Episode 153: Navigating Canadian Real Estate with Investors Nick Hill and Daniel Foch

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What’s holding Canadian real estate investors back from taking action — and how can creative financing unlock deals in today’s tough market?

With rising rates, tighter lending, and uncertain prices, it can feel impossible to break into or scale in Canadian real estate. In this episode, we’re joined by Nick Hill and Daniel Foch, hosts of the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast, who bring clarity and strategy to the chaos. Whether you’re stuck in analysis paralysis or unsure how to structure your first vendor take-back (VTB), their hard-won insights will challenge how you think about progress and opportunity.

What you’ll learn: 

• Learn how leading with value — not perfection — can fast-track both deals and partnerships.
• Discover why VTBs are making a comeback and how to pitch them to sellers the right way.
• Unpack practical advice on balancing systems, mindset, and action in volatile markets.
  

Press play now to hear how Nick and Dan are helping investors stay sharp, stay strategic, and find deals where others see roadblocks.

Resources:

• Part 1 of this discussion can be found on the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast: Listen on Apple | Listen on Spotify
• Dive into Dan and Nick’s community Realist. Learn more here. 
• Listen to the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast. 
• Ready to take a deep dive and learn how to generate personal tax free cash flow from your corporation? Enroll in our FREE masterclass here. 
• Book a Discovery Call with Kyle to review your corporate (or personal) wealth strategy to help you overcome your current struggle and take the next step in your Canadian Wealth Building Journey!
• Discover which phase of wealth creation you are in. Take our quick assessment and you’ll receive a custom wealth-building pathway that matches your phase and learn our CRA compliant tax optimized strategies. Take that assessment here.
• Dig into our Ultimate Investment Book List
• Follow/Connect with us on social media for daily posts and conversations about business, finance, and investment on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook [Kyle’s Profile, Our Business Page], TikTok and TwitterX. 

Calling All Canadian Incorporated Business Owners & Investors:

Consider reaching out to Kyle if you’ve been…

• …taking a salary with a goal of stuffing RRSPs;
• …investing inside your corporation without a passive income tax minimization strategy;
• …letting a large sum of liquid assets sit in low interest earning savings accounts;
• …investing corporate dollars into GICs, dividend stocks/funds, or other investments attracting corporate passive income taxes at greater than 50%; or,
• …wondering whether your current corporate wealth management strategy is optimal for your specific situation.

Struggling to find real estate deals in Canada’s current market? In this episode, we’re joined by Nick Hill and Daniel Foch of the Canadian Real Estate Investor Podcast to explore creative financing strategies like vendor take-back (VTB) mortgages, how to pitch seller financing, and why leading with value beats chasing perfection. Learn how to navigate Canada’s volatile real estate landscape, build powerful partnerships, and take action on the right deals. Perfect for investors looking to grow in 2025. Topics include Canadian real estate, real estate investing Canada, vendor take back mortgage, seller financing Canada, creative real estate financing, real estate podcast, Nick Hill real estate, Daniel Foch real estate, passive income real estate, mortgage tips Canada, and real estate strategy Canada.

Transcript:

Jon Orr:

All right, let’s get into this because we have Nick Hill and Daniel Foesch from their podcast, which is the Canadian Real Estate Investing Podcast. And this episode is kind of part two from the episode that we recorded over on their podcast. And we’re gonna dive into a number of topics around Canadian real estate. We’re gonna kind of continue the conversation we started over there. So if you’re listening to this right now and you’re like, wait a minute, part two, look in the show notes right now, like scroll down, open up your podcast platform, look at the link that’s right there in the show notes, that’s gonna take you over to their podcast, which is where we recorded part one of this conversation. You can go, if you like, pause right now, go listen to that episode, then come on and join us here for part two. Otherwise, do it in reverse order, you know? Let’s experiment a little, but let’s get into it, guys. We are welcoming you to our show and we are excited to have you here, but we wanna unpack a little bit about each of you. So I’ll let you guys figure out who you wanna start with, but give us a little story here. Who are we talking with and how did you get into say podcasting and where you are right now and what your roles are?

Daniel Foch:

I’m a new, I’m going to start cause Nick has like a really like booming deep radio voice and I don’t want to be embarrassed after that. It’s a hard, tough act to follow. So, my name’s Daniel Foch. I’m a real estate broker by trade. I currently work as the chief real estate officer for a company called Valerie.ca, which is Canada’s first AI real estate brokerage. We are, we’re an AI company that sells real estate and we help realtors to refine their business. You know, a big piece of that we hear about in the real estate spaces. The millionaire real estate agent book tells agents their first hire has to be an administrative assistant. And so we’re really trying to make it our job that we consider ourselves a hire to agents who want to scale from that kind of low six figures to high six figures by bringing on an admin. Beyond that, I talk too much on social media about Canada’s economy, the real estate market especially, and dabble in politics, but it’s been been kind of hard when there’s an election going on. But that’s that’s kind of me. That’s that’s who I am. I do a lot of research work on Canadian economics and housing. One of the ways that I make income is through consulting a lot of developers and businesses in the space on how to wade through the housing economics right now.

Kyle Pearce:

Awesome, awesome. So happy to have you there, Dan. I see your content. It is so consistent and so informative. Like everything I see, I’m always like, how did you, did you stumble across that chart? Like, or did you search for it? Or like, I would love to learn more. Not today on this podcast about your routine, but I love knowing, you know, and seeing all of the data that you dig up around the real estate market is quite often the case, but also, you bring up the very informative data around politics and around the markets in general. So we appreciate you for that. So definitely give Dan a follow. Nick, we’ve had the opportunity to meet you in the flesh when you folks were down here for a real estate meetup. It was an awesome, awesome pleasure to get to, you know, put the booming voice to the name and to build what looks like a pretty awesome connection here. So Nick, tell the group about yourself. How’d you get in? And what are you up to these days?

Nick Hill:

Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for having us on here, fellas. It’s too bad. I really wish we could have gotten them more into Dan’s morning routine, which I know has a, he gets up at like 3 a.m., rubs a banana on his face, puts his face in a bowl of water and then looks at charts for six hours.

Jon Orr:

Ha ha.

Kyle Pearce:

Does he do any vocal exercises to try to like strengthen the booming voice?

Jon Orr:

Hey, Dan, Dan. Dan, you and I have to hang out because we gotta compare. Yeah, yeah, let’s do it.

Daniel Foch:

Yeah, 100%. I’m down. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at 3am on the… Yeah, sure. Okay, cool.

Kyle Pearce:

The banana part, right? John, you connected on that.

Nick Hill:

Yeah, no, all jokes aside, my name is Nick Hill. I’m the other half of the Canadian real estate investor podcast, which Dan and I started almost three years ago. Actually, I guess we started at more than three years ago, but we didn’t start releasing episodes until about two years and 10 months when then it’s just crazy to see how much this aspect, this business venture that we’ve gone has changed our lives for the better, allowed us into arenas like this to speak with people such as yourselves. So I’m a mortgage agent by trade. I help investors and end users across the country secure and source capital for any type of investment, whether it’s your first condo, your first duplex or your first 150 unit building. I’m also a real estate investor. Dan and I recently exited a small fund that we had built up. We do events and speaking engagements across the country, which is also a ton of fun and really just have been trying to add value back to the real estate community. As it’s really gone through probably the last five years, probably one of the most volatile kangaroo markets, right? Not a bull market, not a bear market, but literally a market that’s so all over the place. So, you know, we’ve had no shortage of things to talk about, but we’ve always led with just trying to add as much value to the industry as possible. So happy to be here and try to add value to you and your listeners.

Jon Orr:

Yeah, and we want to thank you for that, you know, and both of you, both of you, you know, we’ve been active listeners to your podcast. We talked about that on the previous episode, but, you know, adding, you know, one of the things that we were trying to do is add value as well. But I think, I think you’re, you know, when we listen to yours, we always take away huge value. And again, thank you for adding to the community, which, which kind of like leads me into like one of the, one of the questions I think we all wonder about when we hear, you know, voices that we find familiar is how did Nick and Dan stumble across the pod? Obviously it makes sense that if you’re a mortgage broker and a realtor, how you may have met, but maybe you can fill us in. how do you, yeah, right, yeah. But then how does that transition into like, is it like, hey guys, let’s just flip on the mic and start talking about some of the things we’re passionate about, and then it spirals from there, and that’s kind of what we did.

Daniel Foch:

Yeah.

Nick Hill:

You want our meet cute, you want our meet cute story, don’t you?

Kyle Pearce:

Yeah.

Jon Orr:

in this for this particular podcast. And we did that with with Matt Bigley, one of the original co-hosts. But talk to us like what does this look like as a story to get you to one of the most listened Canadian real estate podcasts or Canadian podcasts or business podcasts, you know, in Canada right now?

Nick Hill:

Yeah, Dan, if you don’t mind, I’ll start things off because actually I did make the first move. So it’s only fair that I get to, it’s only fair I get to speak first here. Yeah. So, so Dan and I had, we’re a couple of years apart, but we’d gone to the same university. Had a bunch of similar friends and whatnot. And when I started actively putting myself out on social media as, look, I’m a full-blown real estate investor. Now that’s what I’m doing with my life. People knew me as an entrepreneur. I’d had several businesses. This was kind of just probably a lot of people’s perspective the next thing. But I had a bunch of mutual friends let me know about Dan and when I went and followed him on Instagram, literally that day his story was about a possible real estate deal that was a few blocks away from where my parents lived of all places. So was like, what are the chances of that? So I reached out to him. I think we literally met for wings and beer the next day. And kind of agreed to just start working. We didn’t know what it was gonna look like or what we wanted to do. We knew that we wanted to have a major impact on the industry and add value and kind of recreate some of the stuff that I think we had witnessed fall off over the years. So we started a podcast called the Brick and Mortar podcast. Actually, Dan had kind of been doing it and allowed me to hop on and we brought in people and interviewed them and you know, kind of had no direction and just as we were about to like literally just as we had agreed to quit that podcast because it wasn’t really given us anything in return. Dan got a very fateful DM from now are we endearingly call them our pod fathers. But the guys who have the Canadian investor podcast and other amazing podcasts, if you’re listening to this podcast, I can tell you will like that one anyways, they were looking for a show about real estate investing because Canadians like real estate investing. They, these guys focus on kind of stocks and the capital markets and whatnot. And they were like, yeah, you know, you, you, do you have any experience in podcasting Dan’s like, yeah. And he was like, you have a hostess? He’s like, yep. And literally we got in a call with those guys the next day and that was three years ago. And it has been two episodes per week without fail recorded all over the world when we need to sick or angry or tired or whatever.

Jon Orr:

So, how to do it.

Nick Hill:

And yeah, yeah, you guys know the game and it has been, it’s been an amazing journey and a life-changing experience, I think for both of us and for hopefully from what I hear for a lot of the people that listen to us as well.

Kyle Pearce:

That is quite fantastic. I want to hear now from Dan how much of that was real and then tell us the real story. No, I’m just kidding.

Nick Hill:

Hahaha

Daniel Foch:

No, well, I will I will mention like, I think that it’s such a good reflection of what we preach to a lot of people in our audience, which is you should be like connecting with people for purposes of doing business together and like, and really strong friendships and long-term business relationships can come from that. Real estate is really interesting that regard because like, your your business relationship can be very short term, right? Like Nick originally reached out to me about a deal that I had a deal around the corner from him. He wanted to was interested in it. I walked him through the property. We were talking about potentially fundraising, bringing in some investors to do it, took it all the way to the end. Thing got hit by a tornado. Five years later, that actually happened. House got leveled by a tornado. Yeah, so but but five years later, five years later, Nick and I are our best friends. We run a podcast together, we do all of our businesses are together. And so that this is how these these relationships happen.

Nick Hill:

Literally, literally got hit by tornado and got destroyed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got to give Dan something.

Kyle Pearce:

You left that part out, Nick.

Jon Orr:

Mm-hmm.

Daniel Foch:

And he was very much like because of that as a result of that was very much in the right place at the right time when I got that message from Brayden on the podcast asking if we were looking for a Canadian host. And then he was like, yeah, we also have to interview a co-host. And I was like, no, I have that guy. Like, let’s just do this. Let’s just start it tomorrow. Right. And we did.

Kyle Pearce:

Mmm.

Jon Orr:

Right. Awesome. Awesome.

Kyle Pearce:

I it. I love it. That is, you know, we chatted on the part one on your show about, you know, the power of partnerships and all of these things. And I think, you know, something that I’m seeing emerge in your story, which is similar to the story between, you know, John, myself and Matt is that it’s while it’s great to have partnerships, sometimes it’s like they just have to happen. But in reality, though, it’s like that’s where the networking connecting, keeping kind of like your ear to the ground. And really, you know, it’s almost like when you bump into that scenario or that that person, you know, you kind of you almost know in your gut, like it’s it’s worth giving it a go. And it sounds to me like in the meantime, you guys, you guys were working at it. So on the first podcast, you had mentioned maybe not a maybe not full direction. The part that I want to give you credit for is that you did it. Right? And by doing it, it allowed you to get to the next place in the journey. So maybe you don’t do it forever with no direction, but because you did it instead of waiting until the perfect time until you knew exactly with absolute clarity, exactly what it’s going to look like. You put yourselves out there, you did the work and because you did the work, those opportunities, you know, showed up, right? It’s like the definition of luck. I’ve heard, you know, this quote, probably butcher it, but the idea that, you know, it’s, it’s about like basically opportunity and is it determination? Is it something along those ideas? Yeah, I’m just making things up now, but it’s all about the idea. There it is. There it is right there. So, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, like I see that coming through and I also see, you know, kind of like a similar scenario for, know, how John and I, you know, connected and how Matt and I connected in the real estate world. So I’m loving that. I’m hoping that folks that are listening to this, you know, maybe you’re in this stage where you’re either about to start something and maybe you haven’t yet because you’re not exactly sure what it should be. It’s like, I think getting started is probably going to be key. And then the second piece is, you know, maybe you’re after, like you want that partnership, but you just haven’t found it yet. Like it could just be right around the corner. So it’s a big one. I I’d love to hear like based on what you guys have learned all along the way, you know, What would be like, you know, your secret sauce moves that you’re now kind of putting into play based on everything that you’ve done to date in order to continue moving forward, be it for investment or for business?

Daniel Foch:

I think the big one is lead with value. Like that’s just a principle that we have in our business, Nick and I. It’s like we give people stuff, right? And, you know, when we decided we had a lot of our listeners reach out and ask if we were going to start a coaching or education platform and we had no intention to do it, but eventually they basically pushed us to do it because they wanted more. We had given so much information away for free over time that people, like there were people who were begging us to give us money, right? And so if you lead with value and you don’t think about what’s in it for you, you you just give to others first and foremost, you never have to worry about what comes back to you.

Jon Orr:

Hmm.

Kyle Pearce:

The universe takes care of the rest,

Jon Orr:

Sure.

Nick Hill:

Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree. I think the only other thing would be, would be just to surround yourself in it. And I think that when you do put out that value, the good people come to you, right? That it’s an inflow, not an outflow. You don’t have to go looking for them. And I think what Dan and I have been, have been somewhat successful at anyways, is creating those networks, both, you know, IRL and URL. So in real life and, and online. And, I can comfortably say that without the help and guidance and friendship and mentorship from, you know, literally dozens of amazing people in my life. I would be nowhere close to the moderate success that I’ve experienced at this point. And that’s really one of the things that we’ve tried to, you know, it’s not just leave with value, but it’s leave with value and build a community around that value. And I think that community to get more into, you know, that community is where you’re going to find the who’s on your power team, right? Another principle that we like to operate by is that who not how principle. So instead of how do I do this, who can do this for me? Who can do this with me? And we’ve just been good at, you if you put out enough value, good people start to kind of come into your life. You know, I mean, you know, present company, not excluded, right? We’re on this podcast because you guys came out to one of our free events that we host nationally. So I think, I think the people play a huge, huge role in real estate really is, you know, we call it a contact sport sometimes, but it’s a team sport, whether you want it to be or not, whether you’re in a direct partnership with someone or not, you’re relying on other people and you meet those people when you put yourself out there, right? So Kyle, back to what you were saying, know, just start, right? Like literally just start. If you’re thinking about, you know, I want to start a podcast, but I don’t know what I’m talking about. Okay, well just sit down, buy a mic and start talking to yourself online.

Daniel Foch:

Yeah. Perfection. Perfection is the enemy of progress is I think that one, right?

Nick Hill:

You might be crazy.

Jon Orr:

Yep, yeah, it’s okay, you’ll get better. For sure, it’s.

Nick Hill:

Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I just think that there’s so many people that want to do so many things. And again, just to tie this back to real estate, this happens. This is one of the main reasons that people don’t get started in real estate is analysis paralysis where, you know, I hate to this guy into the bus, but I was out in Saskatoon. I don’t know if he listens or not, but I was out in Saskatoon a few months ago with Dan for, we fly across the country and attend the meetups that we host with our amazing cohorts across the country. And this guy’s like, man, I’m happy you guys are here just sort of, you know, figured out that listen to you guys and I’m trying to, I’ve been trying to buy a property. I’m like, nice. How long you been trying for? And he basically told me that he’s been trying to buy a real estate property for 20 years in Saskatchewan. I’m like, if you had bought 20 years ago and even made the worst mistake of your life, where do think you’d be now? So that’s another thing that we, that we try to, that we try to teach and instill, people and that we talk a lot about is, that disqualification process as well, right? So leave with value, teach people how to disqualify and get rid of things that are not gonna, you know, the shiny objects and the time wasters and then surround yourself with good people.

Jon Orr:

Hey, I think we’ve had a lot of similarities in the values, you know, just in that last statement that you were making, you know, like we have a phrase that we continually bounce between both Kyle and I is that B plus work that gets done is better than A plus work that never gets finished. And sometimes we have to tell ourselves that you’re right now working on A plus work and we’re never going to get there because we’re waiting for A plus work, whereas B plus is going to get out the door and like that deal will get done if we, you know, or going for B plus instead of A plus.

Nick Hill:

Or you’ll never get to that A plus unless you’ve put in enough B plus work, right? Like you’re never gonna have those amazing videos or amazing. Like we’ve both had other podcasts before this. You guys have thrown other events before this. You’ve started other businesses so that when you start your eighth business, right? Which sounds ridiculous to someone who’s never started a business, but if you started a business and gone to owner and incorporated something, you know that by the eighth one, like I know how to do that. Like that process now is 10 minutes for me. Whereas if I’m just starting my first t-shirt company or my dog walking business, that process is overwhelming in cases, right? So it’s all just about, again, compounding that work.

Kyle Pearce:

Well, and when you think like, and I’m going to take the cake here, John, that usually it’s me stuck in the A plus mentality and John reminds me, know, reminds me, Hey, like, let’s get this out the door because what you see over time too, and I think you alluded to it there, Nick is like, as you put the reps in and complete reps, not partial reps that never see the light of day. It’s like, as you do that, your B plus work becomes better than a lot of people’s A plus work. Right. it’s like, if you, if you do those reps, it’s like, ultimately at the end of the day, what you’re doing is you’re making like your, not even your best work, like some pretty solid work. And it’s, it’s a mindset shift and I know it’s, it’s easier said than done, but, yeah, I appreciate how you framed it.

Jon Orr:

Yeah. Yeah. And if you go back to the leading with value, you know, like I think that segues perfectly into where we left off from our, you know, our first episode, which is, you know, you know, on your, your, your feed for you, for your podcast, which when you think about leading with value, I think that’s something that’s always guided us when we go into deals. It’s like, how can we make this a win-win and not a win-I-win-you-lose scenario? Like, how can we give value to the seller or buyer in this scenario so that we both come out. And if we can lead with value there, then it’s going to be great for everyone. And if we feel great for everyone, then it’s going to be a good deal for us. So in a way, that’s kind of a great transition because when we left off, we talked about vendor take back, seller financing for properties, and thinking about those tax deferrals that happen. If we kind of think about VTBs and the sell from basically the seller perspective and move into say the buyer perspective. I want to get your take on this gentleman. You know, what are some of the tips? What do you see as some of the important moves when considering trying to move towards buying a property and using seller financing as one of the options?

Daniel Foch:

Yeah, to me, think a big piece is aligning yourself with the right team. So you need to be able to present a pretty complex issue to, a lot of cases, not exceptionally sophisticated vendors, right? So, you know, I mean, if you think about the fact that the VTB kind of gets maximized at 800 or I a million dollar purchase price, right? 800k capital gains reserve. You’re not selling, you know, you’re not buying and selling properties from, you know, institutional grade owners and investors, you’re buying it from kind of mom and pop investors. In institutional, like most of my clients, where I really learned to maximize the VTV was working with a lot of developers and investors, because they still like it for other reasons. But all of that being said, if you have I think you need a good accountant or some sort of spreadsheet that can communicate the potential tax savings to the vendor, some sort of calculator, I imagine you guys probably have something like that. If not, we’ll have to collaborate on like, something because it’s a big campaign we have running for for sellers right now. The other piece is, you need a realtor who’s done these types of deals and or has access to them, and understands how to structure them properly. And you either want like a mortgage professional or a lawyer involved in it as well. I guess you’re kind of asking me the first step, but to kind of structure the term sheet, I think you those would all be the first steps because you want to know what you’re really pitching something to a seller like in a lot of cases. And so you want to make sure you have your pitch deck, your proposal to them proper. And we have it written in a one page schedule A that we put in all of our real estate transactions that basically says, here’s what we’re proposing. Here’s the potential tax savings. And we kind of almost like really explain it to them in a way that makes it compelling as the total proceeds of sale rather than and I think that really, really the first step you need to do is actually educate yourself because this isn’t just, you know, it isn’t just going to find the right property after that, then you go and find the right property with a realtor who knows where to find these types of properties.

Kyle Pearce:

Yeah, I’m loving what you’re kind of articulating to, like how important, not only for you to understand the process, but it’s like to be able to clearly articulate the process to the individual, right? So especially if it is approaching a seller, they need to understand all the nuances. And it also means, which all great real estate agents do this, is like understanding what the seller’s like after. You know, like what they actually are trying to accomplish by selling this property, right? We don’t always just sell, you know, a property because we want to move. That’s fine with a primary residence in some cases, but in their case of, if they’re downsizing and they want, you know, money for retirement, it’s like, how do we frame this to show that the benefits or the benefits or the upside to them potentially considering this, not only getting the price thereafter, but then being able to help them accomplish the goal that they’re after as well. It’s like you can almost hit multiple, you know, checks off of their list. Nick, what else would you say is sort of involved in this process? Maybe more from like the lending side, given that that’s sort of your world and now the seller is gonna potentially become a lender for themselves.

Nick Hill:

Yeah, I mean, I think again, it really all starts with the duality education, right? You’ve got to be able to go in there and pitch it to as simply as possible with as many net benefits while also being clear that I know it sounds too good to be true and you know, I’m the bank, like I don’t get it kind of thing. It also depends on what types of properties we’re looking at, right? I mean, you guys mentioned the single family home or the primary residence. Well, sometimes in some cases, VTBs are really one of the only levers that you can pull for some types of deals, right? If we’re talking distressed properties, if we’re rural properties that lenders won’t really look at, if we’re talking properties that are beyond repair and unlivable or have, they’re totally vacant or something like that, there’s the VTB offers a strategy in to a lot of those more unique or harder to traditionally acquire type properties versus trying to go to a lender or even a credit union or even on the private side of things, right? So I think being able to convey that, whether you’re, and this is really well, you’re, know, the sales aspect and the relationship and the humanity comes back into play is you got to understand who you’re talking to, right? Is it the old no no or babushka that you’re like, let me buy your primary residence, you know, get out of here or is it the investor that randomly owns, you know, a triplex that has like a hundred acres on it that there’s also like boat storage and stuff like that. And you’re like, how the hell do I buy this? What do we do with this thing? So I think it really, it starts with, it all starts with who you’re speaking to. And then I think it’s, you know, you can blank a lot of it, but it’s going to, there’s going to be subjective things about each one of those deals. But I defer to Dan for a lot of the VDB stuff, because he’s done a lot more them than I have.

Jon Orr:

You mentioned a campaign around, know, BTP in particular. Talk to us about that.

Daniel Foch:

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the big things right now is, you know, Kyle mentioned earlier, like you get a lot of vendors who haven’t really price discovered yet, and they still want to sell and they apparently don’t want to price discover. And one of the easy ways to get them liquidity is to remove the biggest friction in the transaction process right now, which is the lender, right? So you’ve got so much equity in Canada, tons, right? The average loan to value is like 35%. So you’ve got a lot of sellers with a lot of equity in their properties that don’t necessarily want to continue owning those properties. And I’m convinced that like a lot of real estate investors, if you were to offer them a hundred grand, they would say no, because they wouldn’t want to pay the tax on it. And I think, you you pretty much have the most tax sensitive consumer or counterparty. So what we’re trying to do is really drum up vendors who want to sell in today’s market. The hook on the on the ads that we’re running is, do you hate capital gains? Right? And me too. Here’s a and and and yeah, we know we’re kind of working on the lead magnet right now, which is going to be sort of a series of calculators and things like that to help. would love to collaborate with you guys on a series of calculators to help vendors kind of achieve that liquidity. If you look back at the 1990s, it just the last time we really saw a major housing decline comparable to what we’re seeing Canada today. VTBs were like the only thing keeping the market moving for a period of like three to five years. And the reason for that was because, well, banks and trust companies were going bankrupt left, right and center. And so that was a risk on its own. But the other piece was that the you see something called the credit contraction in a high risk environment, right? Banks might rates might be going down, but it still doesn’t mean that banks are going to be lending you money because the risk is too high and they’re underwriting. We just saw Canadian lender change their policy to what they consider high risk professions as an example. So they’re underwriting titans and they start getting more aggressive with who they’re excluding as borrowers. And now all of a sudden, banks are the biggest obstruction in real estate transactions getting done. And so that’s really the big thing that we’re trying to do is create liquidity in a market that’s highly illiquid. mean, you’re seeing inventory piling up day day after day in the real estate market.

Kyle Pearce:

Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Nick Hill:

Yeah. The last thing I’ll add there is, you know, I think that we say this often, the realistic really kind of comes down to two sides. There’s the numbers side and then there’s the human side of things, right? And in a great deal, they both make sense. And I think a VTB is a prime example of having to have both of those things work out, right? Because in some cases, you can just find a great deal from a number side of things. That’s fantastic. But what if that great deal has a bad tenant that doesn’t pay rent? Right? Or what if that, you know, what if that deal only works if it’s done with a VTB? the, know, using the VTB is, a really great way to kind of go back to that, that, that duality principle of real estate where there’s the human side, the relationship side. And then there’s also the, kind of the hard factual numbers side of things.

Kyle Pearce:

Well, and what I love about it and the fact that it’s happening over here and you guys have a great campaign going on. You know, I’m sure there’s a lot of people listening here, both in our audience and your audience that are going, okay, like, so what you’re saying, like, so you’re telling me there’s a chance that I could still buy a profitable real estate investment in this environment, which I think a lot of people have, you know, people are getting to this place where it’s almost like, You know, they’re like, I guess I guess that time is gone, you know, and in reality, I think what you guys are saying. Exactly. That’s exactly it. And you know, and for us as well, as as you guys know, and I know, we haven’t spoken about it too much on our show, but a lot of our seller finance deals we’ve been looking at is in the US lately now.

Jon Orr:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Nick Hill:

Yeah, good. Let them think that. Let most people think that and the ones, yeah.

Kyle Pearce:

It doesn’t mean that we don’t believe in Canada or anything like that, most, the vast majority of our real estate portfolio is in Canada. It’s actually local to us. So for us to go, well, if we are going to diversify out, we look down to the US a little bit, not to mention it’s already hard for a foreign national to get a mortgage in the US. They basically, you have to collateralize the home and your firstborn, which is like, you know, sometimes that’s a little risky for some people, depending on how you feel about your first born. But, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, it really gives a lot of flexibility and it allows you to structure things in a way so that you can also protect yourself, which I’m sure you guys, you know, recognize is this fact that there’s a lot of investors that bought property, you know, as we were approaching the peak and then all of a sudden rates went through the roof and all these things happened and Now, some people are really, really struggling with negative cash flow and so forth. If you get to design it with the seller or the vendor, then you can put yourself in a position that at least you know what those risks are going to be and unlikely that you’re going to put, a seller financing deal that’s variable, for example. You’re probably going to pick a fixed rate that works for both you and them and maybe a longer balloon if you’re lucky enough to do it.

Nick Hill:

Yeah.

Kyle Pearce:

I love it. How do you feel that, you know, is it, is it, are you onto something with your campaign so far? Like, are you finding that people are becoming more open now that the market’s hitting this point where, you know, deals are sitting there? I believe right now in Toronto, some of the lowest house sales this past month, I believe I saw, and it was probably on Dan’s feed. How, how is that campaign going to get some of these properties moving?

Daniel Foch:

Well, the challenge is that when you have a volatile market, it creates unrealistic expectations. So it’s creating a lot of interest, right? But the challenge is that it’s people who are interested because they think that a VTB is going to get them their 2021 peak selling price, and it’s not. There’s some give and take. I mean, you can probably get a little bit more price, to be honest, if you’re giving somebody a VTB, and it saves them from having to go through that process. It reduces the appraisal risk of the deal because you’re the seller who’s saying that you believe in the value. But for the most part, I mean, the the thing is, we we’ve always gone after complicated deals, like it’s just something I’ve always done. And this is a market where almost all deals are complicated. But so so you know, I would rather have these transactions than anything else. But in the grand scheme of things. I mean, this and or like power of sales is another campaign that we run as an example. Anybody looking for like for distressed properties thinks they’re getting a deal on it. It’s they’re kind of shocked when you say them, hey, no, you’re actually negotiating with a very sophisticated lender who really doesn’t care about the outcome and has a legal obligation to protect the seller’s equity. And probably a team of lawyers behind that that is advising them what to do or say so that they don’t they don’t get in trouble with said seller’s equity. So It’s a big education process and I guess I kind of hate myself to sign myself up for that on a repeated basis, but this is where creating content and stuff like that comes in. I only have to explain something once and I record it and then we ship the recordings to people.

Jon Orr:

Right. Yeah. is your, if we think, Kyle mentioned, you know, the US and investing in the US is a venture that we’ve in the last couple of years kind of moved into to look at server options, you know, when we found some success there. I’m curious about your thoughts on investing in the US, financing in the US. What are some of your opinions about investing in the US? I’m sure our listeners would love a take on investing.

Daniel Foch:

Yeah.

Jon Orr:

in the US from YouTube.

Daniel Foch:

Yeah, so I personally, I’ve so there’s a couple things I’ll say. Number one is market comparing the Canadian to the US market until until basically this trade war started, I would say Canada’s market looked like it had better potential than the US simply because the US is still pretty overbought, right? Prices are high rates are high. You know, you couldn’t get the yields that you could get you get or you get the same yields in a comparable market in Canada that had you know, better long-term growth potential, better local employment, lower crime rates, etc. The trade war and economic volatility is shaken that up a little bit in two ways. Number one, it’s introduced probably a lot more risk into Canada’s market in the long term, or sorry, in the near term and in the long term, which kind of makes me revise my projections for Canada down a little bit. And it’s also introduced a potential recession to the cards for the US market, which creates a potential better buying window the US. Like Canada’s prices are already down 20% off the peak. US they came down like 3, 5, 7% depending on the market and then they jumped back up. There are certain geographies like Texas is blowing off. Texas is like pretty overbuilt. Florida is blowing off due to being overbuilt. People migrating back to, you’re kind of seeing the reverse exodus. You know, like the fastest growing markets right now are actually all the ones that sank during COVID. So New York, California, etc. So that creates opportunity for some of those ones like the Texas and Florida of the world. Florida also has that condo that huge condo thing going on. I’m not sure if you guys are familiar with the the assessments, the special assessments, where basically tons of condos are basically bankrupt. But anyway, all that to say, I think I’m pretty, pretty balanced. I actually think I like both markets equally. I think they each have their their push and pull factors. I’m very keen to be buying in the US sometime soon. The one thing I will say about the US is it’s such a highly competitive market that every time I go and try and become a direct investor in the US and buy a property and say, I can burr this and I can and I can renovate and rent it out. And I look at my IRR. And then I go look at what I can make giving my money to the to a GP in the US who is far better pharma experience has way better deals has been doing it for 10 years, no risk and zero work for me. I can never, ever, ever, ever beat a good US GP. And so I’ve never direct invested in the US. I’ve always been a limited partner in the US.

Kyle Pearce:

Love it. Love it. There’s so much that you’ve unpacked there that I think is really important for people to, you know, to sort of take on. So you had mentioned some of the things too, like where, you know, a piece that jumped out at me was the idea that at least until the trade war that, you know, Canada had some, you know, it looked maybe to have some better potential or places in Canada, not everywhere, of course. But at the same time, that didn’t remove you from potentially wanting to invest in the US. And I think that’s a big takeaway, because we talked earlier. I don’t know if it was on this episode or in part one about the whole analysis paralysis thing, where people then get on the data train. And sometimes they need to find the perfect market. And then within the perfect market, they need to find the perfect property. And then they turn into the example that Nick was sharing, you know, 20 years later and you’re still working on that first property, right? So it’s like utilizing the data to have a good perspective, but not allowing it to sort of hold you back, I think is a really important piece. You know, Nick, any, any thoughts, like what are your thoughts in terms of the Canadian real estate market, the U S real estate market, like where have you been sort of maybe eyeing up that next opportunity for yourself?

Nick Hill:

Yeah. So what, what I’ll add to this, cause I don’t have much to add. I think Dan, Dan really made some kind of great kind of sweeping statements there. You know, I think it comes down to a few things and I’m going to get like more human psychology here for a second. The grass is always greener, right? Canadians want to invest in the U S Americans want to invest outside of somewhere. You know, I want to buy a place in Spain. The guy that lives there is like, I love a winter cabin in like, you know, Muskoka. Exactly. and I think that as, as investors and entrepreneurs, which is probably a lot of the base of your show, or at least people that are curious about those things, is that we really need to be careful chasing that next thing, right? That like, for me, you know, Dan and I get, and I’m sure you as well, you guys get presented with a million and one opportunities a week, a day at some points kind of thing. You know, if, if, if Dana and I wanted to go buy in Buffalo, New York or Detroit or Texas or whatever, we could have taken one of the multiple opportunities that’s come at us. But I, I try to remain super focused and I try to remain really in line with my investment thesis. And I think that’s where a lot of investors and, business owners and anyone with just that, enough of a risk tolerance to take an opportunity and try something. That’s where a lot of people can and get burned, right? So I mean, if you if your investment thesis includes diversifying into the states in a certain asset class, then by all means, that’s exactly what you should be doing. If your investment thesis is buying duplexes in Windsor or flipping apartment buildings in Edmonton or operating, you know, Airbnb is on the East Coast, then then maybe don’t think about getting into the states right now, because that is an entirely new venture. It’s really easy for us to say, yeah, you know, I’ll just go buy something in St. Louis for, you know, a hundred grand and, know, 1031 exchange it into all this stuff that we’ve all heard before. But what you’re realizing is you’re really starting from scratch, right? You’re building an entirely new power team. You’re figuring out entirely new laws and tenant requirements and just a whole new system. Whereas again, if you go back to what Dan was saying, am I going to like, is a guy from America going to be a better investor than, than me up here in my backyard? Well, I sure hope not. And if they are, then I’m not doing a good enough job as an investor here. So I wanna focus at what I’m really good at and then take whatever capital I have that I’ve allocated for diversification, even if it’s in real estate, great, and go put that there, right? I mean, listen, I’m looking at possibly purchasing something in Mexico. You think I’m gonna go try to do that kind of stuff myself? No, I’m literally gonna have, I’m just gonna give someone money, right? And there I’m diversified, but I don’t have to go through that whole piece. So if you do plan on investing in the States or anywhere else, try to do it in the easiest way possible. That’ll likely cost you a bit more money, but it’ll save you in many, many other ways.

Jon Orr:

Totally. You know, I love that advice because it reminds me of two things and I want to make sure I remember the two—like share the two things in the right order. But you know, it reminds me of that quote. We just did a podcast episode on this around goals and strategies moving forward for long-term sustainability and results because it reminded me of James Clear from Atomic Habits. You like you don’t rise to meet your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

Nick Hill:

You

Jon Orr:

And what I heard you say, Nick, is that, is that don’t just jump on a bandwagon because it’s like the right move or, don’t just go to here because you heard someone say it, or maybe all of a sudden you heard it here on this podcast right now today that you should go and look at this. It should be part of your strategy that you’ve already mapped out. And that brings me to the second component. Like we, I’ve heard Alex Hermosy say this over and over and over again, which is like his, his mantra about the, the three kind of levels of like decision making of like what you should do when you should do it. He’s like more better new, which means the order you should decide on whether you should do more of that. And he’s like basically nine times out of 10, whatever your current move is like investing move or say business move is do more, just do more of what you’re already doing because you will, you already have those expertise. You already have say the knowledge base right there. Just do more of that and you will win only move to like, and then, and then if you can’t do more, do it better. And if you can do it, can’t do it better anymore. Then try something new. Don’t do something new right off the bat. Right? Like, and I think that that’s what it just stuck out to me. As soon as you said that, I was like, I’m glad you said that advice because it’s like more better new, and then make sure you stick to the goals that you’re trying to set for yourself and don’t introduce a new goal just because you feel like you’re missing out on the bandwagon, which makes me like wonder for you, Nick, or for you, Dan, is like, What are some of those systems that you heavily rely on as so important in the work that you’re doing?

Nick Hill:

Yeah, I love when Alex Ormosy takes my ideas and repackages them into a… Go ahead, Dan.

Daniel Foch:

Um, yeah, it’s a really good question. I, uh, I’m not so much a, the systems guy, honestly, as a, think that there’s like a, it’s really a who, how’s how principle for me. Like I’m it’s, I’m good at designing this stuff and ideating and, and coming up with it, but I’m very, very much not an executor. Like my, let me give you an example. My CRM, I’ve never, whenever I work with real estate team or I mean, right now we’re trying to grow a real estate brokerage. So recruiting a lot of agents, like a lot of people use CRMs. And this is, it’s very convenient for me that in the fullness of time, AI is, is slated to kind of, overtake UI. So, which means user interface. So AI is basically going to erase the idea of like, you’ll need a CRM to go and tap into and type in your notes and whatever. Because the AI will do that for you, right? And you’ll have a conversation with it and say, Oh, I followed up with so and so. So my CRM has and always, always will be a Google sheet, right? As an example. So each week, so then this is where I aim for simplicity. But like a system that we would have is I’ll literally go through a Google sheet with my team and say, and we will do it once a week and we’ll, we’ll all read through it, sit together in a meeting and say, what happened with this person? Oh, I didn’t, I called them. Okay, we put that note in what happened with this person, et cetera, so that you know, that so I’m almost like, let’s call it the person who kind of like ideates the system and then make sure the system actually works. That’s one thing that I would say and really boiling them down from a Simplicity’s perspective. In regards to the rest of the business, like we have a CPA who runs our events business and he’s very systems oriented. And I, if Nick and I tried to put together an event, it would be very bad. I would, you just, I don’t even want to try and think about what it would look like. So we have a brilliant person who can put that together. We have the course business. So we run a course business on school. Have a, you know, it’s a, it’s like a hundred dollars a month group coaching to code two calls a week. That’s the system we, know, to, to, to accountability points, like just super, super duper simple stuff. And I think that when a lot of people hear systems, they think really complicated, like sophisticated things. But for us, it’s like, why reinvent the wheel? Like, you know, to return to the beginning of it, perfection is the enemy of progress or perfection, I don’t know, whatever it was. Nick and I are like, we’re not rocket surgeons, right? You guys do math, right? We don’t, we’re not like that. We’re like, you know, we’re sales guys. So it’s like, what’s the simplest thing for us? And so above all, our system is just simplicity, I think, to tell you the truth.

Kyle Pearce:

Hmm.

Nick Hill:

100% in line with that. I am actively trying to increase productivity, increase output while actively doing less and having more control over my time. And that’s the one way we can do that. The only thing I’ll add to that is just my mortgage business where we’ve got a nice easy system. You know, my touch points and my responsibilities with my mortgage clients and my underwriters and my backend team does as well. And, you know, it just creates a very seamless process where, you know, there’s kind of non Dan and I have a thing, right? Like the podcast, for instance, is non-negotiable work. You know, outside of any kind of non-negotiable work, if you’re not relying on, on systems or, or, and the system doesn’t have to be, you know, a system can include people as well. Right. And I always kind of come back to people and, uh, I think it’s just about having good people around you and then having each person’s responsibility allocated to certain tasks or things that are on that obviously growing and never completed to-do list kind of thing.

Jon Orr:

Yeah, yeah, love it. Gentlemen, as we kind of start wrapping here, I know that you have a wealth of information to share on the real estate market, even on ideas on real estate, specifics on real estate, but also the current state of the real estate market on say, twice a week basis on your podcast. Before we of kind of wrap here, which would, what would each of you say is like a big takeaway you want the listener to have from today’s chat.

Nick Hill:

Yeah, I think, and this is something I say usually whenever I’m asked this question. One, it really depends on who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish and where you are in your life at this point. I’m to go back and keep it as basic as possible. If you are interested in becoming an entrepreneur, a business owner, a real estate investor, or a business owner, an entrepreneur within real estate investing, which can mean multiple different things, surround yourself with people that are doing it. It can be a lonely world as an investor out there. It can be tough. People don’t understand that the trials and tribulations, the variable income, not variable mortgage rates, variable income. Whereas, you know, one month you make two grand, the next month you make 20 grand, next month you make 200 grand, two months later you’re back to two. So, you know, most people don’t understand the risk and the lifestyle that’s associated with taking the leap into this. The people in your corner which are gonna be the people you meet at events, which are gonna be the DMs that respond to you when you take that chance, which is gonna be the email they send to this podcast to ask John and Kyle a question. Do those things, right? I think the most important is to just start and to surround yourself with people like-minded that want to see you win. That’s my piece.

Kyle Pearce:

I love it. I love it. But you know, I got to say it’s, so unfair. Cause like Dan got to like start writing out what he was going to say while you were talking, you know? No, I’m just kidding. Dan, what would be a big takeaway? You’re hoping that the Canadian wealth secrets seekers are going to walk away with after today’s conversation.

Daniel Foch:

I think that a couple of the themes that we discussed, number one is, is just do it right. Like don’t, don’t aim for perfection right off of the bat. I think that, that, that, that perfect result is something that’s cultivated through the process of doing. so start doing, and you’ll eventually get there. and that, perfection is, it can, stand in the way of progress. The other thing is just to lead with value. like very simply. If you know the principle and you know, and everybody every any economist or like anyone has looked at this, you know, as famous as like Marx, if you want to go full commie, or to like, you know, any of the Austrian economists, that there’s a surplus value associated with things, right. So if you can deliver somebody more value, if they get more value out of something than they feel, then they’re paying you for it, then they’re going to keep coming back as a customer, they’re going to tell their friends. And that’s how businesses grow. If you’re not giving any surplus plus value, then there’s nothing for you to grow based on. And so as long as you’re leading with value, podcasts is an easy way to do it. You give it to people for free and they get to consume it. Right. And then they come back to you and say, hey, how can it or they they send it to their friend. But yeah, those are those are really the two key ones from my perspective.

Nick Hill:

Yeah, I’ll just finish off with one more kind of, guess, practical, practical piece. So, you know, we’re in a very, volatile and changing economic and real estate landscape right now in Canada. I don’t want to hear anybody say, I can’t find a deal. I can’t get a deal done right now. We are seeing people getting deals done every single day across the country in every market. There are deals to be done. You just need the right people. You need the right strategies. You need the right outlook. You need the knowledge to be able to go and find them. Good deals in marketplaces usually aren’t found, but they are made. So on a very practical note, you know, there’s financing programs like CMHC, MLI Select, there’s a secondary suite loan program. We’ve seen a massive push for missing middle housing and laneway suites and permitting and zoning changes. So I’m very excited for the real estate market here in Canada over the next three, five, 10 years. I think we’ll go through a massive, hopefully massive rebuild in a Renaissance period. So I want everyone to, you know, there’s a little bit of optimism, positivity to finish things off because there is a ton of opportunity. You just not gotta know how to find it and where to look.

Jon Orr:

Right, right. And you guys, heard you say that you have your class on school and you offer coaching, any place that you want people to go other than, you know, going and listening to your podcast through their podcast platform or where else should they go right now if they want to get in touch with you?

Daniel Foch:

Yeah. I appreciate the opportunity to give it to pedal our product here. We spent a lot of money on a domain actually it’s realist.ca so like, you know, R E A L I S T.ca and it’s hopefully a realistic approach to making money in real estate and we’ve built a pretty good group. There’s a free community. There’s free meetups like the one that you had and you guys met Nick at if we want to go and attend a free meetup. We have 26 cities across Canada, almost 9,000, I think over 9,000 members now. Yeah, we have a thousand members in our free online community and we have about a hundred members in our paid online community. That’s a hundred dollars a month and there’s two group coaching calls per week in that community.

Kyle Pearce:

I love it. I love it guys as two gentlemen who have been to the live meetups. Definitely folks keep your eyes and ears open for those of course they’ll hear about them over on your podcast Canadian real estate investor and of course on your website so check out realist.ca these guys are all over social media so go check them out there as well we’ll drop some links in the show notes page for social media. I’ve had a true, true pleasure and it’s been an honor to connect with you both, to be on your show for part one, to have you guys on our show for part two. And I’m hopeful that this won’t be the last time that we connect on the platforms.

Nick Hill:

Yeah, yeah. Really appreciate you guys taking the time and honor to be guests on the show and we’ll talk to you soon. Thanks.

Daniel Foch:

Definitely won’t be the last.

Jon Orr:

Thanks guys.

Kyle Pearce:

All right, guys, take care.

Canadian Wealth Secrets is an informative podcast that digs into the intricacies of building a robust portfolio, maximizing dividend returns, the nuances of real estate investment, and the complexities of business finance, while offering expert advice on wealth management, navigating capital gains tax, and understanding the role of financial institutions in personal finance.

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