Scott Dillingham: 00:21

For tuning in today. I've got Tyler Soulier here with me today, very special guest. He's a massive real estate investor in the Windsor Essex area. He's also a full time realtor. He's an expert at setting up joint ventures.

Scott Dillingham: 00:35

And today he's gonna go over his story, how he got into real estate, how he got started, some of his experience. And then we're gonna talk about joint ventures, which ultimately, a joint venture is where you can partner with us, and we help you to purchase the property, and we manage it, and we take care of everything so you can become a hands free landlord. So it's ideal for somebody who lacks the knowledge to invest or the time. Tyler, welcome.

Tyler Souillier: 01:03

Hey. No. Thanks for having me, Scott. It's really good to be here, and I always love talking about real estate. Oh, it's awesome.

Tyler Souillier: 01:08

Whatever this conversation takes us, yeah. Real estate related, I can go on for days.

Scott Dillingham: 01:13

That's perfect. No. That's perfect. So, yeah. I'm curious, like, how you got started into real estate.

Tyler Souillier: 01:18

Yeah. You know what? I started with working here in Windsor Essex after school. I was, what, 25, and joined the family business, and knew I always go into a business school. I wanted to be my own boss.

Tyler Souillier: 01:31

I was sitting on a desk day after day kinda got to a point where I was like, I gotta do something different. How can I do something different? Came across. I remember an ebook about rent to owns. I

Scott Dillingham: 01:41

remember that. Yeah.

Tyler Souillier: 01:43

And really read through that and really, this seems pretty interesting. I could do this, but how do I get started? So, actually, the only way I thought to get my foot in the door was become a realtor. So I quit my job, moved to Toronto, became a realtor.

Scott Dillingham: 01:54

Nice. That's awesome.

Tyler Souillier: 01:55

Realized being a realtor, it it taught me how to learn about real estate, the different areas of neighborhoods, but to really get my foot in the door to real estate investing, which is where I wanted to get to. I really had to learn how to do it. Real estate, being a realtor in Toronto, starting out, didn't really work too well. So I ended up moving back to Windsor, an area I'm familiar with. My network's here and ended up teaming up with an investor realtor who basically taught me how to get started investing in real estate.

Tyler Souillier: 02:22

And this is now 2,000 and end of 2013 when I moved back. So Windsor was still pretty hit hard from the recession. Yep. Prices were very rock bottom, and no one was buying anything back then. Yep.

Tyler Souillier: 02:36

Like, it was like I had properties under $50,000 that no one would even still touch. They thought it was overpriced.

Scott Dillingham: 02:42

Yeah. I I remember my first Windsor property was around that time. It was a duplex on Irving.

Tyler Souillier: 02:48

Yeah.

Scott Dillingham: 02:49

Or Irvine, sorry.

Tyler Souillier: 02:50

And I

Scott Dillingham: 02:50

bought it for 84,000.

Tyler Souillier: 02:52

Okay. I got you beat I got you beat. My first was 48,000 a duplex.

Scott Dillingham: 02:55

Nice. Yeah. You do.

Tyler Souillier: 02:56

A Windsor app. Yeah. I pitched it to every investor in my database, and everyone was going very low. And the seller finally agreed to meet me at 48,000. And the only reason I went through with this because I actually went to the bank couple months before someone had told me to open up a HELOC.

Tyler Souillier: 03:14

So that's a home equity line of credit. And I was like so I had that open, and I thought, okay. Here's what I need to borrow. Yeah. Here's the interest I'm gonna pay on it.

Tyler Souillier: 03:22

I'm gonna flip it. The renovations were only $30. And after 6 months after I renovated it, flipped it, I put $30 in my pocket. Yeah. Paid back what I borrowed.

Tyler Souillier: 03:32

That's this seems very simple when you just break it down to the number side. Right? Yep. Here's your sale. Here's what you purchased for.

Tyler Souillier: 03:38

Here's your renovations. Here's the interest on what you borrowed. Yep. And then there and then whatever's left is your profit. Right?

Scott Dillingham: 03:44

So that's actually known as the BRRR strategy, ultimately.

Tyler Souillier: 03:48

Basically. So I I didn't I didn't BRRR that one. I flipped it. Oh. It's funny.

Tyler Souillier: 03:52

So when I'm almost when I had it sold, a buddy of mine told me, why don't you keep those and refinance it? And I go, what's refinance mean? Yeah. So here I am with the MBA, and I don't even know what refinance means. And that's a whole another topic we can get into about the school system.

Tyler Souillier: 04:08

And they don't teach you the days and

Scott Dillingham: 04:10

numbers No.

Tyler Souillier: 04:10

They don't. But so I was like, okay. Let's try that. And I I was hesitant because I didn't want tenants. That's what everyone said though.

Tyler Souillier: 04:18

Tenants are terrible. Like, you don't wanna get stuck tenants. They don't pay the rent. They destroy your property. Yeah.

Tyler Souillier: 04:23

But you really it's just the same idea. You just factor those kind of risks, those costs, the vacancies into your numbers when you're analyzing a property when you're gonna have a a long term rental.

Scott Dillingham: 04:33

Yep. That's it. And I find too with tenants because I always hear those nightmare stories. And from the financing standpoint, I see people that I didn't originally help that went somewhere else. And now they're selling the property or downsizing their portfolio.

Scott Dillingham: 04:46

And I find the number one issue is that people try to manage all their properties. I use professional management. So those tenant issues go out the window.

Tyler Souillier: 04:55

Yeah. And I learned that after about a year of Yep. After I built up a portfolio of doing the BRRRR strategy

Scott Dillingham: 05:01

Yep.

Tyler Souillier: 05:01

That after I think both three properties, I was like, I this is a lot. Yep. Then I got to about 6 and I was like, I can't do this anymore. And when I found a profit management company, and from the start, I tell people now who are investing, just get a management company.

Scott Dillingham: 05:15

Yeah. Even on the first property because people, if they have a bad tenant, they're gonna have a sour taste in their mouth. And really, it's probably only a bad tenant because they lack the experience to put a good tenant in the property.

Tyler Souillier: 05:27

And that's a whole another skill set

Scott Dillingham: 05:29

Yep.

Tyler Souillier: 05:29

Of trying to learn in time and management. I had my wife doing it for a bit for me.

Scott Dillingham: 05:33

That's awesome.

Tyler Souillier: 05:33

And the amount of time she put in to just screening people and trying to find someone good for a property was, like, it's much better to have someone that's got a system in place that can screen them better to do that. So pay them to do it. It's so much more worth it.

Scott Dillingham: 05:47

Yeah. And it's they're not much money for a property manager.

Tyler Souillier: 05:50

No. No. It's honestly you know, you're between 5 to 7 percent of charge per door. And let's say it's max $100 a month you might pay. What's your time worth?

Tyler Souillier: 06:01

One headache, a text at 9 o'clock at night after on a Saturday night after coming home from dinner is gonna just ruin your whole night. It's not worth the time.

Scott Dillingham: 06:09

No. It's true. Just as an example, just to elaborate on this, I had a little bit of water from one of the recent rains in the basement. It wasn't much. It was about an inch.

Scott Dillingham: 06:17

I was in Niagara Falls with my family, just a little mini vacation. And the property manager texted me, says there's a little bit of water. We're sending somebody out to take care of it, and we'll talk later. And I'm like, great. So that could have ruined someone's week really.

Scott Dillingham: 06:31

And for me, it was just a simple email, and that was it. It's all taken care of.

Tyler Souillier: 06:34

Yeah. It's just hands off. That's where I always wanted to be when I started this. From that first flip to then I did I just went on a rampage in my 1st year for so all of 2014, I ended up buying I think I I always get the number mixed up. It's been a lot.

Tyler Souillier: 06:48

About 15 properties.

Scott Dillingham: 06:49

Right.

Tyler Souillier: 06:50

Yeah. Semi flipped, semi renovated and refinanced. And then that next year, I remember I won the investing of the year investor of the year award.

Scott Dillingham: 06:58

Yep.

Tyler Souillier: 06:58

It was recognized. My wife told me to submit my application. Like, why don't you see if you can win not win this award? Yep. Comes out of this and yeah.

Tyler Souillier: 07:06

I went to this big event in Toronto, and I was, like, shocked. So it was cool to be recognized for all the hard work I did. And to be honest, it was it was a lot of hard work. Like, it was a lot. And so after that, I kind of just I was like, I gotta slow down here.

Tyler Souillier: 07:20

You start getting capped on lending. I used lenders. I used private lenders. I used HELOCs. I was using visas.

Tyler Souillier: 07:26

So I pay for renovations. So I really went all in, but all that hard work has now paid off to to where I am today. For sure.

Scott Dillingham: 07:32

No. And that that's incredible. And it's funny about the award too because I was there for mortgage advice, but multiple years after year.

Tyler Souillier: 07:38

Oh, okay.

Scott Dillingham: 07:39

Yeah. So it's funny, but that's a great I don't know if they're doing the seminars now with COVID, but they had them and hundreds of people would go to those.

Tyler Souillier: 07:46

Oh, it was a really neat event. I got a lot of investors. It was just cool to be with like minded individuals. And going to those conferences, that's what I did in the beginning as well. Just to really learn as much as I could.

Tyler Souillier: 07:57

Yeah. And I thought those were the best in terms of how to learn more about investing in

Scott Dillingham: 08:00

real estate. Absolutely. And I know, like, here in Windsor, there's not many conferences like that. We do actually host them. So if you're interested in coming to an event or a seminar about investing or anything, actually, we're gonna have multiple topics.

Scott Dillingham: 08:13

Someone listening today, you can actually come to an event and we'll have it advertised online so they can see that. And actually, I'm sure Tyler will be at some of them when we talk about joint ventures, which we actually have to take a quick break right now. But when we come back, he's gonna go into joint ventures, what they are, the details, profits, all that good stuff, And then we'll go from there. Okay? So we'll be right back after this quick break.

Scott Dillingham: 08:36

K. Welcome back. So Tyler and I were discussing over the break that he's gonna continue with sort of his story. Right. And then we'll we're gonna touch on the, the joint ventures, how they work, and the benefits and all that stuff.

Tyler Souillier: 08:48

Yeah. No. I think we left off with really the conferences. So that was the big thing that really pushed and it pushes you because you're sitting there next to these people who have done stuff. Right.

Tyler Souillier: 08:55

And you're just you could read all you want, educate all yourself if you want, but unless you have something to really push you over that ledge, okay, I'm gonna do this. Yeah. That being around other people that have done it, that kinda gets you going. So that's really what got me really to buy my first property. I I sat there and looked at properties for 6 months.

Tyler Souillier: 09:13

Finally, I'm I'm doing it. I'm doing it. So yeah. So after that 1st year, it was more or less like the top. I found a property management company.

Tyler Souillier: 09:20

And I remember I gave him one property, and it went so well. I was gonna roll it over for a year. And take another one. I was like, just take them all.

Scott Dillingham: 09:27

Yeah. That's it.

Tyler Souillier: 09:28

I'm like, you can have them all. Yeah. And the tenants, I think after 2 months, they stopped messaging me because I just stopped answering them. And the headache stopped. And after over time, so that was around 2015.

Tyler Souillier: 09:39

I just slowly started buying. Not as many properties, property here, property there.

Scott Dillingham: 09:43

Yep.

Tyler Souillier: 09:44

And and like most investors, you start running out of capital to to buy these 20% down. It can add up, especially as prices are going up. So you start looking to other avenues. Private lending is 1. Joint ventures could be another one.

Tyler Souillier: 09:56

And that's what led me to start doing a couple more of those. And, yeah. That's just a great way to really when you start wondering how else can I build my portfolio?

Scott Dillingham: 10:05

Yep. Yep. No. I agree. So the privates, yeah, we I haven't personally had to use one, but a lot of investors are using it.

Scott Dillingham: 10:12

And the one thing that I I would say to any client getting a private is don't look at the interest rate. Because some people look at it and they're scared. They I think with a private, you need to factor in the interest rate, but then look at the profit and say, does this make sense? And if you're still gonna profit, then what's just the cost of business? It's a write off, and you just move forward.

Tyler Souillier: 10:30

That's I I rarely looked at the interest rate because you're just gonna factor that into your analysis. And Yeah. If it's as long as you're not long term at 15% with a private lender, which most are only 1 to 2 years max, you're still judging that into the into your cost anyway.

Scott Dillingham: 10:44

Yep. In our private lenders, we try not to use the expensive ones. Ours are 7 to 8%.

Tyler Souillier: 10:48

Oh, very good. Yeah. Oh, very good. Yeah. I wish I had that in 2015 when I was using private lender.

Tyler Souillier: 10:54

Yeah. For sure.

Scott Dillingham: 10:54

So it's definitely cheaper. But for someone who's a homeowner that wants to get into investing, you have to private is not the first thing you get, but you just have to know like it's

Tyler Souillier: 11:03

There are options.

Scott Dillingham: 11:03

It's yeah. There's options. It could be more money.

Tyler Souillier: 11:06

As an investor, that's the greatest thing is having those other options. Because most most when I started, it was like, you go to the bank and here where's your down payment. Yep. And then as you start learning more, you're like, wow. There's different options.

Tyler Souillier: 11:16

And then Yeah. Yeah. And then the joint venture side, like, I I learned a ton about it. I did the conferences in Toronto trying to learn more how to structure them, how they can be how to, like, how they can run efficiently. And and then now it's just very simple processes.

Tyler Souillier: 11:31

Everything is very turnkey. The one I recently did was he was like, that was when it was all said and done, he was like, that was so easy. Like, what do I do now? I'm like, nothing.

Scott Dillingham: 11:40

No. That's incredible.

Tyler Souillier: 11:41

So Unless you you won't hear from me unless the building's on fire.

Scott Dillingham: 11:43

That's it.

Tyler Souillier: 11:44

So it's very hands off for the investor. He was happy. I'm happy. It just runs so smoothly now because I've had the years years of experience Of doing it. Of investing in real estate.

Tyler Souillier: 11:54

But anything that comes to me just like you, Scott, it's it doesn't really phase you. Whereas a new investor, it might just be like, oh my god. My my basement flooded. Oh my god. You're freaking out where you're

Scott Dillingham: 12:03

like, no.

Tyler Souillier: 12:03

No. Quick phone call. Management company, it's fixed. Yeah. The bill is crap, but that's just part of real estate investing.

Tyler Souillier: 12:09

Maybe you just factor that into your maintenance and long term thinking. Don't think, oh, I got a $3,000 bill. My cash flow for the year is gone. Yep. Over 10 years of depreciation, mortgage pay down.

Tyler Souillier: 12:19

It's well worth it. It's already you already know your return's gonna be there, and it's gonna be much better than investing mostly anywhere else right now and less full full.

Scott Dillingham: 12:29

No. I fully agree. For somebody listening for the very first time and maybe they haven't even heard the term joint venture, do you wanna elaborate on what a joint venture is?

Tyler Souillier: 12:37

Yeah. It's it's more or less just partnering with somebody 5050 or however you wanna structure the split that's up to you and your partner. Yep. And and really, it's just in my terms, it was like I had capital or some in some it's sometimes I didn't have any capital.

Scott Dillingham: 12:50

Yep.

Tyler Souillier: 12:50

So I would partner with somebody who had the capital, and they also would ask to financing. And we'd go partnership on the property. I bring the experience, the structures, the analysis, find the properties for them, and they're mostly a private silent money investor. So we team up in that aspect because they don't have the time to do this. They don't know what maybe they what they're doing.

Tyler Souillier: 13:12

The last partner I had is, I don't know what I'm doing. He's real estate.

Scott Dillingham: 13:15

Yeah.

Tyler Souillier: 13:16

So he's, I would love to partner with you. Yeah. Let's do this. And even the one before that, it was the same idea. Yep.

Tyler Souillier: 13:21

She had no idea about real estate, but I just brought her a property that was was like, you do not wanna pass this up. Yep. This is a great property. Here are the numbers. Broke it down a nice analysis, a nice little summary of what we wanna do, and it was just a long term hold.

Tyler Souillier: 13:35

And that's usually what how I structure my partnership. It's usually long term hold. Right? 5 years kind of minimum unless there's a really good save opportunity where there's maybe a flip. I like the long term rentals.

Tyler Souillier: 13:47

That's where you build the most wealth.

Scott Dillingham: 13:49

Yeah. No. And I agree. But behind the scenes within our investing club, Tyler and I will set up joint ventures for people. So what Tyler is really good at, and he touched on it, he's good at finding that perfect property.

Scott Dillingham: 14:02

So you don't need to look at 10, 20 properties when you work with myself or Tyler. Tyler will just say, here's the one. Yeah. And you just jump on it. And that's so that's

Tyler Souillier: 14:11

it, honestly. Yeah. My bet I'll go look at some. And if I found it's not the right property or the price is too high yeah. I don't I've learned after that 1st year, I was buying everything to not force the numbers.

Tyler Souillier: 14:23

Yeah. So if I'm in a bidding war, which I just recently was, this was my number. And I wasn't emotionally attached to it. I said I was like, this is it. And when when the realtor called back and was like, yeah.

Tyler Souillier: 14:34

You got the property. I was happy with the price I paid because it met all the parameters that I look for factoring on all those, like, costs that those costs that you don't see Yep. Unless they occur. Your maintenance, your maintenance. That's correct.

Tyler Souillier: 14:45

So I was, like, very happy with it. And I always have set benchmarks that I like to meet for my return.

Scott Dillingham: 14:50

Yep. And that's perfect. And Tyler also said, there's pretty much 3 ways to do joint ventures, but we only help with 2 of the 3 ways. So the 3 ways is, you lack the time to invest, you lack the knowledge to invest, or you're looking for capital. So we provide the mortgages at Lend City.

Scott Dillingham: 15:08

So we'll help you with that, but you've got to have your down payment. But our the partnerships that we set up is for the people that don't have the time or the knowledge. We're looking for the people with the cap to grow and utilize our unique

Tyler Souillier: 15:19

And the other thing about the knowledge part, like, I'm born and raised in Windsor Essex County. Yep. You're from Windsor. We just know this market. So it's just for a lot of people looking at Windsor now because it's like they're priced out of these the GTA.

Tyler Souillier: 15:32

Like, it's like, I talked to investors. They're all, like, it's expensive. Yeah. So they're looking here, and they've been looking here since I started. Yeah.

Tyler Souillier: 15:39

And more every year, I hear, like, more and more investors are coming down. And it's yeah. I've already know the market. So it's very easy for someone looking out. Oh, I'd love to get into Windsor, but I don't know it.

Tyler Souillier: 15:49

So we know it. Yep.

Scott Dillingham: 15:50

And there's people so this show is gonna air on the radio, of course, on AM 800. You're listening to it now. But we're also we aired on a podcast. So we're potentially gonna have listeners from all over Canada.

Tyler Souillier: 16:00

Okay.

Scott Dillingham: 16:01

So for the joint venture partners, I want you to know, like, we can help anybody in Canada that's buying in Windsor.

Tyler Souillier: 16:07

Yeah. We we know this market. Yep. It's very good to know what to buy and what not to buy.

Scott Dillingham: 16:12

Yep. Exactly. That's great. So just to recap, Tyler and I combined, so I'll help on the financing side to make sure you're getting the best rates, the best terms for investors. That's what we do.

Scott Dillingham: 16:24

From my years of experience in mortgages, it's all been with investors. Yeah. So we help on that end, and Tyler goes out, finds the property. He will give you, I believe, a monthly expense showing or income or expenses. Is it monthly or any other type of

Tyler Souillier: 16:38

I've got I'm a spreadsheet guy. So I've got a great breakdown on projections of what you'd make over 5, 10 years, monthly costs. Like, it's all very summarized. And I got the team behind me that it makes the process very smooth for the partner.

Scott Dillingham: 16:53

That's awesome. And then we also have professional property management that we use for every one of these that we set up. And within that, you get our team of if you wanna know who a lawyer is that you should use.

Tyler Souillier: 17:05

Yeah.

Scott Dillingham: 17:05

An accountant, like all that stuff. We have the whole team lined up.

Tyler Souillier: 17:08

And I've learned to just use it's so much easier when I can use the people that I use. It just makes it way smoother than Yep. Going to another lawyer that doesn't understand what we're trying

Scott Dillingham: 17:17

to do. That's it. That's it. Exactly. Because, yeah, you're right.

Scott Dillingham: 17:20

If they don't know the area plus, if, say, you're in Vancouver and they're trying to purchase here, if we're using a Vancouver lawyer, it could delay the deal.

Tyler Souillier: 17:27

It does. And same with the financing aspect with you right here in the background Yep. Okay. With the buyers, it's it is much easier that way.

Scott Dillingham: 17:34

Yep. No. That's perfect. To to join the club, we we actually have a 2 week free trial. So it's a 100% risk free, and then we're 29, 95 a month after that.

Scott Dillingham: 17:44

But to join to get access to Tyler and the joint ventures and the and the investing courses that we do within the club, just go to invest.lendcity.ca. And then once you're in there, we'll do your preapproval. We'll determine your maximum purchase price. And then we'll partner with Tyler, and we'll find you a home.

Tyler Souillier: 18:03

Sounds great.

Scott Dillingham: 18:04

Alright. Thanks so much for for coming today, Tyler, and, for the listeners as well for your time, and everybody have a great day.

Tyler Souillier: 18:11

Yep. Thanks very much.