Murray Massey is a seasoned realtor from St. John, New Brunswick, and he applies his background in construction to work with investors of multifamily and commercial real estate.
Murray walks us through his journey from renovating his first home to leveraging his family's real estate portfolio, providing a wealth of value-add strategies for clients. We also explore the elusive work-life balance in a realtor's life, contrasting it with more conventional job roles.
I'm your host, Micaiah Gosman and The MGR Podcast is where I talk with Real people, about real money and real estate. To connect with me you can visit my Website or follow me on Instagram or Facebook
Murray Massey is a seasoned realtor from St. John, New Brunswick, and he applies his background in construction to work with investors of multifamily and commercial real estate.
Murray walks us through his journey from renovating his first home to leveraging his family's real estate portfolio, providing a wealth of value-add strategies for clients. We also explore the elusive work-life balance in a realtor's life, contrasting it with more conventional job roles.
I'm your host, Micaiah Gosman and The MGR Podcast is where I talk with Real people, about real money and real estate. To connect with me you can visit my Website or follow me on Instagram or Facebook
Hey and welcome back to the MGR podcast, where we talk with real people about real money and real estate. Today we've got an exciting episode planned. We've got Murray Massey, a fellow exit realtor, here with us today. We're going to be talking about a little bit of everything a little bit about who he is, some of his goals for the future. We're going to be talking about multifamily and commercial real estate, how you can get into it, how we can set real expectations, and a little bit about everything. So we're going to dive right in. We're going to get into it. We're going to have a good time today on the podcast. But, murray, we want to introduce you a little bit. Tell me a little bit about yourself, a little bit about what you used to do and a little bit about what you're doing now and where you're from, and just a little bit about you.
Murray:Yeah, for sure. So currently I'm a realtor in St John. It runs with Exit Realty Specialists Really enjoying that. It's a lot of fun. So, mikaela, you're an exit too, so you know what it's all about. Oh, yeah, yeah, and I'm focused more on the multifamily and commercial space. I still do residential, there's no issue there but my main, primary focus is on the multifamily stuff. So I'm in a I guess you call it like an investing group. It's called Balth Genius, very similar to something like Kiespire. So it's a real estate education platform as well. Yeah, so there's a lot of networking that goes on there and that type of thing, and I've got to their events, spoken at their events as well, so that's been a lot of fun. So trying to stay as involved as I can in it yeah, that's awesome, yeah.
Micaiah:So right now you're living in St John. Have you been in St John? Tell me a little bit about where you were born and raised, what you ground going to do. Yeah, a little bit of background about you. Give me a little bit of info on that.
Murray:Yeah for sure. So, born and raised in St John in Runswick, always been there, like to travel around as much as I can but always keep coming back home for some reason. I was in heavy construction previous to being a realtor. So I was driving trucks, doing foundations, drain, tile, we did a little bit of work with septic systems and stuff like that kind of have a rudimentary understanding of that. Also, have my first part of my crane operators take it as well. So, yeah, I've done pretty much anything heavy construction or construction related. I did a lot of it myself too. So renovated my first home from the studs back kind of deal, and that's actually how I got into real estate.
Micaiah:Now is your family. Have they been real estate investors? How did you kind of get into like where'd your interest in multifamily real estate investing come from?
Murray:Yeah, so my folks have a multifamily portfolio and, for those that don't know, that just basically means they have a bunch of apartment buildings and I've grown up with it my entire life, so they've been in the business a long, long time, many decades. Since I was a little tiny kid, my first job ever was sweeping the hallways of the apartment buildings. So, yeah, that's what got me the knowledge in it as well. Obviously, being with somebody that's like my dad, who's been in it for that long, I've learned a lot about it. So I kind of had a bit of a leg up that way and then just furthered that with being a realtor and also the real estate education side of it.
Micaiah:Yeah, yeah, no, seriously, yeah. So as a realtor, everybody we know all the other realtors not just all the other realtors, but realtors as a whole are very different. Everybody's different. Everybody has their own niches, everybody has their own flavor, if I may. But definitely having that kind of construction background like you say you have, having that experience in multifamily, like with your folks owning multi-sale, it really does help and it makes a big difference and it helps you to kind of narrow down your niche and it gives you a leg up, like you said. So that's super cool. That's super cool Now. So how long have you been selling rest day for?
Murray:So coming up on two years now, so it was February 2nd, I guess.
Micaiah:Yeah.
Murray:Yeah, so almost two years now and it's been been awesome. Really enjoyed it. Haven't looked back at all. From the construction side it's a lot easier on the body too. You're not bouncing around in old trucks and breathing fumes all day and concrete dust and everything else.
Murray:Yeah all the concrete dust yeah, so no, I found what I want to do and it actually blends very well. So, if you know, like the terms blue collar, white collar so I never thought that it would actually blend that well. But having that prior knowledge, especially on the investing side of things, if people are looking to do like a flip, like you know, or fix a place up value add strategy, it lends itself very well to it because I can speak directly to knowing, okay, this is a massive ordeal or no, that's a really easy thing to fix. So, yeah, yeah, it positions me in a kind of a unique way. I guess yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome.
Micaiah:Now, how do you find you know I like to ask everybody that's on you know a little bit about, you know personal and work life balance, kind of thing. Okay, how do you find like no, I mean people that aren't real estate agents or realtors or whatever. They never, you know, nobody's ever going to understand the life of a realtor. That's actually like we're on 24 seven kind of thing, like we're always on, you know, it's very busy and it's like I mean, we're not always working but we are always on, like if somebody calls working but not working, yeah, and like your mind is always thinking like, okay, if a house comes up on the market and you see it, okay, wait, is this going to work for any of my clients, any of my buyers? Like or like you just always thinking about something in real estate. You're always thinking about something about your clients.
Micaiah:Now, how have you found the you know work? I know you just got married, yeah, which is very exhaustive, and congratulations on that. Now, how have you found like the work life balance there? And I also know you've been with your, your wife, for for a long, long time we were chatting about that before which is super cool, almost like middle school sweethearts, basically yeah, which is super cool. But how have you found like work life balance and stuff and kind of juggling the busy life, being a realtor and kind of being on 24 seven? Like how do you disconnect, I guess?
Murray:Yeah. So I look at it more of like it's not so much a job necessarily as it is a lifestyle. So it's like, even though you are technically always on, it allows me the flexibility that you know I can stop into her work, let's say, say hi, bring her coffee, whatever else the case might be.
Micaiah:Yeah.
Murray:And then go do a showing or like. So she works over on the West side of St John and oftentimes if I'm over West doing a showing there's sometimes like little gaps in between showings and stuff like that. So yeah, and pop in and say hi to her and then go. You know, go about my business and then see you later on as well. But I don't see it as necessarily always working. It's just if you accept the fact that you know you may have to answer a call or a text, you don't let it take over your life. So I'm a big proponent of like scheduling things in and time blocking. And that's been a huge thing too, because I just take certain sections of time and just say I'm not touching the real estate thing, I'm going to go, you know you with my wife and my family and that's it. Yeah, that's awesome.
Micaiah:Now, do you have any daily routines Like is there anything that you do like every morning? Because I know a lot of people like, whether it's meditation, gym, prayer, yep, and what are they called? Something like affirmations and stuff like that. You know everybody's everybody, but he has like something. I should know how everybody has something, but is there anything that you have like that you try and do like every day, whether it's in the morning or evening or so.
Murray:Like on the work side of it, I have a kind of like a structured week first of all. So I'll do like we have our I guess you call it apprentice meeting or whatever. It's just a weekly meeting we have. So there's that on Mondays and their sales meeting, and then there's like a coaching session, I guess, on Fridays, that I usually do too. Yeah, so I have a mentor that I meet up with him too. So that's from the week side of it. So I know on certain days I'm doing certain things. Thursdays, I do all my follow-up. So I've go through my client list, touch base with all the people I haven't necessarily spoken to. Yeah, and on the personal side of it, you know, get up in the morning sort of journal or write whatever you know, try and get things out of my head, yeah, I guess. So I'm gonna do a little walk, do some pushups and whatever else. Yeah, a little bit of exercise. Yeah, the blood moving and go hit it.
Micaiah:Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I heard once I don't know if it's true or not, but I heard that if there's something that you're like working on or something that you need like ideas for, you're supposed to like like think about it before you go to bed or work on it before you go to bed or something like that, and then, like while you're sleeping I don't know if it's true or not Like if this is just made up, like just tell me, yeah, but like subconsciously, your mind will like come up with ideas, like while you're sleeping, and like process it even more, like in your sleep, kind of choose on it, yeah, kind of choose on it a little bit, and then, like in the morning, like, yeah, like you said, like you write down, you get some pen and paper or whatever it is Like, and then you start journaling or writing down ideas that you've kind of come up with. Like I got some guys I work with, like we were chatting the other day. He was like you know I was thinking about, you know, this type of prospecting.
Micaiah:I had a dream about it. I woke up at 4am or 3am and you know I made some notes and it was great. I'm going to start doing it, you know, and I was like you know what I mean. You know, get 24, seven, we're all. We're always on.
Murray:Yeah, you've been in your dreams. Yeah, but no, it's a little. What I use is a little book called the five minute journal, so it starts with I'm trying to remember it now. He put me on the spot. Yeah, basically it's like what you're grateful for, first three things you're grateful for, or three things that would make your day good. Yeah, like focusing your mind on a positive aspect, like not really negative stuff, and then you know kind of some goals for the day, kind of deal, but it breaks it down so that way it's not a whole lot to do all the once in the morning, but it sets your mind on positive stuff and then you know go get it, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
Micaiah:I've also. I'm like bad for it. Some people say that you shouldn't like touch your phone like first thing in the morning and like you should like disconnect, like for your first like hour or two in the morning. But I find like waking up, grabbing my phone and like just getting ready to work and like it helps me like start my day, like like sometimes you know they say like, oh, like shut your phone off and don't pick it up because all the negative things from the world are going to be there, you know, and you got to respond to them and then you just have it a bad start to your day. But yeah, I find like, I find, like I mean it could be a bad thing, but sometimes I feel anxious.
Micaiah:If I'm not like checking it, I'm not getting back because I enjoy it. Like I enjoy, I enjoy working, I enjoy answering questions, I enjoy solving problems and, you know, working out these solutions and stuff. But so, yeah, for me it's like I get up, check my phone, lay in bed, answer some emails, and then get up, you know, get the kids out of bed, make some coffee, relax with my wife for a bit, yeah, and then, and then eventually I, you know, head out the door and just kind of have a nice. It's a slow morning, like. I'm not like not answering calls or setting appointments for 8.30, 9.00 AM. You know I kind of set those later back in the day.
Murray:But yeah, for me, like I. So I'm slightly different and everybody's different and goes through life. Yeah, certainly, I guess. But I take one hour basically in the morning and the phone stays home. Yeah, so I don't, don't touch it whatsoever, and you know, go for that walk or do the exercise or whatever Right on. And that way I sort of know in my head like, okay, if I need to decompress or something's really bothering me, then you know I've got that hour. It's for me only and that's it. I'm a pretty early riser anyway. So, yeah, I'm not up before anybody else and the phone's usually not going off at, like you know, 5.30 or 6 in the morning.
Micaiah:So I'll start texting you at that time. Okay, yeah, keep you busy.
Murray:But you'll get a. You'll get a response an hour after, yeah.
Micaiah:Yeah, I'll appreciate you. Yeah, okay, thanks again for watching my. You know multifamily commercial real estate we chatted a little bit earlier about. You know why you kind of got into multifamily, but what is it that you enjoy about multifamily? Now, you know before I say this for all of Murray's clients and all of my clients that we do residential work with. We love you, but what is it that you love about multifamily versus residential over residential and sales and stuff like that?
Murray:So I think the thing about it is and I don't mean to sound like unemotional by saying this, but it's a very like clinical business and what I mean by that is that either your numbers work or they don't work, you know, and we'll get into cap rates and all that other stuff later but basically it's a business decision and there's not a lot of emotion involved in it and for one way or another, it's not that that's better, it's just that it's simpler, I guess in a way. So it's like here's the numbers, here's the facts, here's the figures, here's what it could potentially be worth later on. You factor all those things in is a good investment, and then it comes down to a yes or no. That's it. There's no gray area. And I mean some investors sure, they might get a little bit emotional about it, but the professional investors, guys that are doing it all the time, it's just this works or no, it doesn't, yeah that's it.
Micaiah:And that's why I say, like all of our residential clients, like we love you, but it's like it is just. It's not even like that. We don't enjoy the emotional side of like selling residential homes, because everybody's got their memories or everybody is moving for a different reason, buying for a different reason. We love that side of the business and we love all our clients for that. But the multifamily stuff and the commercial stuff, like just the way that we're both wired, like we're kind of the same, that it's just like, like you say, it's not as emotional, it's a numbers game. You know it's everything's there. Like you say it makes sense or it doesn't. And, like you said, we can get into cap rates and stuff later.
Murray:But yeah, the other thing I'd add to that, just for a move on, if you don't mind, is well, it's the type like and again, I don't mean to sound crass or anything by saying this, but it's the type of people you deal with, so business owners and business-minded people and generally it's kind of like a it's a bit detached, I guess. Right, yeah, but it's the networking side of it too, something I really enjoy. So getting to meet new people and successful business owners, how can I emulate them? And then how can I turn that into helping my clients a little bit better too? Yeah, yeah.
Micaiah:Now okay, so let's kind of go back into that. So you've attended a couple, a couple like networking events like you just mentioned. Tell me a little bit about some of your favorite ones that you've done, what events you've gone to and what you've kind of gained from those and kind of what kind of relationships and stuff and why you found it's important.
Murray:Yeah for sure. So I, like you said, I'm part of a group called Wealth Genius and it's basically they offer real estate investing education, I guess, is a good way to live with it and I don't mean to sound like I'm promoting it or whatever. Like choose whatever you like, but it's one that I go as introduced to by a friend and he's had really great success with it. He's actually started his investing journey because of it kind of deal. So I went actually to one of their I guess it's now a buy sort of a buy annual event. It was held in Niagara Falls and I got to speak there in front of 500 people somewhere around there and I was completely fine for nerves until they called my name and then I was like I was really nervous.
Micaiah:No, no, let's go. Let's go, murray Messi. No, no, no.
Murray:I'll be honest, I was really nervous. No, it was good, because it pushed me outside of my comfort zone and it introduced me to a lot of more seasoned investors. I guess so, and that's kind of a thing is there's people that are just starting to learn and then there's people that are in it for more of the networking side because they're already experienced. They already know how to do the deals and everything. So I really enjoyed that part of it. But what I get out of it, I think, is the networking or anything, having grown up with the real estate investing not to say I know everything, not by any stretch but it's just I'm very familiar with it. So it's more so I want to keep meeting all those new people that are like-minded really enjoy that about it.
Micaiah:And it's not that a lot of times in a year. But the networking events it's always like in Ontario or out of New Brunswick and it's not that there's no, no New Brunswick investors that are worth kind of networking with, it's that one a lot of the people that are already here like investing and stuff. They already have kind of people. And so it's we go to Ontario, we go to Toronto and all these bigger cities to kind of meet new people and bring them into New Brunswick and show them the development opportunities, the investing opportunities, the multifamily commercial opportunities and show them the growth that we've had through immigration and whatnot.
Murray:And I'll segue into that. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I really enjoy that because my whole goal is to bring people to New Brunswick. A lot of people have said New Brunswick's have not province. I've heard that a lot and I'm kind of on a little like mini mission to change that. I guess I want to show people that New Brunswick has a lot to offer. We have an incredible lifestyle here. We're a very affordable place to live. I mean, I know the world's tumultuous right now and everything, but in the grand scheme of things, st John, new Brunswick was actually rated as, I think, the most affordable city to live in Canada.
Micaiah:Yeah, so yeah, I mean I believe that I do a lot of research on like Moncton, frederton, st John, like average rents and stuff like that and like average cost of living and stuff and like, yeah, like Frederton is like one of the most expensive, moncton is way up there. And then like when it comes to like major, like if you want to move to Buck Tush or Merrimachie or Bathurst or something like that, I would in the middle of nowhere, juniper or something like that, and then your cost of living might be. But if you're trying to get like, the cost for what you're getting like in St John is yeah.
Murray:It's incredible, yeah, and some of the opportunities down there. So St John's the oldest incorporated city in Canada. You've got a lot of old, gorgeous real estate. You know big old Victorian homes and things like that and really great opportunities. Now you have to know which ones are good and which ones are bad, like a nation's bad or whatever. But yeah, the opportunity to add value in St John I think is the biggest thing. Yeah, you know, if you want turnkey, frederton's probably better.
Micaiah:Yeah, yeah Now and like so in Frederton like the big industries are like IT government you know, and then obviously we got a big like student population with like UMB and St Thomas and so like that. What are kind of the big industries there that are kind of, you know, running Big?
Murray:drivers in St John. So we have an oil refinery, a really, really large one at that. So there's all kinds of skilled labor that's there, you know. So everything from plumbers, electricians, pipefitters, boiler makers, crane operators I used to run a crane in the refinery for a short term so, yeah, I mean lots of skilled laborers, and those are all very well-paid jobs, often all unionized jobs obviously too. So we have that just heavy industry in general. So we've got a pulp and paper mill, we've got a drywall producing plant, we've got a tissue mill, yeah, and then the sort of all the ancillary jobs that come around that. So there's a lot of you know, suppliers and sales guys and everything else all in that big industrial complex. So, yeah, that's kind of our main stuff. And then we also have a really large port that was just expanded recently too, that's right. I think it's four container cranes now instead of two, and that was a massive undertaking as well. So, yeah, lots and lots and lots of skilled laborers. So that's our demographic.
Micaiah:That's awesome. We need more of that. We need more of those folks around here. Man, it's impossible to find trades, people and like skilled laborers and stuff to do stuff around here. It's tough. It is tough everywhere. People don't really I don't know what it is that people just aren't interested in the trades like they used to be, but they are a very crucial part of our industry and stuff, absolutely Especially here in New Brunswick. So I wanna go back to so.
Micaiah:You mentioned wealth genius a little bit earlier. Yep, now tell me a little bit about your experience with that and I wanna talk a little bit about kind of segue into how folks can get into multifamily commercial real estate investing, yep, and just like what you're seeing in terms of their expectations coming into it versus your expectations, kind of meeting them and then also like what the actual realistic outcome is. You know, because everybody's always preaching all these, you know cap rates, cash flow, this and that. But give us a little, give us a little rundown on your experience with kind of actual realistic expectations and some stuff that you've run into in terms of growth. Yeah, just like people with unrealistic expectations maybe.
Murray:Yeah, so one of the things I would say is that I mean markets always change and markets local right, so they're one city's like. Your city in here in Frederickton is different than my city in St John or Monkton, but also provincially things change drastically. So landlord, tenant laws are different, the way transactions are conducted are different. So just on like a specifically real estate side of it for a second, in Ontario, if I understand it correctly, you put your deposit down first, then do your conditions, Whereas in the Brunswick we do our conditions first, then put our deposit down. That makes our sale like conditionally sold sort of deal. So little things like that are a big misconception I find with newer investors, even season ones that haven't come out this way. But then the other thing as well is the market conditions. So like in Ontario right now they're seeing quite a slide in their values. Out here we're still getting multiple offers. I had a client you know it was on a small little residential home super popular type of home Went to 17 offers in St John. So it's still like sort of peak time.
Murray:I guess, if you want to call it that, it's still very strongly a seller's market. So one of the things I've come across is like people want vendor take back or VTB. It's where they, you know the seller holds the mortgage. And it's not to say it's impossible to get on a lot of the commercial stuff, like you know, the commercial retail or whatever people may offer it.
Murray:But you know why would the seller go for the vendor take back, necessarily, when they can get 10 offers and go away over asking price. So and like I say, it's not to dash anybody's hopes, but it's just that you're going to have to work extraordinarily hard in order to make those things happen. And why try and fight the system? You know, maybe find one that's fallen apart a couple of times on finance or inspection and then maybe you can negotiate with them on price or whatever. But you have to be, you have to pay attention to where the market's going and St John and it runs like as a whole are still really strongly in the seller's market, which is very different from where a lot of these clients are coming from.
Micaiah:Yeah, and to kind of add on to that as well, with like VTBs and stuff like, if you are only trying to get you know, vtbs, seller financing, like these, you know creative financing deals with stuff that's like on the market, it's very rare that it's going to happen because, like, most people put their stuff on the market because they want to sell, they want their money, they want either hot price yeah, they want the top price and they want to like move on and buy something else maybe. So, really, like you know those VTBs and the seller financing and creative financing deals and structures and stuff that we come up with, typically we're finding those and I am anyway finding those off market and, like you said, in situations where maybe they did go on the market, they've had multiple offers. A deal fell through, they had another one, financing fell through again, own inspection failed again this time. And then you go in and you're like, hey, look, here's your creative option. It does benefit the seller even more because oftentimes they're getting a decent price. If they're willing to hold more, maybe the buyer will pay more, but then they're also like, if they're getting paid interest and stuff on top of that over a couple of years.
Micaiah:Yeah, absolutely, it can work out better for the sellers. You know you get into the details with capital gains taxes and stuff like that. There's tens of benefits for the sellers. But yeah, keep going with that. Wealth Genius people that kind of have unrealistic expectations on BTBs and stuff. But what else are you seeing?
Murray:Yeah, and I wouldn't say it's necessarily unrealistic expectations is that they don't understand our market very well yet and as a realtor, that's part of my job is to educate the clients.
Murray:That I have right. So I've got to give them market information, I've got to show them what's going on here and it's just it's more about education, necessarily, than it is an unrealistic expectation. They're told that, hey look, let's be creative with our financing, let's get the best deal possible, and absolutely there's nothing wrong with that as a premise. But it's just that you have to understand and what I've sort of picked this line up from one of my mentors is is this a market that you're willing to participate in? You know. So if I ask that question, it kind of really digs down to the bottom of it and it's like well, okay, am I really willing to go over asking, am I more patient? Do I want a lot of deals really quickly? So all of these things kind of factor into it. But yeah, I would say it's more so. Just, I don't want to say ignorance, but basically, right, you don't know what you don't know.
Micaiah:Yeah oh yeah.
Murray:And that's why we're here as realtors, yeah exactly.
Micaiah:Yeah, I mean I hate to say that I'm like a teacher or I can educate her, but at the end of the day, that's what you have to do, Because I know, when I before I got into real estate, before I bought my first house, I was just completely oblivious to anything. And like I, and like now, when I'm studying it every single day, learning, you know, going to these networking events, you know, having a mentor and stuff, I'm learning like just just an unparalleled amount of stuff, Like every single day something new, right, and so all we're, all we're just trying to do is just educate people so that we can have realistic expectations and have smooth transactions and, you know, help everybody involved right and you don't want to waste people's time either.
Micaiah:Yeah, well, exactly, yeah, I mean like these investors too, like these Ontario investors, if they're going to come to New Brunswick, they don't want to be wasting all their time just looking at properties and then just getting upset because, like, the deal's not coming together or because you can't negotiate a price that you think is fair, and so, yeah, I mean like, and then they're eventually, people are just going to eventually give up, right and stop.
Murray:Stop trying to make a deal happen if they don't have those real, yeah, and I think at the end of the day and that's something I've had to learn as well is that I need to set the expectation for the client right from the very get-go and say, hey look, these are the market conditions we're dealing with. This is kind of what's going on. Is it something you want to participate in? And then, if yes, okay, how are we going to go about it right? So another like little strategy that people have started to use and one of my two largest investors right now they're coming in with a cash deal, cash purchase on the property and then financing it afterward. So not everybody can do that, and I fully understand that that's a you know that's a top level type thing, but yeah, it's a technique that can be used. It kind of gets around a lot of those sticky issues.
Micaiah:So, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, and so I mean, by the time this airs I will have been there and back. But like, I'm heading to Toronto this week to meet with a bunch of investors and my goal is and kind of one of the reasons is one, to just kind of build that relationship with, like those Ontario folks and kind of get to know them a little bit so that we can, you know, make the transaction smoother. But also it's to do two things One, give them a game plan of what I need from them. Yes, like when we're going through the process, like when we're writing offers, like, look, I need you to be ready to send the deposit, I need you to be ready to, you know, make quicker decisions because the market moves quick over here. And just, you know, be ready to go and big list of things. But then I also am going to get like a list of stuff that they need from me to help make their decision, you know, quicker.
Micaiah:One goes with the other. Yeah, exactly, they just go one in the same right. So you know, I'm going to be providing them with every detail on the financing and income and expenses. You know, get the leases for them. Figure out when the last rent increases were, you know, giving them some information on what I think the average rents are, cause typically stuff multifamily that's selling right now is not at market rent but sometimes it gets priced as if it is All too true, but anyway. So yeah, giving them information on you know what the market rents are.
Micaiah:If they're flippers and they're doing flip projects, I give them, you know, renovation cost, renovation estimate estimates and stuff. I bring in my contract and crew and do renovation estimates and then I tell them like what the ARV is going to be like, the after renovation value and just like you know little things like that. So you know I need to do a lot more work on the back end and presenting them with something, but once I do present that, if I'm going all the way to you know, give it to you like I'm just like you need to make a decision yes or no quickly. You know, I know the market here in New Brunswick, you know, and just building that trust, you know what I mean I have to do a couple of transactions together. You have that trust, but it's just like I'm going to give you everything you need to make a good decision on a good investment here in New Brunswick.
Micaiah:And this is what you kind of need to do with this, with making the decision. Yeah, exactly, cause I mean there are people in New Brunswick that would, that will buy. But we're trying to. Not, I mean, some people don't like it that we're going to try to bring Ontario folks in, but we won't get into that. But but we're trying to grow in New Brunswick and grow the economy here and bring in, you know, maybe some more money, some more development and stuff like that.
Murray:Yeah, I mean, these things are like they trickle. They have a trickle down effect. Like you had mentioned, the contractors, right? So if we bring somebody in from Ontario, that's, you know, very financially well off, let's say, they go and buy two, three, four, five, 10 properties, even, yeah, and they renovate them all. Let's say, well, you're going to employ all those contractors, the architects, engineers, then so on and so on, all the way down sort of the economic circle, right, exactly, yeah.
Micaiah:Yeah, exactly, alrighty. So let's dive into a little bit about how little Billy or little Joe off the street can get into some multifamily investing. Okay, so I come to you I say, murray, man, you know I don't have any money or action, I'm not going to say that. But I say I say, murray, how do I get into multifamily investing? I want to buy my first multi-unit, whether it's a duplex, a triplex, maybe a four-unit, maybe I want to move into one of the units, maybe I want to do this and that. What are you going to tell me? What are some ways that anybody can kind of it's not going to be happening on day one, but eventually get into some multifamily real estate investing?
Murray:For sure. Yeah, so I would say the first thing is understand the fundamentals of a business Very first thing. So at the end of the day, like some, there's a distinction between being a landlord and being an investor. And what a lot of people don't realize is that a landlord somebody that looks after the property themselves it's how it was done for years and years and years like that's how my dad started, kind of thing, right Does all his own maintenance, looks after the property, he deals with his tenants every day and he loves it. He absolutely loves being hands-on with people.
Murray:An investor somebody and I'll come back to your point there but an investor somebody that maybe remote manages has a property manager just looks at only the numbers, kind of deal, and they don't even know who their tenants are, not for better or worse, not for being mean or anything, it's just they run it as a business, right. So if you understand business fundamentals first of profit and loss, how to analyze the deals, kind of thing that's really important. So I think education's the most important thing. First, understand what's a cap rate, what's cash on cash, what's a profit or what's a loss. Some people don't even know that right. So you have to understand all of your business fundamentals first and then figure out okay, well, what are the revenue streams that you're gonna get out of a multifamily property? So you have the property acquisition first and you have appreciation right, so the value of the property is gonna go up. You've got the debt pay down. If you're gonna use some financing right, so that's gonna add value to it. You can do forced appreciation, which is actually doing a renovation to the property to add value to it and add the ability to make some money on it.
Murray:So learn all of those fundamentals first before you even think about it, because so too many people jump in and think, oh, I just got absolutely everything out and put it all back in brand new and life's going to be great. That's not how it works. No, you know there's, there's how could I put it? There's realities, I guess to you know realistic budgets, realistic spending, what banks will loan you when you're doing a construction mortgage, like there's all of these different facets to it. So if you're brand new to it, understand your fundamentals first and then.
Murray:Second thing I would say is hook on to somebody that actually knows or has done it before so you know why, be your head against the wall and try and learn everything right from scratch, right from the ground floor, when you could leap for all your knowledge. If you, you know, meet somebody that's you know able to do it or has done it in the past, I guess, yeah. So whether that's a commercial realtor or you know some kind of real estate mixer or group, or you know, if it is something like you spy or well genius, doesn't matter, but talk to people who've done it before so you can avoid all the pitfalls and traps.
Micaiah:Yeah, and just learn from their mistakes and stuff like that. Yeah, and one thing to kind of add onto that, a little bit like with like grabbing onto somebody, whether it's a mentor or a partner or something like this. I was always against like partnering on like real estate transactions and deals and stuff like this. Yeah, and like kind of grew up, like you know, don't do business with family, don't do business with friends, like it's going to kill relationships and like a lot of times that is true, like you know, trying to do business deals with like family, like maybe nine times at a time, it doesn't work out or like there's going to be some resentment there which you don't want at the family picnics or whatever. But yeah, but finding somebody you know and sometimes family things work out, sometimes friend things work out but finding somebody that you click with, that's like business minded, that has the same goals and vision as you, to partner with and kind of learn together, and ideally it's somebody that knows a little bit more than you. You know what I mean.
Murray:I definitely agree Somebody you can build with, you know, I mean, if they're at the top of their game, maybe they're not going to have time to teach you kind of thing. But if they've got two or three properties, you know they understand the fundamentals. They've done it before. They made some mistakes. You can learn from them and kind of avoid those mistakes. Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. The other thing too is kind of like to your point of family stuff. So I've learned all my stuff from my dad, obviously, where he's been in the business for so long.
Murray:But people that are outside of that family friends group generally it's a bit more just like of a business relationship. It's easier that if something did go wrong you can just kind of part ways and, like we talked about with investing being a little bit black and white, that's kind of a nice part about it too. So but yeah, for like back to your point about somebody off the street. So you know, fundamentals first is the most important thing Find somebody that you know knows a whole lot about it and then understand okay, how am I going to source the money for it? So, as we had talked about with like the vendor take back and creative side.
Murray:That's a bit more difficult nowadays. So maybe it's a pre-approval or maybe you can use a home equity line of credit or something like that if you're in a decent financial position. But that's something else I'd say is that it's not for I don't want to say the ground floor, but like it's very difficult to get into if you don't have some money to start with. Yeah, so if you own a home and you've got equity to leverage against, maybe that's not the right thing for you, but it's one option, right? Yeah, yeah.
Micaiah:Yeah, and you know it's going to be a. I mean, you know you're not going to be able to buy one of these at the end of the month. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you can't just walk off the street and just buy, buy four-plex, yeah, Buy a four-plex Like an underground door. Yeah, exactly, I mean it's not going to happen, unfortunately. But there's ways that you can kind of set yourself up and start planning early so that you can buy one in 12 months, a year, absolutely Two years or something, whatever it is. Yeah, and I mean a year, two years, to plan, to buy, to work towards buying like a multi-unit is not a to unit, is not a long time at all, and so, like, if you just kind of start thinking about it now, like you have plenty of time, like most people listen to this, like you got plenty of time, yeah, and one of the other things I'd mentioned too and this is quite a bit more technical, but you know you're sort of residential properties, if you want to call them that.
Murray:from the loan perspective they're usually up to about four units, depends on the bank, the mortgage broker. But if you get into the commercial side of lending so you don't 5, 6, 7 units. Generally they're looking more so at the assets production than they are at your own personal ratios. Now, that matters, your net worth matters and all those other things they do net worth checks when there's enough money involved and things like that. But that, all being said, it's almost in a way easier to get into the commercial stuff because if the assets performing well, they're very likely to lend you the money. Yeah, now I'm going to preface this with I'm not a mortgage broker. You don't talk to a mortgage broker hey, that's it folks you heard of that first.
Murray:Yeah, no, yeah, but it's just from a general perspective.
Micaiah:Yeah, yeah, no, and I, some of my clients I deal with, like when they're buying like four units and under, they're like, okay, the application process is easier and it is easier for them who have great credit, have a lot of money you know, have a good track record of, you know, properties and stuff, but like for somebody that maybe doesn't have a huge track record, maybe you know, but has a bunch of money, you know, the commercial side of things could be, you know, a better like going five units or more could be like you know better in some situations. Yeah, yeah, and I mean it's going to take maybe more money down Initially in the application process is going to be a lot more detailed, they're going to need a lot more information, but it's all. But, like you said, once you get into that realm of things, it's more like asset production and you know the income you know, rather than residential, which is more based on the person that's taking the loan Exactly.
Murray:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Micaiah:So okay, so that's kind of a little bit about you. Know how you can kind of first get into multifamily investing. Do you like your clients that are like you know they have a house, they want to get into it, do you recommend that they sell their house and then buy like a duplex, move into one side? Or do you say like, maybe just do like a you know, like you mentioned a HELOC you know, and then try and buy it, or is there anything that you think is best?
Murray:I wouldn't say necessarily best, because it depends on your own personal situation, but I would say understanding the different methodologies that are there is going to help you to make the best decision for you. Now it sounds like I'm not answering the question, but what I mean by that is that some people from a family perspective wouldn't want to have to deal with somebody living right next door to them. They want their privacy, you know they don't want to be in a duplex directly beside somebody. Yeah, for other people, that's awesome. They're really happy to do it. You know they can we call it like house hacking, right? Yeah, get the, get the other unit to pay for your mortgage kind of deal. That's awesome For some people.
Murray:Let's say, you've got a construction background. Well, maybe you're going to do the burn method. You're going to buy it renovated like refinance it. That could be a potential. Or maybe you just do a straight flip where you're not going to hold on to it at all. You're going to buy it and distress condition, fix it up and then sell it.
Murray:So it depends on your financial resources. It depends on the particular position that your life is in and then also your long term goal too, right, like I talked to a lot of investors about. Okay, well, you want to go buy a triplex. Why do you want that triplex? Is it because you want to buy it and hold on to it for 50 years and get all of that natural appreciation over time and the cash flow? Is it because you want to, you know, rip through a whole bunch of different properties, you know, and go flip them and make a ton of cash and then go buy something huge. What's your long term goal? What's your short term goal? And then how do I help you find it? Yeah, you know. So it again. I don't. It's not that I don't want to answer the question that, oh no, yeah, I don't want to answer the question that I don't want to answer. It's so dependent on the particular person that you have to understand all these other strategies to figure out what's best for you.
Micaiah:Yeah, and that kind of comes back to what we talked about earlier about. You know, I'm going to Toronto to meet with these folks and I'm giving them a list of what I need and they're giving me a list of what they need, yeah, and then also like just what their kind of goals are. Like I have some clients that their only goal is to maximize the amount of units. Obviously it needs to, like, make cash flow a little bit, yep, but like the main goal is they understand Frederton and they understand Dubrovnik, the appreciation that's going to happen. Their goal is to just maximize units, get as many units, yeah, more doors.
Micaiah:And then, but I have other investors who are the opposite and they won't buy anything unless it's got like a 10% cap and it's cash flow. And you know, you know 8, 10%, you know cash on cash return, whatever it is, and it's just got to cash flow like crazy. Then other people they're just like we just want the cheapest thing and we want to renovate it and then refinance it. You know to buy more. So, like you say, it's just understanding what your goal is and what you want to do with the property.
Murray:Yeah, and that's part of my process too is, like you know, I usually have an introductory call with any investor that I have. So, whether it's from you know one of the groups, or whether it's somebody else that I've met, I'll take 30 minutes of my time, sit down with them and say, okay, what exactly are you looking for and why? And then I can kind of tailor my search for them based on that. Yeah, yeah, it's a very individual type thing and it depends on the goals that you're trying to hit, right? Yep, exactly, that's not just let's go buy a triplex for the sake of drive. Buy a triplex, exactly yeah.
Micaiah:Okay, so let's talk a little bit about like we hear multifamily, commercial and like multifamily. There's still commercial multifamily, but then there's also like commercial commercial. Yeah, I mean that's like office spaces and big you know Storefronts and stuff like that. So let's dig in a little bit this is my favorite one, yeah Into like kind of like multifamily versus commercial. The difference is there, you know, like commercial, commercial, and whether it's better to rent to tenants and like residents and like you know, single people, or whether it's better to, you know, lease commercial spaces to businesses and stuff like that you know. Just start talking about that and what your thoughts are.
Murray:Yeah. So from the like, from the multifamily side, you're gonna have a lot of you know individuals, a lot of families, and these people that's their home, right. Yeah, there's a lot of emotion involved, you know, and if there's family disputes or haven't forbid abuse or things like that, I've seen a lot of that kind of thing happen, unfortunately. But that changes the dynamic because it's a very emotional experience, whereas when you're dealing with a business, kind of like the investor side of it, it's just okay what's the rent? You know, what's the type of lease that I've got? Is it a gross lease, is it a? And that lease, whatever that might be, and that's it. You know, it's very simple.
Murray:But the other side of it is that there's a risk with commercial, where you know if that business fails, they're gone and then can you fill the space. So in St John, just as like a market snapshot right now, we've got a lot of big, huge, older buildings that are kind of disused, if you want to call it that, and they're just sitting empty, a lot of them. So, after you know the big work for home thing after the pandemic happened, a lot of them are vacant at the moment. We don't talk about the pandemic? No, I'm sorry, no.
Micaiah:I'm just playing go.
Murray:Yeah, yeah, but after that happened, yeah, it's left a lot of buildings vacant. But I see it as a massive opportunity because we have quite a bad housing shortage at the moment and it's tremendously expensive to build brand new. So if you look at like a normal house that has like a regular bungalow, I think it's like 450 grand nowadays to build one, or you can still buy one for like 250. That's essentially the same thing. It's brand new. So taking that logic and putting it into the commercial space, like the retail commercial space, you can take these properties, renovate them top to bottom and then you've got a massive, usually very well built building that's gonna house a whole bunch of people. So that's the other side of it is that these buildings are usually built to a commercial standard. So they've got elevators, sprinkler systems, usually steel frame and, you know, wider doors, concrete construction, wider doors, wider hallways. So the renovation isn't actually too bad because the code compliance is easier A lot of times. They've got three phase power, so the power is no issue whatsoever.
Murray:Now, of course, it's case by case. Yeah, I see it as a massive opportunity. So it depends from the investing side, it depends on what you're trying to do. But commercial retail right now is suffering. There's no question about that. Yeah, and multifamily is, it's on-riding.
Micaiah:Yeah, it's doing really well. Yeah, cause there's a huge demand. Yeah, exactly, yeah, I've heard a lot of talks about people that are buying. Like in this time and over the past couple of years, when, you know, covid hit and everybody started working from home, they were buying these massive, like I don't know, 20, 30, 40 floor buildings, commercial buildings that used to be all office spaces. They're buying them and turning them into like condos or something like that condos or apartments or something like that, and like then just filling them Like cause, like everybody needs a place to live and especially here in Canada we're having, we have so much immigration and then especially, you know, I mean most of it's probably, I think, in Ontario correct me if I'm wrong but then a lot of people like for New Brunswick, we have a lot of, you know, immigration for the size we are.
Murray:We do, yeah, and there's this massive influx of people, which is not the standard that New Brunswick's been. So you know I'm here to wave New Brunswick's flag and, you know, give attention to it. But for a long time we were very stagnant economy. You know we'd have little booms, little busts, but it was a very kind of just steady flow and not a whole lot of growth. So that's something else that investors should understand is that this isn't the norm for New Brunswick. This is something that's just come in. So, on the like, being a responsible kind of investor, you want to look at the long-term projections as well. Is this, you know, immigration going to keep up and if so, what does that mean for my multifamily business? Yep.
Micaiah:All right, so let's talk a little bit about multifamily versus commercial and what we're looking for when we're going through these properties. Like, if we're going through a multifamily property, like, what are we looking for Is it doesn't need to be purpose-built or they need to have separate meters, whatever Commercial leases like what are we looking for in a building there? What are we looking for when we're trying to, you know, get lease's sign like do we want a triple net, whatever it is? Tell me a little bit about oh there goes my coffee. Tell me a little bit about what you're kind of looking for with your folks when you're kind of going through.
Murray:Yeah, for sure. So purpose-built is one of the first ones. So in St John I should preface this with that we have a lot of old properties that are, you know, over 150 years old. Some of them are 100 years old. So it's hard to find purpose-built stuff. A lot of them are. They are actually like a big old grand home that was converted into units. Oh yeah, so that's the vast majority of our stuff in St John, but purpose-built's always better. As you had mentioned, individual meters are really important because then you know you can have the tenants pay their own utility bills and then that offloads some of the cost from the landlord and helps your profitability.
Micaiah:So that's great and it helps with consistency because power bills are going to be all over the place. Some tenants crank their heat up 30. Some tenants leave it ice cold. They don't have like 17 in the winter kind of thing. So it helps with the consistency there and budgeting.
Murray:Yeah, absolutely. You know what your expenses are gonna be because you don't have to worry about the variability and also if you have a super cold winter versus a super warm winter, right that's. I mean, some winters we have are crazy and they're gonna freeze to death. Another one's hard, yeah, so that's part of it. St John's specific, so foundations are a really important thing there. One of the properties that my family has actually we took the back end off of it. We call it like a back L, so you kind of have like the main house in St John and then a lot of times a little extension off the back. Okay, and a lot of times the back Ls are not built on proper foundations. So this one actually had cedar posts directly into the ground. That was it. Now the main house is on a proper foundation, but the back L was literally just cedar posts driven into the ground. There's only one left.
Micaiah:Wow, so you know, and how long, how old is that building, like those cedar posts are probably 1880s, something that was built, yeah, 1590s something like that. So so I mean, good for the cedar for holding up that long.
Murray:Oh sure, yeah, by that it's at that point now yeah, yeah, there was only like one post left on one side of the house, so you're gonna know that going into a lot of these places and watch for it. The other one is the old cobblestone foundations that have, like the lime mortar in the center. Oh yeah, so they. What can happen is they're only good for about a hundred years. So some of the engineers I've talked to have said what happens is you get frost jacking in the ground and that ends up pushing the wall in slowly over time and then, once the mortar starts to let go and fail, you need to replace that wall. Like it's a big job.
Murray:Now, that being said, if you've got one that's got good drainage and everything else around it, the house could be in great shape and no problem at all. But if you see a stone like cobble foundation, you better have a really good look at it. Yeah, so that's one of the other things. There are poured concrete foundations and brick foundations too. They're usually not too bad as long as they don't have big cracks in them.
Murray:Yeah, the other thing I would say and I've talked to a lot of people from Ontario and they don't seem to understand why but brick facades in St John and I don't know if it's just the age A lot of time the brick facades, the mortar in between, starts to crack up really bad and it's really really expensive to repoint them or like to replace the mortar. You got to grind it out and put it back in and it's a really labor-intensive thing. So, like brownstone as people will call it, or brick facade places, they can be tremendously expensive to repair and maintain, whereas the wood frame houses they're a bit more compliant, a bit more flexible. They move and shift with the ground kind of deal, and they're usually a bit better off structurally.
Micaiah:And do you find that, like those brick buildings, like with the brick facades, do you find that they don't last as long? Because, like here in Frederton, like where we're not so close to the ocean, I don't know if that's any and I don't know if it's environmental factors or whatever, but they just don't seem to hold up all that well.
Murray:Yeah, or at least they're maintenance intensive, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
Micaiah:And so, like here in Frederton, it's almost like if you got a brick building, it's like, yeah, right on, like more like a brick sod or something like that. It's like, oh, that's a great, you know solid building and you're not gonna zero maintenance. Basically I don't know. Yeah, I mean it's like case-to-case, and in St John I think there's a lot more buildings that were built that way, and so in Frederton it's more like the odd one out, kind of is?
Murray:Yeah, and I think that's part of it too is that the age of a lot of the buildings has a big part to do with it, right? So if it's a more modern brick structure, usually they're not too bad because they're on better footings. But, yeah, so that's one of the things I'm looking for in a lot of the multifamily stuff, and that's usually below, like sort of the six unit level. Once you get beyond six units, generally in the city it's more modern stuff. It was built in like the 1970s and up. So, yeah, the other thing too is looking at like the plumbing and electrical systems.
Murray:So I don't know if any of your viewers know, but there's a thing called knob and tube wiring. That's where you've got like a little ceramic insulator and an uninsulated wire that goes across the top of it. Yeah, insurance companies don't like it. Finance companies, yeah, obviously don't like it either, but sometimes you can't get insurance on them, or it's extremely difficult to do so, or the insurance company will say, hey, you gotta have it out in 30 days or something. So watching out for that's a big one too, because oftentimes people will splice into that old system and then it can cause all kinds of nightmares.
Micaiah:Yeah, I don't even wanna talk about it, but we just one of my guys just bought a building and from quick glance there was like no knob and tube, right, but it was this old conversion building and anyway we were like some weird stuff was going on, like it was like a four unit and like some of the lights in one of the unit were controlled by a panel in a different unit. So we started kinda exploring a little bit. Sure enough, man, just knob and tube through the whole entire building, and I was like, oh my goodness, and they just like spliced on, like you say, and all the outlets looked good. You take the outlets off and it's like new wire, oh yeah, right on. But then like we started taking us some light fixtures, pulling back some drywall, and we're like, oh no, anyways.
Murray:It's something to watch for. I guess it's not that you can't avoid it sort of thing, but it's just with a lot of the older buildings, that's something to watch for, yeah. And then from like a performance perspective, so usually I'd like to see an investor get into something with like an eight cap, maybe somewhere around there. So it cap rates, basically like your net operating income divided by your value, all the pipe 100, you get a little percentage. So like a 10 cap is amazing, 10% cap rate is incredible. It's really good, yeah.
Micaiah:and a lot of a lot of my investors anyway, the people that I work with try and get, once they purchase a building at like you know, if they're purchasing them like really low, at like six or 7%, they try and get them to like an operating cap rate of like 10, 11, 12% kind of thing. It's possible to optimize it, yeah, if possible. Once kind of things are optimized kind of thing, if they know that they're never gonna be able to get it there, then like they kind of pull back a little bit. But Yep, yeah. Now for commercial spaces.
Micaiah:You mentioned that those are kind of tricky. Like, instead of a business, go sideways, like that space is going to be vacant, it could be vacant for a long time. Like even here in France. Like there's a lot of office spaces like that are just sitting there like empty and like you see, you know listings out there office space for lease, like nobody's calling, nobody's going to them. Now, what is it that we're looking for, like in commercial spaces, either as like an investor or as like a potential tenant that we want to see, like, do we need bathrooms in every little commercial space? Do we just need big open space? You know, what are we kind of looking for?
Murray:Yeah. So again, it does depend on what you're going to try and use it for. But I would say, from like an investor's perspective, looking to buy the place if you have an anchor tenant in place, so you know you've got to. I'm just going to throw some brand names. So if you've got a Sobeys or a Canadian Tire or you know a restaurant that's been there for 50 years or something like that, if you've got a really great anchor tenant that's been there for a long time, that's kind of like a mainstay, staple business that everybody's going to frequent.
Murray:Then all of your little other units usually you can get those filled because people say, hey, look, it's a secure building, somebody's been here for a long time, it's well established. So if you are going to buy it and use it as a commercial space specifically, that's probably what I'd be looking for, something that has a nice solid anchor tenant. Yeah, that would be great. And then obviously you know like a triple net lease is way better because they're paying for, you know, your taxes and maintenance and everything else like that. So it's really good from the owner's perspective because you don't have a whole lot of risk. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Micaiah:Yeah. But I mean yeah, I mean my multifamily folks are like I don't want anything commercial, like get me away from that stuff, I don't want that. But then, like I got some commercial folks that are like give me all the commercial give me strip malls.
Micaiah:Give me like, give me a big, you know, skyscrapers. I'm like what? Why do you want that? You know, but everybody's different. Everybody has, like every investor also has like their niche of investing. Some people it's low income, affordable housing and you look at the units and they're kind of a little bit beat up but they're really targeting and, you know, niching in on, you know, making affordable housing for people and like if it's affordable, if it's affordable, then it's hard for the owner and the investor to keep up with making it. You know this, doing all these luxury updates and stuff. So you know, some people look at them and they're like, oh, they're just slum lords and stuff. But it's like it's like some, some of them are, but some people are just trying to cater to a very low income demographic and trying to give those people who just can't afford, you know, 12, 13, 14, 1500 bucks a month in rent.
Murray:You know $300 a month's a lot more reasonable, $700 a month's a lot more reasonable, and not everybody can afford that $1600 a month place. Oh yeah.
Micaiah:No, it's, it's crazy. And rents have come up. I remember my first place was was like 700 bucks a month or 750 bucks a month and I thought that was like crazy. You know, like for this little two bedroom unit it was a nice two bedroom unit. They just updated it and you know, new appliances, new countertops, new flooring, paint, and I was like 750 bucks a month. I'm like, oh man, this is crazy. And then now, yeah, I don't even think I haven't seen anything out there for 750 bucks, like anyway, but no matter the size or condition, right, so it's, it's, it's.
Micaiah:You know, things are changing. But the other thing is a lot of tenants and like people that just own houses and look at investors and stuff they hate on them because they're like, oh, you're charging $1400 or $1600, you know, for this, you know stupid apartment. But what they don't realize is I just paid a million dollars for this building. If I don't charge at least a thousand bucks or 1200 bucks or 1400 bucks, like, I'm going to be losing thousands of thousands of dollars a month. Like most, investors are not greedy and they're not trying to screw people over, they're just trying to pay the bills, just like any other person.
Murray:Yeah, yeah and that, and that's the thing, like I had sort of mentioned the difference between, like, a landlord and an investor.
Murray:I don't say any either of those with a negative connotation. It's just that if you're an investor, you're only looking at the numbers, right yeah? So you've got to make sure and landlords too as well. You have to make sure that the numbers are going to work. But I think as a landlord, like a lot of those types of guys they're older fellows that have done, or girls, doesn't matter, but those people have done a lot more like hands on stuff, so they do their own repairs. They don't have to pay for a property manager so they can afford those lower rents. But if you're a remote investor, you've got to pay a property manager, you've got to pay a full plumber's rate. You can't put a couple of shark fittings together with some pecs and do it yourself.
Micaiah:Yeah, call everybody to come do it in the middle of the night for a discounted cash deal or whatever yeah, whatever the case is.
Murray:But the point being is that if you're a strictly an investor and you're using a property manager and all professionals for every single thing that has to happen to change a light bulb or whatever yeah, and you have to pay for that because you have to pay for it at the end of the day. So, yeah, and that's a distinction.
Micaiah:I don't think a lot of people see, yeah, and when you're coming into like a new city as well, new city, new province and like investing, it's going to take a while to build those connections and you know your costs are going to be higher. You know to start.
Murray:You know, in most cases, yeah, and that's where like, and the little plug for realtors, for a second, I guess. But that's where using a good, like commercially or investing focused realtor is nice because you and I both have connections with you know contractors, flowers, electricians, whoever we can steer people in the right direction, yeah, yeah.
Micaiah:Man, this has been awesome, but we're going to talk about a couple more things that we're going to get out of here. So one thing I always ask everybody where were you, where are you now and where do you want to go? Kind of thinking like, what are your goals? So I just want to kind of touch back on some of that kind of stuff. So you kind of told me a little bit about what you did before and the construction, crane operation, whatnot, yeah, and right now you're doing real estate kind of thing. You know you're setting your goals, you're improving every day, you're coming up, you're making more money, selling more properties and educating more people, helping more people every day. I'm sure it was awesome, but tell me a little bit about your goals and stuff for the next like year, two years, five years, and just give me a little bit of something for the people to look forward to when we have you back on. Where are you going to be next time we see you?
Murray:Yeah. So I mean I obviously want to do more on the like, more on the multi-side, than I am doing right now, like I still do residential and I'll always still do residential because I can. You know, like somebody wants to buy a house, I'm not going to shy away from them, but trying to make that the main focus of the business. The other thing as well is I want to try and get some new construction going. I'm a little bit new to that, but I mean I know the construction side of it, just not the management side. So yeah, looking to maybe take one of my folks properties and then do a new build on it, kind of deal. So we'll see how that goes. Ambit ambitious, but I like aiming high and you know, if you aim really high and then fall a little short, you're maybe further ahead than if you didn't aim that high.
Micaiah:So yeah, no, I totally agree. What are you open to? Kind of just really focus on saying John, or are you open to expand to like all the other big cities, or what are your thoughts there?
Murray:I think staying local is a good idea because I understand it really well. But I mean, like yourself, I have referral partners in different cities. So you know it's not that I can't help somebody if they want to look at a different city, because I've got guys like yourself and Fredrick and you know somebody I can refer to that I trust. So I think I'll stick in saying John myself, because that's where all my friends and family are, but just get a lot larger, a lot faster, trying up the. You know the transaction volume as well. I do like offering really quality service to the people that I deal with and making sure they're well taken care of.
Murray:So even if I did have a team someday, or whatever else the case might be, I want to ensure that those people are well looked after. That's going to be. It is just building kind of a commercially focused group of guys or guys that can help them out.
Micaiah:Yeah, yeah, that's really important, like for people listening that think, like you know, you don't want to spread yourself too thin, you really want to get knowledgeable and learn, pick a niche and learn and get good and at what, what you know. And like for you it's like St John multifamily real estate and it just makes sense. Like I even like in Frederton, like I feel like I know Frederton very well but even like I'll go to like a smaller, you know sub district or sub neighborhood in Frederton and I like I feel like I know nothing about just that little neighborhood in Frederton. I'm like, oh man, I still got a lot to learn about Frederton. But yeah, you know, we're always improving. We're always improving, always learning more and more and just always kind of doing continual education and learning and networking and stuff.
Murray:Yeah, and I would say like, just as like a sort of why I'm doing what I'm doing. My whole goal is to, you know, enable investors to be able to make a living for themselves, to improve their lives and, like I'm sure people know that, like, if you invest properly, it can be passive income, right, yeah, so helping people create passive income that's going to benefit their life, that's part of my goal, or part of, like, the why behind what, why I'm doing what I'm doing. And then just bringing attention to New Brunswick in general, I don't like that sort of stigma that New Brunswick has that it's a have, not province. Yeah, we've got so much to offer here, so much natural beauty and, you know, business opportunity. People need to know about us. So, yeah, that's why I'm traveling. It's kind of the province sometimes to do it just like yourself.
Micaiah:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh man, murray, this has been awesome. I really appreciate you coming all this way and yeah, and then being on, so okay, so if you want to chat with Murray, if you want to get into some multifamily real estate investing here in St John, new Brunswick, specifically, murray's your guy. So, murray, how can they get to get in touch with you? What's your number? And if you want to give it out your number or your email, absolutely so my.
Murray:My phone number is 506-645-0043. Right on, murray at exit SJ is my my email there. Yeah, where you can find me on Facebook? Murray at exit, reality specialists Awesome, awesome, is that be great.
Micaiah:If you want to. If you want to learn more from Murray, you can definitely get in touch with him. If you want to, if you have any questions for me, just go to my website, gosmanca, and get in touch there and happy to answer any questions. Or if you have any particular topics that you want to talk about on the show, we are happy to accommodate you and take any suggestions. So that's it's been. It's been awesome having you here, murray.
Micaiah:Thank you so much and thanks again for coming on, man, and we'll be we'll be chatting soon, so thanks a lot. We'll see you later. Bye, bye, thanks so much for tuning in. If you have any questions or want to learn more, feel free to check out my website at gosmanca. Wherever you're listening from, leave me a five star review and let me know what you'd like to see in future episodes. Also, if you're a buyer or a seller and looking for some guidance in this ever changing real estate market, I want to work with you, to get in touch today through my website at gosmanca, or you can search Makai Gosman realtor on Google and get connected with me through any of my social media platforms. Thanks so much. I'll see you in the next episode.