ensure safety for everyone. We finished just 4 weeks after the original deadline!
As students were no longer an option we had to shift to one of our exit strategies, to rent as a single family - we were successful in obtaining great tenants who needed a very specific space, like our property and were happy to pay a premium along with taking back all the utilities - with students we would cash flow around $1000 per month but we were able to secure $660pm cash flow with the single family and not have the same wear and tear on the property! Along with these successes which have helped our business move forward, we moved $110,000 of RRSPs to Valour for private lending, we are also in the midst of a refi to free up some equity plus planning a joint venture with a friend to leverage their RRSPs for our next property. All this activity has moved up our timeline to be able to have financial freedom even earlier than planned post COVID!!!