This morning my good friend Phil Gerbyshak published an interview we did together. I highly recommend you check it out at Phil’s site.

If you found my main blog (Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate Investments) from Phil’s site, or you’re a new reader to the Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate Investment blog, here are a few articles I recommend you read:

 

My interview with best selling author of Never Eat Alone, Keith Ferrazzi

Do you have enough money to retire the way you want to ?

Bob Burg, relationship guru and best selling author, shares tips on building lots of great relationships

Top 10 Reasons to Invest in Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate

The 5 Skills That Will Make You Rich

Looking for a great investment property in a growth region?  A two bedroom condominium in Kitchener Waterloo, Ontario came across my desk this morning, listed for a shade under $110,000. 

On Monday, Sarah and I closed on an ‘investment-grade’ condominium in North Waterloo. There were some mild theatrics associated with the closing (i.e. where was the other side’s lawyer on Friday when we were to close the deal? Canoing ? Lawn bowling ? Enjoying a lazy Friday afternoon at Morty’s ?) but all is well that ends well - at least in this case.

When I say ‘investment-grade’ condo, I am referring to a handful of condominiums in town - buildings with good management, low prices, good rent, great location, modern wiring (and no aluminum!) & plumbing, healthy reserve funds etc. They can be managed for a very reasonable rate, and the annual maintenance and repair you will put into the unit are minimal. One Millonaire Real Estate Investor I know who owns many of these units said ‘The only time I’m there is Jan 1 when I go to pick up 12 rent cheques.’

These units Condominiums, semi-detached homes and townhouses have appreciated approximately 8% in the past 12 months (May 2006-May 2007, as provided by the Kitchener Waterloo Real Estate Board), and have shown very good appreciation over the past 10 years.

Our unit sold for $120,500, and will rent for between $850-950/mo + hydro depending on the polish we put on the place (we’re redoing the floors [today actually], refreshing the kitchen and bathrooms, new appliances etc.) Condo fees are $215 a month, and taxes are about $110 a month. Our mortgage, @5.89% with 20% down, is about $500 a month, and we’re paying it in biweekly (accelerated) instalments.

I have clients, colleagues and friends who have bought these units with less than 20% down - your mortgage costs will be higher and your cash flow will be correspondingly lower.

These condos (and there are a couple on the market [and a great one off market, but available to my clients] that I can show you) are a great way to get in on the real estate market, and start growing your wealth through smart investing!

Back when I was working in a large financial management brokerage (which means I was working with a team of stock brokers), I remembered being shocked at how small people’s portfolios were when they approached retirement.

A very common situation was:

Married couple, sixty years old

Making $100,000+ year combined

$500,000 in RRSP and other stocks, bonds and mutual funds

Retirement at 65

Expecting to continue living their (relatively) expensive ($75,000/yr) lifestyle in retirement

A simple calculation shows that they can live off of their savings for 7 or 8 years, that’s all.

They’ll be BROKE by 75 if they continue to live like they do now. Goodbye snorkelling, hello winter.

Does this sound like where you might be heading ? If you change some numbers in the above story (say, change 60 years old to 50, and change $500,000 in savings to $250,000) does it describe you ?

I’ve found that it describes a large cross section of the people often thought of as ‘upper middle’ class - large income, nice toys, low savings. What happens is that when these people retire, they often turn from golfer to caddie. They have not built up enough assets to live the lifestyle they want to live.

A Financial Future Focus can help alleviate the symptoms of a poor retirement.

If you’re unsatisfied with the traditional strategy of ‘pay off your mortgage, invest in your RRSP, live mortgage-free on a small fixed income in retirement,’ you owe it to yourself and your family to see how investing in real estate can help you build equity and cash flow for an abundant retirement.

I remember talking to a colleague of mine in January, the day before I flew out to spend the weekend with my grandparents in Miami Beach. He told me how lucky my grandparents were to be able to spend the cruel Montreal winters in Miami Beach.  Alot of his parent’s friends of the same age were lucky to be able to spend their first three or four winters of retirement in Florida, but after that… the funds dried up, and they spend summer and winter in Kitchener.

It doesn’t have to be like that.

I just started working with new clients. They’re young, just started their family, and are committed to doing the work and developing the disciplines that are neccessary to building their wealth.

They have bought two investment properties in the last month - one at $130,000, one at $122,500 - and have plans to continue building up their portfolio. Thanks to the magic of leverage, they have purchased over $250,000 in assets with less cash than they would have needed to buy a low yielding $50,000 bond.

They also managed to purchase assets where someone else will pay off the bulk of the loan used to buy it.

They also purchased assets that will provide great cash flow and continue to appreciate in value.

Here is how their retirement will look:

Let me know which option works for you.

For all the hard work you do, you deserve a great retirement - and you can have it.

An interesting situation came up recently while I was pursuing an investment property for a client in Kitchener Waterloo, Ontario.

Sally is from out of town, but she has recently started to move her equity into the Kitchener Waterloo area in the form of real estate investment property.

She had a mortgage broker she used when she bought her house a few years ago, and she wanted to use the same broker.

I have a ‘rule of 1.’  If my clients have a preferred vendor (like a lawyer or a mortgage broker) that I haven’t worked with, and my client’s are completely confident in that person’s ability to close the transaction, I’ll let them work with them.

The ‘rule of 1′ refers to the number of strikes they get - one.  If they mess up a deal for my clients - and if it happen it’s usually because they don’t deal in investment real estate but figure, what the heck, it can’t be that hard - that’s the last time I’ll participate in a transaction they’re involved in.

Usually, even when their is a problem, I’m able to have one of my Wealth Building Team members step in and help resolve the situation (as I did last month when my client’s lawyer decided a week prior to closing not to handle the transaction).  This time, I wasn’t able to save it in time.

Sally’s mortgage broker had gotten her an ‘OK’ loan for the first property she bought this month, but when she went to invest in a second property,  the mortgage broker was unsure if both loans could be approved.  She couldn’t say yes, she couldn’t say no. She kepy saying ‘who knows.’

Finally I had to step in and have the owner of a local mortgage brokerage contact my client.  With only a few days to go, the deal was almost saved, but in the end we would have needed an extra day or two to make the arrangements necessary to go with the new loans.

Sally sent me an email after this happened.

“Lesson learned…  Go with the pro’s from the get go.  If I handed this of to Jeff earlier, I’m sure this would have worked.”

Next month when we go shopping for property, she will be using a mortgage broker who has experience dealing with investment real estate.

When you invest in real estate, make sure the professionals you’re dealing with are specialists in investment real estate.  Ask them if they invest in real estate personally.  If they don’t, why would you take advice from them on investments ?

The lawyer I use owns investment property. The mortgage brokers I use are investors. My inspectors have a real estate investment portfolio.

This means that you’re getting advice from professionals who actually know a thing or two about investing in real estate.

Call me at 519 570 4447  for a free half hour Wealth Building consultation.  We’ll take a look at how your plan is working so far, and if it’s getting you to the sunny, warm retirement you’d like.  If your current plan isn’t, let me show you how to get where you want to be.

Annual Financial Check Up

Posted by Benjamin Bach on January 28th, 2007

This morning I’m going to follow Jeff Brown’s lead and encourage all of my clients, friends, family and readers to take an honest look at their finances today.

What is your retirement plan? What lifestyle do you want to lead when you stop working? Can you afford to stop working at 60 or 65? Can you stop working at 35 (as two of my clients are planning to do) ?

Is what you’re doing now going to get you where you want to go? If not, then isn’t NOW a pretty good time to make some changes?

Sit down and look at how much cash you have on hand, how much equity is in your home (earning very very little, I should add), how much you have in your RRSP and unregistered savings.

Could you afford the downpayment on an investment property? Whether it’s a duplex (initial cash investment required: $0-$20,000) or a large apartment building (initial cash investment required: $100,000 +) you probably could.

What will your financial picture look like in 5 years if you took $250,000 and invested it in real estate? See this post for a quick answer. For those of you withouth $250,000 burning a hole in your low interest bank account, don’t fret: the potential to accelerate your equity through leverage is inherent in every real estate investment, not just when you’re starting out with 250K. I have clients who have bought their first investment properties in Kitchener Waterloo (duplex, triplex of fourplex) with zero down, and have done very well with that.

Do you have a Financial Future Focus of where you want to go? If not, invest a few hours of your afternoon today and let yourself see where you could be in 3, 5, and 10 years if you started execuiting your investment plan.

I would love to help you develop your Financial Future Focus and start executing a purposefully desigend investment plan. Call or email me, and we can set up a meeting at your leisure. DON’T FORGET - You can still register to attend Invest & Grow Rich, taking place on Tuesday February 13th. Information on this event is here.

Benjamin Bach is a Sales Representative with Keller Williams Golden Triangle Realty in Kitchener Waterloo. He is passionate about building wealth for his clients, and loves nothing more than to help people start building equity and get on the road to financial freedom and abundance. He wakes up each morning excited to fulfill his mission of building wealth for his clients through comprehensive Real Estate investment planning, and helping people achieve success. If you are interested in how you can start your Real Estate portfolio, or have any questions about buying a home or selling a home, you can email Benjamin (benjamin AT benjaminbach.com) or reach him at 519 772 4376.

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Ben’s Top Three Tips for Sales Success

Posted by Benjamin Bach on February 2nd, 2007

Interview with Paul Gruber, Achievement Coach to the Stars

Posted by Benjamin Bach on 1st August 2006

It is my honour to present the latest interview in my series of chats with business visionaries and experts. Today I am joined with my business coach, Paul Gruber, who is an achievement coach with RRi, one of the fastest growing achievement coaching firms in the world. Paul is dedicated to personal growth, and to helping others achieve their dreams. How did I get started in business?

Believe it or not, that is a challenging question. I’m not your typical business person; I consider myself to be a perpetual entrepreneur. What got me started in business though, was a book that I read over twenty years ago, “In Search of Excellence”, by Tom Peters.

What do you see as the future trends in the business world?

Imagination and creativity will rule in the future. If you think about it, all left brain processes will be digitized and will be easily exported to the lowest bidder, where ever that might be. It’s the imagination that can not be digitized. It’s imagination that will take all the information and create something out of it. Imagination is the thought process that is most adoptable to changes.

What do you do to improve yourself?
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, he writes about three types of people; the Connector, the Salesperson, and the Maven.

I’m the Maven; I’m constantly scourging the internet, magazines, and books looking to find new thoughts to expand my mind. I read 4 to 5 books a month; I look at 100’s of websites on a regular basis. I’m also very active in various networking functions. This puts me around people that motivate me.

Does personal growth really lead to growth in business?

There are three levels of knowledge in life. That which we know; that which we know that we don’t know, and that which we don’t know that we don’t know. This can be compared to your growth in business. As you grow your business there will be your three levels of business knowledge. That which we know; that which we don’t know, and that which we don’t know what we don’t know.

Personal growth will expand your mind in all these areas.

How is technology changing the way we do business? How is it changing personal growth?

This is one of my favorite topics:

1. Thomas Freidman stated in his book, “The World is Flat”, that there is going to be more and more business shifts. That business will relocate to other parts of the world.
2. Tom Peters quoted in his book, “Re-imagine”, that you can’t compete against China in manufacturing, and your ca not compete against Wal-Mart in pricing.
3. Daniel Pink wrote in his new book, “A Whole New Mind” that if the action is routine, that technology will recreate it. Think of it this way, if what you do is repeated, it can be reproduced through technology, and hence human interaction will be eliminated. Just think of the opportunities?

Technology is changing personal growth in many different ways, i.e. Blogs, Vlogs (video blogs), see www.youtube.com, Pod casting, video streaming, etc. Information will become more accessibly and segmented. Think of it this way: It wasn’t that long ago, if we wanted to see a motivational speaker, it would cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, not to mention the time spent traveling to the show. Now, just today, I listened to Daniel Pink on the internet, as I watched his Power Point, it was awesome.

Let me put this in perspective; I can go to Google and search just the topics I need to watch, or read, and store it for later.

What is the quickest way to “make it” in business?

There is no magic pill, no quickest way to make it in business.

There is a right way though, that will help you avoid the pit falls, and speed up the process. First develop a good business plan, a clear and precise plan. Set goals, than take massive and consistent action to achieve your goals. Finally hire a business coach, to hold you accountable to your plan.

Do you Blog?

I started blogging around a year ago, when I first discovered what blogging was. I spent hours studying the blogging phenomenon, reading and looking at thousands of them from all over the world. I spent more hours commenting on them than actually writing myself. This question has made me rethink of writing again though.

What one piece of advice would you leave with our readers?

I would encourage all readers to take time for these four things:

1) Learn to manage time. We all have the same amount of time, the difference between the successful people and the no-successful, is what they do with the time they have. Remember this about time, once it’s spent, unlike money, we can never make anymore.

2) Find your Enduring Purpose, or Personal Mission. Answer the question, “why am I here?” This will serve as your internal compass, directing you through the hard times.

3) Build a dream list. Take a pad of paper and write no less than 50 dreams. Write the things you would love to do if time, money, and failures not part of the equation. This will expand and strengthen your imagination, along with programming your subconscious.

4) Finally take time out every day to review and reflect on your life. The majority of people just live their life with out taking time to improve or correct problems that keep reoccurring. This needs to be practiced early in the morning, before you get the day started. It should be a half hour of no distraction. You should also keep a journal of your thoughts for periodical reviewing. This is what we call working ON your life and not IN your life.

Paul Gruber is a Florida based achievement coach whose enduring purpose is: “To help people grow, by carefully hearing them, before being heard. Help others to dream, by teaching that the only difference between dreams and knowledge, is knowledge has limitation. Give to those who want to receive, using the principal that the teacher will appear when the student is ready, and continually be searching for the student.” To get in touch with Paul, call (941) 234-3553, or send an email to paulgruber@hotmail.com.