Podcast 78. Real Estate Action Takers with Quentin D’ Souza

Average Joe Finances:
0:00

Hey, how's it going everybody? So today's guest is Quentin D'Souza and Quentin is a multiple award-winning real estate investor, and a trusted authority on real estate investing. He's an Ontario certified teacher and holds two university degrees, which includes a master's in education. Quintin has appeared on local and national television and radio interviewed a national publications and has been a keynote speaker to large audiences of real estate investor. Quintin is the author of the property management toolbox a how-to guide for Ontario real estate investors and landlords, the filling vacancies toolbox a step-by-step guide for Ontario real estate investors and landlord for renting out residential real estate, the ultimate wealth strategy, your complete guide to buying, fixing, refinancing, and renting real estate and the action takers real estate investing planner. This one right here. Really cool. Excited to talk about this stuff today. He also mentors real estate investors as the chief education officer of the education for Canadian real estate investors. Quentin, you have an amazing background. You've published some fantastic books already. I am super excited to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me.

Quentin D'Souza:
1:10

Thanks Mike. Appreciate it.

Average Joe Finances:
1:12

Of course. I was trying not to flub up that intro so much, but it was just, it was so much you got going on here. It's amazing. I want to talk a little bit more about that. So what I like to do on the show, as the first question that I ask everybody is if you can elaborate a little bit more on your story and just tell us how it all got started.

Quentin D'Souza:
1:28

We came to Canada as new immigrants. I actually was born in Fiji. The Fiji islands, we came over and I've been in Canada since 1978, we started with nothing left little apartment grew up worked as a dishwasher, when I started out a hotel just did a whole bunch of different jobs all over the place, but I was really interested in my own business, but my family's business was a. With teaching. Really, my mom was a teacher. Her mom was a teacher before that. So I got into that. Went to school for it. I have a master's in education. I was on track to be a school principal, have my principal papers and in 2014 about 20 years of teaching, I left teaching altogether to focus on real estate and real estate investing. And that's what I've been doing since 2014. I tried a number of different things. I did like websites. I I used to have a landscaping business. I had, tried stock option investing and a bunch of different things. And what really stuck with me is the real estate. It always did well over over time, especially the way that I was purchasing properties started off with one to four unit properties. And though, and then 2015, I started buying apartment building. Six unit building, nine unit building. Now we're buying 30, 40 unit buildings up to we're approaching about 400 units now with 80 million in assets, under management and Ontario. And yeah I'm just getting going, just get into, I feel like I'm getting started,

Average Joe Finances:
3:01

That's amazing. Yeah, get just getting started. I think you got started on an amazing journey from the time that moved to Canada. So actually I want to talk about that. So you went through this entire pipeline, to basically become like a school administrator. And in 2014, decided that want to do something else. Be my own boss, be an entrepreneur and everything like that. So now in 2014, is this when you started trying all the different businesses or is that when you finally decided real estate was the one to go

Quentin D'Souza:
3:27

I had before that, like from, I dunno, forever, I've always tried different things out. I'd tried consulting that sort of thing. But by the time I got to 2014, I had started investing in real estate in 2004, but it really wasn't until 2008 that I started to buy three or four properties a year. And then by the time I got to 2013, I could quit my job. But I was really nervous about doing it. I had two small kids at the time and my wife and we're, so for a year I practiced being self-employed so I actually, instead of taking money from my paycheck, I was taking money from the real estate assets, and then I was practicing. Not having a job for a year before I did quit my job. So I probably could have done it a little bit earlier. And yeah, once I did that, I I quit and never looked back. I started to take on different types of real estate strategies, but I was always from 2008, 2014, I was buying properties that needed work. Fixing them refinancing them and holding them. So I think, you call it the BRRRR strategy now, branded rebranded, by by others. It's been done for decades. So we just, so that's all I did by the time I got to 2014, I was making about $5,000 a month in cashflow from my real estate assets. I had also been purchasing like single family homes, converting them into legal duplexes. And then, again, refinancing and holding those. I was working with partners as well. In 2008 I worked out the model in 2009, people were seeing what I was doing and they wanted to partner with me. So I was also picking up partners along the way. And so they wanted to bring the money. I would do everything else. And then we own the properties 50, 50. And that's exactly how I built out the business. And then when I got to 2014, I had more than enough cashflow to leave what I was doing. And then it just scaled from there. I went a little crazy.

Average Joe Finances:
5:29

So you didn't start investing in real estate in 2014. That's when you got yourself to a point where you had enough passive cashflow, that you can leave your nine to five and be a full-time real estate investor. So when did you like rewinding back? When did you actually start? So I know in 2008, 2009 is when you were converting those single families like into duplexes, which by the way, that is fantastic. And I want to dive a little more into that too. After this question. how far back does it go when you first started?

Quentin D'Souza:
5:56

My first property was in 2004, but I only bought one property and I was scared crapless, like in all I didn't know what was going to happen. The market was going crazy. And so I didn't do anything like that was frozen for four years. And then in 2008, I started to relook at all the things that I had invested in and what really worked and what didn't. And, real estate, it really worked, even though there was a change in prices and everything that happened, it still worked really well. And so at that point in 2008, that's when I decided to start scaling it. So then we bought three properties that year and then. The following year four properties and then, kept scaling from there. And at that time you got to remember the type of loans that we were getting in 2008, where for us, there were like 5% down or even a hundred percent finance, retail rental properties. You couldn't really do the same in the same way today is what we're doing back then. And so when the financing rules change, that's when I started to talk to mortgage brokers and lawyers and different people. And I figured out how I could buy it, take some short-term financing. Refinance it and then hold it. And as long as it cashflow positive on the refinance and I was able to pull out a majority of the funds. I had ton of investors and I had the ability to do it myself as well. On the home runs, I would tend to do a lot of those myself. If I pulled up. Maybe, 50% of it, I would do it with a partner. So it worked out really well. And everybody was happy because the returns in the partners that I had back in 2009, I still have today, except now we're doing apartment buildings together.

Average Joe Finances:
7:36

So they started off small with you as well. So it wasn't like, a whole new set of eyes. Like they, they built up at the same time. You did. So that's that type of relationship, that type of rapport that you build with somebody over years starting off so small and scaling to where you guys are today that, that helps build that trust that you have with these partners. So that's pretty awesome. Like I said, I wanted to dive a little deeper into what you were doing with converting some of these single families into duplexes. Because, when, I don't know how, like what the rules are in Canada, here in the states, sometimes that can be very difficult to do especially with getting it approved by whatever county or state that you're in. Each state is different with different rules. So how did that work? Like when you, so would you look for a particular property that you knew you can like partition off? And change it into a duplex. Was it like a upstairs, downstairs, like a top and bottom side by side? Like how did you work this out?

Quentin D'Souza:
8:27

So like everything you said. So whenever I look at an asset or I look at a property, I always look to bring it to its highest and best use. So highest and best use means if I look at a single family home, can I actually bring this to a higher number of units? And what I would look at is it zoned first of all, for higher density? Could it be, could I put it in. Another unit in, could I put another two units in, could I put like three units in, what could I do to bring this to a higher density? Oftentimes I would put a basement apartment in, sometimes we would have an addition on the back where we would have a, another unit. Sometimes we would do an addition on top. So we would top up and then have a new unit on the top and have a common stairway from the bottom floor all the way up. And then the main floor would have a, another unit. So it just depended. I did, I don't know how many I did, like over 25 of those types of conversions. And I was also flipping houses too. When I quit my job in 2014, I actually flipped like a dozen houses and I wish I kept all of them now, but I would have been like now what I was doing is I was doing that highest and best use. And then I was selling them afterwards. I would make like good money on it. I would make some times like six figures on the flip, which was awesome. But what ended up happening is I quit my job. And then I gave myself another job, which was flipping houses. So I felt like I, I took a break for two weeks and then I was bored and then I got it to flip projects. So I was doing that for a year and then I stopped doing that. And I focused on the apartment buildings and still I was doing like smaller projects with partners, but most of the time I was getting into bigger units, but those and now you see a lot more accessory dwelling units. Now you see. Garden suites or laneway suites, just different ways because every municipality like across the, it seems like north America is looking for ways to increase density. And if you can find out what your accessory dwelling unit laws are in the locality, where you are, it's, you'd be surprised at how you can increase the density and increase the rents in a given like lot area. And that's where you'll see the biggest value increase, especially when it's legal. Because then the lender can use both rents or like three unit rents, whatever it is. And all of a sudden you got an assets that's spitting out, thousands per month instead of hundreds per month. And that can really change what you're doing, right?.

Average Joe Finances:
10:57

It's funny because here in Hawaii to convert a property, to a duplex triplex, or anything like that it's very difficult. There's not many legal like small multifamily properties here, however, They are making it, like changing the laws to make it for ADUs, to make it much easier to get approved and start adding ADUs onto properties because Hawaii does have like a housing crisis right now. So they're looking for different ways to get more affordable housing and ADUs is one of those solutions where you can build like a smaller, unit that you can rent out for, More competitively priced for somebody to, to afford living there and be able to support themselves. So stuff like that. And then we also have these we call them Ohana units, right? So this is where you take a single family home and you're renting out a portion of your home and it's. It's not quite a full duplex or triplex or fourplex or anything like that. Cause you can't have a full kitchen or anything like that. There's different things that you have to make it so that it's not a full like unit it's mostly meant for family, right? So you're sitting there and you have family members come live there and that's why they call them Ohana units. Yeah. Finding, finding out like what the laws are in your local area is super important. So I'm really glad you pointed that out because it's going to be different everywhere. And, I wrote this down what you said, because I thought this was fantastic. You were looking at these properties and you said you want it to look at whatever that higher and best use would be for those properties. And I think, anybody. Any type of property as an investment, you always want to look at what the highest and best use is going to be for that property. There's, you should always go into it with a plan. We always talk about like having multiple exit strategies. And that's one of them is like, what's going to be the best use of this. And if that's not going to work, what's the next best thing. So as long as you're strategizing and you're trying to figure. You know what it is that's going to work for you and your situation and in your case, you're focused on cashflow. So you're looking at how am I going to maximize this cashflow from this asset? That's pretty awesome. So now going from there in, in 2008, 2009, you started to do these and you started to bring on these partners, right? And when did you decide you wanted to start scaling up to get into like larger commercial? Multi-family right. I think we talked about a little bit, but I don't think we talked about the timeframe. Like when did that transition start to happen?

Quentin D'Souza:
13:10

It's actually, when I stopped needing to need like money to eat and live. So when I stopped, needing to have the cashflow from the assets and all I, what I was shifting away from was working on that, but working on net worth goals. So actually looking at an apartment building, I see an apartment building. For me more of a way to give myself a piggy bank that I don't really need, like to take from today. But later on, I'm going to be taken from maybe it'll be like in a refinance in three to five years or, repositioning the asset enough so that. In that three to five years, once we do the refinance, then I'm going to start pulling cashflow from the asset. So I looked at it from a different perspective than I looked at the one to four unit property. Now, w what I'm often doing is I'm looking at my one to four unit property. And I look at it as a return on equity because I've got, I still have cashflow now coming from a number of different sources. And I look at it from a return on equity perspective, Can I take the equity out of this asset and use it in a way so that I can gain a more cashflow or better leverage from it. And we don't have the 10 31 exchange in Canada. when we have to sell an asset, particularly a one to four unit asset we're doing a capital gains. Like we have to pay capital gains tax on it. But for me, when I do I'm ok taking that paying that tax because what I'm no, w what I'm doing is I'm taking it, repositioning it into a higher like an asset where I can get better leverage. I can get a larger asset. That's going to give me more cash flow than what I would've had. If I kept it in the same asset that I was in before. And I think that what you're going to find in the U S is if they ever get rid of the 10 31 exchange, you're going to find more people moving over to larger multifamily assets because instead of selling the asset, people will hold it for a longer period of time and just continue to refinance it over and over. So they'll get the same effect. They won't get their initial investment. They'll get their initial investment out or profit out, but they won't sell the asset again. So I think that's maybe something that if you're thinking about what I'm always thinking about different scenarios in my head, like what's going to happen. If, what can I do if I, when I. To some of my friends in the U S that's what I'm saying. I've only had that option. So this is how we deal with it here. So this is maybe what you're going to see over there, because that's what happens here. People hold on to apartment buildings for 20, 30 years all the time, because it makes no sense. To sell it and take the gain. Like every three to five years, it makes no sense. So what you would rather do is refinance and hold it and then continue as long as you can.

Average Joe Finances:
16:06

It's funny cause I wrote that down as you were talking when you said in Canada, you guys never had a 10 31 exchange. And until myself in my head, I said, I wanted to jump in, but you were going, but in my head I said we might not have one for long. Yeah that's a great point, cause what happens when that does go away. A lot of people that are going into these like larger commercial multifamily deals you're going to, you have to start rethinking strategy, right? So you're not looking at this five to seven year turnaround anymore. Now it's probably going to be more of a long-term hold focused on the cashflow, the cashflow of that asset to make sure that it's still, a good investment for the, all the parties involved. I think that's important, and the other thing as you're talking about what you were doing there in Canada, right? It's the same thing, right? You knew that these capital gains taxes were coming. So you had planned for it. So you knew you know how much you were going to be paying, how much you be getting back. Once you sold the asset, how much you can reinvest, how much you should put to the side, like that's all part of your strategy. So I think the biggest thing is knowing what those steps are going to be, and taking the right steps in your own strategy. To, to take down the next asset or as you're selling an asset and things like that. And I think this is a perfect segue into what I want to talk about with your book. Because when we're talking about taking action, and so yeah, shameless self promo for you right here. But I want to talk about this because I really liked the way you put this together. I got a chance to take a look, this and I thank you for sending it to me. But, right up front, the book is sitting here talking about how to plan, how to effectively put this plan together to take action. And then on top of that, in the back of the book as you get further on, cause it says investing planner, right? It's got the whole planner back there. So the book explains to you how to do it, how to use the planner and then boom, here's the planner. Go do it. So for anybody that's looking to get themselves in a situation where they're ready to get started. This might be a good first step, because like I said, when I just sat here and peruse through it and I'm very new to the multifamily commercial real estate realm, myself, this was a it's pretty eyeopening with, the different steps that you should be taking. Due diligence, it's talking about everything, right? Super important. And I want to talk about that a little bit. So if you could share with us your book, like why did you put this together? What were some of the lessons learned that helped you like culminate all this data together to create such a good planner.

Quentin D'Souza:
18:21

I actually comes because I've taken a lot of coaching from different people over the years. So I was part of a Dan Sullivan's strategic coach program pro coach out in the east coast and Canada. I'm part of the entrepreneur organization. They're all different places where I've gotten insights on how. To plan better and plan as a business owner. And I've, I've spent thousands on that over the year over the last, since 2008, 2009, I've been using all of those systems. I actually used to coach people. In real estate investing, so I had a $40 million portfolio at the time. And what I would do is I had group coaching client. A one-on-one coaching clients. I'd have 12 clients that I charged, like $700 a month. And then one-on-one clients. I charged like $1,500 a month for an hour a week. And I actually I used one of the strategies here, which is on sources of income, right on page 24, which is I had these different sources of income. And for most people, when they do the sources of income kind of calculation, they'll have their job as the one that has the most income. But what happens with a business owners? If you create different streams of income, if you don't want to do one anymore, you can just cross out. And that's it. It's not going to affect your life in the same way as if you had to cross off off a job. And so in January, this year I stopped coaching altogether. And what I did was I put all the templates that I was using in my coaching program, into the book that I was using to help people to plan out their, how they grow. And it was the same stuff that I've been using. So I actually have 10 year goals. I have a quarterly goals that are up on my wall, five for me, and I have a weekly plan that's beside my desk too. And I've been doing it for like over a decade. And th this is basically how I've been able to continue to grow my real estate portfolio and also other goals too. Like I've had a health goals that I've been able to accomplish as well as family goals. When I've been planning this quarter, one of my goals is some intergenerational pieces cause my boys are getting older and so I needed to get some primary, secondary Wells done. I wanted to get a trust done. So I, that's one of my quarterly goals this quarter. And it ties into my ten-year goals. So I do a lot of the planning, even my weekly goals, they tie into my quarterly goals. So all of that kind of plays together now. And I don't do any. Annual goals. I know it may sound a little different, but I don't plan annually for anything I do. Three year goals is the, the closest to my quarterly goal. And what I find is by doing that, I'm actually able to achieve my three-year goals in what most people would think would take, a lot longer to do. And it's. Just the way that I plan, because I do quarterly and and then three-year goals. And then my 10 year big picture planning and that's worked really well for me. I, in the book, I outlined all the different tools that I've used. So I'd have a I, I make sure that. The people that I was coaching, they actually track their net worth. Because if you don't know what your net worth is, how are you going to grow it? So twice a year, they would they'd identify roadblocks that you run into as real estate, there's always three roadblocks itself. Finding properties, funding, properties, or financing properties is where everybody runs into problems. Any time real estate investing gives you strategies on how to work on that every week and how to overcome that in order to grow, And do do what you want. I mean that, like I was mentioning to you before I closed on that $40 million asset, I had 202 units over seven buildings I raised in that month. In June, this year I raised $9 million. For all my projects, it wasn't just that project. I also closed on two other apartment buildings at the same time. So there were like, there was a, there was a bunch of things that I did, but that all came from all my planning from before. It's not like I just did it. Like it took time to get to that point. Like I created the relationships. I was, I always work on finding funding partners every week. Like yesterday I talked to two partners I'm always working on that as part of the, my weekly goals. And then. So that when you get to that point of needing the funds that you're ready to go,

Average Joe Finances:
22:44

yeah. Going into all of that, when we talked about earlier, when we talked about like finding the highest and best use for a piece of real estate, I want to kind of transition this into finding the highest and best use for your plan. So you have a ten-year plan and you're sitting here putting it together, how do you find that highest and best use is. Do you ha how do you make it? So it doesn't stagnate, right? So if you're looking 10 years out you've got 10 years these goals that you set a decade out, what I do to make it so that you don't fall off the wagon on the way, because 10 years is a long time.

Quentin D'Souza:
23:13

Yeah, this very, it's very true, but you'd be surprised. So for example, like when I did my ten-year goals in 2018, because what happens is when I get to my three-year goal, then I go back and I look at what I've already achieved. And sometimes you achieve what. You were going to do in 10 years in three years. So one of those goals that I had was a health goal. I had decided that I was going to run a marathon and I had put that in my ten-year goals in 2018, and I was really not healthy in 2018. As part of my quarterly planning, I added a health goal losing 20 pounds a quarter. You know what I mean? I had to focus on getting that done. I lost over a hundred pounds over about a year and a half of, yeah. So it was. Yeah. W and I started off with the 5k marathon or 5k run. I did a 10 K run. I did a half marathon, and then I did a full marathon all in a year. And I had that as a 10 year goal, but I cheated in an, in a lot shorter of a timeline. But the thing was when I had written that goal down, I had spent about a day thinking about like 10 years from now. Blue sky. Like what do you think? What do you want of yourself? What do you want to, what do you want to be able to do? What do you want to say? One of my goals is a traveling goal. I want to make sure that I'm traveling at least six weeks a year and I'm not, I'm not working on my business. I'm traveling six weeks a year just before, 2020. So 2019, I had done eight weeks of traveling the year before. You be surprised at what you can achieve if you put that goal down. And you're only working on towards that goal every quarter, every 90 days. And yes, you would have to readjust because sometimes like the goal doesn't make sense anymore. Like you don't want to, you don't really want to do that anymore in 10 years, but at that three year point, when you get to your three year, your three-year goals, You've done. You can go back and you reassess your ten-year goals and you can say to yourself again, Hey, did I really do? I still really want to do that? Maybe I don't want to get my pilot's license anymore. Maybe I don't want to, buy a yacht whatever that is. So it would, because we change and evolve as people too, but planning, I think like mindset is very important. It's it is really important. Planning, I think gets underrated when it comes to this. And if you plan well, I think you'll achieve well. And that's why I wanted to have the planner is out there because that's how I help all my coaching clients. And it's, what's really helped me to achieve what I w what I've wanted to do. And so I want to. Put it out there for other people to be able to use. And hopefully, they put the karma out in the world, you get it back. And I like hearing from people who use it and then, let me know about it and connect with me. Like I'm on like social media. People can connect with me. And I love hearing about I get messages sometimes on Facebook and on Instagram, from people who have read the books or used it. And that makes them feel great because like once you have. Like income for yourself and you have net worth and you have intergenerational wealth. What's really more important to you is the impact that you leave on the world, like after, and then what you do, right? And how you I want my kids not to be. Like I want them to be able, I worked hard when I was young too. I did, I had three paper routes. Like I used to do like a lot of different stuff and I want my kids to work hard too, and I want them to be given anything. And I also want them to be able to give back to we do a basket brigade every Thanksgiving. And we're just helping families and we're putting together. Baskets and delivering it. So like we do different things to help them, but really it's the impact on the world that you make that makes I think a bigger difference. And there's a real great book that I read recently that really changed my mindset. It's called the die with zero. And I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's by Bill Perkins, it's getting all you can from your money in your life. And it sounds a little like. It's a mindset. It's a mindset. It's a mindset shifter book, which I like really for me was impactful. So anyways, I go all over the place. Like I'm like

Average Joe Finances:
27:29

a that's. Okay. I'm sitting here taking notes and it's funny because one of the things you said, like before you even said the word impact, I started, I was already writing that down because as you were describing, the effect that your books having on others, and you said, you got yourself to a point where, you know your net worth is up. Your cashflow is good. Like you're in a good spot. So there's really, there's not really much else out there to give you like that type of like satisfaction or gratification, but. Going out there and be able to impact others is huge. But before I talk about that, I want to talk about. What you were talking about before that. So that, that mindset shift, right? So it's not about just having a plan. So it's about having that mindset. And those are the two most important things to crushing anyone's goals, right? It's to have a mindset, have your mindset in the right place but to also have a plan to get there. So that's one of the things that, the exact things that you're talking about with what you're doing. It provides for those that are doing it cause when you're reading the first couple of chapters, like if that doesn't help shift your mindset towards what your goals are, I don't know what's going to do it. Unless it's a book like a die with zero, which I'm going to go look that up. That sounds that sounds amazing because mindset is something that I preach about on this show all the time, because that is one of the biggest things that you have to change your life. No matter what your goals are that you're trying to accomplish, whether it's you're drowning in debt. And you're trying to get yourself out of debt to even get started investing in a journey like that. You got to flip the switch first, you have to change how you're spending your money, how you treat money, treat your relationship with money. All those things need to change before. Before you can even start trying to attack any goals. So that mindset shift needs to happen first.

Quentin D'Souza:
29:07

Along those lines too, like every, a couple of books that I would recommend to the rich dad, poor dad book. Like a given right. For in real estate. So my kids have both read that, but the the other one that I've given them, and I like it's like book that I really like is that the top 10 distinctions between millionaires and the middle-class by Keith Cameron Smith. I don't know if you've heard of it, but again, it's another, like one of those big mindset shift books, and it's Like I put it in there with like rich dad, poor dad, like for shift. And, but it's also just big themes I think. And it's explained in an easy way. So my my kids really got it when they wrap it. So it's another one for mindset that I would recommend for sure.

Average Joe Finances:
29:50

That's great. So there's actually a book that I'm having my kids read is called how to turn a hundred dollars into a million dollars. And it's a kid's book on, how to build a business or how to properly invest in assets to build your wealth and cashflow. And what's really neat about it is like my kids don't really they maybe need to get a little bit older. This is more of a probably a good book for teenagers. But, as they sit here and read it, I can sit here and explain things a little bit to them, but I'm sitting here reading and I'm like, wow, this is, if I didn't read like rich dad, poor dad or other books that, that helped me like think this way, this would be a good book to start off with. And it's a kid's book and it's really good.. But, just things like that, teaching children right now. And I'm, this is like going a little bit off script here, but like teaching children, financial literacy is super important for our future generations. And one of the things that I'm trying to build here with average Joe finances is financial literacy. This is like one of the biggest things. So bringing guests on, like you that can sit here and explain your story, explain how, you immigrated to Canada from Fiji, with nothing. And you were able to build this life that you have right now and build a different life for your children. And building this generational wealth and things like that. Yes, I want to build generational wealth too, but at the same time, I want my kids to know how to do it. I don't want to just say, okay, here I leave this inheritance to you. No I want you to go out and work for it. I want you to become your own self-made millionaires and things like that on your own. I want you to have the knowledge and how to do that because you'll see a lot of these kids grow up, these inheritance babies that they get this inheritance when they're older and they blow all their money and then they're broken. They don't know what. So you never know what's going to happen in the future. Certain things can, there could be like a huge crash and they can lose everything that I had invested my entire life, whatever. But if they know how to start at ground zero and build themselves back. They're going to be okay. And I think that's super important is that everybody learns how to do this and gets that it's a basic knowledge. You don't need to be an expert in every single thing. You just need to understand compound interest. You need to understand cashflow. You need to understand what an asset is versus a liability. Just simple little things that once you really get that down and you got the basics down, you can really start to build something that will take a life of this. You know what I'm saying? So I don't know. I kinda went off a little bit on a tangent there, but I think that, as we're discussing this, but that's one of the most important things is having that knowledge and having that financial literacy. And yeah. So over to you on that,

Quentin D'Souza:
32:14

it makes sense. The other thing is that. Being able to work with teams and work with other people, right? Especially if you're going to go into commercial or multifamily or anything like that, being able to be somebody who takes a component of an entire thing, do what you do really well and let other people do what they do well and pull that all together to make it work. Then you have a business and then you can do. Differently. You'll be able to scale differently and you'll be able to, have different things. Because you're just doing things different than what most people try to do, which is be like the expert in everything. And they try to do every different component of their business. And it's just not scalable. You can't scale yourself to the ability to, to that size. You have. You become self-employed again, rather than own a business or, being an investor in somebody else's business. Like you, you want to avoid it. You can do it. Like I did it, like when I started back in 2014 and I started flipping houses again, I was self-employed, but I can't like. Turn that into a business, which is very possible, but I didn't do that. I was self-employed

Average Joe Finances:
33:24

right, and you would do that by outsourcing and being able to take your hands off the throttle a little bit yourself. Cause that, that is yeah. That you don't want to go from your W2 and your nine to five to just working full-time again, when your whole goal was to, get yourself financially free to just go and live and enjoy life. Otherwise you're sticking yourself back in that same scenario.

Quentin D'Souza:
33:44

Yeah. And then, and making sure you're like, for me, that's ensuring my kids understand that too. And know that there's other possibilities other than just working for somebody else. And I don't think that's conveyed enough to, to kids. But they don't that there are. Opportunities that are out there for them. If they decide to go down that path, they don't have to be an employee in somebody else's business. You can create something small and maybe start as an employee in your own business. But remember that you need to transition out of that. And what one of the reasons why I like real estate is that there's so many different types of opportunities within it to be able to do that. You can start off with. Flipping houses, or you can start off with being a real turn, taking commissions and then using those commissions to put into something else. Or you could be a, a property manager on a property management bit like there's so many different things within that you could do. And so for them, it's trying to convey like the different opportunities, as well as the mindset of being a business owner versus a. Just and it's not nothing wrong with being an employee and, in any business, but if you want to scale and grow something you can't, you have to change that mindset. And that's what we started on that conversation.

Average Joe Finances:
34:58

Yeah. It all comes back to that. It all comes back to mindset. We've talked about a lot of great things here. We've talked about cash flow, how to build your cash flow. As we're talking about these other things, like those are all just benefits of changing your mindset, and planning and creating these goals for yourself. That's a side benefit, so the first step is if you could change your mindset and you can make a plan, you'll reap the benefits on the side without even knowing what your, without even knowing how you got there. You'll know how you got there because you planned it. But what I'm saying is that's just one of the side benefits, right? You get yourself to a point. You've bought these assets. Now you're cash flowing and you're sitting good and happy, and it's all because of a simple little thing, like shifting your mindset and making a plan. And actually I'll also throw in there too, like educating yourself. That's huge. Learning about what it is you're trying to do instead of just trying to dive right in. So I definitely don't recommend that. Don't just say, okay, I'm going to get into real estate. I'm going to go buy this property right now without doing your research on it and educating yourself. So that's super important. This has all been super fantastic. And part of building that plan too, like I said is this awesome book right here that I got in front of me? So for those of you listening, definitely go check it out. I'm going to make sure I have a link to that in the show notes as well, Quentin. Okay. Is there. Any type of like last tips or tricks that you would recommend for somebody that's just getting started out and they want to get themselves to the point, like where you're at and say, Hey, I want to build my cash flow so that I can just go live life the way I want to in the future and be financially free.

Quentin D'Souza:
36:24

Sure. I'm not that special, just so you know, I'm just like an average person, average Joe. Like I like, I, I think the difference is that maybe I I decided to actually take action and do it and I planned it out and work that plan, but really anybody can do. You just have to change your mindset and then you can change your life. And if you can, make the plan, but carry out the plan. I think that really one way to, to accelerate it is just find other people who have already done it before in your area. Like technology has changed so much and there's so many more places that you can go there. Local meetup groups that you can go away. All you have to do is find somebody who's 20 years ahead of you find somebody who's two years ahead of you, because then like they're willing to share with you what they've been doing, because they're happy that they've done it. And so for example, if you're just starting off find somebody who's bought three properties. And it's got 500 or a thousand dollars a month in cashflow and just buy them lunch, go out and talk to them, figure out what they've done. See if you can help them, see how they might be able to help you, because when you create a relationship with somebody like that, Then you're going to be part of their circle and that's how you improve yourself by your network. So there, there are lots of different kind of ways that you could do that, there's so many meetup groups that you can, where you can find that the problem is if you came to somebody like. And you were going to ask me like tips on financing. I'd be like, go talk to your mortgage broker or go talk to your you can approach me in the same way as you would approach somebody who's just a year or two ahead of you. And that's what you want. And then as you progress, you're going to, you're going to find that group changes and you'll be different. So for me, like I'm in a, like a group of investors across Canada and one of the guys just picked up a thousand units and like over the. Like quarter, right? For me, I'm like, oh man, I'm small. Like I'm just getting started, but it's that group that you're with that makes you feel like that. And also pushes you to do a little bit more too. So if I were to give anybody a tip, that would be the typical find other people that's already done what you want to do. Doesn't have to be too far, much ahead of you and then, go do it with them.

Average Joe Finances:
38:43

First of all that is a Fantastic tip because I've had other people on the show to say something very similar, right? Go find people that are, where you want to be at in the future. But nobody ever said Hey, go find somebody that's maybe, two years ahead of you, so somebody that's, gotten to just like their first couple of deals when you're just getting started out that is significant. And I think that, we'll help people with your comfort level, right? you're not going to want to go up to somebody. Who's got, a hundred million in assets under management and be like, Hey can you tell me how you did that? Because that was so long ago for them in their journey. That it's like, things are different. Things have changed since then. You want somebody who's got more of the recent experience, that's just started building to go there and pick their brain because that's going to give you the highest and best use of that information. Cause like you said, if somebody was so approached you and ask you how to go and finance a property or get a loan, the stuff you did when you started this off was a hundred percent financing or 5% down. Like you don't have those opportunities anymore. Things change. So definitely you want to get somebody closer to where you're at, ahead of you. And I think that's fantastic. If I say I surround myself with people that are, way better than me. There's some people that are just a couple of years ahead of me. I have, this huge circle and I think that's super important that you build your network, right? And you start collaborating and you start building these relationships with the people in your circle. And then that circle starts to tighten and get closer. Some of those people in that tighter circle, they become partners in the future. So it's all about, how you're building this up. So I think that was a fantastic piece of advice. Thank you so much for that. So I have one more question for you. And this one is really important because the conversation we had was absolutely amazing. People are going to want to know more about Quentin D'Souza. You said you're big on social media. You like to connect with people. Can you share your website, social media profiles, anything like that with us? And I'll make sure I have it in the show notes for the folks that are listening right now to go and find you.

Quentin D'Souza:
40:33

Yeah. So if you like look on Instagram or Twitter on cumin REI is where I'm at. I'm also on Facebook. You can look me up at Quentin D'Souza in Ontario, Canada. That's where you find me or email me at quentin@getrealwealthy.com. Also, if you want to pick up the first chapter of the book, you can go to actiontakerrealestateplanner.com. The first chapter, if you want to take it out for a test drive.

Average Joe Finances:
41:02

And after you read that first chapter, you're gonna, you're gonna want the whole thing, so we'll make sure we have a link to that too. Quentin, this has been an absolutely amazing conversation. I truly appreciate you connecting with me and coming on the show I'm humbled that you that you decided to come share your knowledge with us. And again, thank you so much.

Quentin D'Souza:
41:20

Oh, you're welcome anytime.

Average Joe Finances:
41:21

All right. We're out of here.