What I learned while on vacation in Alberta

Hello Real Estate Investors in Hamilton!!

How has your summer been?  Hope you’ve all taken some time to enjoy the warm weather outside, recharge your batteries, and learn something new.

For my girlfriend and I, we took off for 11 days to Calgary for a friend’s wedding and made a vacation out of it.  A couple days in Calgary for the wedding, five days in the rockies split between Jasper and Banff (I preferred Jasper over Banff as the town is much further out of the way so its smaller, more relaxed, less commercialized), then back to Calgary for the Stampede.  We had a brilliant time while my businesses took care of themselves, Tim covered for me Realtor wise doing a few sweet investment deals, Maria is Maria so she took care of everything else, and Terry my contractor was drywalling while I shut down, sort of, I still checked my Black Berry way too often 🙂

If you haven’t been, to Calgary, Alberta here are a couple things I learned:

• Not everyone wear’s cowboy attire unless its Stampede week then pretty everyone does not matter one’s cultural background
• Calgary spends more per capita from what I can see than any Canadian city I’ve been too.  Pot holes are non-existent, the public parks are ridiculously nice, everything looks really new

Beautiful girl and city 🙂

• When the weather is nice, everyone leaves town for the long wekend.  Downtown was devoid of people, it was like one of those post apocalyptical movies, the city was virutally empty.  You can walk up to any patio and get a table on the spot.  I worked in downtown Toronto for six years where lineups for patios is the norm so this was strange to me.
• The Alberta Rockies are breath taking.  My father years ago recommended I first travel to the east coast of Canada before going west and now I know why.

Town of Jasper in the background

• I’ve never used a fire arm in my life and am a staunch believer in gun control however it turns out I’m a good shot with a pistol.  According to our instructor, I would rank amongst the top 95% percentile for accuracy among beginners

  Hamilton Police Hiring?

15 minute lesson and away you go! Another reason Alberta rocks 🙂

• Stampede organizers definitely know how to put on a show.  The Stampede itself is similar to the CNE but on steroids with a western twist, more beer, dancing, bronco riding and concerts.

A First Nations’ Phoenix from out of the darkness

While on vacation, I tend to read more often, this time it was a book titled “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell who examines the factors that contribute to highly successful people and those factors are, not surprisingly, hardwork and a bit of luck.  What is considered hard work?  How about 10,000 hours of effort.  Gladwell repeats the 10,000 hour rule several times throughout the book in how 10,000 hours of practise in any field is the key to being successful.  Gladwell uses examples of how the Beatles performed 1,200 gigs in Hamburg when they were starting out to accumulate 10,000 hours.  Bill Gates was from a wealthy family which is a factor but more importantly the wealthy school he attended provided Bill unique access to a computer at a time when only a few people in the world had the same.  Bill practiced computer coding some 10,000 hours before he ever started any of the ventures he is known for.

How much is 10,000 hours?  20 hours/week x 52 weeks/year x 10 years = roughly 10,000.  Are you an expert RE Investor?

Maybe you are but many are not.  Before leaving for Calgary, I received an email from someone we had just met who complained about being shown poor quality properties which Tim and I had not seen before.  Firstly, we only show properties we haven’t seen before because we write offers on the good ones within a few hours, most oftenly by investors who have not seen the property yet.  Secondly, as a professional real estate investor, you are going to have to see a lot of properties before finding a good investment.  I see a couple hundred properties each year because the more properties I see, the more deals we’ll find and only by doing deals do we gain experience and hone our skills as an investors.  For every bad property I see I’m one property closer to finding a good deal.

Generally, we look at 60 properties online, trim them down to 10 that are worth seeing in person then one-three properties are worthy of an offer.

Most of you know how many properties you need to achieve your five year plan or personal Belize.  Do the math, how many properties do you need to see to acquire enough properties?  50 properties?  100 properties? 1000?  Sounds like some work is involved… but then we knew that already…. because those who are successful are willing to do what others are not.

So what are you doing to see more property?  It’s Friday night as I type and I’ve got three on the schedule tonight.  If you’re ever wanting to see more property let Tim, Maria or I know.

Belize. I mean Lake Louis.

Hope that helps! Till next blog post – happy Hamilton investing everyone!!

Erwin | MrHamilton.ca

PS: If you are in search for a Realtor or RE expert for a joing venture and very determined to acquire investment real estate in Hamilton in the near term, have been pre-approved for financing, and have a great heart then contact my assistant Maria (at) mrhamilton.ca.  Life is short and our time is at a premium so only the best investors need apply.

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