Well, Saturday morning in Calgary will find a bunch of people in a room with Russell Westcott, Don Campbell and a bunch of exceptionally successful real estate investors. I wish I could be there, meeting people, seeing what’s new and being inspired. It’s an ACREs (Authentic Canadian Real Estate Seminar) weekend, put on by REIN.

If it’s your first time at at REIN event (which will be most of the people there), here’s a selection of the over 300 posts on my site. It’s a mix of the most popular, most controversial, most useful and most personal. Enjoy!

My first ACRES/Quickstart weekend, my personal Belize (vision) and family.

• My Personal Belize – a vision statement, expressing what I want my life to be like in the future and how real estate will help get me there. It’s working out pretty well, as Megan and I have been in Ireland for the last two months…
• Kudos to my parents, who have been a major influence on my journey. And Mom and Dad enjoying a bit of their personal Belize.
• Accepting real estate’s place in my life and on this blog.
• A guest post from my younger sister. You’ll start to get the feeling that real estate is something that’s been baked into my family for quite a while (four generations actually).
• And a some words on picking a niche. Particularly apt with all the Ron LeGrande stuff going around right now: What Do I Do? and Define Your Investing Niche

Tips, Tools, Mistakes and Systems

• Six Steps to Finding Cashflow Creek
• The Black Triangle of East Edmonton Eats New InvestorsEdmonton’s Black Triangle Presentation
• The Top Ontario Rental Websites – Fall 2009
• Canadian Rental Website Rankings – June 2009
• Get Used to Scum
• Canadian Internet Marketing Resources
• 6 Things You Should Do To Your Mortgage When Interest Rates Drop

Property Management Experiences and Tips

• What to do with dead tenants
• Need a Property Manager? 10 Tips to Land the Best!
• Three reasons to put the phone down instead of calling your property manager
• Bugs in your Buildings? (Protecting your Real Estate Investment if you Self-Manage)
• How to Cut Vacancies by 50%
• Property Mangement Rocks!

Joint Venture Partners

• Five Ways to Flush $50k
• Six Reasons No One Wants to Buy Your F-ing Real Estate Investment

Business, Stats and Misc

• 20 Years of Detailed Edmonton Real Estate Prices
• Economic  – What Stats Do You Want to See? and everyone’s responses.
• Mike Rowe on Hard Work and Dirty Jobs
• 8 Essential Real Estate Investment Business Processes
• More Fun with Stats- Monthly Edmonton Statistics
• Edmonton Real Estate Prices Since 1962
• Why Real Estate Works in a Recession
• 8 Tips for Recession Proofing Your Real Estate Business Model

And some roundup posts:

• 2008 in Review
• Most Popular Posts of 2008

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Yesterday I was passing through the Vancouver area and I made time to meet up with Russell Westcott.

For those who haven’t met him before, he’s the Vice President of the Real Estate Investment Network. The REIN members will know him as the MC of most of the meetings and the resident Joint Venture expert. He’s also the author of the JV Secrets books.

We’ve chatted before, and I’ve had the chance to talk at meetings with some of the other people who make up the REIN team, but this was my first visit to the home of REIN. The only think I can say is that’s a group of people who work their butts off for the organization. I’m amazed they manage any time for their own real estate, but  they’ve sure got the focus to do it.

Anyways, Russell and I had a chance to chat about what REIN’s doing, and he offered some advice on a couple projects I have going. Then we taped an interview for the Interview with an Expert series they’ve been doing. I had a great time, and considering two of the interviews I’ve posted here were Greg Habstritt and Thomas Beyer, I’m in pretty good company. It’ll be  a couple weeks before it’s available, but I had a great time there.

It’s not surprising to see this story in Thursday’s Edmonton Journal.

The members of the Real Estate Investment Network(REIN), led by President Don Campbell, are passionate in their support for Habitat for Humanity. REIN Canada is 3,400 members strong, and through book sales and other initiatives, they have raised almost $500,000 toward the building of new homes for families in Edmonton since 2005.

Campbell believes 100 per cent in the Habitat for Humanity program. Along with his wife, REIN CFO Connie Campbell, he says, “We are a community and we are in an economic turmoil. I believe that in good times and in bad times, people have to find a way to support their community.”

They’re a great group of people, and I’m proud to be associated with REIN.

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There’s a great Real Estate Investment Network (REIN) event in Edmonton coming up soon, June 26-28th.

Friday night starts with an economic summit with key speakers, some top Canadian economists and veteran analysts. You can download the PDF brochure here, or click here to register.

The panel for the summit will include:

• Carl Gomez, Vice President, Research, Bentall Capital
• Todd Hirsh, Senior Economist, ATB Financial
• Ron Gilbertson, President and CEO, Edmonton Economic Development Corporation
• Mary MacGregor, Chief Economist, Government of Alberta
• Peter Kinch
• Don R. Campbell

Saturday is the Advanced Landlording and Investing Fundamentals Expo and Brent is participating on the panel of property management experts.

The other panels and participants are:

Property Management Panel:

Keenen Tameling
Tyler Uzelman
Rebecca Bryan
Brent Davies
Carol Garrett

Overcoming Obstacles Panel:

Marnie & Ryan Griffiths
Dan Heon
Julie Hoffman
Garth Chapman
Philip McKernan
Troy Sirett
Tana Wheatcroft

Raising Money Panel

Thomas Beyer
Mark Garrett
Arlen Dahlin
Greg Habstritt
Russell Westcott

The cost for the Economic Summit is $199. The LIFE weekend is $787, but if you click here you can get $200 off ($587), and be able to bring additional guests for $387.

You can submit questions in the myREINspace thread for the panels, and see get  information and a lot of videos in this thread.

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One of the websites I check daily is myREINspace, which is the forums for the real estate investment network. I’m going to start sharing some of what I think are the best posts, and give some of you a little peek into the members side.

Public Forums: General Discussion

Objections & Overcoming Objections specific to Real Estate Joint Ventures The makings of a great thread on the free side! There’s lots of fear, but lots of money to be had.

When the Fire Marshall calls to inspect your properties… Making some best-practices for dealing with city officials.

Micheal Greenwood Someone really doesn’t like their tenant. I’m not sure how I feel about this post, but there it is.

GST Payable on Multifamily Purchase Watch out for the tax man!

How to get started (Using your HELOC (or some real cash ..)Another good resource from Thomas Beyer.

Experience with lowering monthly mortgage paymentOne man’s experience dealing with the banks…and banking officials who are a little clueless. You should also check out the discussion on risk I discussed in my post last week.

Wade Fenner’s course in Calgary Anyone going? It’s great to share knowledge and experiences. There’s  a lot of crap programs out there.

Real Estate Discussion

(There’s usually a lot of overlap between the General and RE sections, but most of us just hit ‘new posts’ anyways)

Apartment bldgs – BC vs. Alberta Is one province better than the other?

Tenant screening tips (?) Creating a “must-do” in screening tenants

Week #2 internet rental ad results Brent’s results from week two, with some good responses from REIN members.
When are you too levered ? Thoughts on Leverage, interest rates and risk

Economic Fundmentals/News

Inventory of Alberta Major Projects – April 2009

Red Deer financial data 2008 Financial Audit

U.S. Commercial Mortgages next bomb to hit!Is this the next global economic tsunami?

Members’ Only Sections

Coffee Shop

Blogs – A followup to our twitter discussion

2nd Golf day for Ontario REIN

Freelance Writer(s) Wanted Canadian Real Estate Magazine Job Opening

Looking for long term price graphs

Business Plan? Are people asking for too much?

Property Goldmine Score Card

REIN ECONOMI SUMMIT – JUNE 26 – 27 – 28Ontario REIN memebers making the trip to Alberta…

Calgary historical market analysis 40 year info on the Calgary market + a little something special

Ask an Expert

Asbestors Issues A real concern .. or just common ?

Property Management problems! Is it me or them? One woman’s problems with an Edmonton property management company.

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So Don did an interview for a CBC segment called Saskaboom. I’ve never heard of this program, but it’s some interesting perspective. It’s a 14 minute long video.

There’s a quick bit with Dale Ripplinger Vice President of the Canadian Real Estate Association. There’s no date on it, but this one must have been back a while. They mention second-half 2008 forecasts, so I’m guessing it was Q1 or Q2 in the early side.

About 1/3rd of the way in there’s a panel with Don Campbell, and Bob Dhillon from Mainstreet. My notes are below the video. Stick around for the end…Bob kind of sticks his foot in his mouth.

Notes:More than half of new arrivals are from Alberta.

• REITS make up 50% of the latest 50 commercial deals. Pensions/Public Companies were 25% and local buyers 25%.
• Don’s ‘reaction’: 2007 was the first year with positive intra-migration but people are over-reacting to the good news. The pendulum is going to swing back, and there are only about 3/4 of a million workers in the whole province.
• Don had a brainfart and forgot the third of the 3 F’s. Food, fuel…and….. It happens to the best of us.
• Bob Dhillon’s focus on buying buildings with significant deferred maintenance as they’ve got significant cash and prices are pretty low. Sell signal is CAP rates below 4%  but they’re not interested in selling.
• The affordability index has made Saskatoon more expensive than Edmonton.

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There’s a natural progression within Real Estate education, it’s a lot like school. I’m going to try and paint a picture of what I think this looks like for Canadian investors. I’m using the metaphor of school because it’s familiar to us all, but don’t think that it’s literal. For many investors there’s a 10-20 gap between elementary and middle school, of from high school to university. Some people never go to university and fewer still become grad students (Masters and PhD), and an exception group of individuals become full professors.

Play Nice and Share

photo credit: marge727

The Elementary School experience for most of us is the time we spend early in our lives when we learn our own basic financial literacy (or lack there of). It’s the important experience of receiving an allowance and having to decide what to spend on what. I’m sure my parents could come up with several examples where I foolishly decided to spend all $10 on a cap gun or something else “big” which broke or was used up in the first hour. There’s a pretty big gap between a made-in-china toy and success in real estate investing, but these are the experiences which start to define our attitudes, values and goals. The whole point of the game during this phase is learning to play nice. More than any other time, this is where you learn how to work together and start the skills that will ultimately define your success.

For lots of us we start to move towards Junior High or Middle School we take our first part-time job. Maybe we go through the adolescent phase where we just want to be rich. Beyond being a teenager, there’s some physical objects here for the first time. The working tools of the “real estate teenager” are books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad
and The Wealthy Barber. Those are two great books that the university graduate might turn to again for refreshment or to help educate others as they move towards teaching, but with very different eyes.

Workplace Skills

Now we’re into the exciting years of High School. Lots of people don’t start learning this stuff until well into their 20′s or even their 30s or 40s. In life you likely have a career, possibly a family and hopefully you’ve had experiences like going away to college or university, traveling on your own or buying a house for your principle residence.

You start to move on to move complex books, and some of the more basic courses. You might take the book learning into the real world but you don’t have a true focus or idea of what you want in the end. You’re probably still thinking in terms of ‘retirement’ or simply saying you don’t want the conventional experience of learn-work-retire. You’ll buy more complex books, probably American. There’s an enormous variety of them on Amazon. You’re learning in a very simple way what works and what doesn’t.

Just like in the real world, the skills in high school you can theoretically make it in the wide world. The problem is that you’re still just following someone else’s tactical system. From an education standpoint I think that most of the seminars you see advertised in the newspaper or on TV, and almost all the ones you see online are the educational equivalent of grade 9 or 10. The Rich Dad (by which I mean the Darren Weeks sales-pitch) seminars might be able to hit the high school graduate level if you’re very dedicated and take the extra training beyond the $1k weekend, which starts to put the total cost up around the $10-15k mark. I also have heard a number of people saying the content isn’t sufficiently Canadian.

There’s a number of other seminars which are at the same level, and offer some mentoring (often again at the $10k mark) including Ozzie Jurock. The Robert Allen crap is purely American, and the tactics don’t apply to our market. There’s lots of options, some of which will help you graduate from high school, and might even make the community-college diploma level, but there’s a lot of crap here too.

College Frosh Week

photo credit: jmilles

Welcome to University/College. I put the REIN materials here as a solid undergraduate education. The ACRES home study is like your first two years. You can learn some solid skills, and use it to execute some tactics, but it’s kind of like you dropped out after year two. You’d have be a very dedicated person to keep things moving forwards. The real live in-person ACRES weekend, with all the material you get to review after is a pretty solid Bachelor’s Degree in Real Estate Investing (that’d be a BScREI). I think it’s true because more than any other group I know of people attend the weekend, go out and take action. Even if it’s a simple as putting together their banking binder and getting pre-positioned, they get things moving. And there’s an awful lot of people who go out and write offers within the first month or two after. I did (it was a dual-offer with a 30% VTB as the second offer!).

Your Thesis and Continuing Education

The thesis of your undergraduate education is the first three properties you buy. This means you’ve had to deal with financing, legal issues, possibly joint ventures and property management. You’re learning how to speak the language of more sophisticated investors, and developing a clear picture of what you don’t know.

The continuing education component for your undergrad is going to come in the form of a REIN membership, listening and learning from other investors, news and some of the same resources (books and seminars) which characterized the junior high and high school years. The difference is you’re looking at them with new eyes. You can start to put them into the strategic plan you’ve started to develop (or the 50,000 ft view to use David Allen’s
term). Before they were little more than entertainment; the flaw in those programs is they’re not aligned to support your long-term education and success, they’re intended to make their champions money first, and ‘educate’ you to support that goal.

Graduate Seminars and Masters’ Degrees

photo credit: Miguel Vera

Now you’re fully able to begin taking a 360-degree view of your portfolio, team, goals, family, the local, provincial, national and global economies, and you’re ready to diversify. You have the ability to effectively raise Joint Venture money, consider moving to a multi-family property (6-units +) or small commercial/mixed use. You might even have a good enough team to try a condo conversion. Towards the end of a Masters (M.REI) some people make the jump to going big: public offerings, large multi-family and development.

The important part is you’ve developed the ability to assess your own knowledge, and the more important skill of valuing and implementing advice from more experienced professionals. There’s a great discussion on myREINspace right now about leverage and financing. There’s a strong theme running through it talking about risk at a more abstract, full portfolio and long-term perspective.

The Doctor is In

In the academic world your PhD takes 2-3 years, assuming a masters takes 18 months to 2 years. It’s completely variable because the whole operation depends on your research, the creation and the defense of your thesis. A senior PhD student might be someone like Thomas Beyer, whose thesis defense might be a visible sign like his presentation to the REIN meetings in Alberta and this interview with Russell Westcott. You’ve been successful, you’ve made some colossial mistakes and you’re now into sharing them with others.

Who would I award a doctorate to? In REIN circles: Don Campbell, Russell Westcott, Greg Habstritt, Michael Milner, Owen Shaw and Tasha Adams, Valden Palm, Thomas Beyer, Brent Davies and Arlen Dahlin.

The skills these people have is that to work from a 50,000ft view, provide the same detailed level of analysis for multiple investments, businesses and to take it beyond to other areas of your life.

Maybe I’m completely out to lunch, but that’s what I think the landscape looks like. I’ve been really happy with the level of discussion on myREINspace lately, as I think we’re moving to a more sophisticated, more intelligent place that also welcomes the complete newbies with thoughtful, helpful commentary.

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Here’s a video of an interview Don had with the folks at BNN (the Business News Network). She starts off with one of Don’s old quotes, and asks if he still thinks it’s true today.

Even in today’s unsustainable economy, an investment in real estate is still a solid investment, backed by solid assets.

Here’s some bullet points I took from the video:

• Look long term. The next 18 months are going to be a roller-coaster. We’re looking for yield, and return on investment (ROI).
• The Three F’s: food, fuel and fertilizer.
• National stats don’t mean anything.
• Remember; people go to school during a recession. Towns with 2 or more  post secondary institutions are a good possibility. Pay attention to education. Avoid forestry driven towns.

The interviewer is a smart lady, and pretty sharp. As she says at the end of the interview:

It’s common sense, look where there’s robust economic activity.

The other guy says “he glosses over the costs of maintaining rental properties” and she stomps on him. Apparently she’s reading Real Estate Investing in Canada (and knows the truth). Good short video. Don’s good at rapid-fire interviews like that.

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Not long ago I started keeping track of REIN members on Twitter. Since everyone loves a little healthy competition, I now present to you the first ever Top 10 REIN Twitterers list. (The name in the spirit of REIN’s awesome series of Top 10 Towns Reports).

The grading was done with Hubspot’s Twitter Grader. The rank is where that person sits in relation to the other 2,065,337 users they’ve graded. It looks like there’s a pretty close race between Dan Barton, Bill and myself.

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There’s a wee gathering of Kelowna-area REIN members tonight (March 23rd) at Dakota’s on Harvey at Birch starting around 6pm. Some of us are going to get there early, have something to eat and we’ll get the show kicked off around 6:30. We’ll be in the Legend’s room, just inside the main doors, to your left.

I’ve heard that a couple people made it out to the ACRES weekend in Vancouver, and I’m interested to hear what they thought of it.

See you tonight!

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The next REIN ACRES weekend is in Toronto on April 17th, 18th and 19th. The weekend usually costs $787, but if you click here you can get it for $200 off, or $587.

I wish I could go because I’ve met a lot of amazing people on myREINspace who I’d love to get a chance to meet in person. It’s also a great weekend of real estate investing education, and I’m curious to hear a little more detail on the Ontario market.

Why do I bother to keep going to these things when I can?

$2,692,700,000

That’s $2.7 billion and it’s the value of the real estate purchased by REIN members. The purchase cost. As REIN’s nearly 20 years old, there’s a lot of old real estate in that bucket, and the current-value is significantly more. The people I meet at REIN meetings are amazing, and it gave me the confidence I needed to go out and buy my first property in Edmonton.

Anyways, what happens during an ACRES weekend?

There’s the Friday REIN meeting. I tried to liveblog a REIN meeting once, and it was just way too much info. That’s great if you’re going to the meeting, but sad for my computer. There were four parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Saturday is all about the macro. Where to buy, evaluating towns, areas, and general factors. There’s a lot about getting financing (getting the banks to say yes) and they briefly touch on JVs.

Sunday is the day you’ll want to have a pen and a calculator. It’s detailed property analysis, and learning how to tell which properties are right. Finding motivated vendors and creative financing strategies. Financing when you’re self-employed. Action strategies.

Here’s how the topics break down (in their words):

Saturday

Is Your Market Ready To Crash?

The “2009″ REIN™ Property Goldmine Scorecard… An Answer to the Question – Has The Canadian Market Peaked or Is There More Profit Available?

The R.E.F. System for Choosing the Best Properties – The 5 Quick and Easy Keys to Immediately Identifying How Much Money a Property Will Put into Your Bank Account.

Where and What To Buy – We’ll tell you specifically, right here in Canada, which cities and towns are the best to invest in today for lowest risk and highest returns.

Eliminate The Credit Crisis Issues! Honest Financing Secrets

How To Get The Bank To Say YES in 2009 & Beyond – Due to the credit crisis, the rules have changed again.

How To Save Thousands of Dollars On Your Mortgages – These secrets alone will be worth 20 times your small tuition for this event. (This strategy has helped me a bunch…to the tune of $2,400 a year!)

Self Employed Bank Financing

How To Ensure You’re Buying A Great Investment Property –  11 fundamental secrets veteran real estate investors use to maximize their results when buying investment property.

3 Creative Ways To Buy Real Estate from today until 2013:

• The Joint Venture Secrets
• Turning One Property Into 3 Properties Legally
• The Hassle Free Tenant Strategy

The Fear Remover Strategy – Fear is good, it keeps you aware; however, it can be debilitating and can hold you back from creating real results.

Sunday

The Positive Cash Flow Property Ladder – My favorite part! This is deciding property-by-property if it’s a good buy or not. This is how can make money in a recession, and make sure your money is working for you. I wrote a blog post building on this strategy.

Advanced Due Diligence -  There are 11 Due Diligence Questions that you MUST ask before buying any property – if you’re not asking them you are increasing your risk and decreasing your returns.

How To Find Only Motivated Vendors — In 2009, with all of the extra properties for sale, it’s critical to spend your time only with motivated vendors… finding them is key. Discover if foreclosures and tax sales are the answers to finding great deals… or just a big scam in Canada.

The 9 Questions You MUST Ask Before Buying Any Property -You will have in your hands the critical questions that will lead you to finding out the truth on any property.

Spring 2010 Update to Top BC Investment Towns Research – Be prepared for some surprises – no hype, just facts.

How To Be Known as A Sophisticated Investor – AKA your Financing Binder. This one seriously blows people away…I went in to my bank to change my mortgage payments and after reaching into my binder to find an answer to their question, they offered me another loan at a better rate. This one works.

And that’s it. It’s a huge amount of information in one weekend, and I’ve been to them a couple times now. (They’re free if you’re a REIN member.) Like I said before, the weekend usually costs $787, but if you click here you can get it for $200 off, or $587. If you can’t make it out to Toronto, the next one will probably be in Calgary in the spring. You can bookmark this link where they’ll post the next one after Toronto’s done. You can also buy the home study materials, which I have a copy of, and are a great resource.

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