Hey, welcome back to today's show. I'm really excited today. I've got a long term customer of mine that I've seen grow and develop and to date mix between wholesaling and flipping. Manny Cabral has turned over 30 plus properties, which is quite impressive. So welcome to the show, Manny.
Manny Cabral:Thank you, Scott. Happy to be here.
Scott Dillingham:Yeah. No. That's awesome. So how did it start? Did you have this idea of flipping houses when you were younger or is this like, where did it start when you were little?
Manny Cabral:No. It it didn't start when I was little. That's for sure. Growing up, the last thing in my mind was flipping properties or being in the construction industry, but my father was a carpenter and in the construction industry, but that's not really where he came from. I guess it just grew over the years.
Manny Cabral:But as I got into my later teenage years, I did get interested in construction. Really, it was really something that grew on me. And I ended up going to George Brown College and took all kinds of courses with blueprint reading and drawing and drafting and all that stuff. And ended up working for a construction company at a very young age. Served my apprenticeship there, my carpentry apprenticeship.
Manny Cabral:Moved on a little bit up there and became a foreman in some of the, and eventually met my business partner, who was twice my age at the time. And in about two years of working for that company, we actually started our own construction company, which was cool. We were basically doing just commercial because that's what I was experiencing at the time. We did some residential, but a lot of our stuff were commercial projects. And we ended up starting a small company called SCI.
Manny Cabral:And what we actually specialized in after a while was computer room design and construction. Back then, all the big computer systems all had to be air conditioned, so we would do the raised flooring. So we'd come in and design the whole project. Then we did some projects for some big names like Blue Cross in Ontario. STM Systems, I think, which was part of TD back then.
Manny Cabral:We did a big facility out on I can't remember the street it was on, but it out in Mississauga. So we specialized in designing and construction, computer room facilities for big companies.
Scott Dillingham:That's awesome.
Manny Cabral:Yeah. Unfortunately, after a few years, I did develop very serious back issues, I guess, from doing stupid things and things probably I shouldn't have done, and had a couple of really bad discs in my back that actually put me out at home for a year where I could hardly walk. And at that point, I sold I didn't sell the business. My partner bought me out, and I was at home for a while trying to figure out what I was gonna do. And I wanted to get out of the construction industry for a while and get into something else.
Manny Cabral:I love cars. I love sports cars, as you probably know. I've always done very well picking values and stuff on vehicles. So I ended up actually buying a couple of places that did rust proofing and paint protection and detailing for a lot of the dealerships out in Mississauga. Actually, in Heronwood Auto Center, I probably did half of those dealerships.
Manny Cabral:That was quite busy. We were running shifts, sometimes twenty four hours a day of cars coming in and out. Again, a lot of work. It required me to be there a lot of days, sometimes Saturdays, Sundays, because it was extremely busy. And after a couple of years of doing that, I had an offer from a major GM dealership to come and work for them as an assistant used car manager at the time.
Manny Cabral:So I sold my detail shop and ended up working for a GM dealership as an assistant used car manager. Then I moved up to used car manager and went out of facilities, and then ended up working at the Classic Honda, which is the biggest one of the biggest import stores now in Canada.
Scott Dillingham:And I think that's where we met, as you were there when we met.
Manny Cabral:Yeah. No. I think we met so what happened at Classic Honda, I ended up getting an offer to go work at Team Honda because I had left Classic Honda and they found out I was leaving. So they called me up and I went over there. I think that's where we met was at Team Honda in Milton.
Scott Dillingham:Okay.
Manny Cabral:So I was there for a few years. And you know what? I quite enjoyed the car business because I love cars. They did pretty well, and they bathe me pretty well. And I I work with some awesome people.
Manny Cabral:Team Honda was a great place to work at. Most of us are like friends over there, and we still keep in touch on Facebook and stuff here and there. But it was a great it was a great place as well and I didn't leave there because we had anything bad going on there. I left there because my mind was already focused on moving forward with my construction industry that my son was still working on while I was working there and he got too stressful for him to do on his own. And we wanted to focus more on getting a few more properties, getting into it and investing in second suites and stuff.
Manny Cabral:And we were getting extremely busy. I I would say in Hamilton, we were probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest or busiest construction companies for doing second suite conversions. And to this day, we still get a lot of inquiries, which we actually have to change our website so that people are not wasting their time trying to get ahold of us because we don't do that anymore. Not for clients anyway. We'll do it for ourselves.
Manny Cabral:But the time came where it was time to leave, and I just put in my resignation and left, and we went full time in the in real estate business, and and here we are today.
Scott Dillingham:No. That's incredible. I know so many people dream about leaving their full time job to be real estate investors or flippers, and you've actually done it, which is incredible. You had the construction business before and you had that experience, but it's really cool to see somebody do that. I'm sure it's so much more rewarding for you.
Manny Cabral:A 100%. Working for the dealership was great. There's no doubt. Like I say, we got along well. They treated me very well and it was awesome there.
Manny Cabral:But at some point in time, in punching in a clock, you're working for somebody, you're not really getting ahead. And I wanted to get a lot more ahead than I was. I was doing fine, but I didn't wanna work for somebody anymore. I had the skills and the opportunity to say, I'm gonna move on my own now. Gotta take those golden handcuffs off.
Manny Cabral:And I had to concentrate 120% on real estate investing. So I made the decision to do that, and I did it. And, yes, I had some I have quite a bit of experience reading the construction industry, so obviously for myself, it was a lot easier to get into. But I wasn't that experienced in buying a ton of flips and wholesaling and all that stuff. I learned that along along the way.
Manny Cabral:And you know what? I just executed a lot of
Scott Dillingham:stuff that people told me
Manny Cabral:I was crazy to do, but I wasn't overanalytic. I know investors today that or wanna be investors today, I guess, that don't get too far because they're overanalytic on anything. They don't take any type of action. They're still waiting for the market to crash. I talked to people at meetup groups five and six years ago that weren't buying anything because they're waiting for the market to crash five years ago.
Manny Cabral:So you can't be overanalytic, and you gotta be able to take action, and you gotta be able to take risks as long as you can minimize your risks as much as possible. And I do that, but we've been very successful, and I've tended to concentrate in a certain area, and we're very successful up in here in Cinco County. So it's gone very well, but yeah. And I wanted to have my own time. I love my job.
Manny Cabral:I can't even think of retirement because I love what I do, and I think that's important. But I can do what I do a lot of times from sitting on my boat to being away for a few days somewhere. I don't have to punch a clock. If I wanna take a few days off and go away with my wife, I can do that. You can't really do that when you're working for an employer, which is understandable.
Manny Cabral:And at the age I was, I had the experience. And I'm not telling anybody to go quit the job right now and go buy properties or flip them. There's a lot of things you can do in investing even if you really love your job. It's all about what you do with your disposable income and how you work at making that grow. Because you can still have a job that you love staying in it, and you can still invest in real estate.
Manny Cabral:So not everybody has to quit their job to get into this. I did because I was at the point where I wanted to focus on running my own business, and so I did it.
Scott Dillingham:Yeah. No. For sure. And you're right. And so we do actually have to take a quick pause but I want to pick up right where we left off and I want to dive into a bit more about the flipping.
Manny Cabral:We'll be
Scott Dillingham:right back. Welcome back. Before the break we were just chatting about how a lot of people wanna quit their job, but they're scared to and they don't take action. And I agree with everything you're saying. It's that's why most investors don't get started.
Scott Dillingham:They'll go to all these training seminars. They'll read all the stuff online. They'll do all these things, but they just don't take action. So I think that is super important is for someone to take action. Now I am curious personally because you stated that you had a back injury from the construction.
Scott Dillingham:Right? And then now you're doing construction again. Is that injury still there or how did you get past?
Manny Cabral:Yeah. I'm doing well, I'm not physically doing construction. I'm totally out of the business. We're running our construction business for our own projects, but I don't do any type of physical
Scott Dillingham:Okay.
Manny Cabral:I'm out overlooking the business, running the business, taking calls. I do seller appointments, meet with investors, set up the funds, those types of things. And I visit my projects as well. They pop in here, pop in there, see what's going on. But I don't do any physical construction myself.
Scott Dillingham:Okay. Good. I was just curious. Yeah. I'm like, how do you heal from that?
Scott Dillingham:But that makes sense. Yeah. So you're just, like, acting like a general contractor.
Manny Cabral:Yeah. On my own projects. But I've got my son acting more as that on the projects, because he looks after a lot of that. I look after more of the the money stuff and dealing with investors. And, I work on some of my marketing.
Manny Cabral:My younger son as well helps me quite a bit on marketing because he owns a marketing company.
Scott Dillingham:Okay.
Manny Cabral:So he's helped me quite a bit and steered me to certain marketing things that I'm doing today is probably because he pushed me in that direction. For instance, I'm on radio every day, it was the last thing I thought of doing, and it was actually his idea. And it's probably working better than anything I've done so far.
Scott Dillingham:Yeah. It's true. I noticed with our radio show here that you're part of today is the same thing. People, they can hear about you from friends and family, but once they start to hear about you on on on radio or TV, it's completely different.
Manny Cabral:Oh, yeah. I get calls every day. Someone wants to sell their house, and it's because they heard me on the radio. Or you know what? I've got a bunch of ads.
Manny Cabral:Like, I've I I don't just do radio. I've got radio. I've got a pretty I spend quite a bit on marketing. I've got radio. I've got YouTube ads.
Manny Cabral:I've got Facebook ads. I've got flyers that go out. And sometimes someone will call me and say, hey. I had your flyer for a while, but I didn't even remember about it until I heard you on the radio, and I put two and two together. So everything works together.
Scott Dillingham:Yeah.
Manny Cabral:So it's all about being consistent because I've been in the advertising industry before even through the dealerships. And a lot of people will say, how are you getting property? You gotta spend this I don't have that kind of money. You have to invest in order to get it. You can't sit back and say, wanna flip and buy all kinds of properties.
Manny Cabral:But how are you gonna find them? On MLS? That's not gonna happen. So you have to have be consistent. And when I went in there, I knew it wasn't gonna go crazy first month, second month, third month, but I made a commitment from day one to say, hey.
Manny Cabral:I'm gonna go on for an entire year because I know it has to be consistent, and it's working very well. I've been on there for more than a year now, but it works very well, and it's something that I'm gonna continue doing. And I bump into a lot of people to say, hey. I heard you on the radio. I wasn't sure if that was you and so on and so forth.
Manny Cabral:So it it helps. It's a bit of everything.
Scott Dillingham:Yep. So for whoever's listening today, like, the radio show that we do, you can hear it through, like, a podcast as well. Do you have that? So if somebody could
Manny Cabral:No. So No. No. So, basically, my radio is all ads, and I'm on Rock 95 every day, probably four or five times a day. It's just strictly Okay.
Manny Cabral:I run sixty minute ad campaigns.
Scott Dillingham:Okay. Got it.
Manny Cabral:So that's the type of radio I'm doing. I'm not on any specific radio podcast show. There's a bunch of other stuff that I'm working on, thinking on doing, and coming up with a full flipping seminar through through YouTube and all that stuff. I just haven't done it yet, cause we have to it's all about timing as well. We're quite busy right now, but I I wanted to put some time together to start actually doing some stuff to actually teach people and help people.
Manny Cabral:Because I enjoy sharing my knowledge and and getting people motivated and out there to do something, then the better their life. Working for someone is great, but you gotta know what you're gonna do with that disposable income, or you're gonna be in the rat race for the rest of your life. And to get ahead today, especially with inflation, your money in a bank is a depreciating asset. What do they say? Savers.
Scott Dillingham:Yeah. And we were just discussing this before the call. Right? With inflation, they're actually saying you're losing money by keeping it in the bank.
Manny Cabral:Huge. People don't understand that. I've had discussions with friends that are excited. I've saved up $50. Great.
Manny Cabral:Your 50 grand's being worth less every day. So hopefully, you're putting a ton more every day to try to get money in the bank. Let's face it. Who's making money with the money in the bank? It's the bank, isn't it?
Scott Dillingham:Yeah. And Yeah. My I you're right. My last episode, I discussed that with the banks. They get to lend out more money based on the deposits that they have.
Manny Cabral:Yeah. Exactly. What is it? Is it like four times or I can't remember what it was.
Scott Dillingham:I don't remember the exact ratio, but I think it's even higher than that now.
Manny Cabral:Yeah. I I heard as high as 10 times what you put in the bank. So, basically, if you put a 100 k in a bank, you're loaning out a million. It could even be more than that, but that's how banks make their money. You gotta get your money working for you, and people are sitting on a ton of money they don't even realize.
Manny Cabral:I've got lenders that they're not multimillionaires, but you know what? They've got a ton of equity in their properties, and they've gone out and taken lines of credit to loan out and to make money on that money that's sitting there. So it's all about being creative and making your money work for you. What do they say? Make your money work for you when you're sleeping.
Scott Dillingham:That's right.
Manny Cabral:I don't know.
Scott Dillingham:That's right. I have a question for you because a lot of people watch, like, HGTV shows, and then they'll they'll think they're property flippers, and they get into a project, and it's just full of mistakes. Would you have some tips for people who are listening who might be inspired and they wanna start flipping things to avoid or what to look for in a property to make sure you're not getting a bad
Manny Cabral:Number one, if you're not experienced in construction, you should have a really good, reliable contractor that can come with you to visit the property and to give you a proper quote. I don't do that, obviously, because I'm the contractor, and I can basically walk in and out that I already know because I've done so many of them, basically what my costs are gonna be, and I can look at foundations and all that stuff and figure out the issues. That that's a big key because I know flippers have gone in and bought a house. They they didn't have a contractor. They just guessed on what they were gonna do, and all of a sudden, they're a $100,000 renovation is a $200,000 problem, and they're making no money.
Manny Cabral:So it's all about having a proper team as a good lawyer, great mortgage broker, a great agent to to help you with comparables as well. That's also very important. You gotta know your numbers. You don't know your numbers, don't be buying a flip. So you need a great agent to work alongside you who can help you with comparables that's gonna sell your property.
Manny Cabral:You need a good contractor that's gonna be able to come in and say, hey Joe, this is what I think it's gonna cost based on the vision that you have. But they'll give you a great idea on the structure of the property. Getting a home inspection is great as well, but you need a good contractor. If you're not a contractor yourself, if you are, that's fine. But if you're not a contractor, it's important to have a great contractor who really knows the industry that can come and help you put a quote on your property that you're trying to flip, because it's gonna be difficult to do it yourself.
Scott Dillingham:Yeah. No. That that makes so much sense. And we've actually specifically chatted about this too. Teams make a difference.
Scott Dillingham:Who you work with makes a huge difference.
Manny Cabral:A 100%. I have a team between my lawyer and my agent and that we all get an I need to call my lawyer for something. It's A lot of times I'll call them and say, hey. I need check a liens on this property or liens on that because I have different creative structures that sometimes I use to put a deal together.
Scott Dillingham:Yep.
Manny Cabral:And I'm not waiting for two days to get information. I can literally call my lawyer and have her assistant on the phone and give me the information I need right over the phone while I'm driving. That's very important to have. Yeah. The same with my agent who's become a great friend.
Manny Cabral:Yep. He's very helpful, and a lot of times, great ideas and great input from him as well, that helps me in selling my flips. It's better to have two heads than one. And the same thing, like I get help with comparables and what I think I'm gonna be able to sell this property for down the road. And let's face it, we only know what we're gonna sell a property for today.
Manny Cabral:So I keep telling people, don't base your numbers on today's numbers all the time. You gotta be safe going to a flip because flipping is very highly speculative. You know what the market's doing today? You have no idea what the market's gonna do six or seven or eight or nine or ten months down the road when you're finished. So you better be careful and really know your numbers not get over too excited to to try to get into a flip because you think you're gonna make $50.
Manny Cabral:Your $50 profit could be a $150,000 loss if you're not careful.
Scott Dillingham:Totally. No. Absolutely. So we've only got about a minute left. Okay?
Scott Dillingham:So I know there's a couple things. I know you have a few options for investors to invest with you in these projects. You also have, like, a wholesaling list where people can sign up on, and any properties that you find off market, people can potentially buy. So can you dive into quickly your partnership and the wholesaling list you have?
Manny Cabral:Yes. So if they hop on to simcohousebuyers.ca, there should be a link there for a buyers list. Okay. And you click on that, you put your information on there, it should automatically add you to a buyer list. So a lot of times we may have a property that we're gonna wholesale, and the reason may be because we have multiples going on at the time and I have to pick and choose how many I can do.
Manny Cabral:It's all about return on investment. I'm not gonna end up with 10 properties at one time and not be able to get the five of them. So we'll work on five. We'll wholesale the other five. So you can get on your on the buyers list.
Manny Cabral:You're gonna get a great deal on an off market property that's still gonna have a margin. The opportunity other opportunity we have as well is for lending if someone wants to get involved in our projects. Most of our projects, 99% of them, are all private lenders that I work with over the last couple of years. So there's another opportunity for someone who wants to get onto the lending side. And that's basically just reaching out to me or sending a note through simcohousebuyers.ca.
Manny Cabral:I am on Facebook quite often. I post a lot of my projects, my daily stuff, personal work, so I'm very easy to reach. That's my biggest problem, it's Corvettes, right? I have too many hobbies between Corvettes and flying model aircraft planes boat engines and playing music. I don't have enough time for all of it.
Scott Dillingham:That's for sure. And I've seen you on boats quite a few times too.
Manny Cabral:But it keeps me busy and occupied. That's for sure. I'm never bored. I can tell you that. Yeah.
Scott Dillingham:I know. For sure. That's awesome. I really appreciate you coming on today, Manny. I I love your story because it's motivating to someone because a lot of people want change in their life, but they just don't take action.
Scott Dillingham:So I think that's the real key takeaway is just do whatever it is, even if it's not flipping houses or at regular nine to five and
Manny Cabral:eight years. Exactly. It doesn't matter what it is. I think everyone if you put your mind to it, everyone has the same capability of achieving their goals and achieving their dreams. I didn't come from a rich family.
Manny Cabral:My family was came over here pretty poor from Portugal. No money in their pocket and into a rental, and my mom was cleaning homes. So I didn't come from rich. So, basically, what I've made is on my future for myself, I made myself, and that was doing whatever I needed to do. Listen, I was taking Tom Vu courses back when I was 23 years old.
Manny Cabral:I always had that real estate thing in my head. I took courses that were worthless, but I always wanted to achieve something. I never gave up. I had to work a second job to make extra income, I would do that. But at some point in my life, I wanted to be very self sufficient and working for myself and not punching the clock.
Manny Cabral:That's where I am today, very happy doing what I'm doing. And I love what I'm doing. So to me, it's not a job.
Scott Dillingham:Yeah. No. For sure. And honestly, it's awesome. So congratulations on that, Manny.
Scott Dillingham:We do have to run, but I hope everybody has a great day.
Manny Cabral:Thank you, Scott. You too. Appreciate it.
Scott Dillingham:No problem. Take care.
Manny Cabral:They have a good one.