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Life by Design is a podcast that shares the experiences and tools to help couples align their wealth goals and reclaim their time, enabling them to experience freedom, abundance, and a life by design.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:09] Welcome to the Life by Design Podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We support couples in achieving their wealth goals by sharing our journey of overcoming barriers to build our financial empire.
Brian Persson: [00:00:20] Recognizing the growing need for couples to find alignment and invest confidently in real estate, we created the Riches, Relationships and Real Estate Program. Our goal is to support you in achieving your financial and relationship goals together. Want to know more about what's stopping you from building your wealth? Make sure to go to discoverlifebydesign.ca/wealth and download 'The 3 Mistakes that Keep High Achieving Couples from Building their Wealth, Freedom & Living a Life they Love'.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:50] Today's topic is three key strategies we use to educate ourselves on real estate. So Brian, the takeaways that we're about to discuss, how do you think our lives would have been different had we actually utilized these takeaways before we got into real estate investing?
Brian Persson: [00:01:08] Well, we'd probably be high fiving each other doing this podcast on a beach in some tropical destination.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:15] I would be down for that.
Brian Persson: [00:01:17] That would be one thing that's different. But you can't predict the future, that's one of the problems. The reality is, is that education and real estate are so closely intertwined. Real estate is a massive game and it is a super wide amount of skills that you can take on and you honestly need to know a little bit about everything in order to play the investor game really well. If we got ourselves educated in some of the ways that we're going to talk about here, our whole portfolio would be different. The thousands of dollars in mistakes that we made would have been different. The amount of time we would have burnt would have been a lot less. I could go on and on about all the things that were different. Another way that we would have done things differently is the type of real estate we bought from the beginning. We started with condos, I know you wanted to just buy something.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:19] Well, it stemmed from, I was the marketing director for a real estate company at the time, and I saw this really awesome looking condo that came in at a pretty good price. I knew the renovations that the owner had done and what they originally paid for it and I was like, this is a great idea, let's get in. We didn't think twice, we just went and took a look at it, put an offer on and got it.
Brian Persson: [00:02:43] It ended up being an okay deal. Was far from our best performing property, but we probably would have taken a little more time to buy a different style of property more similar to what we are buying now because we never had the education or the understanding to run the numbers and understand the differences and the types of real estate.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:05] Also, location. We weren't educated on what makes an ideal rental property from a location perspective.
Brian Persson: [00:03:13] We made a huge mistake on location on that property, and luckily we got out of it early enough because the location that it's in has gone even more downhill than it was when we sold it. And actually, that property as well, if we had education we would have made the same mistakes on renters. The very first renter, I was just so excited to get a renter in there, I pretty well picked the first one that came across and so many things went wrong.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:43] Those were what we call great learning lessons.
Brian Persson: [00:03:46] The move-in date was on a date that we were out of town for some reason. (We were on holidays.) And so I had my buddy take the keys-
Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:56] A buddy with zero real estate experience.
Brian Persson: [00:03:58] Keep in mind, I had not much more. He thought it was totally okay, without checking with me, that they didn't take the security deposit.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:10] Just hand him the keys.
Brian Persson: [00:04:11] I ended up spending 6 or 9 months in the long term just by fluke. They turned into really good renters. But I spent 6 to 9 months, I think it was, chasing rent checks and stuff like that with these guys. Once they got their life sorted out and everything settled, they were really fantastic renters. But that was a really stressful first year of renting because of not knowing how to pick a renter, putting the wrong systems in place to do everything about property management.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:46] That was a great lesson for us to learn on, who's meant to be a property manager and who is not.
Brian Persson: [00:04:54] It made all the other properties a lot easier to manage.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:57] And we knew I had to step away.
Brian Persson: [00:05:00] Jess figured that people have common sense and they just do things exactly the way that she does things.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:08] It's true. With that in mind, we're going to roll into our first takeaway, which is to dive into books and online resources. Podcasts are a game changer.
Brian Persson: [00:05:21] Podcasts are huge. That was another big one for me. We were on our way to Saskatoon to check on a rental property I had. Again, totally uneducated, bought that property at the wrong time, wish I listened to a podcast like this before buying that. We were listening to a podcast on the way out to Saskatoon, and a guy from Ottawa was on it, and totally changed my view on real estate because he was buying houses, renovating them, refinancing them for more than he put into it. So he was actually taking cash out of the whole property, still owned the property and was renting it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:04] The BRRR method, right?
Brian Persson: [00:06:06] But he was doing the BRRR method on steroids. It just blew my mind and I'm like, if I could even get a sliver of what he just did, that would be amazing. And we've done a number of BRRRs ourselves.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:20] Just to be clear on what the BRRR method is, it's buy, renovate, refinance and rent.
Brian Persson: [00:06:26] Yeah, exactly. The whole point is that I had never conceptualized that that was possible in real estate. And as soon as I heard him talking about it, I was like, we're doing this. And I actually still use techniques that that guy on that podcast was talking about. For example, he shows up in just his average joe clothes when he goes and sees renters. Everywhere else, he's in suits to meet potential money partners, other things like that. I still do that to this day because it buys a lot of respect for my renters because they don't want to see me showing up in a suit. They don't want to see their landlord looking like they got piles of cash.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:11] They want to be able to relate to you, which is your average everyday person.
Brian Persson: [00:07:15] They need to be relatable. And that goes for not just renters, that goes for anybody you meet. Business partners or money partners or going to conferences, dress up.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:27] There's all kinds of podcasts out there with a range of information and education you can get from it. Right from the podcast Deeper Pockets, where it talks about investing, not necessarily all real estate, but investing. And then Trails from the Trenches, which is someone we know who's a real estate investment lawyer. So he's telling all kinds of stories on what to do and not to do in the trenches of real estate from a legal perspective. But there's the gamut on podcasts as well as books. The Millionaire Next Door, that's an oldie but a goodie, one I read years ago.
Brian Persson: [00:08:07] Financial mindset, money mindset book. Great book.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:09] Absolutely. Another one I read more recently was We Should All Be Millionaires. Again, it's not necessarily on real estate, but it's about the millionaire mindset. Why we should be it, what it looks like, what it means to start taking action in it. But we do recommend, if you're going to read a book, focus on one book at a time. It's not a matter of powering through all the books and hoping by osmosis you retain it all. It's implementing the little nuggets as you learn them and as you go.
Brian Persson: [00:08:38] Early on, when we were learning real estate, that was probably one of the mistakes that we made, was we consumed everything out there. And the problem is you can't action any of it. You might maintain a couple nuggets from every book, but you're really not putting it into action and you're really not making it part of your soul. You embody what is in that book. You can read all the books you want. I have a doctor buddy who reads piles and piles of real estate books. These are books that I would never pick up because they are just so heavy. And guess what? He's never bought a property yet. So he's exceptionally educated, probably more educated than I am, but he's never taken any action on any of the books he's read. You can both not take action and you can way over consume your books. So try to read a book, action it. Listen to a podcast, action it. Go slow.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:45] The great thing is, especially if you're new starting out, with so many of the free resources available, get yourself educated on the different options out there. But don't go so in depth into one until you know that's going to be where you want to go with your real estate. I was at an event yesterday, and I heard someone who's been real estate for quite a few years now, and she specializes in multi-families. She right out of the gate said, I had to decide. Did I want to learn how to do property management, or did I want to learn how to specialize in multi-families? She goes, and right from day one, I outsourced my property management, and she now manages over $20 million under assets because she specialized in multi-family. You got to learn what's out there and get a taste for it all at a high level, and then pick what you think works with you. Then if you want to get deeper into the weeds on that, go deeper there.
Brian Persson: [00:10:44] Our program actually talks a lot on that. We call it 'the sleep at night factor'. I'm sure we've talked on this podcast about it. Not everything is going to sit well with you. Not every type of real estate strategy is going to sit well with you, no matter what percentages it might return for you. It's just not going to make you feel comfortable. You really got to analyze that and understand and not ignore yourself. Don't ignore your gut if it's not going to make you feel comfortable.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:13] It's okay, there are so many options out there. You don't have to pick one specific one. All right, so Brian, takeaway number two. Network with experience investors.
Brian Persson: [00:11:28] This is honestly my favorite part about real estate, and probably part of the reason why I left my previous corporate job, was that those rooms are full of abundance. Those networking rooms are full of abundance. Everybody is there to help, everybody there is trying to find a solution for you, everybody there is looking for their own solution, and it's this hub of activity that everybody is trying to lift the other person up. Once I got into those rooms, I had a really tough time existing in the corporate world. Those rooms have an amazing wealth of experience, too. I've probably learned more on a single night sometimes, than reading a whole book. Because you talk to a few different people and they've already experienced what your problem is or what your problem is going to be, and you can just avoid the problem by getting in there and rubbing shoulders with people who already have done what you're aiming to do.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:28] I remember attending some of the rooms and the acres and the conferences, and the energy in there is incredible. They're all there to learn and meet and exchange ideas and support you. It's such an uplifting place to be in, and that's where you find your people. The people that are either going to mentor you or they're going to help you, or you're maybe going to joint venture with or partner with. It can absolutely accelerate your real estate plan because you can ask, like you said, pointed questions. And when you go to these rooms, go there to network. Not just to listen to whoever the keynote speaker is or the educational speaker is, but go there to network. One thing I always like to advise when I'm coaching entrepreneurs is, set a goal to meet three new people at every event you attend.
Brian Persson: [00:13:21] I know there's a lot of shy people listening to this podcast, but shyness is just a muscle that you can exercise out of your body. Decades ago, I was shy. I would go into a room and it would be very uncomfortable for me. Now I go into a room and I just bust into conversations, even if they're not my conversation. And guess what? No one gets offended because those rooms are designed for networking. It's in your head that you maybe shouldn't be in that room, or that you shouldn't talk to people. So go in there and meet everybody you can, and don't worry about what you look like because everybody is there to help you out.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:03] Absolutely. That's a good point you noted, is that it is a muscle that you can change. When I first met you, when we first started dating, you were definitely a lot shyer than you are now. And then you meet me, and I'm this whirlwind, part of all these different networking groups, and I'm out at events and hosting events and stuff. So I brought you along, you were my boyfriend at the time. I think you were maybe forced a little bit into a situation because you're now, okay, I'm here, this is what my girlfriend does. You learned over time with practice and experience, it got easier and easier and now it's shifted where you're like, 'I own this room' kind of a concept.
Brian Persson: [00:14:45] I do, yeah. I went to an event I hadn't been to in a long time, and probably 50% of the room introduced themselves to me saying, 'hey Brian, it's great to be back'. I had built up such a repertoire of people and handshakes and networking from years ago that I walked right back into that room and literally the whole room knew me and it was like I never left, even though there was years of gap in there.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:15] Networking goes a long way too, and I don't think people realize it. You don't just walk in the room and get business, or meet an investor, or meet someone who's selling. It does take time, but it lasts for decades as well. I remember when we bought our house, the one that we're living in right now, in 2011, and I was researching for real estate lawyers to close the deal, and I just went on Google and found some local to where we are. I sent out three emails asking for a little bit of information about them and their costs. I remember one came back and said, is this Jessilyn? The Jessilyn that was in BNI? And I was like, yes, it is. He goes, I'm Rob, you gave me a ride to the event for three weeks while my car was in the shop. He goes, I'm going to give you a deal on this. I was like, sweet. And that was at least 6 or 8 years apart from when I'd last seen him.
Brian Persson: [00:16:06] It goes a long way. That room I was talking about, I had spent probably two years in that room or more, but those two years have seeped into so many other aspects of different real estate networking rooms that I'm pretty well known whatever room I go into.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:26] Even yesterday I went into an all female room for investors. And the first lady I sat down and met, I said to her, what do you do? And she goes, oh, I met your husband. You're on the business card with him, correct? I'm like, I am. She knew exactly who you were from a different room. It starts to become a small world when you start to get into the niche of what you're doing, like real estate investing.
Brian Persson: [00:16:48] And it accelerates you. Even to this day, we have a large, stable portfolio, and I still go into those rooms and find new pieces of information, find different people to connect with and new ideas. It's almost endless.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:17:09] It's exciting, and don't stop. We're going to a real estate conference in two weeks, and I'm excited. We haven't been to one since pre-pandemic. So I'm excited to be back in those rooms and see that energy and see everyone. So what is takeaway number three? It is to join a program or hire a coach. They can be one and the same.
Brian Persson: [00:17:35] We both know that we would have hired a coach a long time ago if we were better educated and understood the reason for a coach. Our whole real estate, like I was saying earlier, would have been a totally different portfolio. It would have been the size it is now significantly sooner and many different heartaches and strategies and all kinds of things would have been either avoided or changed and done in better ways.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:07] And we would have been further ahead financially, too.
Brian Persson: [00:18:10] Exactly. Sooner and larger probably. I think what people get, I know we were there in the past, it's like, why do I need to be different? Why do I need to be fixed? And I think that's what people get their heads wrapped around when they think about a coach. It's like, you know what? I can do it. There's nothing wrong with me, I'll figure it out. But the reality is, that coach has probably already done everything that you've done. And they can be very, unlike a book or unlike a podcast, they can be very pointed about how you can solve your issues. There's no, a good coach anyway, there's no ambiguity about how your problem is going to get solved.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:52] I agree. I think we were the mindset back then that, well, we can do it ourselves, we can figure it out, we can learn it. But in hindsight, it's like, man, the amount of time and money a coach would have saved us in our real estate portfolio is not even come close to what it would have cost to hire the coach in the first place.
Brian Persson: [00:19:13] I remember sitting beside a guy in the REIN room, the real estate investment network room, which we were part of for a long time, and he was challenged with something about a suited house that he was having a problem with. I said, hey, you know what? I've done this before, I can help you out, it's not a problem. And he's like, no, that's okay. I remember talking to him, I think it would have been, I sat at the same table with him, six months later or nine months later. It was a while later. That mistake that he was trying to solve cost him $70,000. When he told me what the number was, I was like, dude, we could have just had a couple lunches or maybe some evening planning sessions, and you could have paid me for my time, and I could have helped you out, and you could have avoided that $70,000. Might have cost you $1,000, $2,000 of a couple months of coaching, something like that. And in his head, he still justified it. He was like, nope, $70,000 mistake is okay. That's just part of the education process. And I'm like, I know, I've been there. You can avoid that.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:29] That $70,000 could have had another property under your name.
Brian Persson: [00:20:32] He could have rolled that into another property or done all kinds of amazing things with that. But that's the typical mentality of coaches out there, is that people would rather just get their hands dirty themselves instead of skipping all that. I know nowadays we don't really need a real estate coach, but we consistently seek out coaches for improving our money mindset, improving our performance, improving our business, all kinds of things.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:00] Our business, our marketing, whatever it is we need.
Brian Persson: [00:21:03] Anywhere there's a gap, we'll go and look for it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:07] Yep, we get help. Points to consider when you are going to join a program or hire a coach, is make sure they are in alignment with what you are doing. Have they been where you want to go? Because if they can't speak to where you want to go, they can't help you get there in the way you're going to need. And are they going to push you in a way that's beneficial to your goals?
Brian Persson: [00:21:27] Beneficial pushing. Because some coaches can be way too aggressive and they're not able to come down to your level where you are. Maybe they have a hundred doors, maybe you have two doors, and you're trying to figure out how to get to five. They're talking about the hundred door level and they're not coming down to where you are at the two door level and helping bring you up to five. I've heard lots of stories of coaches like that, where they are not able to see where you are and come to where you are, and it's not a workable scenario. So you got to do your homework, do some deep dives on the person you're going to hire, because it will make a big difference.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:10] Absolutely. Get recommendations if you can. We always recommend hiring a coach sooner rather than later. We promise you the investment up front for a coach, you will get back tenfold in your real estate portfolio if you get them in advance, as opposed to after you've already made mistakes.
Brian Persson: [00:22:30] I think our journey was probably about a decade from the beginning to the end. I think if we had hired a coach, maybe around the 2 to 3 year mark, that would have been the right time. So podcasts, books, get yourself familiarized with all the language, get yourself familiarized with the culture of real estate investing. Go into those rooms and understand what happens in there, and then don't wait too much longer past that. Find somebody who you've met in a room or who you've got a recommendation from and get moving a lot faster.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:08] Absolutely. I think you just recapped our takeaways.
Brian Persson: [00:23:10] Did I? Alright, awesome.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:11] You did. Just to make it clear though, I could do it one more time. Like Brian said, dive into books and online resources first. Get yourself familiar with what that language is. Then walk yourself into networking rooms and events with experienced investors so you can start rubbing elbows with those who know what they're doing. And lastly, join a program and hire a coach. Our next topic is going to be 'the top three ways to get back your time'. Don't forget to go to discoverlifebydesign.ca/wealth and download 'The 3 Mistakes that Keep High Achieving Couples from Building their Wealth, Freedom & Living a Life they Love'.
Brian Persson: [00:23:50] We release podcasts every two weeks, so be sure to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app to journey with us and create your life by design.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:59] Thanks for listening to the Life by Design Podcast with your hosts Jessilyn and Brian.