Episode 60: How to be a Canadian Real Estate Entrepreneur – An Interview with Elizabeth Kelly

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The unspoken challenges of real estate investing in today’s market needs to be your number one concern. In this episode Elizabeth Kelly, a seasoned real estate investor and coach, reveals the often-overlooked realities and struggles of being a Canadian Real Estate Entrepreneur. 

Whether you’re a budding investor feeling overwhelmed by the complexities of the 2024 real estate market, or an entrepreneur seeking long-term success, stick with us because in this episode you’ll discover the importance of maintaining curiosity in your entrepreneurial journey and how it can be a key driver of success and learn how to leverage knowledge and education in real estate investing to make informed, profitable decisions.

Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your real estate investing game – listen to our latest episode with Elizabeth Kelly for expert insights and actionable advice!

You’ll learn

• The harsh realities of life as a real estate investor or a real estate entrepreneur; 
• The biggest struggle beginning real estate investors face in 2024; 
• How to gain clarity and perspective in real estate investing;
• Why staying curious as long as you can will lead to entrepreneurial success; and, 
• Why understanding the power of knowledge and education is key to success in entrepreneurship and investing;

Resources:

• Instagram @elizabethkellyconsulting
• Elizabeth Kelly Consulting
• Book a Discovery Call with us so we can help you overcome your current struggle and take the next step in your financial journey
• Follow Kyle Pearce on LinkedIn for daily posts and conversations about business, finance, and investment. 
• Dig into our Ultimate Investment Book List
• Download our Wealth Building Blueprint

Let’s Connect For A Discovery Call!

For those interested in having a review of your financial wealth plan, learning more about potential joint venture (JV) opportunities, or a mortgage review, book a free discovery call now.

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Episode Summary:

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00;00;00;02 – 00;00;19;13
Elizabeth Kelly
I wanted to have an impact. I wanted to leave a legacy. So when I made that transition to real estate and everything is very much focused on the money and it didn’t feel like it fit for me. I didn’t care about buying multifamily buildings. I mean, I know people eat, sleep and breathe it, but for me it didn’t sit well until I discovered rentals.

00;00;19;18 – 00;00;21;00
Elizabeth Kelly
And that’s unspoken.

00;00;21;00 – 00;00;43;05
Kyle Pearce
Challenges of real estate. Investing in today’s market definitely needs to be your number one concern in this episode, Elizabeth Kelley, a seasoned multifamily investor, rent to own expert and real estate coach, reveals the often overlooked realities and struggles of being a Canadian real estate entrepreneur.

00;00;43;08 – 00;01;11;04
Jon Orr
Whether you’re a budding investor feeling overwhelmed by the complexities of the 2024 real estate market or an entrepreneur seeking long term success. Stick with us, because in this episode you’ll discover the importance of maintaining curiosity in your entrepreneurial journey and how it can be a key driver of success and learn to leverage knowledge and education in real estate investing to make informed, profitable decisions.

00;01;11;07 – 00;01;32;20
Kyle Pearce
Let’s dig into this episode with Elizabeth Kelley for some expert insight and actionable advice. Here we go.

00;01;32;22 – 00;01;38;09
Kyle Pearce
Welcome to the Canadian Wealth Secrets podcast with Kyle Pierce and John Walker.

00;01;38;11 – 00;01;51;25
Jon Orr
We are recovering high school mathematics teachers and education consultants whose entrepreneurial spirit led us to begin multiple businesses in real estate investing, digital courses and coaching and consulting. After the bell rang at dismissal time.

00;01;51;27 – 00;02;11;21
Kyle Pearce
Fast forward a decade later where we’ve grown our portfolios and our time freedom to the point where we can now help entrepreneurs, business owners and investors grow their wealth into a legacy that lasts generations through hidden investment and tax secrets your financial advisors won’t believe are true.

00;02;11;27 – 00;02;32;07
Jon Orr
All right. Let’s dig in for this excellent interview with Elizabeth Kelley. Hey there, Elizabeth. Welcome to the Canadian Wealth Secrets podcast. We’re excited to chat with you today. And I met you a few times We’ve been introduced, but hey, we want to introduce you to the audience. We want to introduce you to our listeners. So take a moment here.

00;02;32;09 – 00;02;39;17
Jon Orr
Tell us about yourself. Who is Elizabeth Kelley and where are you coming from and what’s your entrepreneurial schtick?

00;02;39;19 – 00;02;42;00
Elizabeth Kelly
You want me to answer all that in 30 seconds or less?

00;02;42;00 – 00;02;44;12
Kyle Pearce
You got actually 20 few laughs.

00;02;44;14 – 00;02;48;14
Jon Orr
Keep it short. No, I’m just kidding. Just kidding.

00;02;48;16 – 00;02;50;03
Kyle Pearce
Take all the time you need.

00;02;50;05 – 00;03;07;21
Elizabeth Kelly
First of all, thank you so much for having me. It’s wonderful to meet you guys. It’s always amazing to meet fellow entrepreneurs who are looking to make the real estate investing space a better place to be. So I started almost 20 years ago as a real estate investor. My husband and I were who we bought pre-construction in condos.

00;03;07;21 – 00;03;26;10
Elizabeth Kelly
That was a big mistake. Never do that. And then we were buying single family homes and turning them into duplexes. And this was before they had the sexy temper and we figured out we were doing the right thing. We’re doing it the wrong way. We took some courses through Rich Dad and we loved it. So we started a property management company.

00;03;26;10 – 00;03;54;03
Elizabeth Kelly
We bought a whole bunch of doors. We got really big, real fast, and then we started to see those growing pains that a lot of businesses do where the infrastructure has to catch up, the systems and processes have to catch up. And sometimes when you grow really big, really fast, you can find ways to kind of stabilize and then other times I think we’re seeing right now in the world of real estate, sometimes you go really big, really fast and then things kind of implode.

00;03;54;06 – 00;04;20;04
Elizabeth Kelly
So I’m really passionate right now about helping people. And I just did a little video this morning. I don’t want to call us real estate investors anymore. I want to call us real estate entrepreneurs because investors does not accurately capture all the hats we wear, all the roles we have it all the things we do right. So I feel like it’s a bit of a misnomer and it feeds into that idea that real estate is get rich quick and it’s super easy.

00;04;20;04 – 00;04;23;16
Elizabeth Kelly
You can do it with all money from everybody else and none of your own money, right?

00;04;23;16 – 00;04;41;25
Kyle Pearce
Totally. And right out of the gate. That’s the part. And you said a lot of things that I think is really important. We could probably talk for the entire interview just about what you had said and kind of going down those rabbit holes. You talked about mistakes that you had made. I think being ready for that at the beginning of the journey is really important because mistakes are going to happen.

00;04;41;27 – 00;05;02;01
Kyle Pearce
Something I also heard that I think I want to make sure that we sort of highlight for those who are listening is you then after you had already started, you had already made mistakes, you had already had some success and then you started taking courses. So there’s maybe a lesson to be learned there. I have also been down that path as well, where I will call myself.

00;05;02;03 – 00;05;31;22
Kyle Pearce
I’m going to use frugal as the word when I began, but also I’m a fact finder, right? So I think for a lot of people that are like me and like to go down the rabbit hole and want to do all the learning and they feel good and they’re driven to do that learning. It’s almost like you have some sort of like maybe hero syndrome where you want to come up with the answer instead of being guided when in reality you think about the time it takes to go down those rabbit holes and come up and make the mistakes and do all of those things.

00;05;31;24 – 00;05;52;17
Kyle Pearce
And of course it’s all happened. You can’t take it back. However, for those people who are looking to take maybe a step into real estate, there’s an opportunity for you to learn from folks with experience, to be guided by people with experience. I know that you do a lot of coaching and mentoring in the space, so lots of great things going on there.

00;05;52;17 – 00;06;16;03
Kyle Pearce
Before we dig deeper, though, I’m curious, so it was 20 years ago when you began this journey. At the time, were you a golden handcuff or as we like to call it, we coined those in a job feeling kind of safe. John and I are both recovering teachers, recovering high school math teachers. So we had those handcuffs on and we were like, yeah, we’re going to be okay here.

00;06;16;03 – 00;06;30;11
Kyle Pearce
But it also made it really difficult for us to kind of go, We can do this on our own and we could be freed. So I’m curious, Elizabeth Kelly, people are wondering, were you just super brave? Were you scared like I was when I began? Tell us more.

00;06;30;12 – 00;06;32;06
Jon Orr
She was born into entrepreneurship.

00;06;32;08 – 00;06;33;16
Kyle Pearce
Yeah. There you go.

00;06;33;19 – 00;06;35;16
Elizabeth Kelly
It’s like, no, I think that’s.

00;06;35;19 – 00;06;35;23
Jon Orr
So.

00;06;35;23 – 00;06;59;15
Elizabeth Kelly
Funny that you ask that. I worked for years. I worked for the Mars Society. I worked for the Heart Stroke Foundation. I worked for United Way. I did fundraising. So I did sales without having a tangible product to sell. I sold warm, fuzzy feelings. And then after I had cancer, about 15 years there, it got really challenging because you’re trying to do so much with so little right there, always watching the bottom line.

00;06;59;21 – 00;07;19;14
Elizabeth Kelly
So I actually moved over to I got my life insurance and my home and auto insurance licenses, and I worked for a State farm broker or a State farm agent. And I was two years into that, just written all my exams, just starting to see the results of all my hard work. And my husband came to me. He’s like, I can’t manage the properties part time in the evenings.

00;07;19;14 – 00;07;36;13
Elizabeth Kelly
He’s like, You need to leave your job. Because of course he was making three times, four times what I was. And I just thought I put so much time and energy into this and that transition was so bumpy that I’m not accountable to anybody else. Nobody else is telling me what to do. I don’t know what to do with my days.

00;07;36;15 – 00;07;56;03
Elizabeth Kelly
And it’s funny, it wasn’t until multifamily conference a couple of years ago when Kevin O’Leary was on stage and he talked about his journey into entrepreneurship and the fact that he never fit in anywhere. And he was pretty much an entrepreneur right from the beginning and a light bulb went off for me. I’m like, That’s why I had clashes in business.

00;07;56;03 – 00;08;15;02
Elizabeth Kelly
That’s why I lost sleep. When people ask me to do things that I couldn’t live with, that talking to people about their auto premiums and why they’re going up and knowing that what I was saying was not necessarily an accurate reflection of what was. Those were the things that eight me up at night, and I always thought it just meant I wasn’t a team player.

00;08;15;07 – 00;08;24;05
Elizabeth Kelly
I thought it meant that I was not very good at following the rules and it meant I was an entrepreneur stuck in a job, and that was huge for me.

00;08;24;05 – 00;08;42;16
Jon Orr
Yeah, that is huge. And and I think people are nodding their heads going like, I feel like that just grabs me in that exact same situation. And I want to think about the way you said what you did for a living. You said you were selling things without that tangible product and you clearly had learned skills along the way.

00;08;42;19 – 00;08;52;20
Jon Orr
How did that work? Basically jump you off into that entrepreneurial environment and like what was probably the biggest impact that that work had on the work you do now?

00;08;52;23 – 00;09;13;09
Elizabeth Kelly
Actually probably held me back because I always needed to feel good about what I did, what I did. It wasn’t about the money for me, it was about the impact. It was about helping people. And so the reason why I worked and not for profit, I could have been an event coordinator. I could have done sales for a company, but I wanted to have an impact.

00;09;13;09 – 00;09;33;02
Elizabeth Kelly
I wanted to leave a legacy. So when I made that transition to real estate and everything is very much focused on the money and it didn’t feel like it fit for me, I didn’t care about buying multifamily buildings. I mean, I know people eat, sleep and breathe it, but for me it didn’t sit well until I discovered rentals, and that’s when the light bulb went off for me.

00;09;33;02 – 00;09;53;02
Elizabeth Kelly
And my husband and I actually separated into two different divisions of our business. And he was the one who primarily was looking for the multi families and I was the one who managed the investors and those the staff and did the rent to owns because I am the people person and I want to make things a win win for everyone.

00;09;53;05 – 00;10;12;09
Kyle Pearce
I love that. And you highlight something really important. I think if you go all the way back to when you were working and fundraising for different nonprofits, and then you think about the work you do for, say, Rent to Own as well as the work you do through coaching consulting, mentoring, and you really think about the end goal.

00;10;12;09 – 00;10;44;02
Kyle Pearce
And I always say a true sales person. We have an episode that we talk about selling being a really important skill in any business and in life in general. But what we define as selling is very different than what people get in their mind when they think about being sold to. And this idea of selling is really about knowing the person you’re chatting with, knowing who they are, what they want, what’s going to help make their life better, and then bringing them to the solution and helping them to understand the solution.

00;10;44;05 – 00;11;10;29
Kyle Pearce
But the actual intent is so that they come together and that they actually are happier afterwards. Right? Like that’s true salesmanship. That’s true selling. And I think as humans, I think we do typically a really poor job of it. Like people feel forced to sell something because their job is to sell this thing like you were selling auto insurance and you’re like, I don’t even know if I think you need auto insurance.

00;11;11;00 – 00;11;28;17
Kyle Pearce
I don’t know if you need this feature or whatever it is. And meanwhile, you’re feeling like you’ve got to do it. When I’m getting guests through Rent to own, you see the value that you’re bringing to people you’re seeing. And oftentimes someone who wants to get into a rent to own, they probably see the value in home ownership.

00;11;28;17 – 00;11;45;29
Kyle Pearce
What they might not see yet is how a rent to own structure could be designed such that everybody wins, right? Which at the end of the day is really the key. You want to make sure that when they do it, that they feel like they’re actually further ahead than they would have been had they not met you or had the opportunity.

00;11;45;29 – 00;12;09;19
Kyle Pearce
So I’m curious, what would you say is maybe your unique ability in sort of applying that skill set? And it sounds like you’re very things come from the heart when you’re doing something, you want to do it and you want to feel good about it. What would you say is maybe the unique ability that you bring to either we’ll call it maybe the rent to own space, or maybe it’s when the work that you do, when you’re helping investors along their way.

00;12;09;21 – 00;12;19;13
Elizabeth Kelly
I think perhaps it’s that and I love that you ask that question because I love podcasts like this, where you get me thinking and it’s like the following.

00;12;19;14 – 00;12;22;27
Kyle Pearce
Always, our goal is to be the same cookie cutter, so that’s awesome.

00;12;22;28 – 00;12;55;05
Elizabeth Kelly
Oh no, I love that. So I think I perhaps have kind of two pieces. One is I really try and listen and understand. I genuinely love and care about people, so I want to understand what is their perspective, Where are they coming from and what is the goal that they want to achieve. And then because I have done so many real estate strategies in so many different markets for so long and so many different investment climates, it enables me instead of going, okay, well you need to do this, it enables me to pick different pieces and kind of put them together.

00;12;55;11 – 00;13;12;19
Elizabeth Kelly
Like I’m working on a really exciting project right now. I can’t say too much about it, but Rent to Own is just a component of it. And then there’s other pieces of it that will come together. And I feel like for investors right now, you can’t just say I’m a multifamily investor and get out there and grind and just look for apartment buildings.

00;13;12;19 – 00;13;33;29
Elizabeth Kelly
In apartment buildings and apartment buildings. The best deals are made there, pieces there, key learnings picked and put together into this one opportunity. And I feel like as a coach, because I don’t have a cookie cutter program because it’s one on one and it’s this week, let’s identify what your needs are, what are your obstacles, what’s holding you back?

00;13;34;05 – 00;14;04;08
Elizabeth Kelly
Let’s address those and then you’re going to spend the next week or two weeks going and moving the needle forward. The most anybody can consume podcasts and things like that. And you guys are providing a tremendous service, sharing information and providing information and how everybody implements that is going to look and feel different. And that’s why and where a good coach should come in is helping you pick from all these pieces of information to create this map or this plan for how you’re going to invest.

00;14;04;11 – 00;14;25;07
Jon Orr
Yeah, if you look back in the most successful people, everyone utilizes a coach, they are there. We can’t do this on our own. If we want to be as successful as you want to be. So I really love that and I want to actually bring it back to something you said earlier. And this is kind of goes to what you were talking about, that we’re not real estate investors, you’re real estate entrepreneurs.

00;14;25;07 – 00;14;42;12
Jon Orr
And because when I think about that, when people say I’m a real estate investor, they’re thinking there’s this one person, they’re doing the research, they’re looking at this, and they’re like, I’m putting some money in here, or I’m boring. I’m putting some money over here, and it’s like a singularity situation instead of it. You’re building a business, right?

00;14;42;12 – 00;15;09;17
Jon Orr
So treating this as a business versus treating this as as hey, as my side hobby and I’m kind of like adding things to my portfolio, but you’re thinking about business and that’s what the way that we view it as well. So if we’re thinking about real estate entrepreneurs and we’re thinking about real estate businesses and creating these businesses and we think about businesses like that today versus businesses like that in the past, we’re in a 2020 for things change.

00;15;09;17 – 00;15;23;27
Jon Orr
How do you see our businesses? How are they changing now versus before, like you’ve been doing this for a long time. So it’s like, how do you see that business changed and what do we see then project What is it going to look like in the future?

00;15;24;00 – 00;15;42;20
Elizabeth Kelly
Well, I’ll tell you, it’s a heck of a lot easier now than it was, because when I was putting offers in in 2005, I was driving to the realtors office and signing everything on paper, and then they were putting things into the fax machine. And when two negotiations had gone by, you could no longer read anything and you had to start over again.

00;15;42;22 – 00;16;08;09
Elizabeth Kelly
So technology has played a tremendous role. The access to information now is phenomenal. You’ve got things like catch up, which are making it so much easier to be an entrepreneur. You can get chatty to help you write some of your marketing posts and you can do a lot more in a much shorter period of time, which I think gives people confidence, but it might also make them overly confident.

00;16;08;15 – 00;16;29;08
Elizabeth Kelly
So it’s like, Well, how can I fail? Because I can do all of these things, I can outsource and assistants and Vas. There’s a very popularized culture about what it looks and feels like to be an investor right now, but we’re not talking enough about the other stuff. The non tangible things, the things we need to know. My microphone wasn’t working this morning.

00;16;29;10 – 00;17;04;12
Elizabeth Kelly
There’s no tech support for me. I mean, I joke with my husband, but there really isn’t. At some point I’m going to have to probably take my computer into a repair shop and there’s nobody who’s going to do that for me. So that piece of it, I think having that knowledge of being able to run all the different areas of your business, having the network to be able to know the right people, to be able to call when you are not an expert in an area and being able to put aside the ego and thinking that you know everything and can be everything and can do everything and asking for help in the right moment,

00;17;04;14 – 00;17;07;15
Elizabeth Kelly
recognize when you are not in fact the best person.

00;17;07;18 – 00;17;45;00
Kyle Pearce
The message is so awesome and clear. Like when I think back to I had the vision of you driving to make the offer and now you can make 16 offers in a day if you really want to. That’s a busy person who’s doing that. However, it really is I guess. Interesting to see how I mean, 20 years is a long period of time, but if you think about that and go like, wow, it’s a very different space, I think coming off the heels of the pandemic where a lot of people, specifically in Canada, where the Canadian government backstopped everyone to basically will call it, have the same amount of money available to them, but not

00;17;45;00 – 00;18;02;27
Kyle Pearce
being able to use it anywhere because they were stuck in their house. So the logic there, I’m not quite sure of who thought that was a great idea. So what did people do? They all were using, I should say they all there was a group of people who looked at the pandemic as an opportunity to learn, as an opportunity to better themselves.

00;18;02;27 – 00;18;25;22
Kyle Pearce
There was also other groups of people where the pandemic had a really negative impact on their life and how they felt. But when you come out of that and then you think about how things have gone and the fact that there’s a lot of money printing, there was too many dollars chasing too few assets, and then now we’re in this place where now it’s like the reset button has been hit by the government, by the Fed, by the Bank of Canada.

00;18;25;24 – 00;18;46;07
Kyle Pearce
And it really gets you thinking about, wow. It seems like no matter what strategy you might have been exploring, if you’re a newer investor, if you were in the pandemic and you wanted to explore wholesaling or you wanted to explore rent to own or flipping or burgers or whatever you want to call it, or even buy and hold, you probably were a winner.

00;18;46;07 – 00;19;07;02
Kyle Pearce
And then all of a sudden you enter into this market where things have changed so quickly, so dramatically. Stress tests are higher, interest rates are higher, everything has changed. My wonder for you would be you hop on a call with some of your investors, be it folks who have been doing this for a while, or maybe some newer investors.

00;19;07;04 – 00;19;30;07
Kyle Pearce
How do you help them navigate where they are now? My guess is people come in with the thing that maybe made them some money a couple of years ago, and for some people it’s still working. But for others, I’m going to guess it’s not working. Or maybe their confidence has been rattled right where they go, Oh, I thought this was going to be much easier and it finding it much more difficult.

00;19;30;07 – 00;19;41;03
Kyle Pearce
So how do you help someone sort of reforge, I guess, and kind of get back on track so that they can continue doing the best work that they’re able to do and are driven to do.

00;19;41;05 – 00;20;03;14
Elizabeth Kelly
I love that so many parts to that. So the first thing I like to do is really take stock of where they are now. And a lot of people, we have this tendency to wear these rose colored glasses in our lives and to think that things are better than they actually are. So the first thing we do is take a look at if they have a portfolio, we take a look at that, we look at the cash flow, we look at the potential, we look at the growth that is possible.

00;20;03;14 – 00;20;27;29
Elizabeth Kelly
What is this? If we take this exact portfolio project 15, 20 years in the future, what is that going to return for them? For a lot of investors right now, this is the first time they’ve taken a really hard look at things. There’s a lot of investors who don’t even necessarily know their true numbers. So the exercise that my clients go through before we have our first session where they actually put their numbers into a spreadsheet and have to look at them, I had one lady message me.

00;20;27;29 – 00;20;44;15
Elizabeth Kelly
She’s like, I’m in tears. She’s like, I had no idea, she said. I knew we were struggling every month. I didn’t know what that number was. And now I’m shocked. So that clarity, it’s like being sick. If we refuse to go to the doctor to get a label for it, then we kind of hope it’ll go away. But what’s the likelihood that that’s going to happen?

00;20;44;22 – 00;21;00;16
Elizabeth Kelly
So that’s the first piece is to get the clarity around where we are right now. And then the next piece is the clarity around where do we want to get to? So what is our end result? Do we want to increase our net worth? Do we want to replace our income or are we just looking to supplement our annual cash flow to go on a great trip?

00;21;00;19 – 00;21;30;18
Elizabeth Kelly
Having the clarity around what that looks like and then having the really honest conversations around what each investment strategy provides in terms of opportunities. People are like, Oh, wholesaling. I want to do this because I don’t need to have any money. Okay, well, it’s not going to increase your net worth. It’s going to replace income and you need to have multiple deals every month in order to do that, because I know in the heyday, I mean, I was looking at wholesale deals with the wholesale fee with $60,000 and like they were wholesalers were supposed to be doing volume deals.

00;21;30;18 – 00;21;52;11
Elizabeth Kelly
And it was about the numbers. I didn’t know you were replacing your income with one deal. So and that’s not not to disparage wholesalers because quite honest, I think they find some great deals and they provide them for us, so they provide a necessary service. But that clarity around what is the next step or what is the next thing and I hear so many people say when I talk to them.

00;21;52;11 – 00;22;07;29
Elizabeth Kelly
So when I do discovery calls with people, they think that they’re going to be sold and in actual fact, they’re not, because I will not be the right coach for everyone. I’m not going to be the right fit. I’m not going to be perfect. So you’re actually telling me that you are the ideal client and I can help you?

00;22;08;02 – 00;22;30;04
Elizabeth Kelly
So when I do those discovery calls, people assume they’re going to be sold, and at the end they’re like, Well, you know, I’m saving all my money for a down payment, and that’s a fantastic idea. But what happens if you buy the wrong property or you buy it in the wrong location? So now you’ve taken all of your money and instead of educating yourself first and making sure you’re making the right decision, you’re just making a decision and crossing your fingers and hoping that it works.

00;22;30;10 – 00;22;35;20
Elizabeth Kelly
And if you’re going to do that, you might as well go to the casino and put everything on red because that’s pretty much what you’re doing.

00;22;35;23 – 00;23;08;02
Jon Orr
Yeah, Yeah. So I think what I’m hearing, I often wonder, like, what are the other real estate entrepreneurs struggling with? And what I’m hearing that you’re hearing is clarity, lack of real clarity of what we really want. Would you say that’s the biggest struggle right now for probably not just real estate entrepreneurs, but probably entrepreneurs in general? But I mean, is that the biggest struggle you’re hearing, or is there a bigger struggle that you’re hearing that you know, that this over here, this is really what people struggle with and you’re doing a lot of work to help them with that.

00;23;08;09 – 00;23;25;21
Elizabeth Kelly
Unfortunately, I think there’s a lot of misinformation out there. And when you’re a newer investor, you can be easily led by it. So the idea that you can buy properties and make a ton of money with none of your own money, that’s a really big piece of misinformation that’s out there. And quite frankly, my philosophy is just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

00;23;25;27 – 00;23;47;07
Elizabeth Kelly
Those are the investors who are struggling right now. There’s misinformation in terms of that investing in real estate is easy or that it’s get rich quick. That’s not the case. Clarity is definitely something that’s missing. But I think the other piece, unfortunately, that’s missing is that really honest communication about what the reality is like to be a real estate investor.

00;23;47;10 – 00;24;07;09
Elizabeth Kelly
It’s been 20 years and I would not say that I am a multimillionaire and can retire and do nothing. I mean, I guess I could, but I don’t know. It just it’s not easy. And everybody thinks it is. It’s not easy. It’s not. Buy a house and forget about it, especially not in Ontario, not with the landlord tenant board.

00;24;07;13 – 00;24;28;18
Elizabeth Kelly
And things are constantly changing. So if you think that you’re going to buy a couple of pieces of property and ignore them for 20 years and then sell them and make millions of dollars, that’s not going to be because you did the right thing. It’s going to be because you got lucky. So we can reduce a lot of the risk that comes with real estate investing by educating ourselves and by continuing to stay on top of things.

00;24;28;18 – 00;24;38;28
Elizabeth Kelly
We should be sponges, We should be continuing to learn and listening to some of the kind of popular tropes out there that’s not going to give the results that we were hoping for.

00;24;39;01 – 00;25;00;25
Kyle Pearce
I think that’s a fantastic, you know, answer. And I think, you know, John and I have talked about this on the podcast a number of times about really figuring out your why. Right? And I mean, this is true whether you’re an investor, whether you’re a real estate entrepreneur, whether you want to be a passive index stock investor, whether you want to just work a golden handcuffs job.

00;25;00;25 – 00;25;22;09
Kyle Pearce
We talk about golden handcuffs all the time, and I feel like we have to keep reminding people there’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s what you want. That’s what I thought I wanted for a very long time. I don’t regret any of it. And I actually some days I kind of miss that world. I know I’m not the type of person to be able to do that every day for another 15 or 20 years.

00;25;22;09 – 00;25;41;10
Kyle Pearce
But I just think getting clear on what it is you want is really key. And I think your point about misinformation is so on point that we find we’ve been on a lot of discovery calls as well, and we look to give people next steps. We try to point them in the right direction and pass them on to people that might be a good fit for them.

00;25;41;12 – 00;26;11;11
Kyle Pearce
And something that we’ve heard time and time again is that a lot of people, especially those who are kind of just entering into this world, or maybe we’ll call it the COVID investors that have come out of COVID, they’ve explored different strategies. They kind of scratched the surface. What they’re looking for is the home run instead of really assessing who are you and what will actually give you the energy, the excitement, the will to actually do the work.

00;26;11;11 – 00;26;37;09
Kyle Pearce
Because I’ve done a rent own before and you’ve done a lot of rent owns I’ve done a rent to own. It can be a great strategy for the right people, but it’s a lot of work too. There’s a lot of things that you have to do, systems you have to put in place. There’s a lot of moving parts, and I recognize luckily that I don’t know if that’s like my bread and butter strategy were more buy in holders will call it like the slow burn is sort of our strategy.

00;26;37;09 – 00;26;56;06
Kyle Pearce
You know, we pick properties and there’s no urgency to get them all fixed up because if that’s the case, I get stressed and I don’t like having to be on the phone all day trying to find content. So that’s my strategy that seems to work for me and I enjoy that and I don’t try to suggest that it’s the right strategy for everyone.

00;26;56;06 – 00;27;19;11
Kyle Pearce
So I really like your explanation around that, that ultimately it sounds like you have to do a lot of listening to people and helping them to land on where they are, who they are, where do they want to go, and how are they going to get there. Which really makes me wonder, and I’m sure we are starting this thing we call the secret sauce because it’s Canadian wealth secrets.

00;27;19;11 – 00;27;45;02
Kyle Pearce
So we’re curious, what would you say is your Canadian wealth secret sauce? And it might be just something that is on your mind now. Or maybe if you look back over your 20 years, what do you think would be the secret sauce that has worked well for you to put you in a place where you’re able to do the work that you love doing and enjoyed doing without necessarily having to feel like you’re hustling to get the next client.

00;27;45;02 – 00;27;48;19
Kyle Pearce
It sounds like you’re very selective in the clients that you work with.

00;27;48;21 – 00;28;10;00
Elizabeth Kelly
I really look for fit. I look for people who are motivated, people who are action oriented, people who are open. It’s amazing the number of people who are interested in hiring coaches because they’re looking for validation that their opinions are the right ones, even if they haven’t been investing for very long. Secret sauce, I think for me is just being curious.

00;28;10;00 – 00;28;37;23
Elizabeth Kelly
I try not to bring a lot of ego into conversations. I approach everything with the assumption that there’s always something for me to learn. I learned from my coaching clients too, whether I’m learning about specific markets that they’re interested in or whether I’m learning about great people that they can put on their power team or meeting with you guys and learning how a different piece of the portfolio in terms of providing diversity can provide more stability to be able to weather the market that we’re in right now.

00;28;37;25 – 00;28;54;01
Elizabeth Kelly
There’s always stuff to be learned. And I think that the secret sauce is really staying humble and asking questions and continuing like I still attend networking events because I want to learn from other people. I don’t attend networking events because I think that everybody has to hear what I have to say. I want to learn too.

00;28;54;03 – 00;29;16;07
Jon Orr
I love it. I love it. We often cite being curious or how can we stay more curious a little bit longer. There is the book The Coaching Habit by Michael Stanier, and he wrote The Coaching Habit, which is to help people that you’re coaching with, but it’s all about curiosity and staying curious because I think that also pairs perfectly what you said at the very beginning of the episode is that you are always on the lookout for a win win win, right?

00;29;16;07 – 00;29;35;16
Jon Orr
So it’s like, how can I help that particular person win in this scenario? And this is a velocity we live by is every interaction, every meeting we have. It’s about how can we be curious and stay a little bit more curious to help this particular person and give this particular person value. How can we help this deal get value for you and for me and for the seller?

00;29;35;16 – 00;29;55;18
Jon Orr
It’s like, how do we stay more curious? I think that is a perfect secret sauce in entrepreneur worship in general, but also just being a good human being. It’s a really important piece of where our secret sauce really needs to be. Elizabeth Just wrapping up here, we always want to also leave our listener with what is a big takeaway.

00;29;55;19 – 00;30;03;04
Jon Orr
What would you want if you were listening right now? What would you want them to be like? This is my biggest takeaway. What message would you want to leave them with?

00;30;03;05 – 00;30;25;25
Elizabeth Kelly
I want people to understand the power of knowledge and education so you can have people on your team that you trust. Always back it up. Always do your own research. I know there’s a lot of people right now who might go to they say, okay, they identify private landing as a strategy they want. And I go, I don’t want to have to find the deals and I don’t want to have to learn how to underwrite them.

00;30;25;25 – 00;30;53;17
Elizabeth Kelly
So I’m going to go to a mortgage broker and have them do all that for me. There is absolutely no substitute for the hard work of knowing your own numbers, of knowing how to do your own due diligence and knowing how to evaluate your deals and find your people and all those things. So I would say I want people to embrace the opportunity to learn and to grow and to educate themselves and don’t take the easy way out of delegating to somebody else.

00;30;53;17 – 00;31;03;27
Elizabeth Kelly
Because at the end of the day, you’re the one who has to be able to sleep at night. And if you are giving away your power and your ability, then at some point you might not sleep as well at night.

00;31;03;29 – 00;31;38;04
Kyle Pearce
That is such a key takeaway. And what I’m picturing is if you’re there and you’re exploring an idea and you’re we’ll call it getting bored or unable to do that learning and that ongoing understanding, now, we’re not suggesting people stay and don’t take action. We want you to take action. But if you’re already feeling like it’s like, I don’t really want to do that work, then maybe, maybe you need to look down a different rabbit hole and again, find the person, the support in your world, in that world that can help you along.

00;31;38;04 – 00;31;55;07
Kyle Pearce
So I want to thank you so much here, Elizabeth, for taking some time to meet with us to have a great conversation for the Wealth, the Canadian Wealth Secrets podcast listeners. I’m wondering where can they learn more about you, what you do, and to be able to reach out and maybe pick your brain.

00;31;55;09 – 00;32;20;26
Elizabeth Kelly
Best place to find me is on Instagram at Elizabeth Kelly Consulting. And right now I am focusing on leveling myself up. I have a new coach for my business and for my personal development as well, so I’m posting three stories minimal a day talking about what I’m thinking, what’s going on, what I’m seeing. So it’s a great way to kind of follow along and learn more as I level up and hoping everyone else will join me too.

00;32;20;28 – 00;32;24;08
Jon Orr
Awesome. Thanks so much, Elizabeth, and we’ll talk soon.

00;32;24;10 – 00;32;26;10
Elizabeth Kelly
Thank you so much, guys.

00;32;26;12 – 00;32;47;01
Kyle Pearce
Well, there, John, it is awesome that we’ve had the opportunity to bring Elizabeth Kelley on to the show. I’ve heard Elizabeth on some podcasts. I’ve seen her speak live. And you know what? This interview did not disappoint. It was great to go down the rabbit hole on a few ideas there and a lot of really great big takeaways.

00;32;47;01 – 00;33;20;19
Kyle Pearce
It’s funny because after we hit Pause or Stop, I suppose on the recording, we just discussed about how it seems that when times are really good bull market, good for everyone, you start to get some questionable players into the space. And something that resonated with me throughout this conversation is you can hear all the way from the beginnings when she was working, fundraising and essentially selling as a insurance agent for auto and home insurance that she just wasn’t feeling like it was her place.

00;33;20;19 – 00;33;57;01
Kyle Pearce
And she slowly went into the real estate entrepreneur space and is really just focused on doing good things and making sure that she’s helping more people. And ultimately, at the end of the day, hope that’s a big takeaway that everyone got from this conversation with Elizabeth Kelley and hopefully with more interviews that we do over time, is that there’s a lot of really great people in this space and connecting with those people who are out for the better interests of everyone, I think, is how you’ll ensure that you’re always in those win win scenarios for sure.

00;33;57;01 – 00;34;15;26
Jon Orr
And I think she gave a lot of perspective on what you were leaning towards is basically saying there is a lot of work to going into making real estate investing or becoming a real estate entrepreneur successful for you. It’s not just, Hey, I’ve got some extra cash and I should figure out how to dump it into real estate.

00;34;15;26 – 00;34;31;17
Jon Orr
There’s if you want to be successful at this venture and this is the pathway forward for you, you’ve got a lot of learning to do. You’ve got a lot of digging in. She used the idea that due diligence, we have to do our due diligence. You can’t just say lean on someone and take it for granted that they’re going to do the work for you.

00;34;31;17 – 00;34;48;08
Jon Orr
We got to dig in. We’ve got to invest ourselves in that entrepreneurial spirit. We talked about building a business around this, and that’s the way you have to go into it. I think you can’t just say, Hey, I got some money over here, but that’s if you’re saying, Hey, I want to be able to retire in, throw my handcuffs away, that’s not the way to do it.

00;34;48;08 – 00;35;11;14
Jon Orr
You’re going to have to dig harder. There’s more to do there. And I think that was a big takeaway for me. So if you got a lot of value out of this episode with Elizabeth and you have not yet, it’s was scribe subscribe right now on your podcast platform and do us a favor, hit the review button. If you have listened to a few episodes before, leave us that rating and review on your platform as well.

00;35;11;17 – 00;35;42;17
Kyle Pearce
And of course, while you’re doing that work, actually the time to reflect yourself is really important. So write it down, right? Write it down. Maybe leave yourself a voice memo if you’re on the move right now, or maybe share that big takeaway and your next step in your journey on social media with your network. That could be a great way for you to actually take this learning and make sure it doesn’t fade away like footprints in the sand, but rather become something that you’re going to latch onto and take action with.

00;35;42;17 – 00;36;06;09
Kyle Pearce
So that’s really what we’re hoping to do here. So make sure that you take that time. As always, you know, you can reach out to us. Let’s connect over on Canadian wealth secrets dot com. But we’ve got a great book list over there. We’ve got some great tools. We hope to continue adding to those tools. But first and foremost, hop on to a discovery call with us, have a chat, let us know where are you in your journey.

00;36;06;16 – 00;36;32;26
Kyle Pearce
We’ll do our best to point you in the very next step in the correct direction. So that you can continue making those moves. So head over to Canadian Wealth secrets dot com forward slash discovery and you can hop on a 30 minute discovery call so we can help you make that next move again Canadian wealth secrets dot com forward slash discovery and we look forward to connecting with you real soon.

00;36;32;29 – 00;36;50;06
Jon Orr
All right Canadian well secret seekers will catch you next time.

00;36;50;09 – 00;37;04;23
Kyle Pearce
Just a reminder that the content from this episode is for informational purposes only, and you should not construe any such information or other material as illegal tax, investment, financial or other advice.

00;37;04;26 – 00;37;21;28
Jon Orr
John or That’s me is a mortgage agent with Brick’s mortgage license number m23006803. And Kyle Pierce is a licensed life and accident and six insurance agent and wealth architect with the pan core team that includes corporate advisors and pan financial.

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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