Scott Dillingham: 00:21

Thanks for tuning in today. Today, I have a really special guest for you. His name is Kris Ramatar. So he is an amazing customer service focused realtor, local in Windsor here, who's big in helping to give back in the community, and he's going to share his story today. Chris, welcome.

Kris Ramotar: 00:40

Hey. Thanks, Scotty. I really appreciate it.

Scott Dillingham: 00:42

Yeah. No problem. Thanks thanks for for coming on. So I think we should get off or start by letting everybody know a bit about you and your story. Where would you like to start with your story?

Kris Ramotar: 00:53

I'm Chris Kramatar. I have 3 daughters. My wife's name is Molly. I live in Lake Ontario. I was born in Guyana, South America.

Kris Ramotar: 00:59

Came to Canada 1987. Lived in Toronto up until 2003, then came to Windsor. Drove a truck, worked at different many different places. And then here I am. Something has always been a passion of mine is helping people and real estate gave me that opportunity because personally coming as an immigrant from Guyana and not knowing the whole process how to buy a home.

Kris Ramotar: 01:21

So I'll share my story what happened to me personally. Oh yes, it's something I love doing, helping people, and it's an amazing opportunity if you do it right with the right people.

Scott Dillingham: 01:31

Yeah. No. I fully agree. So how did you because I'm curious. So how did you get started in real estate?

Kris Ramotar: 01:38

In when I just came to Canada, my dad had a condo and he sold the condo so the agent said to me hey you should look into this. At that point in time I just came to Canada I'm like I don't know real estate that's not what I wanted. I always wanted to be like a police officer so that was part of my dream. Got to where I wanted to be and then that avenue opened and knocked the door to me door for me. So I was at the gym one day 2016, and my buddy said, Hey, I'm gonna become a realtor.

Kris Ramotar: 02:04

I'm gonna join, take the course. I'm like, Hey, I'll do too. I'm gonna go home. So I signed up and he still haven't signed up yet. That's right.

Kris Ramotar: 02:11

And I'm doing well, I believe, in my eyes and opinion, and here I am today. 4 years later going on my 5th year. Yeah.

Scott Dillingham: 02:18

That's funny. So now that your friend has still not signed up, does he regret it? Does he wish he did?

Kris Ramotar: 02:23

Or I really haven't seen him too much since COVID, and he's been busy working shift work on myself. Yeah. And I'm doing the real estate gig as well. Real estate is very time A lot of people doesn't realize all the work you have to do. Not just putting a sign on the lawn and put it on the MLS.

Kris Ramotar: 02:37

I am very big on marketing people property because I feel it's very a passion of mine. So I look at your home. It's my home. Your money is my money because that how I view your probably one of the most value of asset financially Yep. In life.

Scott Dillingham: 02:52

No. For sure. And you actually said something interesting. You have you really focus on marketing. Now without giving out secrets, but say somebody listening to this, how would that benefit them?

Scott Dillingham: 03:02

What do you do that goes above and beyond what someone do?

Kris Ramotar: 03:04

I first, I use professional services. I have a professional photographer. He does a drone picture for me, professional video, 3 d virtual tour. And then I just thought that don't put it on the MLS. I put it on social media ads.

Kris Ramotar: 03:17

So I have laser targeted niche to the perfect avatar or client. So when you're looking to sell your home, I'm looking for that one person that's gonna be the ideal person for your home. And I sell the neighborhood not just the home. A lot of people sell the home. I don't sell the home alone.

Kris Ramotar: 03:34

I sell the neighborhood. This is a lifestyle you're gonna expect when you're buying a home in this neighborhood.

Scott Dillingham: 03:39

Yep. Makes sense because, yeah, the house might be great, but if there's no schools nearby and you have children, like, I agree. I think it makes sense to sell the neighborhood. That's really smart. Now another thing that I like about you is that you do like to give back in the community.

Scott Dillingham: 03:52

So would you be able to touch on that, what you do to give back?

Kris Ramotar: 03:55

Yeah. So because my daughters go to Lakeshore and Bell River High School, so every time I just 2 years now I started this, I sponsor 1 student whoever is graduating and will be attending post secondary education, there's a Bursary Award of $500. I would like to do that until forever. That's gonna be my little giving back to the community that I live in. As well as I sponsor a local cricket team in Windsor that I played for.

Kris Ramotar: 04:20

Cricket's been like my number one sport. I grew up with that and it's in my blood. So it's something I'm very passionate about and the least I could do is now I'm probably financially more stable than I was years ago. I could give that back and it's not so much the expecting anything in return is something I'm very passionate about.

Scott Dillingham: 04:38

No. I love that. Now just going back to your beginning. So you came to Canada and how was that experience when you were young just coming here?

Kris Ramotar: 04:45

It was like culture shock in a way because I had no friends, I left all my friends behind in Guyana and then we're here. My dad was here 3 years before us so we were 3 years without my dad. So coming here and the climate is cold so that's not one of my favourite thing. The weather the winter is not my favourite. I like summer given the heat but it's it was different.

Kris Ramotar: 05:06

You needed a car to go everywhere. You had to pretty much bundle up in the winter time. The people was always nice because I live in Toronto and it was very diverse. Most of the people living in the building school was very, like, was immigrants. So I didn't feel any differently.

Kris Ramotar: 05:20

So because of the big hospitals in the city. Yeah.

Scott Dillingham: 05:22

Yep. That's awesome. Yeah. I know. Canada is a great place to live, so welcome.

Scott Dillingham: 05:27

And it's funny because you said it's cool and we live in the warmest part. So imagine living other places when I want to. That's awesome. So now you've been a realtor for how many years?

Kris Ramotar: 05:38

4 years going on my 5th year.

Scott Dillingham: 05:39

Okay. And what is something that's, you know, for just a regular buyer, like, what's one of the most common questions that you have and what would your solution be to someone who's getting out there to buy?

Kris Ramotar: 05:52

It seemed to be my niche as first time home buyer.

Scott Dillingham: 05:55

Okay.

Kris Ramotar: 05:55

So classic examples, Chris, we don't know what do we do. I said the first thing I do is get a pre approval. Yeah. And when you get a pre approval, I want to talk to your mortgage agent or your banker. I need a letter of commitment.

Kris Ramotar: 06:06

Yep. That letter of commitment, and we're good to go. Then I perfect example. I said, give me a hand. I'm like, what?

Kris Ramotar: 06:13

I said, give me a hand. This was one of my client last week. And I she gave me a hand. I said, I'm gonna hold your hands from here till this transaction's over. And then when your family's ready, I'm gonna still be here to hold your hands.

Kris Ramotar: 06:26

I said, this is just the starting of our relationship. You're stuck with me. You can't get rid of me.

Scott Dillingham: 06:31

Now here you go.

Kris Ramotar: 06:32

I said, I wanna sell your child, your grandchildren a home down the road if I'm still alive. That's what I wanted.

Scott Dillingham: 06:38

No. That's awesome. I love you do that. Like, how do you give so someone buys a home, how do you still help them after the fact?

Kris Ramotar: 06:45

So for example, you put in an offer. Okay. What do I need to do next, Chris? Okay. First, we're gonna I walked through the whole process.

Kris Ramotar: 06:53

Yep. You need to get insurance on a home. All your offer is accepted. You need to have a home insurance. I tell them you don't need a here's a copy of all my list of people.

Kris Ramotar: 07:03

You need a plumber. You need electrician. Whatever you need, here's a list. This is your resources. That and then they would call me for anything, the odd thing.

Kris Ramotar: 07:11

Oh, we have some leak. Who do we call? Hey. I need a mechanic. Who do I call?

Kris Ramotar: 07:16

A lot of times the relationship personally Yeah. My agent, what I used in the past, he sold me a home and he sell my home and I bought a home from him. Crickets. I never heard back from him. Yeah.

Kris Ramotar: 07:29

The money is in the follow-up. The money is building that relationship over time not expecting anything. A phone call touching base and said, hey, Chris, how are you doing? How's your family? That's it.

Kris Ramotar: 07:40

Yeah. Stay in touch, keep in touch with your friends or family and don't ask for anything in return. Yeah. Treat people like the way you wanna be treated.

Scott Dillingham: 07:49

Yep. No. It may it makes sense. You're right. I remember I one of the first houses I bought, I never heard anything from the realtor again.

Scott Dillingham: 07:57

And I'm an investor, so I have multiple ones. And so the next one I bought, the realtor sent me, like, a gift basket, and he called a year later and just said, how's the property going and little things like that. So I think it does make a big difference to continue Yeah. Which is great. And it made me feel good because I'm like, wow, this person really cares.

Scott Dillingham: 08:13

Because someone who doesn't care is probably not gonna do that, but someone who does will. So I love that. Now we do have to take a quick break, but when we come back, Chris is gonna go into how he was almost bankrupt and then how he bought a home 10 months later. You're gonna wanna hear it. Alright.

Scott Dillingham: 08:30

Welcome back. Okay. So, Chris, I told everybody before we started at the break that you were going to explain how you were pretty much bankrupt and then you bought a home in 10 months. How does that work?

Kris Ramotar: 08:42

Because I believe if you have the drive and the mental capacity to do anything, it's possible, and it has support. So back in 2010, I'll back it up to 2007. Sure. My dad passed away in Toronto the day he was supposed to move. We passed away to come to Windsor, our lakeshore with my family.

Kris Ramotar: 09:01

And then a month later my mom and my brother moved November in 2007, came to Bell River, 4 houses away from me, and then my mom went to Guyana on first time ever after 20 something years, came back with a infection, and then couple months later, Christmas Eve, December 24, 2008, she passed away. Oh, man. Okay. So that's 2 tragedies in, I don't know, 14 months. Then 4 months later, went into work.

Kris Ramotar: 09:25

Hey, Chris. We don't need you anymore. So this is April 1, 2009. And then 1 month later, my ex said, hey. I'm not happy.

Kris Ramotar: 09:33

And I said, okay. Then she said, I have a boyfriend. I said, alright. What else? And then I have my we had 2 daughters.

Kris Ramotar: 09:39

They were pretty young, like, less than 5 years old together. There was a lot of struggles, things that happened before that, I'm not going to go into detail. And then we had a trucking company which were going well and then 3 to 4 months into it, the truck crashed, driver quit, people not paying the bills on time, and the money start what we had for to run the business rather pretty quick. So at that point in time the business folded. I got a job at a local company with Ashok Sud, Champion Products.

Kris Ramotar: 10:03

Thanks to them, they helped me and they're still helping my brother today. They both employ my brothers. Wow. Still work there. So I left there and there my brothers are still there and then, laid off for 5 months at the high by the University of Windsor, Tongan.

Kris Ramotar: 10:18

So it's a great opportunity there for my kids and myself. About a couple months later, I had an opportunity to go back you know, to run the police and I declined. Yes. So I owed we owed over a 126,000 a month in collections and debt from the truck and the company and everything. And I the house was sold.

Kris Ramotar: 10:35

There was a $40,000 lien on the property. So 20,000 was given to us. 20 was held in my ex son name. We took the money, split it. I said, here you go.

Kris Ramotar: 10:45

I took my $10,000 straight to the bank, pay RBC collections. I caught up everybody, say, hey. I have some money. Can we negotiate a a release or a deal or some sort of a thing? And they said, yeah.

Kris Ramotar: 10:56

I said, okay. Send me the release letter. This is what I can afford. And everybody said, yes. So that was back in 2009.

Kris Ramotar: 11:03

2010, I went to the bank to get a loan. It was tight, but it worked out. So what I did was I took a credit a car loan at 30% interest. But I knew for me to get where I wanna be, I had to make sacrifices. It was not a big loan.

Kris Ramotar: 11:19

It was only $5,000 but I paid it on time. I took a Capital One credit card and a $500 credit limit. I paid it on time. I had some RSP from FedEx about $15,000 which helped me. And then working at the University of Windsor, I saved over $20.

Kris Ramotar: 11:38

So when I went to the bank, I said hey listen this is what I have. I have everything lined up and yeah I got a mortgage for 197, bought my townhome in East Windsor and never looked back. And I always tell people if it's meant to be and you work hard, you could get anything in life and don't say, oh make any excuse that, oh, it's not possible. Don't wait. Just do it and you'll find a way of getting where you wanna be.

Scott Dillingham: 12:03

Nice. Yeah. Thanks. So that would be your best lesson is just do it.

Kris Ramotar: 12:07

Do it.

Scott Dillingham: 12:08

Yeah. Don't wait.

Kris Ramotar: 12:09

Jump in and go.

Scott Dillingham: 12:10

Yep. No. I love it. And that's interesting too about the debt that you had. So I think that's valuable for people listening because if they're in the life stage that you're at and you have debt and you just wanna get past it and move forward.

Scott Dillingham: 12:24

So how does that work? So say you have debt and you can't pay it, what did you do to get them to settle or reduce the amounts for you?

Kris Ramotar: 12:30

I just called them and said this is what I could afford. Either yes or no. And for some reason, okay, to say, yeah. We'll we'll give God for that. Maybe God was looking up on me.

Scott Dillingham: 12:39

Yeah. Very well it could be.

Kris Ramotar: 12:40

From 126, a 100 and 26,000 to 40 to 50,000 settlement, I can't complain.

Scott Dillingham: 12:46

Yeah. No. That's great. That's great. That's really cool.

Scott Dillingham: 12:50

So he's saying you just call him up, which is great. So anybody can do that. I love that. Now your home that you bought because one of the things that I thought of when you told me that, was the interest rate really high or was it

Kris Ramotar: 13:00

I think it was around 5 or something. 5. It was pretty low.

Scott Dillingham: 13:04

That was in 2010. Right?

Kris Ramotar: 13:06

10. Yeah. It wasn't too high. It was pretty low. Still affordable.

Kris Ramotar: 13:09

I can't remember exactly how much it was. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But it was I did it by myself on a single income.

Kris Ramotar: 13:14

Yeah. A single bad. Yeah.

Scott Dillingham: 13:16

Was it with 5% down or was that with 20? 5%. Wow. So that's really good. That's really good because I know CMHC is tough.

Scott Dillingham: 13:24

So good for you. That's awesome. So you went from bankrupt to buying a home, and then so what happened after that? Obviously, you started the real estate in 2016. What was the the middle like there?

Kris Ramotar: 13:35

In between, I was always operating in the in the red and true paycheck to paycheck.

Scott Dillingham: 13:40

Yeah. I'm

Kris Ramotar: 13:41

the least thing that brought me to my knees, but I took a chance because I said if I sit at home with my brothers, which we live with my brothers, my 2 kids, myself and a nanny. So we had pretty much 4 adults and 2 kids in that home. We all got along together. I said if I take a chance, now I could do it because if I sit here and wait, it's not gonna happen. Yeah.

Kris Ramotar: 14:00

And I said if I know where my money's going and I'm broke, that's okay. Whereas if I am broke and I don't know where my money's going, then something's wrong. And I sacrificed and I built equity and it was a great risk.

Scott Dillingham: 14:12

That's awesome.

Kris Ramotar: 14:13

Great risk.

Scott Dillingham: 14:14

Oh, good for you. And I know you're doing really well. I see you all the time out there and you're doing a great job. I realized, or saw that you had a recent brokerage change. What was the benefits of going to the new brokerage?

Kris Ramotar: 14:27

Where I was, this is my Ford brokerage. I went to Tom Thomas, opened the door, was grateful to Century 21. Great things about him, but I wanted to grow. Then I went to LZ Platinum, wanted to grow, and then I saw eXp and the model was awesome. Tools, technology, training, training, support.

Kris Ramotar: 14:44

But what I found, and this is from my personal experience, there was no camaraderie and collectively team environment. Everybody pulled their own separate ways. Yeah. And when I call, I say, hey, Scott. It's Chris from the time from eXp.

Kris Ramotar: 14:58

Like, where? Who? Okay. So I'm trying to sell myself on a brand. You know, right now it's not a big brand here.

Kris Ramotar: 15:06

Windsor, Essex County, the balloon. Everybody know it's synonymous. REMAX is synonymous with real estate in Windsor, SS County. So you wanna go a place where when you say, hey, it's Chris from REMAX, and you sell my balloon, it's already trusted. I don't have to sell the brand.

Kris Ramotar: 15:21

Yeah. I just have to sell to show you what I can do. Yeah. It's only been 2 months, but the camaraderie, the support to have a physical office, in my opinion, is huge. You have you become more trusted when somebody says, hey, meet me in my office.

Kris Ramotar: 15:34

You call the staff and, hey, can you do this for me? Whereas, where I was before, who do I call? I had 2 I had some people on my team, but they were not hungry. Yep. I I gave leads out and you call.

Kris Ramotar: 15:47

No. I'm gonna call this afternoon. Hey. The lead just came in. Call now.

Kris Ramotar: 15:50

I'm spending money. Yeah.

Scott Dillingham: 15:51

But

Kris Ramotar: 15:51

it's not your money. So why, you know, work your

Scott Dillingham: 15:54

Yeah.

Kris Ramotar: 15:55

And I'm very passionate at what I do. I love what I do. But the brand I think by itself and the the staff and the professionalism and the camaraderie and the support, it's second to none. Plus with a big global brand, you couldn't ask for more.

Scott Dillingham: 16:07

No, that's awesome. Good for you. I'm excited. Yeah. I saw the post on Facebook.

Scott Dillingham: 16:12

You go, Chris. Perfect. So we do have to wrap up, but for anyone who's listening today, what would be the best ways to reach you or how they could find out more about you when they're considering choosing a realtor?

Kris Ramotar: 16:24

I think my biggest place is on Google. Just Google Kris Ramotor, k r I s ram o t a r. And you're probably gonna see a 100 stuff pop up above me. So every everywhere there's a medium, you're gonna find me. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, everywhere you can think of that's you'll find me.

Kris Ramotar: 16:42

Yeah.

Scott Dillingham: 16:42

Okay. Okay. That's perfect. That's awesome. Thanks so much, Chris.

Scott Dillingham: 16:45

Thanks. Have a great day everyone. Take care.