How a Nova Scotia Realtor Built 8 Rentals by Doing His Own Renos (Halifax Real Estate)

0:05Welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Excited to have our guest today, Chris Pickup. Chris is a realtor with eXp Realty and also has his own real estate endeavors on the side — flipping homes and investing in properties with his wife Beverly. So yeah, excited to have a chat today on the real estate side of things with somebody here in the local market who is on the ground floor in an entrepreneur sense and as a realtor. So thanks for being here, Chris.

0:32Appreciate you, I'm glad to be here, man. It's great, looking forward to it. Yeah, we usually start by just kind of taking a step back and telling us a little bit about the journey for you into real estate. I know it's quite recent and something that happened kind of during the pandemic years — we don't want to bring that word up — but yeah, just maybe give us a little bit of the Cole's Notes on your kind of...

0:58...how you got into real estate and as a realtor with eXp. Yeah, I mean there's two separate timelines for me. There's getting into real estate from an investment perspective and then getting into it as a full-time realtor. Going way back — I've been, I was one of those HGTV kids. I don't know if that's the term, "HGTV kids," but I just grew up watching HGTV. I love Mike Holmes. I loved watching "Flip This House." I loved watching all the...

1:27...reno stuff, and it just got me wanting to try stuff. I just eventually started asking my parents if I could start doing renos around our house — like, can I fix the caulking on the fireplace? Can I redo our floors? All these things that just got me in that space. And that continued — and how old were you at this point? I mean, this was always there I guess. I would have been like 16 maybe when I started that stuff.

1:51But from the time I was eight I thought I could do everything. Like, I remember building a deck and my dad was having trouble getting a nail in and I was like, "Here, give me the hammer, give me the hammer" — I just thought I could do it. Is your dad in the trades? No, he was a principal, he was an administrator in schools for 35 years. But he just always — he was pretty handy, so we would build decks, we would do stuff. Yeah, so I was around...

2:14...it a lot. And my uncles ran a contracting company in Cape Breton, so it's always something that I saw as positive and something that I enjoyed and just wanted to be around. I always saw a future in some area of real estate. I just figured it would actually be more on the renovation or building side, on scale. And then with real estate investment it started when — actually when we had our first kid. So in 2016 we had our first child, our son Jordan, and with...

2:41...that came a whole new wave of realizing all that I was responsible for — realizing I was responsible to raise and provide for a wife and a son. And that really hit home. And it was the book "The Wealthy Barber" by David Chilton, I think his name is, that kind of set me on this path of like, okay, I need to start studying and be intentional, I need to be investing in something. Was that guy on...

3:10..."Dragons' Den" at one point? I think yeah, I think he was. Yeah, you're right, you're right. He released a second one called "The Wealthy Barber Returns" just to update some of the strategies, right. He's Canadian, I think? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So his strategy, initially, was investing in mutual funds, and then he updated it to more like index funds — tracks, from what I understand — but that's not really my route or what I have chosen. But it triggered something in me that I need to...

3:34...be intentional and I need to be learning. So when I was looking around at what I could actually potentially have some success in and have interest in, real estate was a natural choice. That got me into educating myself on it and eventually buying our first rental property. We actually owned a rental before we owned our own home. Yeah, yeah. Because we lived in Vancouver at the time, we were living and working out there, and every day I would...

4:05...go and scour the market in Vancouver, and I would just — it was so deflating and defeating because it was just such an unattainable market. That point in time in 2016, it was such an unattainable market to get into. So then after maybe three — because of the such expensive — because of the price? Yeah, well, it's just such an expensive place to live in the country, right. Yeah, and it's one of the most — when you compare it to salary it's one of the most unaffordable cities...

4:29...in the world still. I think it's like the third most unaffordable city. It's unbelievable. Like Toronto is more expensive but it's more affordable because of the higher salaries on average in Toronto. So yeah, for us who were working with very basic salaries, low-level salaries, it was not in our future to own homes in Vancouver. So I just, after maybe three or six months of looking, I started looking back here in Nova Scotia where I'm from, where I have...

4:59...some sort of an advantage. And after maybe six months of research and studying properties, we made the plunge and bought our first rental. But we didn't buy our actual first home that we lived in for another two, two and a half years. Yeah, yeah. So that was kind of the launch into real estate investing, and it went on from there. But getting into real estate sales — it happened, like you say, it was actually post-pandemic. I got into real estate sales at the worst time...

5:28...because there was this crazy run-up during the pandemic. Through the first year — 2019 into 2020, like maybe fall 2019, it had already started where people were overbidding on properties. So it actually started pre-pandemic a little bit. But then heading into 2020 things just went crazy, and 2021 was kind of the height of it, and then I got in at the end of 2022, which was when things started to really die off. So I entered into — in terms of the number of transactions that...

5:59...were happening, the number of homes selling went way down near the end of 2022. So it wasn't actually a great time to join, but it's okay — it was the right time for our life. But I got into it because I had spent so much time studying and researching. I discovered BiggerPockets — I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's a website for teaching real estate investing. And another big one was a YouTube channel and a book called "One Rental at...

6:24...a Time." That one really hit home because that's really my story — it really mirrors his story. Michael Zuber. It's really inspiring and really encouraging, and he's very educational. So I learned a ton from those things. And I just, the fire continued to burn for learning about real estate and wanting to apply that knowledge. So I eventually knew it was time for a career change, and becoming a realtor was the next right step. It paired perfectly with what we were already building on the real estate...

6:53...investing front. And it was something I really enjoyed. Like, when I would talk to my friends about it they'd be like, "You might need to do this full-time, because you make me want to be involved in real estate when you talk about it" — because it was just something that was contagious within me. When you're passionate about something, it's just what you talk about. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's all I wanted to do. So the first — the first property, the first investment that you purchased and fixed up...

7:13...you mentioned you do all the construction side yourself and you and your dad kind of helped do it together. Yeah, that's right. That's a pretty good skill set — not everybody has that either on the real estate side, to be able to go in and do the renovation themselves. I mean, you said you get electrical done and do permitting, but you basically take care of most of the scope. That's right, yeah. Yeah, and it's one...

7:35...of those things — get your hands dirty. Yeah. And I do it because I just really enjoy it. It's part of what actually keeps me sane in the process because — yeah, it's more tangible, right? Exactly. I need to see some physical progress, some tangible progress in the day, because again in sales and in a lot of industries you don't have that. But it's such a rewarding feeling going home actually having accomplished something. So even sometimes if I'm stuck in a rut, I just need to go and take one...

8:00...little project off something I'm working on, and it'll start to rebuild momentum. So I just need it myself. But then there's the other practical side of it — it saved me tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not only that, but it can be stressful too, right? I mean, if you have a group of trades that you work with that are trusted and quality and trustworthy and stuff — but there's a lot of times it's hard to find those. Everyone's...

8:22...busy. So you're taking more than just money off your plate — the mental energy. Yeah. I'm sure there are lots of great ones out there, but you also hear horror stories of people who, especially for your first one or your first ten or your first — yeah. And a lot of people do end up growing out of it and they're like, okay, I'm to a size now where I just want to hire it out, have somebody manage it, or I want to hire this stuff...

8:45...out and I don't want to do the renos anymore. But for me at this point and for the foreseeable future, that's just part of what I enjoy. And I get to do it with my dad, like you said. And that's something that I had a big realization about — from one of the guys I've learned the most from, one of my online mentors, his name is Thach Nguyen. Yeah, you mentioned him before the podcast. Yeah, yeah. He talks about how his dad died of cancer, like pretty...

9:10...abruptly, and he was taken from him. And he said, he was very wealthy at this point — he was like, it didn't matter how much money I had, like I couldn't get another day back with my dad. And for me, I've always had a pretty good relationship with my dad, but when he said that it pre-warned me for what could happen to me in the future, and I'm like, okay, I want — meaning you would be so...

9:31...busy and so caught up with it that you wouldn't — is that what you're alluding to? Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm kind of getting at — I don't want to, I want to cherish every moment that I have with the people around me in my life. That was kind of his message: cherish your life, don't just cherish the things you're pursuing. And so for me, in particular with my dad because of his story, I'm like, I get to cherish almost every day. My dad and I...

9:52...are working on something together, you know. We're aligned in something, we're always working on the same project. And that's something that real estate, and particularly doing our own renovations, has afforded us. If we didn't do our own renos, it wouldn't be the same at all. Wouldn't be the same dynamic. Yeah, yeah. So learning from Thach's lesson, I'm trying to maximize my time with my dad while he's still here and not live with the regret of, well, I wish...

10:16...I had spent more time with them — or with my kids or with my wife. Yeah. And I think a lot of business owners, and I mean anyone who's career-driven and in the world, sometimes that's the way you have to be just to get by. And with an expensive culture that we live in — but at the same time, maybe especially in real estate and construction, it's very time-consuming, it's very demanding for time and money. And so in particular, to...

10:44...have balance is something that I think everybody struggles with in this arena of work. Yeah, yeah. That's such a common and popular word — the whole idea of balance and life balance and how do you strike the two. And there's no way getting around it: the life of an entrepreneur is a busy life. If you want to start a successful business from the ground up, there's no way getting around time investment and energy, right. But for me it was, is there...

11:15...a way to still get the best of life? Is there a way to move the project forward, move the business forward, even if it's at a slower pace — a pace that still allows me to invest the way I want to in my family? Because for me and my wife, in our hierarchy, our family and our marriage are above any of our businesses, any of our interests. We don't compromise that for anything. The analogy I heard that best...

11:42...described it for me was that life is like you're juggling four or five balls at a time, but there's only one ball that's made out of glass, and that glass ball is your wife and your family. All the other balls you can drop and they'll bounce — they'll come back in some capacity, in some form — but if you let the family ball drop, that one breaks. So don't drop the damn ball. Wow, I love that. Yeah. So I heard that — it's so easy to forget too, right? Yeah, it is. It's...

12:08...probably the one that's easiest to take for granted, because they're always going to be there, right? Not even in an "oh, she's not going anywhere" kind of way, but it's just something that we presume is going to be constant in our life, when in reality — I had a busy stretch in real estate just this past spring. It was like I had four deals going all at the same time, I was on the phone a lot, I was doing...

12:35...paperwork a lot. And I ended up missing like a week and a half straight of dinners with my family, just because of the different work required. I was up late doing paperwork and whatever, and I ended up saying to Bev, my wife, I was like, "I can see how people would end up divorced after four or five years of this, because she would be entirely sick of me" — because I was just not present, I was not around. And our relationship, even just in...

13:01...that small one-to-two month sample of really full-tilt going at it for me as a new realtor — it was a lot on our family. So that was definitely a warning shot for me to say, okay, keep your eye on what you truly value and what you're truly working towards. And you've got to do that at the same time as you have the pressure of — you know, previously maybe having a salary position or some kind of security...

13:31...in that regard — to now you're a realtor with commissions based on success. And I mean yeah, you have your own real estate income properties that you're building a portfolio on, but yeah, 100%. When you're on salary — I know a lot of listeners who are going to relate to that. Yeah, sure. You get to take sick days, right? You get paid time off. If you're an entrepreneur or a business owner and you don't go to work, you just...

14:03...don't get paid. Like, there are a number of times we've had that conversation between me and my wife where we knowingly chose the sacrifice that meant we weren't going to get paid 90 days from now. But sometimes you make that sacrifice and you live in that tension. It's a tension always to be managed in business — investing in the business, in the future, which is meant to bless and help your family — but you better make sure you have a family at the end of it and not just a...

14:33...business. Yeah. I think there's a lot of people that fall into that hole. And as you're saying that, you can almost feel like a compassion — I feel like you know, I could — it could happen. It happens to a lot of people in our culture now, and it could happen to anyone for sure. And it swallows you up. What's the feeling that you're left with on that? And again, it's something that I've lived in stretches for...

15:03...sure. But it's like, what's the result? The result is that I'm failing on every front. It means I'm failing because I'm trying to give more time to my family but as a result I'm taking time away from earning income. But I'm not fully there with my family, so I can at least make some income. So anyway, you feel like you're failing on the family front because you're not there as much as they would like, and you're...

15:24...failing on the business front because you're not there enough to actually earn what you want or need to earn. So yeah, the resulting impact on a small business owner can be a serious one, can be a profound one. Yeah. And I think it's not for everyone, and sometimes things fail — and it's nobody's fault, really, it just didn't work out. Or other times you can look back and think, well, could have done this or could have done that. A deal...

15:49...didn't go through, you went through a bad stretch, you just didn't have the capital or the overhead to get through it, or whatever it is. But people try and fail, and I think there's a lot of people on the other side who think, I wish I would have started my own thing, or this or that. But if you haven't been in those shoes and walked that journey — I'm really glad you said that, because I think that especially being in...

16:15...the real estate investing world, there's a lot of glamorization and there's a lot of pressure around — we spoke about this earlier — it's like there's almost a glam factor about it for sure. And just being an entrepreneur in general, like owning your own business — yeah, I don't have to work for anybody, I work for myself. Yeah, you don't have to answer to anybody and you have all this freedom. Well, and again, I think of programs like Traction or other...

16:41...business programs where it's all about, like, do you actually own the business or does the business own you — own your schedule, own your mind, your energy, your effort? That's right. It's like, did you buy a business or did you buy a job, right? Yeah. Because a lot of people buy jobs, and if they're not there their business doesn't run, doesn't work. Yeah, yeah. But there's a lot of...

17:07...glamour around it, and like I say, pressure to where people feel like they almost should become an entrepreneur. But a lot of people I've listened to — like actual business experts — are like, the number of people who are actually cut out for the risk required to run a successful business is very small. Not many people are actually — so most people actually are better suited working for a company in a salaried position. And I think one of the online mentors I...

17:38...mentioned, Michael Zuber, he really puts that plainly and clearly. It's like he actually caters his whole training and his whole business to supporting workers — people who work in full-time positions — and helping them invest in real estate on the side. Because for most people, the entrepreneurial path is not going to be a successful one. Yeah, and that's okay. And that's okay. I don't know — I know you know, I don't know if I have the stomach for the risk required to run a...

18:06...big business. We run small businesses that serve our family, but I don't know that I could take the level of risk required to really launch a successful big company. Yeah. That's an interesting point. It's so true. I think the more people you talk to, certainly on this podcast and in your circle and in the work that we're involved in — that's really the biggest difference when you look at owners and partners and CEOs and the people that...

18:38...are in these positions. You could say, yeah, I mean they obviously have the competency, they have the skills and the experience and the knowledge to do the work. But a lot of other people have that too. And a lot of times people who have all that kind of get ground down a bit, like, why does this guy have all this more than me, if you want to look at it that way. But they don't — I don't know if they understand or they...

19:04...get the fact that the real difference is their comfortability with risk, and their approach to it, and their analysis of it. Like, they're risk-takers. And basically the bigger — especially when you're looking at construction management and large construction projects — you're just taking on risk, and that's what these people are really, really good at. Yeah, you know. And sometimes you miss that. You miss that and you think, like, you expect them to have maybe in-depth knowledge of like the numbers more. I mean...

19:43...everything's got to be by the numbers, that's at the bottom line, it's a big part of it, it's always going to be. But a lot of times they don't have — maybe don't have the same thing people would assume they have when it comes to depth of knowledge in these different areas. They just really understand people and they understand risk. Yeah, yeah. I think there's that adage that all the information is out there for everybody in the world to be fit...

20:10...to be happy and to be wealthy, but the difference is often, do they actually do it? Like fitness is just a great example. If you ask somebody what does it take to be fit, well, almost everybody could tell you: I need to eat fewer calories, I need to exercise, I need to get good sleep, right? It's like everybody could say that. But how many people actually have the focus and the discipline to actually do it every day? It's actually in the doing that things are often made. So...

20:39...entrepreneurs, often — people who run these businesses — are doers. Yeah. They do the thing, and the doing usually involves a healthy amount of risk. You know, why is that guy in this chair and you're in this one? Because he put all his life savings on the line to start that company. That's why he's over there. Yeah, no, that's very true. So your first house flip — how did that go? Or I might be jumping the gun, because I think you mentioned earlier that you've retained...

21:06...your properties as rentals. Yeah. But the first one obviously went well enough that you did it again, and that's usually a breakthrough for most people, right? That's right. Yeah. The first one — we knew from the very beginning it was going to be a long-term hold. It was a duplex, it was a two-unit building out in Lower Sackville, and we knew that with time we were going to hope to renovate it — it wasn't in very good condition, but it was something that we...

21:33...could afford and it was something that I saw could perform with time. And so as there have been ten changeovers, I'll go in and I always update something, make it a little bit better than it was previously. So we still own that one, seven or eight years later, and it's still a nice little asset for us. And that home actually helped us buy another rental down the line — we ended up refinancing it, pulling a down payment out of that property...

22:01...which actually got us what ended up being our third property. Yeah, so it's been a great little property for us. And then after that one — that was the only one that we bought not needing to touch right away. Basically all of our other properties we've bought knowing that from the get-go we were going to need to do a pretty serious renovation to make it what we would be comfortable renting out to people. So we kind of have a target buy box...

22:32...that we look for. We look for properties that we can immediately add value to — basically something that has an unfinished basement. We've got one of them that had recently had a flood and the basement was trashed. We had another one that just had a very strange layout — somebody renovated the property 25 years ago to be exactly what they wanted, but nobody else wanted it. So it was sitting on the market, and we went in and said, well, we can make this back into something that would...

22:59...actually be a really nice property. So we did that. Yeah, that's a crucial phase though — it's just picking the right scenario where you know, this is going to be the budget. Like, even where you said there's a flood in the basement, just what's the level of damage? What's my budget for getting this place up to par, up to a certain standard? Yeah, that's where the risk comes in. And knowing how to eye it — okay, is this property going to be okay with time? How much money is it...

23:30...going to actually take to get it up to earning income? Because that's a big — it's easy to miss something too. It could be structural, it could be a crack in the foundation, it could be anything where it's like, oh, there's another ten grand, or another twenty grand, real quick. Yeah, yeah. And some things don't even rear their heads until five or ten years down the road, right? You can't know everything. So it's finding a good inspector, right? Making friends with the inspector. But also just...

23:56...being educated yourself in what to look for, and that just comes with real wisdom that comes with time and doing renovations yourself. So once you've pulled a couple of homes apart you can see what it looks like on the inside based on some of the symptoms you're seeing on the outside of it. So yeah. So eXp — why eXp and not some other? I know it's an international real estate company and you're a realtor with them. There's reasons — I mean you talked...

24:29...about their commission splits and different things, right. There's all kinds of different variables you take into consideration. But was there a main reason why? For sure. So there's the analytical side — I'm relatively analytical as an individual. I'm an overthinker, really. Before I make a decision I really hammer out the details. So on an analytical side, their compensation structure, their commission splits, the monthly fees — they have something called revenue share. There are lots of...

25:00...competitive things they've done because it's a pretty new brokerage. So it's on kind of the cutting edge of brokerage design, if you can put it that way. It's cloud-based? To pardon me? Yeah, it's cloud-based brokerage, so there's no bricks and mortar — that's what allows the company to be more profitable. It's actually traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Like it's a publicly held company. It's very contemporary, though. Yeah, it's very interesting. But it...

25:27...comes from the founder of our company being part of other brokerages and seeing how it can actually be better to serve the agent. That's the goal of eXp — to be the most agent-centric brokerage in the world. So the whole goal is to make it desirable for agents to come to, right. Yeah. There are a lot of interesting things. Like, they've also integrated — you know what, they don't, I think, like calling it this — but like some multi-level marketing strategies, so that if you recruit people...

25:54...to the organization, they become part of like your downline. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a healthy thing for a business. You're going to always kind of err on the side of someone saying, well, "seems like a pyramid scheme." You'd say that, right? But it's not — like, you know what I'm trying to say. Because even when I say that it's going to sound wrong, and I don't mean that it is, and it's not. No, no. It's out of the company's...

26:17...percentage of the commission split — they give some back to the people who actually brought you into the company. And what it creates is an environment where we're actually hoping for people to do well. Because if somebody I brought into the company sells a home, that means I get a little portion of money. So I'm hoping that person does well. Whereas what I've heard is that at a lot of other brokerages it's pretty competitive — there's no benefit to me for you doing well in...

26:42...sales, whereas in our company it's kind of structured so that you actually do benefit. Yeah. Talk about that a little bit, because I know — as a real estate broker — I'm just a realtor, as a realtor, sorry. Yeah, I get the terminology wrong. I was asking that earlier. Agent, broker — the licensed broker who basically all the transactions have to go through. I'm just a realtor. But as a realtor, you know, it's a sales position. And I think again, as an entrepreneur, even even if you're...

27:14...trying to build a portfolio of real estate — and I mean, even other careers, like a journeyman or a foreman — your ability to sell, I mean, you're selling yourself, right? That's such a big part of not just work but life in general, and the other parts of your life that make up a fulfilling life. Talk about sales — talk about what it means to you, talk about what it takes to be a realtor and be...

27:47...successful in what you've learned. You know, because it can be very draining, like having to just — there's a lot of rejection, there are the same old clichés of just, you've got to get out there, you've got to — but it can be a really mentally exhausting endeavor. And sometimes it's just dry and nothing is happening, and you feel like you've got to close, you've got to close. What does that even mean sometimes? Like...

28:11...you can't just pressure people into situations that aren't going to work for them. And sometimes, knowing when to let go, when to continue — there's a lot of yeah. No, that's a really great point to bring up. Sales has a bad reputation for a reason, because there are a lot of people who have pursued exactly what you're saying — very self-willed, not really thinking about what other people need, and my outcome as a salesperson is actually what's...

28:34...motivating me, not your good as the person I'm supposedly serving. And even as realtors, we're supposed to be fiduciaries — we're supposed to be looking for their best interest all the time. Yeah. And if you talk to almost anybody who's had an experience with realtors in some way, whether it was their realtor or somebody else, they've experienced somebody who's out for their own commission, right? So it's a hard balance to strike, because whether or not somebody buys that property directly impacts what I bring home to my...

29:02...family. But at the same time, you have to be a person of integrity and realize my job is actually to serve the other person. Yeah. That's an interesting point too. And I don't want to cut you off, but I feel like a lot of people, especially if you're in business or you have a small business where you can only take so much — you know, the little wins are so big — whereas a larger company could handle not being paid in their cash flow for a year on something. And this...

29:26...and that — but all it takes is just one thing and you're broke, right? And if it has to do with someone treating you in that way that's more self-serving for them and not for you, then a lot of times the mentality you take on is, well, if you want to make it in the business world you've got to be a shark, you've got to be out for yourself, right? And in some sense it's true, you do have to...

29:48...be up for yourself. But like, that's a hard balance to strike. Yeah, yeah. So for me, the thing that helped me the most was finding the right coach. So I did some training with a coach down in the US, and his whole — the reason I went with him is I'm not a typical salesperson. I'm not — like, I was just recently at a men's retreat and there was this guy who was rooming near me, and we had like four or...

30:11...five interactions in the first day and a half. And I said, "Brian, what do you do for work? Are you a salesman by any chance?" He said, "Yeah, I'm in tech sales. Why?" He's like, "You just — you can just tell." And it's not that he's greasy or whatever, but just the way he engages, his personality, the way he's always fired up — it's almost machine-like. Yeah, there's something about it. He's always looking...

30:33...to engage and looking — I can't put my finger on it, but it's like you start to really be able to smell a good salesperson. Yeah. But I'm not that. I'm like a really laid-back, relaxed, kind of introverted guy, like — yeah, naturally. But it's good though. That's not a negative thing. That's just a matter of temperament and just a matter of biological makeup. Like, I had to figure out how to use that in sales — going in and...

30:58...trying to be the shark who's coming in and wowing everybody — that can turn people off too, right? I mean, yeah. Exactly. So the coach that I found, his strategy is called reverse selling, where I'm going in with a service mindset and my first step is actually to try and say, like, why shouldn't you? What are the reasons why this is actually a bad idea for you? And then what happens is that in the process they actually start...

31:24...selling me on why they should sell their home. Because if I'm going in saying, like, "Well, this is the right time in the market, you've already told me that you're ready to downsize, so are we ready to list this home right now?" — you kind of try and put words in their mouth. But with reverse selling it was like, actually I'm just going...

31:47...to ask you questions and you tell me if this makes sense for you. Because this is your life and this is your biggest asset, this is your retirement — this is about you. And then anyway, that's the initial building of trust. Like for me, everything relies on building trust out of the gate. That's where I've had success. Actually telling people — coming, meeting somebody face to face and having them discover you don't have commission breath. Like you're not just...

32:18...there trying to get a sale, that you're actually there to help them and to serve them. And, "actually, this might not be the right time for you — are you sure this is the right time?" It actually engenders trust. They think that you're in it for their best interest now. Yeah. So as a disposition, that's what really helps — going out actually looking for the no, I'm looking for reasons you shouldn't do this. And if it makes...

32:41...sense, and I've earned your trust, and based on my market knowledge and my plan for what we're going to do with your property, you think you can trust me with this transaction — I think that's something that I'm not a high-firing salesman, but what I am particularly gifted in is building trust quickly with people. Yeah. And that's where I've had success, even off of one phone call with a guy who was trying to sell his home...

33:08...on his own — for sale by owner, FSBO — and I got his number off the sign and I called him. I kind of followed my coach's pattern of how to run the conversation, very non-confrontational, and then he ended up calling me back the next morning. He said no, he was still going to sell on his own. The very next morning, 10 a.m., he calls me, he says, "You know what, I talked to a lot of realtors and you're the only one I'd want to...

33:33...work with. Can you come by? I think I'm going to actually list my home." And it was just — that's affirmation for you, though, right? Yeah, for sure. And he had endless realtors who called him, who kept saying the same thing like, "You're not going to be able to sell it on your own, like you've got to list with me, it's not going to happen, you're going to get way less" — they kept trying to tell him why he was wrong. I actually called him on the phone...

33:52...and told him he was right. Like, "Brian, you should actually have no problem selling your home in this market. It's a great time to sell — homes are actually selling in under five days in Lower Sackville right now. So there should be no problem for you. But on the off chance that your home doesn't sell in, say, 14 or 21 days — like, would you be open to me giving you a call back and seeing if it might...

34:15...make sense for us to at least sit down and have a conversation about selling your home?" And it was just like there's no confrontation — I'm actually assuming that you're going to be successful in what you do. I'm assuming it's going to go well. I'm not telling you you're going to fail, which is what most people were doing when they called him. Anyway, that impression just left him. He had already been trying to sell his home for three or four weeks, and so to...

34:37...hear that average sales in that area were selling in five days — he called me the next morning and said, "I'm ready to sell it, let's do it." Wow, yeah, that's a great story, man. Yeah. And the positive is that I actually got him over thirty grand more than he was asking when he couldn't sell it on his own. So that was pretty sweet. He was singing my praises, yeah. He's going to remember you. Yeah. We'll talk a little...

35:02...more about the market, the local market. I mean, I know a lot of people right now — in a sense it's hot because things are selling, but in another sense, if you're selling because you want to turn around and buy, you know, it's going to be expensive. A lot of major developers are putting up hundreds of units, even thousands of units, on the books for multi-res and stuff. It's an interesting market. But what have you found, what...

35:26...do you think? Where do you think we're at? What's happening out there? It's very up and down. It's really an interesting market, really an odd dynamic. Like by this point a lot of people would say we should have already had a downturn in our market, just based on the broader economics, based on what's happening in the rest of the country. Like, you normally — when say Ontario gets the flu, everybody else gets a cold, kind of...

35:50...thing, right? But it seems like we've been, to a degree, insulated. Yeah. Like, just looking at the recent average sales data, we're still up from last year. I don't think we've had a down year through the pandemic — we've continued to increase. I think we're up 7% from this time last year on average sales price. And it's like, okay, so we're continuing to trend up. It's really discouraging for people who are just trying to get into the market, because...

36:19...houses just keep getting more expensive. And for the last three years, for that first-time homeowner couple who just got out of university — I've had multiple family members and friends saying, "I'm going to wait till things come back down," and I kept saying, like, it's not — I'm not, I don't have a crystal ball, but I wouldn't bet on it coming back down next year when you're hoping to buy. It's like, you should be looking to get as proactive as you can, find the right spot...

36:46...in the market for you anyway. It falls on deaf ears often, because people believe what they tell themselves. That's another sales line — people will never believe what you tell them, they'll sometimes believe what you show them, but they always believe what they tell themselves. It's really hard to convince somebody against what they've already told themselves. Yeah. I feel like I'm thinking of that line from "The Wolf of Wall Street" where he says that nobody knows if a stock's going to go up or sideways. It's going...

37:10...to — with the real estate market it's like nobody really knows what's going to happen, but here's what the experienced people think. Yeah, yeah. So it's really interesting. Our average price keeps going up. This month, like September — actually this past month we had, for the first time in a little while, the number of listings has gone up and the number of sold homes has actually gone down. So there's been a bit of an inflection there. We'll see if it...

37:36...continues. So there could be some sign that inventory could build. But again, what it meant for September's numbers was that there was two and a half months of supply on the market, which means if we stopped adding any new supply, in two and a half months all the homes would be sold. Well, a healthy market under a typical definition is like six months of supply — that's a balanced market. So we're still, by definition, in a seller's market. It's still really competitive...

38:04...but like anything, there are segments within that, right. Like I said, things in neighborhoods and areas leaning more towards the entry-level price points — they're still really competitive, crazy competitive. Like, I know Lower Sackville the best — Lakeview, Bedford areas type thing — it's still 12 days on average. Your days on market — the average for the city is like 20, 27 in September, which means that there are other sectors of the...

38:38...market where the average is probably more like 40 or 50. So the higher price points, your home is going to sit longer. But homes are still averaging to sell at 99.6% of list price — they're selling on average for what they list for, across the whole market. So our market has stayed strong, it's stayed pretty consistent. Honestly, what concerns me is seeing — and a lot of people are celebrating, and realtors in particular are celebrating the recent mortgage changes...

39:12...that came out — like, now first-time home buyers can qualify for a 30-year mortgage, which just spreads out your amortization. It means the mortgage is more affordable. But we don't have a demand problem in Nova Scotia. The problem has been supply of first-time-buyer-type homes. The builders — often, and I'm out of my depths here, I don't know as many builders as you and your audience do, but often broad trends across Canada, across the US — what builders are...

39:45...preferring to build when building single-family homes are higher-end homes, obviously because you can make more money. Most people aren't building a middle-of-the-road three-bed, one-bath bungalow, right. The profit margins have shrunk and it's not as profitable. Whereas a lot of the new builds now are a move-up type property, unless you're coming in with some real capital for some reason or you're moving from out of province. But for the say...

40:12...person who grew up here and is kind of the everyday person in Nova Scotia — that's not a first-time home. Yeah. And so there's so much competition for those entry-level homes, and we're not improving the supply in that area. And the shifts that we've made from a mortgage perspective — including dropping the interest rate and stretching it out to 30-year amortization — it's only going to add fuel to the demand that's already there for those things. So...

40:42...that's why I'm like, it hasn't gotten cheaper in the last couple years and it's not going to get cheaper next year. Yeah. It's — I wish I had a great message out there for the first-time home buyers, other than just: you've got to get educated and get ready, and you've got to come up with that first 5% down payment. Exactly. Get the 5% locked and loaded, get your finances in order, and when something comes across the table that you can — like...

41:11...the idea of getting the dream home right off the bat, that should pretty near die. That idea — yeah, because it's pretty hard to get right now. Buy something that's a good investment, fix it up, be able to sell it in a couple of years for a little more, and move. Just like what you did yourself. I mean, you've got eight units over five properties now — you're playing a long game...

41:34...and you're renting them out. What's the long-term goal? Are there a few more in the near future? That's just — it's working out obviously — the rental income is working. Yeah. A lot of times people want to get in, get out quick, make that quick money and move on to something bigger. Yeah, yeah. And that's tempting. There have been so many — almost every property that we own, we've been tempted at some point to sell it...

41:58...because the immediate payoff is just so great. Once your home appreciates and you've paid down the mortgage a little bit, the temptation is real strong to think, I could have a hundred grand, I could have two hundred grand in the bank right now. But one — the taxes, if you haven't lived in the home, the taxes kill you. Capital gains. Yeah, capital gains hurts. And they've even increased it in the last year, right. But two — every once in a while my wife will talk me off the...

42:24...selling ledge and remind me, like, in 30 years what would we wish we would have done? Well, in 30 years I want to have kept the properties, and now they're free and clear and they just bring in revenue every month. So we haven't brought ourselves to the point of selling any. And where we're at right now — I mean, we're open to projects because I've had a number of people reach out who are interested in...

42:49...partnering on some stuff going forward, because I can't help but talk about it. And I have lots of friends from other provinces and they want to get involved because it sounds like a fun and exciting thing. But we're not ready to go there yet. We need to kind of solidify and fortify our business first. So we're not currently planning on expanding ourselves — we just want to actually get all of our...

43:18...properties up and running kind of to their peak, and then start the process of actually paying them down. It's kind of against what common real estate investing advice is. But again, to reference Thach Nguyen, one of my online mentors — his strategy is, figure out how many homes it takes where the rent from those properties could fund your lifestyle, and then go and buy that many homes. And it sounds real easy — "go and buy that many homes" — but I was like, okay, now we have...

43:48...that many homes. He's like, and then devote the next stretch of time to paying those properties off. Because once you have them paid off — he uses colorful language, but basically — people can't mess with you, like they can't take that away from you. And it's just an insulation on the rest of your life. So that's kind of what we have as our vision. Love that. You're taking — I love that you're taking that other approach where it's like, from the glam factor, yeah, you're taking the risk...

44:13...off the table. You're doing it quietly. It can be done. It's like, what a success anyway, right? I mean, if you're making that much money on rental incomes, that's amazing, that's great. I mean, yeah, sure, you didn't flip something and make half a million bucks, but yeah. No, I love that. And your other approach as a realtor with eXp — just the sales approach and how that works, and how you know people are saying no. This isn't the first time a realtor...

44:36...has talked to me this way, and then you get them thirty grand more in the deal and you're in the door and out the door, and it's great. Yeah. So that's the goal now — to have basically the income from real estate sales go towards funding our life but also helping to pay off the rentals with time. And it'll be a slow burn, but it'll be worth it in the end. Yeah. I feel like this is an...

44:59...example of long-form content — people think, how could you ever do a podcast for like three hours? We're an hour in now. We could keep going for two hours. But I want to be respectful of time, and I really appreciate doing this. Is there anything else you want to mention, just something you want to get out there, want to say to our listeners before we kind of wrap up? Something we didn't touch on maybe? I love...

45:20...the message of the analogy of the glass ball — the balls, your wife and kids first — and I know that's just such an important thing to be reminded of. So I really appreciate that you mentioned that, for myself of course and for our listeners too. But yeah, any anything else on your mind? I think what it comes down to — what I would encourage people to — is to take leadership in your life. And that's a blanket statement, it...

45:55...sounds real easy, but I have lived this in my own life. And I've talked to lots of friends and a lot of people in my network who feel like life is making the decisions for them, you know. And that can put you in some desperate positions, some uncomfortable positions. And to realize that actually you have autonomy and you have authority in your own life — you know, you have the ability to lead yourself, you have the...

46:21...ability to lead your family and your company. And that might mean drastic measures, that might mean upsetting somebody, but you have authority in the domain that's been given to you. So exercise that. Now, what I mean on a personal level with that — maybe more practically applicable — would be: start with designing a life that you actually want to live. There's this book that I — oh, I was going to say "read" but I listened to it. I don't read that many...

46:53...books anymore, I listen to most of them. But it's called "Life-inaire," and it's a play on the word "millionaire." But the idea is that actually you've built a life that is so valuable that it kind of replaces the word "million." Like, actually you're a "life-inaire" — you're living the life that you want and you're living it intentionally. I think it's so easy to get drawn into living an unintentional life just by the needs that are right in front of us...

47:17...every day. And like we talked about maybe beforehand, being a realtor — it's so tempting to try and live as flashy a life as possible, you know: get the right vehicle, live in the right neighborhood, have the right accessories. But in the end, is that the life I actually want to live? Do I want to live a life where I sell a hundred homes a year? I actually don't. I don't want to live that life. That's not what I want. That's not the design I want for my life, for my...

47:43...wife and I. The way we've designed it — our legacy is our kids, it's our family. So the primary energy of my day is going into my wife and my family. That doesn't mean it gets the most of my day every day — that's obviously impractical — but I'm giving them my best self at a certain point every day, because that's what we've decided is going to be our priority. That's our legacy. We're going...

48:10...to leave the world — it's our kids. So for other people it's like, well, what life do you want to live? What do you actually want to leave on the world? I love the concept of the deathbed virtues. Maybe this is all way beyond — please keep going, I'm loving it. I don't really care what anybody else — okay, cool, thanks for the permission to keep going. The concept of deathbed virtues, where it's like — again, it can be so easy to live what...

48:36...seems like a good idea right now, or what somebody else says you should be doing with your life or with your time. But on your deathbed, what do you wish you would have done with your time? What virtues do you want to be known for? It's so important to keep that in mind. It really is, it really is. And there's that old adage that nobody, you know, regrets — nobody wishes they worked more when they're on their deathbed, you know. Like everybody wishes...

48:59...they spent more time with family, they wish they had more time with their children or with their whatever. So to try and keep the deathbed virtues in front of you — like, what impact do I want to have on the world? What impact do I want to have on my family? What do I want my family life to look like? Oh, for — if you don't have a family, you know, the relationships around you. So much of life pulls down to relationships. So, okay, how...

49:23...do I want to leave this impact? And then, that's kind of big picture and maybe hard to act on in the day-to-day. So one of the best things — it's really simple — in starting to bring that kind of vision, that design of your life, to fruition, is the concept of just picking the most important next step. The "minimum strategy" — it's like, okay, I have this goal to start a business or grow my business...

49:53...to X. Well, in order to get there, what's my most important next step? And then, in order to actually get to that, what would you need to do in order to start your own business? It's like, okay, well I would need blah, blah, blah. Anyway, you can work your way back to an action item that I can do today that works me towards my end goal, simply by following the most important next step. Like an...

50:19...example: if your goal is to get married and have a family, your most important next step might be to go and get a haircut so that you can get a date. Take a shower, shower consistently — there's a lot to be said for that. Yeah. Anyway, that's what I — I love your analogy, or the book that you mentioned, the "Life-inaire." Yeah, "Life-inaire." Because I mean, you think of money, what do we think of? We think of currency. How different people is it — it's a paycheck every week, or is it a salary, or as a business owner it's a margin. But money in economic terms is a store of value...

50:45...a unit of account, and a medium of exchange. That's how it's defined in economics as currency, right? A store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. So really, what's your currency? It ties into thinking of it...

51:11...as currency. Time is currency. Your time is so valuable. It's got value, it's a store of value. So I try and think in those terms too. And it helps me. That's great. Like, similar — a lot of people are talking about now, what's the actual definition of wealth, right? What does it actually mean to be wealthy? Does it mean to have a lot of things and have a lot of money? I think it's more — same way you can't define success...

51:34...it's too subjective. It's not objective — yeah. Success to some people is staying sober for the next 24 hours. Success to the next person is the next big deal. Yeah. Or spending more time with their kids. It's too subjective to define success. So it's really not a meaningful word. But to have fullness of life, whatever it is you're meant to do — that's worth pursuing. You're preaching, man. You're right, though. Yeah, that's...

52:10...awesome. Yeah, man. No, thanks for coming on. I appreciate everything you said, man. It was a really kind of rapid-fire but we touched on a lot of things. Yeah, I wish we could go for another hour but I've got to go and I think you've probably got to get back to the wife and kids, right. But no, really, thanks Chris. It's awesome to hear your story and keep up the great work. Congrats on the success that you've had and the approach that you're...

52:33...taking to it, mostly. And thanks for the reminder of just, you know, how busy we all get but the important things in life. So thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Yeah, keep up the good work. Cheers. Looking forward to seeing where you take the podcast. Thanks, buddy. It's great. Cheers.