Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the
"Inspire to Invest podcast,
where we're sharing stories fromreal estate investors and how
investing has changed theirlives.
This episode of the Inspire toInvest podcast has been brought
to you by Fluent Capital.
Welcome to the Inspire toInvest podcast.
I have an amazing guest todayin in Sipting Panjoo.
(00:23):
He also goes by Sip, and himand his wife and Sia grew their
real estate portfolio to animpressive eight figures in just
three years, enabling both ofthem to leave their full time
jobs.
Most of their multifamilyprojects have actually resulted
in doubling the value whilethey've worked on them, and they
really focus on bringing highquality, affordable housing to
Canadians.
(00:44):
They also have a givencomponent to their business.
On a monthly basis, they donatea percentage of their proceeds
to causes such as providingeducation, clean water, food and
shelter to deserving familiesand orphans in various locations
across the world, and they wantto support other investors to
create passive income investingin real estate through their
company, pregma Properties.
(01:04):
So welcome to day, sip.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Good thanks, Serena.
How are you Thanks?
For having me on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, I'm so happy to
be here.
I think your story is soinspiring because you and
Insiyah had obviously left yourfull time jobs and you know now
you're living a good life, Iguess you can say but no
complaints.
First, is like what.
What did life look like beforereal estate for both of you?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, so that's a
good question.
We basically followed thetraditional route.
We went to school, did the BCOM, I did the CPA, cfa and you
know, nca was a high schoolteacher for a few years, just
before she quit her job in 2020.
You know, I came from thecorporate world.
I worked at Coca-Cola, I workedat Nestle and corporate finance
(01:46):
before joining a big five bank.
You know, in the bank I wasthere for almost 20 years or so.
I worked in finance, vendormanagement.
You know I worked on some largeprojects and large deals and
contracts.
So for over 20 years I wasworking the nine to five job,
taking the GO train every daydowntown, because back then, you
(02:07):
know, there was no work fromhome strategy, right?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So hustle and bustle.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So then, what was the
catalyst to get you shifting
over from the corporate worldinto real estate?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah.
So I've always wanted to havepassive income because I knew
long term.
I wanted passive income becausewe were trading time for money
and paying a lot of taxes, likehuge amounts of taxes.
There's actually a date in Junewhere you're working for the
government, like from Januarytill June paying taxes.
So I was always looking forpassive income opportunities.
(02:38):
We did some real estate flips,single family, we did some stock
option trading, we did somestocks and bonds, things like
that for passive income.
But then I came to a point in mylife when I realized that, you
know, this can't go on foranother 20, 30 years, right?
Yeah.
So but what happened was afterwe had kids, life got busy with
(03:00):
the, you know the nine to fivejob leave the house seven
o'clock, come back at 6 pm, takethe kids for hockey.
Our kids were into hockey,taekwondo, soccer, tennis,
skiing, snowboarding, right.
So the life was just busy.
And then the social life.
On top of that, the maincatalyst for us was COVID.
So when COVID happened,everything stopped All of a
(03:22):
sudden.
We were working nine to five,working from home, and then we
had the evenings and weekendsfree.
So we started, you know,meeting a lot of people, like
over the phone and things likethat.
We started traveling to citiesto see properties.
We spent a weekend in Windsor,we spent a weekend in Kingston,
for example, we attendedseminars, we started networking
(03:44):
and so, in 2020, we bought ourfirst two multifamily properties
, and then that's when I see aquitter job, and then the rest
of this street, right.
So COVID was a great catalystfor us to move this forward.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, now I know you
didn't leave your job at the
same time.
You just left not too long ago.
I think it was maybe four orfive months ago, if I'm
remembering.
So why did that feel like theright time?
Like, and see, obviously leftsooner, but why did you feel
like you were ready, I guess?
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, I think I think
it came came a point where I
couldn't do both.
You know, I was taking up myweekends and the whole point of
doing this was to have awork-life balance and a work
lifestyle, and so we quicklyrealized that, like working
weekends Is not what we wanted.
So so quitting the job was wasgave me a work-life balance.
(04:31):
It also gave me time to explorenew opportunities.
Yeah, and in said quarter jobshoes, full-time on on the
multi-family game since 2020yeah, which helped us build the
portfolio to a point, but butreally helped that I had extra
time as well.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, no, that makes
perfect sense now when you look
back at everything you've done,like it's obviously been a lot
in just a very short Period oftime.
So is there anything inparticular that you think you're
most proud of or you look at isyour biggest success so far?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I think our biggest
accomplishment is building our
power team.
You know we've built our teamover the years, from realtors to
contractors, to our mentors.
We have great lawyers, mortgagebrokers, bankers, account so
like they're all part of ourteam.
The real estate is a team sport, yeah, but it takes time to get
the right contacts.
You know, the last few dealsWe've done have been off market
deals.
(05:19):
We also recently partnered upwith a company that does midterm
rentals for traveling nurses,yeah, which is going to double
our, our income in those unitswhere the traveling nurses their
furnished rentals, which takesa little bit of a capital
investment.
And just from the standpoint ofprojects, there's been a couple
of projects, you know.
One one was in Kingston, onewas in St John where we more
(05:41):
than doubled the property valuethrough renovations within sweet
laundry and with, you know,putting in mini splits and the
full renovation new roof, newwindows, buildings needed,
everything.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So no, is there any
particular market that you've
found, that you've worked in sofar that you have been happiest
with?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
You know what the
each market has its own sort of
pros and cons to it.
The Ontario market has has morelaws you have to deal with for
landlord tenant laws.
The New Brunswick market andthe the Alberta market where we
have properties, the laws are alot better, yeah, but sometimes,
like like in the Alberta market, the lift in the property value
Is not as much upfront Becausethe rents are a little bit lower
(06:25):
.
Right now they're a little bitdepressed.
They've been climbing up overthe past year.
But the Moncton market, st John, frederickton markets have all
been very good in terms of therental increases.
You know they're very fastgrowing provinces with very low
vacancy.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, yeah, I know
that's awesome.
Can you speak a little bit moreto how those landlord tenant
laws are different?
So obviously I think everybodyknows that in Ontario they're
very tenant friendly, but whenyou're looking at something in
Alberta or New Brunswick as aproperty owner or landlord, how
is that different in terms ofdealing with a tenant related
issue?
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah, so.
So in in Ontario, you know if atenant stops paying you rent.
We had one tenant that stoppedpaying us rent, you know, and he
and he wouldn't even pay theprevious landlord so he hadn't
been paying rent for a long time.
It took us about 14 months toget that tenant out In New
Brunswick, for example.
You can, you know if a tenantstops paying rent.
(07:19):
It's between 30 and 60 daysthat it's very easy to to get
that tenant out if they're notpaying rent.
And then the landlord tenantboard process in Ontario just a
waiting game.
We have some friends in thebusiness as well and they've
been waiting six months, eightmonths, yeah, just to deal with
the landlord tenant board.
Yeah, I'm glad for Biddy.
Make a mistake and then youhave to go start all over again.
Yeah, that's, that's happenedto some friends of ours.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yeah, yeah, now, I
guess in terms of obstacles,
what would you say is thebiggest obstacle that you face
while you're building thisportfolio?
You?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You know, the biggest
obstacle, and still is the
biggest obstacle, is time.
Right, real estate is a timeconsuming business.
We look at 100 deals, we runnumbers on maybe 30 deals, we
offer on 10 and we get oneproperty.
And then, once you get theproperty, then you start the
process, the financing, therenovation, the tenant
management, property management,and then there's the
(08:12):
operational side of it, theaccounting, the taxes.
So the biggest obstacle is timeright now, and it always has
been time.
You know we are building outour team and you know our goal
is to work on the business, notin the business.
And we also love, you know,sports, traveling, meeting
people, so just juggling, allthat is an obstacle.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, no, I can
understand.
I appreciate that.
I guess, in terms of some ofthe learnings that you've had,
what would you say are a coupleof the biggest lessons that
you've come across so far?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
A couple of lessons
are.
You know, we continue to learn.
One of the lessons that weshould have probably brought
more property 20 years ago thanstocks, yeah, but you know, when
the mortgage rates were low afew years ago, a couple of years
ago, we should have locked infor longer terms.
I think that was a simplelesson that we should have
learned.
(09:04):
You know, our brokers and ourbankers were always saying, well
, you can get more flexibilitywith a shorter term, but the
reality is you can always get asecond mortgage if you want to
refinance a property after a fewyears, right.
And then a lesson that I learnedover the years in the past is
(09:24):
don't speculate Like we don'tbuy a pre-construction condo,
things like that, because youdon't know what the market's
going to do, because supply anddemand things can change.
We've been through some weirdcycles over the past few years
with COVID, with the interestrates changing.
So hope for the best butprepare for the worst.
So we invest based on solidnumbers and cash flow that we
(09:45):
can hold the properties on along-term basis if we need to.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, yeah, I know
that makes perfect sense.
So with those pearls of wisdom,we're just going to take a
really brief break.
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Welcome back to the Inspire toInvest podcast.
I have Subtained Panju herefrom Pragma Properties, and him
(12:35):
and his wife and I have built upa very impressive portfolio
worth more than eight figures injust three years.
So he's talking to us aboutsome of the challenges that he's
experienced, obstacles,successes, and I guess one thing
that I really want to know iswhat's the craziest thing that
you would say has happened toyou so far as a real estate
investor.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, I think the
craziest thing first to think
back is how we bought theKingston property.
You know, we were new to themulti-family game.
We had one Sixplex at thatpoint we had walked through many
buildings, we had run manynumbers on many buildings.
But we noticed the propertyonline and we called the realtor
(13:15):
and learned that the offers aredue in two hours and there's 10
offers on the property already.
We ran the numbers and decidedthat this property can support
30% over the asking price, like$400,000 over the asking price.
We went in and we placed theoffer Within two hours.
We had not seen the property,but we had seen enough
(13:37):
properties and ran enoughnumbers to know that this could
easily support, you know, the30% over asking.
So we got the property.
This property needed everythingfrom roof to windows, full
suite renovations.
The properties now doubled invalue.
The rents were $800, and nowthey're about $1,800.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Wow, yeah, that's
significant and I'd say that's
pretty brave going in.
I guess you obviously hadpretty significant conditions if
you're going in buying siteunseen.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
No, so we had limited
conditions on that property
because there were 10 bids onthe property, right.
So we had to ask a lot of goodquestions, we had to get some
video footage quickly from therealtor, yeah, and we had to go
in with limited conditions onthat property.
So it was a really crazy storyon that one.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, I'd say so, but
a good way to thank Nimble and
beyond your feet, so that'sawesome.
Now, I guess, in terms ofmentorship and education, you
obviously talked about, you know, networking and joining
different organizations andstuff like that.
What would you say is some ofthe best advice that you've been
given over the last few years?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, we've gotten a
lot of advice from a lot of
great people over the years,which has helped us get to where
we are.
But, you know, some of the bestadvice we've had is between
where you are and where you wantto be.
There are people.
Right, you have to connect witha lot of people.
You have to leverage people,leverage their knowledge,
leverage training.
We're part of a lot of networksand masterminds that help us
(15:01):
grow every day.
You know, partner with peoplewho are already doing what you
would like to do, right, but youhave to take action.
Like you have to partner withsomebody, you have to take
action.
You have to take the training.
You have to pound the pavementsometimes to go see properties,
right, yeah, and then the lastthing I guess is invest in
multifamily versus single family.
(15:22):
The cash flow is better,expenses are lower and you can
force the appreciation on theseproperties and the risk profile
is overall lower as well,because you have you know, if
one tenant doesn't pay rent,it's a small percentage of your
overall income, right?
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, now would you
say that there's a sweet spot
with your properties.
Like are you looking at thesmaller multis?
Are you working towards largeracquisitions?
Like, what would you say isreally your focus?
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Yeah, we look for
anything between.
You know, over the past yearanything between like 12 units
has sort of done the lower sideTo one that we looked at which
was about 110 units.
So it's a pretty wide range.
We find that once you get overthe 50 unit mark the competition
gets tougher, the income kindof the cap rates get a little
(16:09):
bit lower.
So you know, the sweet spotmight be between 12 and, let's
say, 50.
But at the same time you knowwe are looking at the larger
stuff as well.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Okay, so now can you
talk a little bit about for
anyone that's listening that youknow they'd like to do
something like this.
Can you talk about how you'redoing this?
Because I'm sure that you guysjust didn't set aside a portion
of your personal savings to goout and buy all these apartment
buildings.
So can you talk a little bitmore about your process and your
partnerships and things likethat?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, sure, so we.
Essentially what we do is westarted buying properties with
our own money first, but theneventually you need capital to
buy these large properties,right?
So we partner with people likeusually it's people that know us
from somewhere, like eitherthrough networks or through
friends and family, andessentially we partner with them
(16:57):
.
They bring in the capital forthe down payment and then we
share and everything else,including the proceeds of the
property, and when the propertyvalue doubles, we refinance the
property.
So it's the BRR strategy to buy, renovate, rent, refinance and
then repeat.
Yeah, right, so essentially youcan refinance the property, get
(17:17):
the capital out for the capitalpartner, and then what happens
is they can reinvest thatcapital or they can invest in
something else, but they stillmaintain their equity share in
the property, yeah, which helpsthem grow their portfolio long
term.
Right.
And property, the multifamilyproperties we've been looking at
they double between seven and10 years on average.
Yeah, right, so if you have a$10 million portfolio in 10
(17:41):
years, if it's $20 million inanother 10 years it could be $40
million, right?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, no, that's
significant.
Now, when you are partneringwith someone, how do you feel
the conversations regarding,like, exit strategies?
So, obviously, life happens.
Someone may go into partnershipwith you and know they think
that they're going to want to bethis partner for 10 years or
something.
But have you had anyexperiences where someone's like
we'll ask to exit earlier.
Like, how would you approachthat if that happened?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, so, like most
of our partners right now are on
a buy and hold strategy, likesimilar to us, but we do allow
our partners to exit.
You know, we say the minimumwhole period should be three
years, but then after that point, if they want to exit, we will
buy them out.
If we can't or don't want tobuy them out for whatever reason
(18:29):
, then we will put the propertyon the market Like within six
months, no questions asked.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Okay, yeah, I was
just curious to see how that is.
I was speaking to someoneearlier this week and they said
they bought up all theseproperties, but then the problem
was life changes.
So they were just in asituation where they had to
solve and the intention was tobe more of a buy and hold.
So I was just curious to seehow you approached that.
Now, in terms of the projectsyou have going on right now, can
you talk a little bit aboutwhat's next for you guys?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, so we're still
looking at multifamily
opportunities across Canadaright now.
You know we're slandallizing alot of deals.
We have a couple under contractright now.
Both are in Ontario, both aremultifamily value-added
strategies.
On both properties we manage tonegotiate vendor take-back
mortgages and both propertiesare close to schools and
hospitals, which tends to driveup revenue over the long term.
(19:20):
One of the properties is $2.5million range, the other one is
$9 million range and to top itall I'll top it off the
properties both come with largepieces of land which are already
zoned for higher density.
So on a long-term basis you canactually develop.
Yeah, yeah, there's an optionfor big lift there.
We're also looking in theStates, but the opportunities
(19:43):
that we're seeing there are notnecessarily better than what
we're seeing here.
So we are looking at both sidesof the border.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Okay, so now for
anyone that's new to real estate
and they may not understand theterm vendor take-back, can you
talk about what that is and howyou approach that situation with
people that owned thosebuildings?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Sure.
So in terms of vendor take-backmortgage, essentially, instead
of the bank providing you themortgage, the seller like one of
the properties.
That's $2.5 million.
The seller is providing about$1.6 million of the mortgage.
So we bring in a down paymentand the seller basically becomes
the bank for us and we pay theminterest only and that
(20:26):
particular mortgage is at 4.75%,which is better than the bank
rates right now and there's nobank fees and things like that.
So it's a much better deal.
And so we have a four-year dealon that mortgage where the
seller just provides themortgage and takes the interest
and from a seller's perspectiveit's better because they
actually save on capital gainstax.
(20:47):
That can spread it out over theyears.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, no, awesome, I
just wanted to make sure that we
shed some light on that Now, interms of financial freedom
number, obviously you guys haveretired from your full-time jobs
.
Obviously you're still workingas investors.
But what does financial freedommean to you, whether that's a
portfolio, cash flow, number ofdoors, return on time?
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, it's not really
a number of doors, because
number of doors the price canvary on the doors.
So we focus more on theportfolio value and we don't
have an exact number.
But we don't want to havenecessarily billions and
billions of dollars of realestate and just work the rest of
our lives like crazy.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
What we'd like to do
is build it to like nine figures
and then sort of decide what todo from that point.
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Now how would you say
real estate investing has
changed your life.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Yeah, it's been great
.
I mean we've been traveling alot more than we have in the
past.
We've done about four or fivetrips.
This year we went on a cruisefor like three weeks.
We just picked up and left.
You can still work fromwherever you are.
We're seeing friends more oftennow.
Previously it was like you meetyour friends on Friday and
(21:56):
Saturday because you have towake up early the following day
and get to work.
So now you can have likework-life integration where you
might be working on Saturdaymorning when you have some time
and things are quiet and youwant some headspace, but at the
same time you can be out onTuesday night and Thursday night
.
Typically we're out two orthree nights a week now and
(22:19):
there's a lot more flexibility.
And the kids even.
We see the kids a lot more.
We're playing sports with thekids a lot more.
I've picked up tennis over thepast two or two as well.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, no, I think
that's important just to shed
light on what that looks like,because, at the end of the day I
think we talked about offlinethat real estate investing is
not just so much that someone'sso passionate about apartments
or being a landlord and thingsthat go along.
It's really just how it canreally transform your life and
having access to things that youwouldn't necessarily have if
you were working for someoneelse.
(22:50):
Now, in terms of inspirationand motivation, is there any
particular quote that you liketo live by or really inspires
you?
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I'm a quote guy so I
have a lot of quotes, so I'll
try and pick a couple that Ilike.
One that stuck with me over theyears, since I was almost like
a kid, is work hard, play hardand pray hard.
So it's not just about workinghard, but make sure you also
play hard, and when you do workhard you actually enjoy the play
time more.
And the second quote is be thechange you wish to see in the
(23:22):
world, which is Mathma Gandhi.
You can't control everything,but you do have control over
what you do, and so be a goodperson and help those around you
.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, now that makes
perfect sense.
Now, for anyone that has beenwatching that wants to get in
touch with you, what's theeasiest way for them to connect?
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, I think a
couple of easy ways are our
website, which ispragmapropertiescom, and then
our Instagram is atpragmaproperty.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Perfect, and we'll
include that in the show notes
below, of course.
Now, is there anything elsethat you wanted to leave with
our audience before we sign up?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You know what?
Take action and get out there,because if you don't take action
, your return on investment isgoing to be zero, right?
So take action and get outthere.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, take messy
action.
It doesn't have to be perfectin the beginning Imperfect
action on the point, or partnerwith someone like you guys that
know what they're doing.
That's right, awesome.
Well, thanks so much for beinghere.
Of course, for anyone that'stuning in, if you like what
you've seen or heard, pleasemake sure that you like, comment
and subscribe, and if you'retuning in with your audio
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(24:26):
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We share lots of content beforeand after episodes are airing,
and remember, when you invest inyourself, the sky's the limit.
Thanks again.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Thanks, rina, awesome
.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
So I'm just going to
end this.
Thanks again to Fluent Capitalfor bringing you this episode of
Inspire To Invest.
The views represented on thispodcast are for general
information only and does notconstitute investment or other
professional advice or anoffering of securities.
The host and guest featured onInspire To Invest make no
(25:01):
representations as to theperformance of any particular
investment.
Should you decide to make aninvestment, you are responsible
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It is recommended that youobtain independent legal
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