Real Estate Investment Opportunities in Canada with Nick Hill

Mike DeHaan: [0:01] Really quick, before today's episode, I wanna talk about our new accelerator program. We're gonna be taking 10 investors every quarter and plugging them into our proven marketing systems that we use to operate our business every single day. And we will be applying them to you and your business in your market. At the end of twelve weeks, you will have greatly increased the velocity of which your business has started to take root and hold in your market. So you can spend less time building less time trying to figure stuff out, And instead, just focus on closing deals. So this is an intensive program. It is only for people who are extremely serious about wanting to take their business to the next level and ultimately quit their w two job in the next twelve months, which believe it or not is possible. So if you think you are a good fit, please go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/launch and submit your information and see if you're the right candidate. We're all doing again, we're doing 10 people every quarter. So spots are limited. So if you apply, I mean, get back to you. We apologize. But it will be first come first serve or I guess like first qualified first serve. So again, collectingkeyspodcastcomm/launch, go there and talk to you soon.

Nick Hill: [1:06] ROB crane index where we've got more building and more cranes than I believe almost anywhere else in North America outside of I know Miami is doing quite well, but extreme, extreme growth here, but still it's you know, now we're running into pricing issues and and and a pretty serious housing crisis.

Speaker 3: [1:26] Welcome to the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [1:49] What is going on, guys? In this episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast, we have Nick Hill of the Canadian real estate investor podcast. He is a absolute just all over the place. And then again, a good way real estate entrepreneur who has his hands in all sorts of things from having rental properties to doing flips to he has a big lending business, a lending brokerage business that he's doing all sorts of different stuff. That's actually pretty creative too. And all in all, he's just a really knowledgeable guy, and he has the largest real estate investment sort of education and media brand in Canada. So we go into also details about the nuances of Canadian real estate versus American, kind of how he runs his business, what they look for deals. There are super wacky, like, mortgage practices up there that would make it very challenging to do anything down here in The US with how we typically analyze deals. So tons of really interesting content there. And then he also goes into his lending business and the different kind of ways that he's structuring some creative loans to make some pretty sweet money, basically just brokering loans with people that need creative stuff to people that need creative loans.

Mike DeHaan: [2:55] Right? So brokering is essentially the wholesaling version of the lending side of real estate that most people don't think about. And he has it mastered, and he's doing some really great things there. So overall, a ton of great information. Nick Hill is a really nice guy. Absolutely reach out to him at all the places that he plugs at the end of the show. Definitely go listen to his show as well, the Canadian Real Estate Investor. Even though it has Canadian in the title, it's a lot of like larger macroeconomic stuff and real estate tips that will be absolutely applicable to anybody that's interested in this industry. So go check that out. And I guarantee you'll get a lot from it. Besides that, guys, go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free, get your free five step guide for generating off market leads. And enjoy the show with Nick guys. It's a great one. Alright, guys, today, I am here with Nick Hill from the great land up North Canada. He runs the Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast. He has a company called land bank that does all sorts of deals all over North America. I tried to ask you your specific niche before I open the show and you listed me gave me a laundry list of things. So you really are a true real estate professional in every set of the word I think so. So anyways, Nick, appreciate you coming on the show. I would love to hear more about your background and what exactly you do with the Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast and your land bank company.

Nick Hill: [4:15] Awesome. Yeah, Mike, quite the introduction. I I appreciate it and great to be here. Love talking to my fellow North Americans south of the border as as myself, my partners, you know, most of our holdings and a lot of our attention is obviously focused up in Canada, hence the name the Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast, and the fact that all five members of the team with Land Bank are here in Canada, but there is so much more opportunity in The States, in different strategies can be implemented. So, you know, we face our own unique challenges up here, but yeah, I appreciate having me on and looking forward to get into this. I'll give a quick rundown of a few different things we're doing. So I'm a loan officer, what we call a mortgage agent up here north of the border, so that's kind of one of my day jobs. The other thing we do is we release a podcast twice a week, Tuesday and Friday mornings. We've been doing this particular podcast for a year, just about. We're just about to hit our hundredth episode. Super exciting. The podcast, to be honest, has completely changed my life, and I think the trajectory of my real estate investing career, and we can get into that as well. Yeah. Also a active landlord, so we do have property managers and whatnot, but I still end up, myself and the team still end up involved in issues and working with the team to resolve those issues, still actively looking for deals. So, know, my weeks are quite different than on the land bank side of things.

Nick Hill: [5:48] I play a great marketing and business development role. We've got some really, really sharp guys on the team, investment bankers, CPA, one guy that's really experienced in the private lending and construction space. So we make up a great team and with Land Bank we fund deals across the country, do debt and equity, construction financing and general real estate services, advisory services, so bit of a nutshell there, but yeah, I mean, you asked me a funny question, how would you, if you were in an Uber, how would you describe what you do? And I just simply say real estate investing and podcasting if I feel like talking and explaining myself.

Mike DeHaan: [6:29] Yeah, right. You cover all the bases. So you sell across North America. Are you like a typical North American country where you think you're the only one that exists? Or like you do do it do it in Canada as well as The US? Because I know that's always a thing with, you know, Americans, we forget that Canada's up there. We forget that Mexico's down south. Right, and Canada I think might be the same. So is is all your stuff based in Canada, or do you do it across The US as well?

Nick Hill: [6:52] Yeah. Great question. So first and foremost, America has the luxury of of forgetting because you guys are literally 10 times the size of of Canada. The California population and GDP is larger than Canada. So we don't forget. We're very aware, maybe not so much of Mexico, that doesn't really affect us whatsoever. Yeah. But you know, we are so directly tied to your economy and you know, what the Fed does, the Bank of Canada follows essentially, right? There's that, there's an old adage, don't know if it's popular in America, but it certainly is up here. Probably not. The States, yeah, when America sneezes, Canada catches a cold. I don't know if you've ever heard that one before, but

Mike DeHaan: [7:36] it's a common saying these days. We don't ever think about Canada down here, if I'm being honest. It's funny. I'm just I'm just talking shit.

Nick Hill: [7:42] Well, I mean, look, I mean, some people do and some people don't. I think, you know, obviously, the states that border Canada probably think about it a lot more. Yeah. And and probably some places like maybe like the Carolinas and Florida where tons of Canadians are investing. I'm I'm sure they're a bit more aware of it, but Oh, really? Yeah, there's a lot of like flight of capital to, specifically to Florida, I mean, like the winters up here. I'm in Toronto, so it's funny you asked if we forget that America exists. No, we're very aware, but sometimes people in Toronto, which we call Downtown Canada, and very naive people like to compare it to New York City, but we're probably fifty years behind New York City easily. I live in Toronto, it's the biggest city in the country by far, it's a few hours away by flight to both Chicago and New York, so kind of East Coast.

Mike DeHaan: [8:33] Really

Nick Hill: [8:34] impressive, like we, you know, on the RLB Crane Index where we've got more building and more cranes than I believe almost anywhere else in North America outside of, I know Miami is doing quite well, but extreme, extreme growth here, but still it's, you know, now we're running into pricing issues and a pretty serious housing crisis. But anyways, one in four Canadians live in what's known as the which is the Greater Toronto Area, and the Golden Horseshoe, which kind of wraps around Lake Ontario. So we don't forget about America, but sometimes some people in Toronto forget about the rest of Canada, and the rest of Canada is not like that.

Mike DeHaan: [9:11] Yeah, right. That's like every country though. Right? I mean, go down here and people from LA, they think that they're the only ones that matter. People from New York, it's the same thing. But no. That that's funny. I I live in in Spokane, Washington, so I'm about two hours from Canada.

Nick Hill: [9:24] Oh, we should have done this in person, man.

Mike DeHaan: [9:25] Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm pretty far from you. You're over on the East Coast.

Nick Hill: [9:28] Yeah. I guess so.

Mike DeHaan: [9:29] Way out to the West. But, yeah, we we me and my wife, we regularly drive up and cross the border to go skiing up in in BC up there.

Nick Hill: [9:36] So I was actually born and raised in in Vancouver. Absolutely beautiful. Yeah. Absolutely beautiful. Grew up skiing on like Whistler, Grouse, Seymour. Nice. Similar to Toronto, Vancouver, the real estate market there is absolutely wild, extremely pricey, really hard to get more traditional deals done. But and that's the tough part about Canada is, you know, there's a few major markets and they've all been they're all really, you know, the barrier to entry is is is really difficult for a lot of people.

Mike DeHaan: [10:05] Yeah. Not not only because the price point is one thing, but let's let's dive into that because I think that's really interesting that a lot of people don't realize is that the way that The United States does real estate is not typical, where we have thirty year mortgages. Yep. Right? And, you know, you can go in, you put load out payments on stuff, you can get stuff for thirty years at a fixed rate. You go to most countries around the world, that's not the case. I know Canada Canada is the same. I think Canada what do you guys do? You do like ten year fixed and then you have balloons? Or

Nick Hill: [10:33] Not even. Like, we can do ten year, but like no one takes that. Like, very small portion of the population actually takes those mortgages for like well over a decade and kind of throughout history, the most popular mortgage product in Canada is the five year fixed. Yeah. So we lock in our mortgages for five years, and you can imagine how volatile that makes a market when we've seen drastic changes in interest rates, drastic changes in prices, inflation, etcetera. It just makes the cycles a hell of a lot tighter than if I were to lock in a thirty year mortgage exponentially different.

Mike DeHaan: [11:11] Yeah. How does that affect like your analysis and your viewpoint when you're looking at deals? Because so many people here I mean, you'll hear people say like, oh, if it's not something I wanna keep forever, I'm not even gonna buy it. That's kinda like an amateuristic way to look at real estate, but you do hear that a lot. But you don't even have that luxury. Especially if you look at five years ago versus right now, rates have completely turned on their head. And then people that bought in 2020 and 2021 and rates were rock bottom, they're really gonna be facing some weird stuff here in two or three years. So, I mean, you must account for that when you're looking at your numbers, or do you just basically plan to exit everything before then?

Nick Hill: [11:45] No. I mean, you know, the team and I are definitely kind of leaning towards team never sell. Okay. I don't think we're as naive to say that we want to hold things forever. There's obviously the right time to sell for a number of different reasons, whether it be kind of trying to time the market and watching cycles happen, whether it be, you know, we need cash and we're done with duplexes now, we're buying apartment buildings strictly, or we're done with multifamily, we're going into commercial and we need a, you know, a big cash infusion. So that totally depends. But yeah, I mean, to answer your question, 100% we work those work those rates in. You know, the team, we've gotten used to running things at much higher, even like we're trying to build in cap rates in the double digits and make sure that there's enough cash flow to cover a 10% interest rate if things got there. And to be honest, you know, a great investor that I know up here told me even before, and this is like two years ago when rates were rock bottom, he was telling me, he's like, We don't buy deals unless they work at 12%. Wow. And rates back then were like literally between 12%. So this guy was building Right, exactly. It is crazy. And for most more amateur investors, they're like, that's insane. You know, I'm buying this at 2% and it's absolutely cash flowing like crazy, and it's appreciating, it's a miracle.

Nick Hill: [13:07] Well, it was a miracle, and it was completely fabricated by the effects of, know what, that lasted for a couple of years. I don't want say it in case we get shadow banned here or something like that. But rates, anyone that was buying and not working higher interest rates into their performance, in my opinion, isn't really a real estate investor. They're they're strictly kind of speculating and almost acting as like, you know, day trading real estate, which, you know, unfortunately did very well for a lot of people, and then I think messed with a lot of people's heads thinking, you know, buy, I hold for three months, I put a coat of paint on and, you know, I make $150. Yeah. Or I buy and it's cash flowing a thousand bucks a month at a 1.75 variable interest rate. But now that interest rates are at five, is that place even still cash flowing? Are you negative cash flow now? And, you know, if you were banking on just your interest rate to essentially carry your cash flow and your appreciation, well, you've made a big mistake because now neither of those things are happening.

Mike DeHaan: [14:17] Yeah. So when they have those adjustments, is it just like to whatever current market rate is, or are there limitations? So like, for example, I have adjustable rate mortgages on some of my properties. They're commercial loans. You know, they're ten year mortgage commercial loan, they'll adjust at year five and year seven. But there's a limit on how much you can actually increase above the original amount. It like, it's literally not possible for my loans to go from three to like 12%, even if it wasn't 12%. So but yours, it sounds like they can just go to whatever market interest rate is at that point.

Nick Hill: [14:47] Yeah. So essentially, the Bank of Canada will will set the overnight rates. Banks will then respond, we've seen the Bank of Canada, you know, raise essentially nonstop, aside for one or two meetings for the past like year, year and a half maybe at this point, or just the last year, and we're expecting another rate hike June 7. You know, the Fed has just raised and we've seen CPI job numbers come back higher than expected. So the likelihood of another raise on June 7 is very likely, let's say it's 25 to 50 bps. Bank of Canada will then increase their overnight rate, and all of the big banks and lending institutions here will follow suit and raise their prime rates to reflect whatever the Bank of Canada is. And then of course those rates will vary depending on what type of product you have. So yeah, I mean, we've been locking in on some of the smaller stuff, five year rates. We do have CMHC, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation up here, which is a like a federal insurance, kind of like housing advocacy group that that does offer some pretty great rates that will allow for longer amortizations, longer terms and lower rates. But you have to really fit into specific niches to to capture those mortgages.

Nick Hill: [16:05] So, yeah, I mean for us, look, we try to get the best deals we can, we we give ourselves more than enough padding, go in for for five year terms, and we also look at each project individually, like are we going to be looking to refinance this property in three years after we've done some tenant turnover and we've brought units up to market rent, or we've done some capital expenditure and done some value add to the property? So if that's the plan, then we won't lock in a five year fixed term, we'll lock in a shorter variable term or a shorter fixed term with the intention and the strategy that we'll be pulling money back out of that property.

Mike DeHaan: [16:45] Interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's it's kinda like I mean, it's the same at its core general model to what goes down here in The US. It's just that you have to be a little bit more proactive in, like, the short term, and you need to be a little more conservative too because we're similar down here where a lot of people got spoiled in 2020 and 2021, just with how the housing market went. And you had all these amateurs enter that didn't really understand what it was like for the rest of time before that. Right? And you're especially you see it down here with like Airbnb's and some of

Nick Hill: [17:16] these other things that Oh, man. It's crazy.

Mike DeHaan: [17:18] People were paying obscene prices for because they didn't understand that people don't always rent, you know, a single family home in a neighborhood for a thousand dollars a night, and they're only doing that because they can't go to Europe right now. You know, like, it's just it's it's it's just a different thing. And so I was on the keep kind of going through the the same sort of process up there. No. That's cool. So I guess, you know, regarding Canadian real estate in general, before we dive into your land bank business, is there any sort of like unique things that you look for up there? Sort of like gotchas? Anything else that sort of separates it from American real estate that you know, since most of our listeners are American?

Nick Hill: [17:55] Yeah, I mean, look, the market here is a lot smaller. You know, again, we've kind of got two or three major markets, maybe four or five major markets across the country, probably 30 markets that are covered by the likes of like JLL, CBRE, Cushman, Wakefield, etc, where they actually put out like cap rate reports on different asset classes in those markets. So really like a hell of a lot smaller. Know, the funny thing is whether you're here, there, whether you're a billionaire or a millionaire or just getting started, I'll tell you now, the fundamentals of real estate literally stay the same wherever you go. So we really just try to stick to the fundamentals, and that goes to knowing our investment thesis, having the right power team in those specific areas, really doing our due diligence on where we want to invest, what those return looks like, and trying to be as value add investors as possible. There's for all the American listeners, anyone who's a Twitter user, I'm not a big Twitter guy myself, but there's this great guy, strip mall guy, real estate Trent, I'll give him a shout out, he has this one quote that I love, that I don't buy real estate because I think the value is going to go up. I buy real estate because I can make the value go up. That essentially is real estate investing 101 right there. If you can really start to unpack that sentence, I mean, that sentence could be, you know, that's a book right there if you want it to be, right? So, you know, the fundamentals are all the same, we really look for more emerging markets, and we've been doing a pretty good job at that so far, but as obviously markets emerge, more people find out about them, and you got to go find another market.

Nick Hill: [19:35] So that's why we're not only expanding across Canada, but we're also, you know, expanding across America. And then something cool that's maybe more Canadian specific, but I think will really start to play a role maybe across North America because we've seen it happen in Europe is a lot more of the missing middle type of like greenfield and infill development. And just a quick definition on missing middle, because this is a thing that plagues most North American cities, so where I am Toronto, let's use that as an example, Minneapolis, or you know, pick a city, LA, another great example, Philadelphia, another great example. If you know those cities, there's a central business district where you have a bunch of office towers, followed by a bunch of condos and apartments for those people to live in, and then it kind of just drops off from any, you know, 30 to 60 stories, and then drops all the way down to basically, you know, two or three stories. So you really see a kind of a city coming out of the middle of nowhere, and then just housing, urban sprawl housing as far as the eye can see. If you look at places like Copenhagen or Amsterdam or Madrid or Rome, older cities where urban planning was, you know, a bit more well thought out and they truthfully just couldn't build skyscrapers back then. Was also seven hundred years ago. Yeah, exactly. The building technology has kind of come a long way. But I mean, if even if you look at New York and Chicago, right, they allowed for construction to be, you know, they allowed for different building code and different construction to happen, you know, a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, and that's changed the layout of those three.

Nick Hill: [21:11] So anyways, the missing middle housing is basically anything kind of between a, you know, bigger than a duplex, smaller than an apartment building, right? So a six storey, 20 unit building with retail on the bottom kind of thing. So we've just recently passed some laws up here that are allowing for more of that kind of construction. I just think that's going to be a and we've also started to pass some legislation up here for laneway homes, garden suites, whatever you want to call them, laws where you can basically now fourplex anything on a single family, what used to be a single family lot. So we're looking at that as one of the next major trends, and probably a major opportunity for Canadian real estate investors, but I think that think that'll be contagious, and I think we'll start to see a lot of that throughout North America. I hope so.

Mike DeHaan: [22:01] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe. I think the big challenge there because we have the same obviously, all throughout The United States. Mhmm. Especially, you got to the West Coast where cities aren't quite as old. It's like where I'm at in Spokane, we have exactly what you described. Right? We have kinda like general apartment complexes, which are pretty big, and then we have just sprawl forever that goes out in all directions. And, you know, it creates an affordability issue. 100%. One of the problems that we have even outside of the building restrictions is just the cultural expectations. Right? People here, they don't want to live in those middle housing. They either wanna, you know, live like the downtown lifestyle where I'm in an apartment. I'm like, can walk to the coffee shop, to the bar, whatever. Or they wanna live on in a house with a backyard with their own land, and you start to get people into, like, the, you know, the smaller apartment complexes that are a little bit more reserved, like the small multi families, those become kinda like transitionary housing for people. They'll do that as they are, like, getting prepared to buy a house, or they are fresh out of college, whatever, or they are in a position where they're like have to step down to that because they got divorced, they had something and they can't afford a single family home. And it's never like, like people are never choosing to do that. Versus like you go over to Europe, and it's like, oh, I live this in this flat in Amsterdam.

Mike DeHaan: [23:19] I've lived here for twenty years. Right? And that's just kinda like what they do. And then if they wanna live somewhere else, they'll move to a different neighborhood with the same style of setup. I have like family, quite a bit of family that lives around there, and that's literally what they do, except for those that have been able to make it wealthy, then they'll go and they'll buy a house. But that is not the middle class standard.

Nick Hill: [23:36] It's funny. You know, you're you're so right. It's like it's a chicken or egg thing too. It's like, is it a cultural thing because we never had it, we could never offer it, and it was never just part of the transition of moving up the housing, moving up or down or laterally on the on the on the housing ladder, or is it, you know, is it the fault that the other way where we we just don't like it because because we don't know it or because it seems so foreign to us. Right? So yeah. No. Good point. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [24:04] I mean, and and there's parts to it too, just American culture, the things like the general services regarding public transportation aren't the same in most places. Yeah. You know, the culture of, like, having the corner store where you go buy your groceries is not the normal standard. Like, people expect to go to a Safeway. They don't expect to go to the little corner shop to buy everything they need for the week. Yeah. And that's at least in the West Coast. I know in like the major cities in Northeast, it's a little bit different, but that's a very small part of the country. Yeah. So now that that's interesting. So let's dive into your your land bank companies. I know you do a ton of stuff with that. You know, of a lot of lending associated with that too. So I'd like to hear more about what you got going on there.

Nick Hill: [24:43] Yeah. So I'll I'll talk a bit about the team and and a bit about a few things we have going on. So it the team's made of myself and my my cohost on the Canadian Real Estate Investor podcast, which is the biggest podcast for real estate and investing in business in Canada. It's the two of us, and we kind of make up like the marketing and business development side of it, you know, deal finding, etcetera. I like to say I'm by far the dumbest guy on the team, which is a great person to be on a team like that. We've got an investment banker who's kind of been a CEO for hire in the past, a longtime real estate investor as well. He handles a lot of our private equity relationships, etc. We've got a CPA CFA type who puts performance together that are far beyond me at this point, much better than my napkin math on duplexes, which I kind of got my start in. And then my other partner who was partnered on the, initially partnered with me on the residential mortgage business, we were both loan officers, he did a lot more of the private mortgages, and he was just bought out from a similar company that had done a few billion in funding. So it's really cool, allows us to do anything from assist in the buying and selling of large multi family properties, you know, general real estate consultancy and advisory, all the way to brokering large sums of money, so for instance, we're funding two four hundred unit bills on the East Coast, we're funding a 1,800 unit building in the middle of the country, in a province called Calgary.

Nick Hill: [26:17] A lot of different stuff where we're even trying to, we're in the early stages of building out a financial product specifically for homeowners with enough equity that they can build out an additional suite in their home. So we've got a really good kind of creative team. I'm confident I've got some of the best executors in the country. So it's just Dan and I get the fun job and get to go out and talk about it and hopefully connect with great people and bring in some business. That same group actually is part of a world kind of in acquisition mode where we have a portfolio of about just about to be, hopefully if we get this last one closed, just over 50 doors between the five of us, and then we all have a few holdings outside of that 50 doors. So we're we're a busy group, but we all love it. Live live and breathe real estate and business and, having a lot of fun doing it.

Mike DeHaan: [27:15] Nice. That's cool. So it sounds like the folks of it is mostly on the lending side. So I guess how does that work? Are you it's not like a traditional lender with all those different products. I imagine you're not, you know, selling those to the bank, but you guys have like a fund or like what is that whole situation look like?

Nick Hill: [27:35] So, yeah, the fund is in early stages. Right now it's a lot of finding great deals, brokering to other people.

Mike DeHaan: [27:44] You broker them?

Nick Hill: [27:44] Yeah. Brokering other to to other people within our network. So we've got we do have a lot of private equity, know, we work with family offices across the country. So we're agile, and I think we're well connected enough that if a builder needs something, we can make it happen.

Mike DeHaan: [28:00] Yeah, I mean brokering and when it comes to lending is a great way to go because you know, it's the transactional version of it, right? It's like houses, honestly. Exactly. Yeah. I don't think a lot of people fully realize what a loan broker does. They're not super versed in real estate. But like, you're a loan broker, and you're good at it, and you have a big network, you can make a shit ton of money. Yeah, you know, and with honestly, not an insane amount of work. Some of the wealthiest dudes I know in different groups that I'm involved in, they have loan brokerage teams, and they have a big rolodex of lenders with different products. And they just pair person a with lender b, and they have like their people on the back end that run all the paperwork, and they just print some pretty fat checks from doing that. So Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, it's the the benefit of having the fund is you can get like the reoccurring income, right, if you're carrying the lunge yourself, but that's also carries its own risk and its own work work I do it. So No. That that's cool. So I guess what is your ultimate goal with that business? Because I mean, I mean, is it is that just like cash generation? Are you trying to do something really large with it? Like, if everybody said, what does land bank look like in five years?

Nick Hill: [29:04] Yeah. I mean, great question. I mean, I think with all the businesses, right, they all kind of work with one another, right? The acquisition business, we're building that up. Land bank deals fund us personally to acquire more. The podcast and all of the social media stuff, and the news appearances, and everything we do on that side of things legitimizes us, and builds trust with our audience across the country, so we're so lucky in the sense that we're really not doing a ton of outreach to a lot of people. A lot of our stuff is inbound these days, just fantastic. So five years, it's funny you ask that because I'm always trying to be the guy with the plan, and I always, you know, have these grandiose thoughts. But if you'd asked me even a year ago where I'd be now, I would have been really, really wrong. Yeah, so I mean, think, you know, I think Land Bank and our mutual goal with everything we're doing, as I said, between podcast, the acquisition business, and Land Bank is to really make a solid impact. I mean, look, yes, we all want to make a lot of money, and I'm sure we will. There's a lot of sacrifice involved in making a lot of money. Anyone who's made a lot of money, unless it was, you know, flipping a house two years ago, anyone who's made a lot of money will tell you that there's a lot of sacrifice involved. So we're still, you know, we're still putting everything back into the business. I'd want us to be one of the premier boutique firms in the country, ideally funding a few billion or a billion dollars a year would be amazing.

Nick Hill: [30:37] The goal for the acquisitions is to hit a thousand doors in five years. And then the content side is to just keep on putting out great free content, and then to slowly build out some more. We haven't done any paid stuff yet, but you know, we put out hundreds of hours of free content in our podcast, we don't have guests, it's very heavily researched. So you know, 100 episodes we've had, I think, six or seven guests. One of them was, you know, two of them have been billionaires. So we've just really been very focused, and I think that it's honestly hard to answer because if a year ago I would have been, I would have said, know, I hope the podcast is doing well and blah blah blah. But, yeah, just to really keep on pushing, there's this one quote that I'm I'm trying to remember without butchering, and I'm gonna paraphrase here, but it's people always overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and underestimate what they can accomplish in five. So I mean, and again, for anyone listening that is just starting out or that's maybe in year one, two or three of real estate or whatever business within real estate that you're you're doing, you know, really like that quote really hit me hard because, you know, you start to see progress even in, you know, I've been real estate investing for probably five years now, but we've only been doing this podcast for a year, and it's truly amazing how it's changed my life. And Mike, I'm sure you can relate to that with this podcast, just the amount of amazing people that you've spoken to, the opportunities that it's brought you, and so on and so forth.

Mike DeHaan: [32:04] Yeah. I mean, it's funny. It's one of those things that just like everything else, if you're consistent with it, it adds up dividends, you know, in terms of your your network. Your credibility is so huge. Even if your stuff like like, everyone always has to be perfect to, compare to, like, the point 1% of podcasts. If you produce anything, right? And so like people can go and they can look they look at me now, and I show up as those like, like, keys podcast, they go and they Google me, and they see that we have, you know, a 100 and whatever episodes we're at right now. That's a huge amount of credibility. Right? Because that's showing logitativity in the business. Massive. And people can go and they can cherry pick different topics of conversation they're interested in, and they can learn a lot about you. And all of a sudden, any sales conversation you have is better because they already feel like they know you. The rapport's already there. People seek out to you like, reach out to you and seek doing business with you because they already feel more comfortable with you. So even like before you get on the phone, like they are actively seeking you. And then also to you, you will have like the networking effect of people who know of you, but have never talked to you, they will refer you to people. Because they like, you know, feel like that they have a relationship, even though you have no idea who this person is. And like, I've literally gotten on calls with people, and they're like, oh, my friends are like, really big fan of your show. They said I should check you out.

Mike DeHaan: [33:21] And now I'm on a phone call with you. I'm like, cool.

Nick Hill: [33:23] Isn't that fantastic? Never met him.

Mike DeHaan: [33:25] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. And it doesn't even have to be that big. Like we have, I don't a few thousand listeners that are like regular. I think what, three or 4,000 is what we figure. But you think about what it would take to get in front of three or 4,000 people in person. Right? It's a huge effort versus being able to do that every single week from the comfort of my own little home studio here. It's pretty wild. It's amazing.

Nick Hill: [33:49] I couldn't I couldn't agree more. And I think that that trust is is amplified because, you know, you and I aren't just sitting here talking about real estate. We are actively doing everything we can to be as involved in real estate outside of the podcast. So I just gonna hit you with something else here called called the TEA theory, TEA, and it's a it's a Patrick Bet David thing. And we ask people to leave us reviews all the time, and I'll be leaving you a review after as soon as we're done here. And because, I mean, the reviews mean a lot. Right? Like, it it really does mean a lot. The podcasts are a ton of work. People usually don't realize that. So we ask people for reviews. We sometimes read them on the show, and this one was probably one of the best ever. And it's called information you can get from different sources, which is a Patrick Bet David, your next five moves. So the T theory. T is theory, who are people who are very good at teaching you theories, but they've never done what they're teaching. It is the lowest type of mentorship. So Okay. There's a lot of people that like there's a lot of people doing that kind

Mike DeHaan: [34:49] of stuff right now. Like every college professor that teaches business?

Nick Hill: [34:52] Yeah. Pretty much. Have you ever started a successful business, sir? Yeah. Right. The e is experience. That means they didn't run a business, but they worked very closely with someone that did. And now that is better than theory mentorship, but still lacking, right? So that's T is theory, E is experience. The A that makes up T is application, which is the actual source, is the person who tells you what they are doing, that they have actually done these things. So this person tells you what they've actually done, the things that have worked for them, the mistakes they've made. This is the entrepreneur that has their own theories, has their own experience, and they've applied these theories and experience successfully. And he this is just part of the view. I call these guys trifectas and it's tough to find them. You guys are type type A. So again, you would be a type A as well. And I think that, you know, there's so much information out there right now, and there's so much good information, but there's so much more bad and useless and T and E type of information. And there's probably a category even lower than that where someone is literally just recycling something else they heard and has a better voice or better looking or better background or whatever it may be, and they get some credit for So just be careful where you find your information, but I mean, I think that really legitimizes, you know, people like us that talk about what we're actually doing and have a drive and a desire to share our unique experiences with people too for the sole purpose of of helping them and trying to build a community around that.

Mike DeHaan: [36:29] Yeah. And when I think podcasts are a great way to show that, like, a level expertise as well because it's long form. Exactly. You know, like anyone can can BS a ninety second Instagram reel. It's hard to BS hundreds of thirty to forty five minute podcast episodes, people will eventually catch on eventually. Eventually. Yeah, but you can screw around with Instagram reels forever. Right? Like, it's only a matter of time before there's the next Instagram guru that's actually gonna gonna be all AI, because I'm gonna be a real person. Like, I'm waiting for that to happen. It's gonna happen here. Yeah. Good call. So awesome. Right on. Well, good stuff, Nick. Let's we're gonna start to wrap up here and get into the end of show questions. Sure. I appreciate everything that you shared. You got some really cool stuff going on, and I love Thanks, man. Meeting people that I would say are like true real estate entrepreneurs. You know, you got your hands in a lot of different spots. And I've always been the same. Cool. So end of show question, the same three questions we ask everyone that comes on the show. The first one, which is always a fan favorite. What is your craziest real estate investing story? This can be a big win. This can be a big loss. This can be a crazy tenant.

Mike DeHaan: [37:41] This can be about the time that you had to clean out a bathtub that homeless people had been using as a toilet for three weeks. Like, what whatever you got. What's your craziest story?

Nick Hill: [37:54] Man, I should have prepared better for this one. There's there's a lot running through my head right now, and I I've just like any landlord who's been doing it for a while, you know, you have seen and heard and way too much shit, like way too much physical real shit, pardon my language, because there seems to be a lot

Mike DeHaan: [38:10] of that Literally.

Nick Hill: [38:10] Yeah. In some some houses. I'll tell you a reason why which is kind of just a good story, good and bad, I'll make it quick. So we we just were looking at this this seven plex, where it was kind of distressed, we had it off market. We hadn't even seen it yet in real life, but we had just looked at the numbers and we're like, okay, this looks decent. We put together one of the best deals on paper we've ever seen. We had a 80% vendor take back mortgage, so seller financing, what you guys would call it. We had that at five years at 0.25%, and we were just so you know, the door, it was like 66 ks a door or something like that, like it was just really, really good, so we were all fired up about it. And we recently bought one property site on scene, and I just saw it for the first time, and it's not that pretty. We're going to have to be doing some work there, so we didn't want to do that again. So we drove up, saw it, and five the five tenants out of the nine were probably on crack at that point. There was a there was really unfortunate. There was a probably really nice, outside of the crack addiction, really nice young lady who was screaming like crazy on the phone as we were about to knock on her door. She opens the door blatantly, kind of weird, and we're just like, hey, sorry, know, we haven't noticed here. We just gotta come and take some pictures.

Nick Hill: [39:35] As we're leaving to go to the next unit, some guy literally shows up to either buy or do something else with this lovely young woman. She's like, hey, wait, come back after they're gone. So she was just conducting a little business as we were there. Long story short, we brought one of her contractors that needed like well over 300,000 worth of structural. There was way too much, way too many drugs, and way too many headaches. So unfortunately, it was incredible on paper, but bad in real life. We walked away from that deal.

Mike DeHaan: [40:05] Yeah. Right. I mean, there's always a good it's a little red flag. Right? If something sounds like it's too good to be true, it probably is. Yeah. It always exists, and a lot of people pretend like it doesn't. That's a good one. We've had crackheads as well. Think one of my we had a a similar sort of potential pro well, not potential prostitute. We knew it was a prostitute where we had a a duplex that we did. I was there with the landlord, and the story was there was the wife and husband that had rented the place. Husband went to jail. Wife is there by herself. Wife got a new boyfriend. New boyfriend kicks the wife out. Now the guy's in there without a lease, And he started running a, like a little brothel out of this duplex.

Nick Hill: [40:45] And that's enterprising. Wow.

Mike DeHaan: [40:47] And I'm stat. Oh, yeah, he's an entrepreneur. You know, I can't be upset about that. And I'm literally standing outside the property with the landlord. You know, we had just walked like one side. We had a nice family in it, and we weren't able to get the other side. So I was just chatting with him, you know, get ready to make my offer. And this lady comes out of it, and she's this is in like a neighborhood. She's wearing like these teeny tiny shorts that she should not be wearing and these high heels. It is at 02:00 in the afternoon on like a Yeah. And she just comes walking out, and she walks by and she goes, hey, boys, and just like heads out into the neighborhood wherever she was going. I have no idea.

Nick Hill: [41:21] No one followed her. Right? But no. No. God, no.

Mike DeHaan: [41:25] But, yeah. It was it's just the stuff that you see is crazy. Yeah. Nah, that's that's a bummer. You should've just you should've just axed the price 5050% and gone for it, That's what we said. And have even more stories.

Nick Hill: [41:35] We said, hey, look, we'll just take over the debt. The debt was like $300. Now we're like, look, we'll just take that over and you know, and he wouldn't budge on that, but he might come back. We'll see. I'll keep you posted. Yeah. There you go. Now that's a good one.

Mike DeHaan: [41:47] Cool. Alright, next question. What is the number one tip you would give to either a new investor looking to get started, or to a small time investor looking to take their business to the next level?

Nick Hill: [41:58] Yeah, absolutely love that question. I answer this question for podcast guests in a variety of fashions, probably a couple dozen times a week. Depending on where you are the most physically, geographically, and kind of figuratively in your career, the best possible advice I can give that's kind of umbrella advice is find a mentor. Find someone that is doing what you want to be doing. Make yourself valuable to that person. Learn as much as you can, and take what they have to offer and utilize it. That is literally the best. That transcends real estate. That's literally anything. Life, relationships, small businesses, whatever. So go find someone that's doing it better than you. Make yourself valuable to that person, good things will start to happen.

Mike DeHaan: [42:49] Yeah, absolutely. And you know, don't be afraid to pay for it. That's what I always add on that too.

Nick Hill: [42:53] Yeah, for sure.

Mike DeHaan: [42:54] It's amazing For sure. How much an aversion people will have to to paying those a level experts that you talked about, but they'll go and take out a $200,000 loan to pay for those t level experts at that university.

Nick Hill: [43:05] Yeah. Or or to go and try to do it themselves and and, you know, squander half of that away. Right? I mean, education and and networks are just so so important in this business and in business in general. Yeah, absolutely. Great tip. All right. Last question. Where can

Mike DeHaan: [43:20] people find you, follow you and reach out to you if you like them to do so?

Nick Hill: [43:24] Yeah, for sure. So go listen to the podcast. I know it's called the Canadian Real Estate Investor. That's just for SEO. We we talk about a lot of evergreen I mean, that's

Mike DeHaan: [43:35] a great SEO title right there.

Nick Hill: [43:37] Exactly. Right? So I mean, there's a little there's a little piece of advice to anyone who's looking to start a podcast. Don't be afraid to like niche and really like SEO. Like, that's how people are going to find you. Right? So we were lucky enough to land that name. Go check that episode out. We talk about macroeconomics. We talk about North America stuff. We talk about real estate fundamentals, we talk about guys like Zackendorf and Sam Zell, and what to learn from them. Not just Canadian stuff. My Instagram name and Twitter handle are my buddy Nick, so the second you add me, we're buddies. There you go. I like it.

Mike DeHaan: [44:09] I'm gonna go add you right now. Yeah, perfect. My email is plastered all over

Nick Hill: [44:12] the place, so whether it's you want to send something to the podcast, or you want to get ahold of me, nick. Hilllandbankadvisors. Ca. CA is for Canada, for for all you American folks. That's that's what the ca.dotca,not.com.

Mike DeHaan: [44:27] Is that what it is? I thought I thought it was like a special domain you had to pay extra money for.

Nick Hill: [44:31] Yeah. Sure. We'll we'll go with that.

Mike DeHaan: [44:34] No. Awesome, man. Well well, thanks, Nick. I appreciate you coming on the show, and I appreciate you being a good sport with my Canadian jokes. No. Love it. All stupid, but you know. Anyways, man, super cool to meet you. Super cool to hear all you have going on. And guys, you should definitely go and check out Nick's podcast and reach out to him on Instagram. In case you can't tell, he's very knowledgeable about real estate. He likes to talk to people. And he is coming on the show because he wants to get in front of more people. So you should definitely go and listen to his stuff, reach out to him, and I have a feeling, Nick, that if someone sends you a DM, that you'd be more than happy to chat with them as well. A 100%. People should go and take you up on that. But anyways, thanks for listening. Please go in and share this with all of your friends north of the wall, south of the wall, wherever. I guess we can't see the wall anymore because now it's associates Mexico, and that's a weird I political

Nick Hill: [45:24] was thinking Game of Thrones here for a second, but

Mike DeHaan: [45:27] That's Yeah. That's what I was going for, but someone ruined that for us, unfortunately. Yeah. But either way, any friends you have that appreciate real estate investment business or, you know, just like to hear people talk about dumb crazy stories and that sort of stuff. So share with them. Leave us a five star review. The ever you listen to your shows, and thanks for listening, everybody. We'll talk to y'all next week.

Speaker 3: [45:49] Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.