National Real Estate Investors Community

Announcer:

Welcome to the I love Winnipeg Real Estate podcast, your premier resource for buying, owning, and investing in Winnipeg's real estate market. And now here's your host, Adrian Schulz, who loves all things real estate, property management and mortgage financing.

Adrian Schulz:

I'm joined today by Dakotah Charron who is with the National Real Estate Investors Community. Welcome Dakotah.

Dakotah:

Thank you so much, Adrian. And I appreciate you bringing me out today.

Adrian Schulz:

Dakotah, can you tell us about NREIC and what it exists for?

Dakotah:

Yeah. So in essence, NREIC is built upon community. We are here to serve the community. We actually recently just became registered as a not for profit, and we're in the process of sort of building that out right now. So that's just a little bit more as a testimony of serving the community and everything we do is around that. Our mission at our core is to bring together individuals, investors, people within the community that have a common goal of growth. And we believe in serving the community. Our mission is to be valuable to the community through bringing together individuals and professionals to ultimately seek opportunities, find capital, find deals, find solutions to problems they're having and to essentially just a group of support. Your network is the most important, in my opinion, aspect of building a business.

Adrian Schulz:

And where does the organization operate?

Dakotah:

So the organization, it operates pretty much exclusively online. However, we get together once a month. And of course with COVID affecting us, that's affected us substantially. We did implement a virtual world as part of the community and that's going to remain a consistent part of our community in the future, but we are right now just meeting online. But prior to that, one of the things that we really highlight is when I started out with this, we're so used to the seminar type events and style and just focused on education, and while those are great and they serve a place, we wanted to more so focus on creating really unique, one of a kind experiences so we do that through monthly in-person events and we strive to deliver unique, memorable, localized experiences, doing it with local venues, unique venues.

Dakotah:

Oftentimes we've got venues who put together food for our members that aren't on their typical menu. So we try and make it a little bit of an entertainment experience, but it's fostered in person. And that's where we find that there's a lot of networking that goes on. That's where a lot of the capital gets raised and different things just through meeting people in their network, right.

Adrian Schulz:

And who is the organization ideal for, for potential members?

Dakotah:

So at our core, we're not necessarily here to serve people that are in their beginning steps or rather not to not serve those individuals. But what I would say is if you've started, then you've got the core components of education, you somewhat know the basics or the foundation of beginning, should you have started usually. And so we've got a qualification process, essentially the barrier to entry to join is a hundred thousand dollars plus to investible capital if you don't have experience in real estate, B, having at least one rental door that's not in your personal residence and C, actively or have done at least one type of real estate investment in the last 18 months. And reason for that is because we really want to bring together a very wide range of individuals. So we've got people who are on deal number one.

Dakotah:

And then we've got people who that are really, really big influencers, high level players in our local city. And so what we try and do is bring together a barrier to entry so that these individuals aren't necessarily just chatting with, unfortunately, dreamers, we want to speak with doers. We're here to get things done. We're here to grow our businesses. And so that's how we kind of bridge that gap with the barrier to entry and then being able to attract those types of people. And what that's really good for is now there's an exchange of knowledge, there's different people at different levels, but nonetheless, we're able to attract people at the highest level who can support those who are just beginning and those who are at the beginning are able to serve these individuals as well because they're actively in the business. And that leads to future opportunities for both parties, right.

Adrian Schulz:

I understand and appreciate the, for lack of a better word, filtering method to assure that you've got the right people in the room.

Dakotah:

Yeah. And I mean, we just wanted to be very unique. We wanted to focus on a niche, which I didn't find myself personally when I was sort of in my beginning phases, but nonetheless taking action and in it full time. I couldn't necessarily find a place to just go network and meet active people and meet people who are far beyond where I was because a lot of times, if there's not that barrier to entry per se, or as you stated, sometimes there's a lot of people that are curious and they're in their beginning stages and that's great, but it might not help me where I'm at. Right. And so we wanted to really focus on serving that niche, per se. But in saying that, we've just rolled out a membership model. So we've got what's called NREIC plus, which is to serve anybody essentially that meet at first period entry.

Dakotah:

We've launched NERIC V I P. So that is for a different group of people. Now in saying that we've had a lot of attention brought to us, we've had a lot of people that are just getting started who pick up, we had an entry process before we've actually omitted from that due to the amount of interviews we were having, but we wanted to still be able to serve members regardless of where they were at. Right. We didn't want to turn away people and say, hey, you may be curious, or you may be on the verge of doing your first project, but we want to make sure to still be able to serve those individuals. So what we recently launched as well was just an open Facebook group called NERIC open. Now with that, it's in its development stages, but we do want to still bring content to those individuals. We still want to offer them the different things that we offer, but at our core, our niche and at our core is to serve that original target demographic, yeah.

Adrian Schulz:

So taking that investor that has one or more rental doors, what are some common challenges that people face when investing in real estate and how does the organization help?

Dakotah:

Yeah, so I would say one of the first ones is there's a ton of knowledge hitting the marketplace today around real estate. A lot of it is repurposed content. A lot of it is those who have done a certain threshold of opportunities and now they're also moving into the educational space, but there's a lot of content available. And one of our biggest challenges that we hear often is there may be a group that's Canadian, there may be a group that's American, but because that content, it's like here's the business model, here's how you do it.

Dakotah:

The challenge is that there's so many policies that change, there's so many things that happen on a day to day basis within the real estate market, and so one thing at our core is real time localized educational content, meaning all the content that we produce is based on the province that we're in today, Manitoba. And it's always up to date. So when a policy gets changed, one of our last conversations was, what are the changes that just took place with the infill guidelines today in Manitoba? That's something that you can't necessarily get with another really large group like RAIN Canada, or something like that, while they're great, it's not necessarily localized, real time education and understanding of what policies have taken place or what shifts are happening in the marketplace, where you are today. And so that's what we've really built ourselves upon is that localized and real time to date.

Adrian Schulz:

Hence the community portion in the organization name. That's now ringing more and more sensible to me. What advice would you offer to a first time qualified investor who have real estate or liquid cash equity to invest?

Dakotah:

Right. Now, I could answer that in two ways or rather that question could be answered in two different ways. So I could talk about it on a more what I think that they should do, or like a quick tip or a piece of advice, or rather as the question, what type of business model should they pursue or what should they do with that liquid cash at first.

Adrian Schulz:

I'd love to get the answer for both since we've got you on the episode.

Dakotah:

Sure. I would say that if somebody's got equity or cash, they may be just embarking on their first project. What I would say is think big, right? Be a dreamer. I find, and I hear this so consistently, anybody who gets into the real estate market, it literally becomes an addiction in a lot of components. They want to live it, breathe it, eat it, sleep it, you just get, there's such a wealth of knowledge. And it's amazing what real estate can offer individuals that it really becomes almost an addiction, right. And not in a bad way, but a good way usually. And so what I always tell people is think big, think at large, you don't know what you're going to be able to accomplish. Once you do one, it usually leads to a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, et cetera. And so think big and then reverse engineer.

Dakotah:

And the reason I say that is because once again, real estate is such a complex world that you really need to think personal acquisitions versus corporate acquisitions, where do I want to go? How do I want to pay myself? Is it passively? Am I going to have staff salaries? There are so many components. And so what I would say is, once again, think big, reverse engineer, work all those things out. And then I would also encourage through experience that these individuals, what I always say is like, bet on yourself, right? Real state is not an easy thing, but it's very rewarding. And so I always, from a more philosophical point of view, just bet on yourself. Commit to yourself that no matter what challenges arise that you will see it through. Real estate is amazing in the way that it is very complex, but if you do a wrong real estate transaction, there's always another way to turn that into a good deal.

Dakotah:

There's so many different investment strategies and stuff like that, right? So very easily can you turn a bad deal into a good deal. The challenge that people fail to accomplishing that is oftentimes if they hit a challenge, they might break down, they might sell out of fear. They might sit on it and not do something with it. And so that's another component. But back to the first one is take a moment before investing and really craft your strategy, how you're going to maximize that investment, where you're going to maximize it, speak to your, what I call power team, right? Lawyer, accountant, mortgage broker, so on and so forth, put together that team. Set up that foundation and then go.

Adrian Schulz:

And that team component is so important when you're getting started or when you're on your second, third, fourth, and fifth deal is you call it the power team and I totally agree. There's so much value to having all of those expertise with you.

Dakotah:

They're just as important in the beginning as they are in the future.

Adrian Schulz:

I'm not sure if I've ever had a guest who poop probably can answer the next question in the most passionate way and that is what do you love about Winnipeg real estate?

Dakotah:

What do I love about it? I love that the barrier to entry is significant less than the rest of Canada, right? There's stats all over the place. You can buy a single family residence, get an ROI on it, do different things with it at a very low barrier to entry compared to say Toronto or BC or many other provinces. And so that's what I really love about it is you're seeing nowadays a lot of 20, 21, 22, 18 year olds, they're buying their first place. They're flipping it. There's just really no barrier to entry. In certain industries, you've got to be very wealthy to get into certain industries or you've got to have a very significant name behind you or connections of some capacity, but there's really no reason why you can't get started in real estate. It's a very low barrier to entry in Winnipeg, specifically, just due to the purchase price, right? You can do 5% down on 300,000, which is your average sale price here. That's 15,000. It's a lot easier.

Adrian Schulz:

Yeah, no, I totally agree. So I was born in Germany and this is down the rabbit hole, but I was born in Germany. And when we migrated here at the age of 18, I had the opportunity to move back home to Germany and I'm fortunate or blessed that I was given the advice from my family in Germany that pointed out on because they'd come and visited Winnipeg obviously and they pointed out how easy it was in a place like Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to start a business, build a business, grow wealth, acquire real estate. The barriers to entry in some of the European countries are much, much grander than what they are here. So I totally agree with you on that. Dakotah, if someone wants to become a member of NREIC or they want to find out more about it, how can they contact you?

Dakotah:

We are all over the place, whether Instagram, Facebook, but at our core, our website which is www.nreic.ca, the rest of the process would lead you to where you need to go. So there's usually the application process. You'd click join us, which would then have you go through a quick application process to join us. Alternatively, if as I said somebody has not met our barrier to entry, we don't want to not serve them so they will be prompted to either fill out a quick, just their email address so that we can put them on a newsletter or send them this content in the future as we recycle it and repurpose it to serve them. But additionally, it will ask them to join and NREIC open, which is our Facebook group. I would rather say that NREIC is also ideal for... It's really about the network aspect, right?

Dakotah:

So getting access to a network that's local, we've had people come from BC, move to Winnipeg. I've actually done this with one person. I met them with a cup of coffee, my car, and the first thing they did when they landed in our city was a tour around the city explanation of sort of the areas, the real estate investments, and then they plugged into the community. And very quickly they've acquired a ton of real estate here very, very quickly within less than a year, because they had access to that network.

Dakotah:

So in saying that, anybody that wants to get started, if they apply and they join NREIC open, we will find ways to serve them. We will find ways to connect them with other similar people, similar stories, and still be able to serve them. So I would say that head to the website, explore it, discover it, join it if you wish or alternatively, you can join NREIC open, if you don't necessarily meet that criteria or an unsuccessful application. We still look to serve everyone. And that's our core is serving.

Adrian Schulz:

Thank you for your time today, Dakotah.

Dakotah:

You're very welcome. I appreciate yours as well and reaching out to us and having you here today.

Announcer:

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