Welcome back to this episode of the wisdom lifestyle money show. I'm your host, Scott Dillingham. So I wanna talk to you today about a topic that comes up all the time. Our brokerage, you know, we're primarily focused on working with real estate investors. That's been our focus forever.
Scott Dillingham:The reason we really opened up in The States was because during COVID and lockdowns and the premier of Ontario telling tenants, don't pay your rent. It's okay. We started to see a lot of money leaving Canada and going to other countries. Now I live in Canada, and we do promote a lot of The US investing, and, we're even in Mexico. So our goal and our focus is to create options for investors and opportunities.
Scott Dillingham:Right? So that's essentially what we're doing. We're not saying this is better here or invest over there sort of until now. So that's what I wanted this episode to be about. It was more about creating the market and how do we profit, how do we make more profits in today's market.
Scott Dillingham:So if you look at the residential space in Canada, it's very hard to cash flow in many areas. There's still cash flowing deals. I live in Windsor. I see cash flowing deals here all the time, but it's not the same as it used to be. There's other markets as well.
Scott Dillingham:I know there's Sarnia. There's Sudbury. There's Thunder Bay. And I'm just speaking about cash flow. I'm not speaking about market fundamentals.
Scott Dillingham:That is a whole another topic, and that is something that Canada is facing challenges with. Like, a lot of our companies in Canada are leaving to other countries because it doesn't make sense with tariffs to invest in Canada the way that they were investing. So today is October 15 when I'm recording this of 2025. And almost every day in the news, there's headlines of this company leaving and that company leaving, and the one that I just read was Stellantis. They're not leaving Canada, but jobs that would have went to Canada, there's 5,000 of them that they're bringing to The States.
Scott Dillingham:Do you know what I mean? But they would have been Canadian. They would have been at the Stellantis plants in Canada, but they're not. It's not as attractive to invest in Canada. So the reason I'm talking about this and paying this pictures is not to be it's all doom and gloom out there.
Scott Dillingham:There are so many ways to profit from our real estate market here in Canada, as well as The States, Mexico, you know, other countries. So what I wanted to share with you, and we're actively doing this, what you need to do if you wanna be in the loop is you wanna join our weekly investor insight. I'll have the link down below in the show notes. But pretty much through there, that's where we're sending out opportunities to investors. Now I've done it's been more than fifteen years of doing mortgages, and I have seen near I'm gonna say nearly every day, not every day, but nearly every day someone approaches me and says, oh, there's this awesome deal.
Scott Dillingham:Look at that. Look at this. And it's like, okay. Great. Like, let's actually look at it.
Scott Dillingham:And I'm gonna say nine out of 10 times, it's not a good deal. Right? It's not one that I would personally invest in nor would I actively recommend it to clients. But because we're exposed to deals and the fact that in Canada, we have three developers, like actual developers building multifamily properties for their own portfolios. Right?
Scott Dillingham:So we're we're seeing deals being created, Right? Where the market doesn't have them for sale, we're creating the deals and we're seeing them and it's phenomenal. So this message is about opportunities, and there's so many opportunities out there. So what I want you to do is get on that investor weekly insight. What we're gonna do company, as LensCity, is we're gonna filter through the deals that we see that are crap, and you're never even gonna hear about them.
Scott Dillingham:But the ones that look good, we'll present. We'll have in our email, and we'll say, hey. Look. Here's a deal. Yada yada.
Scott Dillingham:On top of that, all the properties we're building, we're gonna put in there as well that you can invest into the project. You can be part owner of these larger apartment buildings. So we're doing a lot of the development in Alberta. One of our developers is in Ontario and has a large portfolio here. And, so there's there's absolutely growth in Ontario too.
Scott Dillingham:So I'm I'm not saying that there's not. But what I like about Alberta compared to Ontario is the tribunal is nice and easy to go through. There's not huge delays still from even COVID. Right? Like, it's crazy.
Scott Dillingham:It's faster to get somebody out if they're not paying you rent. The rents are quite strong in Alberta. There's also no rent control. So if you're from Ontario, you know, yearly, the government comes out and says, oh, you can increase your rents two and a half percent this year even though your mortgage tripled because you're you had to renew this year. This is this year and next year is the the massive, you know, exodus.
Scott Dillingham:It's it's when we're we're heavily our payments are heavily increasing in these mortgages because they're up for renewal. Right? And people had rates one and a half to 2%, and now it's, you know, four and a half to five. So even though your mortgage payment might be tripling, we're only gonna let you raise your rents two and a half percent. Right?
Scott Dillingham:So it doesn't allow you and especially if you have a long term tenant who's been in there paying well under market rents. Right? It doesn't allow you to have that profit because you're restricted. So that's why I like Alberta as far as that goes as well. And then the projects that we're building are from eight units to 94.
Scott Dillingham:So they're apartment buildings, and we're tapping into the MLI Select program where we have an affordable component, and we're building them energy friendly. So we're financing up to 95% of these deals. And cash flow is pretty solid. Right? We're in markets where we're seeing appreciation, solid returns.
Scott Dillingham:Right? And we can send you. So in the email, we'll send you the potential deal summaries of what's what. When it's other deals, we can't obviously guarantee any profits or whatever, but we'll do the underwriting on it from a lending standpoint. And we'll let you know if it looks like a strong deal from that angle.
Scott Dillingham:Right? Because that's how it works on commercial and and rental properties is your approval is based on the strength of the property. So if it's a weak property, the lender is not gonna lend you as much money as if it's a strong property. So we're gonna do our underwriting from a lending standpoint. And if the deal is a rock star and it comes out clean on the other end and there's profit, we're gonna share that with you.
Scott Dillingham:So, again, though, there's gonna be existing properties on the market, but there's gonna be a lot of new construction opportunity deals. So those are where I'm personally the most excited about is the new construction, and I'm I'm referring to in Canada just because, again, we're financing up to 95% of it. We're getting fifty year amortizations, which is crazy. Right? So when you're talking about cash flow, it's it's great.
Scott Dillingham:The affordable units, we only need to keep them affordable for ten years, then we can raise them to market rents. But that's what I like about Alberta is we're not taking a hit on the rents. The rents that we'd rent them for, they qualify as affordable rents. So we're not actually losing. Where in Ontario, and we'll just pick a market in Toronto, just not to pick on them.
Scott Dillingham:But let's say you could easily rent this unit or property for 3,000 to 3,400 a month. Well, the affordable rents are $1,800 a month. So you have to take a loss on the per monthly rent. However, that does entitle you to the up to 95% financing with the fifty year amortization, right, if you've got a 100 points under the MLI Select program. So we're gonna talk more about the MLI Select program in another episode.
Scott Dillingham:I just wanted to paint the picture that in Ontario, you can clearly see how if we're using 1,800 to qualify under this program, we're losing 1,200 to $1,600 a month average rents reduction, right, just to meet this program's guidelines. And and some investors are like, well, why would you do that? Again, when you factor in a fifty year amortization compared to a thirty year that the banks and traditional residential lenders offer, it quite often more than makes up for it. But, again, you're getting that reduction. Where Alberta, you don't have to do that.
Scott Dillingham:The affordable rents is actually market rents, So you're not losing any cash flow, but you're still getting the benefits of the higher leverage and the longer amortization. So, again, I live in Alberta. I live in Ontario. All my investment properties are actually still currently in Ontario. It's just that things are changing.
Scott Dillingham:Right? So we need to be liquid. We need to move with the market. So tap into the weekly investor insight. You'll get tips, and there'll be events.
Scott Dillingham:And on top of that, we're gonna share these deals like we're discussing here. And then you can decide, hey. Look. This seems like something I'm interested in investing in, and you'll have the opportunity to do so. On here, we will never promise returns or anything.
Scott Dillingham:But I can tell you from seeing the deals and being part of them, I, as an investor, am personally happy with the returns that I'm seeing our investor clients get buying these properties. And obviously, the deals that we vetted because we know what ones work as opposed to just randomly someone puts a property in a Facebook group and says, oh, it's a great deal. Invest with me. Probably not. Like, is it really a good deal?
Scott Dillingham:You know what I mean? So everyone can do their own underwriting, but if they don't work for a lender or don't often see it from the lender standpoint, how do you know if it's actually accurate and if it meets the scrutiny of lending? So that's where we're gonna come in and pre vet these potential deals for you. So you're gonna wanna be a part of that. So, anyways, I hope that this episode added value and potential opportunities to your real estate portfolio.
Scott Dillingham:If you resonate with this content, please share it. We we wanna grow this channel and just help as many investors as we can. I'm looking forward to speaking with you on the next one. Take care, everybody.