How 30-Year Fixed Mortgages Help Build Wealth During Inflation | Adiel Gorel

Inflation is hitting hard — at the grocery store, at the gas pump, and even at the movies. But what if one of your highest monthly costs could stay fixed while almost everything else keeps rising?

In this episode of Women Like Me Stories & Business, Julie Fairhurst sits down with Adiel Gorel, CEO of International Capital Group, to talk about how everyday people can use US real estate investing to build long-term wealth, passive income, and retirement security.

Adiel shares his journey from electrical engineering and Silicon Valley research to buying rental properties and helping others invest in real estate. He explains why he moved from local investing to remote rental homes when the numbers stopped making sense, and how professional property management can make investing easier for people who do not want to become full-time landlords.

We talk about why brand new homes may reduce unexpected repair costs, how a “start with one” approach can lower fear for first-time investors, and what happened when Adiel led a group of engineers who collectively bought hundreds of rental homes.

A major part of this conversation is the power of the US 30-year fixed rate mortgage. Adiel explains how fixed mortgage payments can become easier to manage over time as inflation rises, why the real weight of debt may shrink, and why early cash flow is not the only number investors should consider.

We also discuss the difference between the US mortgage system and Canada’s mortgage renewal risk, the rent-versus-buy question in expensive cities, and the market traits Adiel looks for across the Sunbelt when choosing investment locations.

This conversation is for anyone curious about:

Real estate investing
 Rental property investing
 Passive income
 Retirement planning
 Inflation and debt
 US 30-year fixed mortgages
 Cross-border real estate investing
 Investing from Canada into the US
 Long-term wealth building
 Starting with one rental property

This episode is educational and not financial advice. Always speak with qualified professionals before making investment decisions.

If you have ever wondered whether you missed the real estate market, this episode may help you see a different path. Sometimes wealth does not begin with a giant leap. Sometimes it starts with one smart door.

Subscribe for more conversations about business, money, visibility, reinvention, and building a life with more courage and choice.

Check out Adiel's website; it's full of fantastic information that can help you:

https://icgre.com/event/

https://icgre.com/pressroom/

If this conversation stirred something in you… good. That’s where change begins.

Make sure you’re subscribed, share this with someone who needs it, and if you’re ready to tell your story, step into your voice, or build a life that actually feels like yours… You’re in the right place.

I’m Julie Fairhurst, and this is where stories turn into power.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Money Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Women Like Me's Stories in Business. I'm your host, Julie Fairhurst, and I want you all to hang in for this conversation. It is important. It's about your financial future and how you can help better your life and and and yeah, just help better your life. We all need to be able to do that. So let me introduce our guest, and then we're gonna dive right in there. So today I'm with Adele, non-Adele. Pronounce it again, please.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

My name is Adiel.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Adiel, thank you. Adiel Gorral. He is the CEO of International Capital Group, and he's joining us from San Francisco. His work focuses on helping people understand the power of real estate investing, especially the opportunity found in the United States through the 30-year fixed rate. He has spent decades helping investors take that first bold step into single family homes investing with a message that is less about theory and more about building a stronger financial future for yourself and for your family. So today we're gonna talk about money, mindset, retirement, long-term wealth, and why understanding financial tools can change the way we think about possibility. Well, thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate it. I'm excited to learn all of your knowledge, all of it. I'm curious.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

It's my pleasure and thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

You're welcome. Okay, so let's start with a with a question and just find out how did you first get into real estate investing and helping others build wealth?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Well, my background is actually in a completely unrelated field. I already told you because when I heard that you are in Canada, that I went for my bachelor's degree in electrical engineering,

From Engineer To Investor

SPEAKER_00 2:10

actually, and computer science at McGill University in Montreal. And then I went to do my graduate school at Stanford in California. And so it was all electrical engineering and computer science. I taught at the university, I did research, and then I got my first job in Silicon Valley. Now, when you get a first job in Silicon Valley, or at least it used to be the case, in fields like engineering, computer science, you you go you get paid well. So as a young person, straight out of graduate school, uh, they paid me a lot better than Stanford paid me. So I felt here I am, a young guy, and I'm getting paid so well. And then in my research group at the lab that I was doing my research in in Silicon Valley, I was the youngest person. There were people there who were 50 plus, 60 plus. And so I was making the naive but pretty obvious assumption that they would be quite wealthy having worked there for 30, 40 years and making this kind of money. Once I got to know my colleagues socially, I realized that was not the case. They typically own their own home in a retirement account, and that was it. So, right there, as a young person, I said, okay, I don't want to look like this at this age. You know, at their age. So clearly, I'm gonna have to use the fact that I have a good salary, good credit. That's a measure that we use in the United States. And I'll have to build my own empire so that when I get to 50 plus or 60 plus, I will look much, much more powerful financially than my colleagues here do. So I grew up in a family of real estate developers. And as a child, I didn't really care about what my family did. I just wanted to play, but I couldn't help but be uh you know, exposed to the power. So I said, okay, great, I'm gonna buy rental homes and I will build an empire so that I get when I get to a later age. Okay. So I started. Now that was back in the 1980s. In the 1980s, there was an unwritten rule, at least here in the US, only buy rentals within a 30-minute drive of where you live. That was the rule that everybody went by, and I also went by the rule like all the other people. So I was living in Palo Alto, California, right next to Stanford University, and I bought only in Silicon Valley. That was within 30 minutes' drive. After buying a few rental properties, I realized I couldn't sustain it. It wouldn't scale. I couldn't build an empire because even back in the 1980s, even though all the numbers were much less than they are now, the ratios were not good. Even back then, the rents were way too low relative to the price of the house. So I said, either I stop or I don't follow the 30-minute drive rule, and I do go to a place that works. So I did a little research. Obviously, in the 1980s, we didn't have the web. No, we didn't. At least. And

Breaking The 30-Minute Rule

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Silgate Brin and Larry Page, I believe, were in kindergarten at the time. So that didn't help much. But luckily, I still had uh you know access to my research lab at Stanford. And at Stanford, they had the ARPA net, which is the precursor to what we now call the internet. And you could do searches very, very primitively, but you could do it. So after doing some searches, I discovered that if I hopped on a plane and I went for an hour and a half from San Francisco, I will land in a smaller city by the name Las Vegas was the name that they called it. In fact, they still call it by that. Yes, they do. I saw that in Las Vegas I could buy homes for one quarter of the price that I was buying them in Silicon Valley. But very surprising to me, the rents in Las Vegas used to be close to half of the Silicon Valley rent. Obviously, that was much better. So I started flying to Vegas every weekend, and the people in Vegas were not thrilled about me. They had never at that time, they had never seen anyone buying out of state. Never. Nobody was doing it. And I also always looked a little younger than my age. So back then I looked like a boy, and they said, this boy's just gonna waste our time. Nobody's buying out of state. So nobody really wanted to work with me. So I used my first few months to do what I knew I had to do. Find local property management firms. So when I do start buying in Las Vegas, they will take care of my properties. Because if I live in the state of California and I'm buying in the state of Nevada, I clearly need a local manager in Nevada. So I interviewed management companies until I found one that I liked. I was still fairly nervous because I didn't have a chance to really try them in the field yet. Finally, a broker took pity on the crazy boy from California and said, okay, I'm gonna find you homes to buy, and I started buying. Now, I was always very aggressive when it comes to things like this. So in my first year in Las Vegas, I bought for myself 22 homes. Holy smokes! Before people get all excited by this number, and also Julie, if you promise not to laugh, the average home I bought in Vegas during that time in the 1980s was $39,000 for the whole thing. $39,000. Wow. Not only that, Fannie Mae, you know, under which the fixed-rate loans are didn't have a limit on the number of loans an individual can have, like they do now. So I could get as many loans as I needed. Also, back then they allowed me, even as an investor, to put only 10% down payment and get a 90% loan with private mortgage insurance, which is a construct that they use, which I did because even though I was paid very well as an engineer in Silicon Valley, I didn't have a lot of cash. I was a young person. So I wanted to stretch my money. Now, under these conditions and numbers, buying 22 homes for somebody who makes a good salary in Silicon Valley is not as daunting as it may appear, but still, I had never met a person who owned more than 20 houses before. And the first one I met was me. So during that year of buying the homes and get them managed by the local management company in Vegas. But after a year, when they saw me with my 22 homes in Vegas, plus the few homes I had in Silicon Valley, the logic of the engineers kicked into gear and they said, you know, we see what you're doing, we want to do it too. And I said, You should, you should, because I can tell you, I had told them, even if I stop doing anything now, any investment ever, I don't invest in anything anymore, ever. My 22 Vegas homes, plus the few homes in Silicon Valley, will arrange for me to retire early at an age that is less than most people and very powerful. But I'm not stopping, actually. I want to build a bigger empire. So they said, Look, you work here in Silicon Valley, you know how busy we all are. We barely have time to go to the bathroom. How about you with all your properties there and your managers and you go there? How about you lead us and help us? Haven't thought about that, but I said, okay. So I led a group of about 20 engineers, and over three and a half years or so, we bought about 250 homes in Vegas, not as a group. She bought six homes

Scaling With A Buying Group

SPEAKER_00 11:35

for herself, he bought four homes for himself, I bought a few more for myself, but I was leading the group. So even the very cautious engineer who bought just one home in Vegas as a test enjoyed the cloud, the power, so to speak, that came from 250 homes because the service providers, brokers, and managers knew if he wasn't happy with his one home, he would call me. Yes. And now I'm not happy with them. And every other manager in Vegas at that time was calling me. Come to us. We are better, we are cheaper, we are nicer, we are taller, we are prettier. Who doesn't want to manage 250 homes? Absolutely. Many more we may still buy in the future. Yes. I started enjoying this more than my high-tech life. And because what I was doing at the time was so unusual, I started getting invited many times to lecture about what we are doing, both in Silicon Valley companies and for uh you know investment groups. In one of my lectures in San Francisco, unbeknownst to me, was a reporter for the San Francisco Paper. Sunday paper, there's a big article about me and this whole thing. That led to the morning news on uh you know NBC. I realized I was not only enjoying this much more than my high-tech life, but I was changing my future, the future of my friends, and now the future of more and more investors who joined me. Yes. So I left my high-tech life with all my investment in studies and degrees and research, formed our company, and in the past 40 plus years, my investors bought more than 10,000 homes in over 30 markets, but the principle remains the same. Where now we just have markets where we bought a thousand homes or two thousand. There's even one market where we bought more than 3,000 homes over 20-something years. After a few years, I realized it's better to buy new, brand new homes. But the principle is the same. And to this day, if one investor joins us and says, I want to start with only one home, which I think is very prudent and right, to enjoy the clout of a thousand homes.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Wow. That is quite a that is quite a beginning and such a different, such a difference from what you were from what you were educated to do. Yes. But you had but you had that family background. So it must have been there. Yes. Must have been there a bit.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

The family background showed me the power that can be attained, the financial power through. Now there's one you know element which you already mentioned, but I would like to bring in. Sure. And that would also explain why I'm not retired at this point after more than 40 years. I started this when I let's put it this way. I could have been retired now for close to 30 years, and very nicely so. So why am I not retired? Why am I on the on this Zoom with you? Yes. Well, the reason is you mentioned it briefly. I discovered when I began all of this that in the United States, and to the best of my knowledge, only in the United States,

The 30-Year Fixed As Gift

SPEAKER_00 15:05

not so much in Canada, for example, they give you what I consider to be the biggest financial gift in the world. And the the Americans, because they live in this environment, don't recognize it as the amazing gift that it is. So I have a message, a life-changing message about this gift. And that's why I'm not retiring because the message is life-changing. I've already changed the lives of many thousands of people. People retired, people got wealthy, people sent their kids to the best schools in the world with those rental homes. So, what's the gift? The name of the gift will be familiar to a lot of people. It's called a 30-year fixed rate loan. So some of the listeners might be saying, I heard about it. What's new about that? Come on, that's nothing new. Okay. What's new is that you don't think about what it really means. And to really uh you know illustrate how it sounds, here is what happens when I get invited to speak in Europe. So I tell the Europeans, my Americans can get a loan called 30 years fixed, and the Europeans say, Well, what does it mean? I say, like the name implies, the monthly payment of principal and interest is always fixed. It does not keep up with anything, not the cost of living, not inflation, not whether I do uh dancing in my backyard. It does not change. Yes. You know, in addition to that, the mortgage balance or how much I owe on my loan, which actually goes down every month as I make payments, also doesn't keep up with inflation. The European have a harsh reaction, usually. They say things like, We're sorry, sir, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. I can't believe I drove a hundred kilometers to hear you speak. This is complete nonsense, and we're gonna prove it to you with logic. They say, Do you have inflation in the US? Yes. Do you always have inflation? Yes. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but it's always there. Yes. Yes. 40 years ago you bought a postage stamp for four cents. Now it's 82 cents. 40 years ago you went to the movies in San Francisco for two dollars. Now it's 16 dollars. Yes. If you go to a Whole Foods today and you buy a beautiful organic avocado, it's gonna cost $3. You know, we know, everyone knows, in 10 years, that same avocado will probably cost $6. Yes. Inflation. Yes. So you wanna tell us that in an environment where the cost of you know, avocados and tomatoes and shoes and shirts and rents and homes and glasses and everything constantly goes up with inflation because inflation weakens the buying power of the US dollar, making you need more and more to buy the same goods. Somebody will be insane enough and literally crazy, they need to be put in a straitjacket to give you a loan that's gonna be the only thing in the US economy not to rise with inflation while everything else constantly does. If that were true, and it can't be true because it's insane, that would be the biggest financial gift in the world because inflation would become your very best friend, your BFF. It would constantly erode the real value of that fixed loan, building you wealth, and you're not gonna have to wait for 30 years. Between 10 to 14 years, your loan is gonna look so tiny. You will have built all kinds of equity, you will have built wealth. It is too good to be true, therefore, it's not possible, therefore, you don't know what you're talking about, we rest our case. That's a very powerful argument. So I ask them, you know, I see you have all these fancy phones, how about you do a search? They say, Oh my god, you really have this insanity in the United States. The next question is always the same. If the Americans can get this unbelievable wealth-building gift, why don't the Americans run out every day to get as many of those gifts as possible? My answer is always the same. I don't know, but I sure did. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yeah, you can't speak for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

And I'm not retired because that message. There's only one American that I've been in touch with who thought about it thoroughly before I explained it. Once I explain it, it's obvious. Yeah. One American, his name is Warren Buffett.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

I love Warren Buffett.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

He and I were in touch in 2012. He wanted to buy a certain number of homes for his company, and he already knew about it. In fact, there's an article in Entrepreneur Magazine about my interaction with him and talking about the 30-year fixed rate loan. No other person in the US that I've been in touch with ever gave it a thought. And now here is the good part. I don't only help people from the US to buy these rental homes and getting a 30-year fixed rate loan. I help people from all over the world. So when you're a foreigner and even Canada, I mean, it's so close by, but you're still not a US person. Yes, you can get the 30-year fixed rate loan as a foreign investor as well. You're gonna have to put a little bit higher down payment. Yeah, maybe your loan's gonna be slightly higher, but you can do it. So I've worked with thousands of foreigners as well. So Canadians are not out of luck.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

So what kind of rate are people paying then for that 30-year fixed?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

There could be nothing more irrelevant than the rate that we are paying. Why am I saying that? When I began in the 1980s, the inflation was relatively high back in the 1980s. Remember the 22 homes I talked about? Yeah. The interest rate on all of those mortgages was are you ready, 14%?

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Oh yes, that was happening in Canada as well. One one four.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Of course, when the interest rate of course, when the interest rate was 14%. Inflation was high. Yes. I luckily for me, I had this clear vision. I said, by the way, when I put only 10% down payment back then, you could do it back then, you can do it now. Yeah. But uh and my rates were 14%. You don't have to be a great mathematician to realize every one of my loans started out so that the house as a whole was negative cash flow. Negative. I had to make up the shortage every month I could because I because I was well paid in Silicon Valley, but I also had a very clear idea that even at 14%, these loans are fixed, they're not gonna move. Now inflation now is quite high, but the rents keep up with inflation. So now it's negative. In a couple of years, it should be a break-even because the rents will keep up with inflation, and inflation was high. A couple more years it should be positive. That's exactly what happened. Except a couple of years later, the interest rates in the marketplace went down from 14 to 12. I refinanced all my loan, which you can do to 12%. Everything became nicely positive. Yeah, and then a couple more years, I remember how the media was yelling and shrieking single digit interest rates. Oh my god, we all went out and refinanced everything to 9.95. Yeah, what a day that was, and everything became positive. So that's why I don't feel the need to go to stand-up comedy shows anymore. Because when people are crying the blues about six and a half percent fixed right now in the United States, it I don't need to go to any stand-up comedy. It's funny enough. Yeah, yeah. Not to mention that if the rates go down in the future, I don't know the few if they do, you can refinance it down. Ah that's why I'm saying the rent the rate as you get your loan is immaterial. Yes, inflation still works to make it low. So you know, this is not a one-year investment. This is from vast experience of having done thousands of these over decades. Between 12 and 14 years is a sweet spot where your loan looks like very little, usually like a quarter maybe of the house. You've built equity, you've built wealth. So it's 12 to 14 years. I don't particularly mind what the exact cash flow is year one. Year one,

Rates Inflation And Refinancing Reality

SPEAKER_00 24:45

are you an engineer? Are you a nurse? Are you a truck driver? Are you a doctor? Are you a Silicon Valley person? That's your cash flow. Your salary is the don't put it on the little shoulders of the poor house that you just bought. With the current rates of about six and a half percent, and putting a typical down payment nowadays, it's about 20 to 30 percent. You'll start out these days about break-even cash flow. Maybe slightly positive, maybe slightly negative. However, the media in the US has scared everybody because I get interviewed by the media quite a bit, and I can tell you who the media is. The media is a 27-year-old living with a roommate in a rented apartment. That's the media that writes about real estate. So their universe is very short. They remember the abnormal times of COVID, where the rates in the United States went below three. Relative to that little history, six and a half seems very high. So the media said, Don't buy, don't buy, the rates are high, the sky has fallen, the world has exploded. Don't buy, don't buy. Yeah. People read what those 27-year-olds write. Yes. So we like to buy brand new homes. Brand new homes you buy from developers, from builders. So the builders want to attract people to buy, and they realize the media has made people afraid of six and a half rate, which is, by the way, historically very low. Yes, yes, very low. But it's much higher than three percent. Yeah, yes. So what the builders are doing, they're giving money to the lender to buy down the rate. Right. So, for example, the rates in the marketplace now are six and a half percent. Yeah, there are builders in some of the markets where we buy that will actually buy down the rate to 4.0% fixed for 30 years. Yeah. Whether you can get this buy down or not, it's immaterial again, because in the future, anytime the rates go down, if they do, you can refinance down.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

So by the way, the 30-year fixed rate loan is a miracle, not only because it never moves and inflation keeps all the other prices up, but also if the rates go down, you can actually bring it down.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah, unbelievable. It is fantastic. Here in Canada, we have we have a 30-year term, or not term, I'm sorry, an ammunitization. And then we have a two, three, four, or five-year term. Recently, over the last few years, maybe about the last five, six years, they've brought in a seven-year. But but the risk always is what's the rate going to be? Because you're gonna have to renew that. And when the when the rates were so low, I had a variable at 1.9, I was laughing. And then, of course, you know, it was fine, but then I sold and bought, and the rates started to go up again. But the 30-year fixed, I mean, it really is a gift when you think about it. Right now in Canada, we have we're tearing on the edge because all of those people, my one of my kids got stuck. Where they went with the variable. Next thing you know, they're they're not even covering the interest on that. Their payments are increasing and increasing. Luckily, things have stabilized for them, but there's many people that are going to be renewing, and they're they've had that 2%, that 3%. And now they're not gonna qualify. Yeah. And they can't make those payments. But with that 30-year fixed, there's there's no fear.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

There should be no fear. And that's this is an uh you know, artifact of the financial environment in the US following World War II, where all the soldiers were coming back, families were just starting to get back on their feet. The US government wanted to give people certainty. And that's when the 30-year fixed rate loan came. Nobody really thought deeply enough to realize what an unbelievable gift it is. People weren't thinking, they were just thinking, and now it's such a political hot potato, you can't really take it away. So, I mean, uh, but Canadians can enjoy it, French people can enjoy it, Chinese people can enjoy it from all over the world, people can get the fixed rate loan, and it is a miracle. I would like to give you one example out of thousands of examples that I have. Okay. I get a call from an engineer, but not all our investors are you know engineers. We have teachers, nurses, truck drivers, everybody can do that. But so he says, Remember me, I

Real Stories Of Early Retirement

SPEAKER_00 29:40

started buying homes with you guys in my early 40s. I bought just one home as a test because I was very busy in my job, and I needed to make sure the property manager that you had locally really did all the work because I didn't have time to fix any toilets, you know. Right. So I bought one home. He said the home rented and became stable and even a little boring. So I bought another one, another one, another one. I heard your message about the 30-year fixed-rate loan, and I understood it, he says. So I put the minimal down payment I could, again, also to stretch my cash, and I ended up buying 19 homes. Again, it's not as impressive as it sounds. At the time he was doing it in his early 40s, he was buying brand new homes for 150,000 US dollars each. Wow, putting a relatively low down payment. That's very doable for an engineer. He said, last year I turned 55. I looked at my 19 homes and all of them had 17 years left on the loans. But even so, even though when I had bought them, I put a small down payment and had a large mortgage. After 13 years, all my mortgages were roughly one quarter of the value of the home. I was very happy because over 19 homes, I had millions of dollars in equity. But I took it one step further, he says. I took four of my 19 homes and I sold them. I didn't do anything sophisticated, such as a tax-deferred exchange, nothing. I sold them and paid my tax. Yeah. And I used the proceeds of these four sales after tax to pay off the remaining small 15 loans. And with 15 free and clear homes with no mortgage, I retired from Silicon Valley at age 55. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And then he proceeds with a sentence that everyone says in the future. I should have bought more. That's what it looks like. Yes, yes. By the way, I don't want to scare people. No, of course. You don't need to buy 19. There is a lady I know who is retired in a foreign country. She bought three homes. These three homes that now don't have a mortgage, obviously, are absolutely the cornerstone of her retirement. I have families who bought just one rental homes, and it brings extra money every month, changing their lives. By the way, I was invited to do a TED talk about it, a TEDx talk. And you can find it on YouTube. Just put my full name, you know, Adiel Gorel and TEDx. You'll find it right away. And in 11 and a half minutes, I explained the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Wow. Wow. That's fabulous. Well, what do you think about, you know, that young couple or or um I I don't know, the person who's who's

Fear Renting And Buying First

SPEAKER_01 32:40

in fear, like they're just not sure what what they should do about it. So what are what are there like are there what are their big risks or are there big risks?

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Well, the the fear is justified. Yes. Number one, it's justified because the the economic environment in the media scaring people. I understand that very well. Actually, I wrote a series of magazine articles by invitation for investment magazines, and I'll be happy to share them with any one of your viewers. All you need to do is to send me an email at info at icgr.com. And one of the articles I wrote says, should I buy my own home first? So I'm totally aware of the fear, and and many people hear it from their families and parents, and many young people. First, you buy your own home. So the the answer to should I buy my own home first depends, depends where you live. For example, I live in the San Francisco area. You live in the Vancouver area. I believe, I know in my area, to buy a decent home, you need a million and a half dollars. Yeah. Okay, it may be similar to your area. It is. In such a market, I know it sounds very counterintuitive, but it's actually financially, logically more beneficial to rent rather than buy because relatively the rents are very low relative to those prices. Now, people say, but I'm not building anything. Yes. I rented for 20 years in the Bay Area because I thought the rents were relatively, but during those 20 years, I bought 60 or 70 homes in other markets where the numbers are. So for example, yes, I have people who are renting in San Francisco and buying homes in the markets in which we are buying, and I'll talk about those in a second, for $240,000, brand new homes, that is number one, much less daunting and scary to buy one home brand new that costs $240,000 and all you need is a down payment, not the whole thing. You get a 30-year fixed rate loan. So you could be renting in the expensive place and buying and building your wealth in the affordable upcoming place, not to mention in those states the law is fair to the landlord. In California, for example, and New York, the laws are very, you know, unfair to the landlord. So that is one way of doing it. Now, if you were if you are living in a place where properties can be had for a reasonable price, maybe 300, 400, 200, 500, even 600. Yes. Seven. Buying your own home, probably a good first step. But if you need to start putting a million or a million five or two million, you may consider renting, which is far less daunting and scary. Yes. Buying investment homes that are brand new for less than a quarter million dollars. That is a way to do it. And a lot of my people are doing it.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

Yeah, yeah. That's smart. It's um, yeah, in our area, we've lost so many investors. So many. Because it's the the the they're they're just the houses are they they've gone elsewhere. They've gone to Alberta, they've gone to Saskatchewan, where the where you can still get a decent house. I sold my before I retired from real estate, I sold my stepsisters' home. They paid $247,000. We sold it for $875. They took the money and they went to Alberta and they bought, I can't remember exactly how much their little rancher is. I think it was in the low fours, and the rest of the money is put away for their retirement.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Yes, yes, absolutely. If you're buying in a market that is affordable, by all means go ahead and buy. But if you are wanting to live in a place that is an expensive place, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Vancouver, you may want to consider renting and buying homes in a by the way, though those uh Canadian buyers could have enjoyed the 30-year fixed rate loan in the United States. They didn't necessarily have to go to Alberta. They could have gone to the markets we are buying. My my criteria for where to buy is very simple. Over the decades, I've been a student of the uh demographic shifts in the US, and it's very clear, even from the census, the US

Where To Buy In The Sunbelt

SPEAKER_00 37:40

census, that the migration goes to the south. So I call those states the Sunbelt states. So those are states like Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida. I don't invest in the north or in the Midwest. So out of these markets, I like to buy brand new homes, I already said, in large metropolitan areas. Why large? Diversity of jobs and economic, you know, the economic diversity. Then I like to buy in the suburbs, usually families with kids. The kids go to school, it's like a root in the ground. And then finally, affordable. So some of the markets I just mentioned, in the states I just mentioned, are not affordable anymore. Our biggest market ever, where we bought more than 3,000 homes in 20-something years, was the Phoenix metropolitan area, which now we are not buying in because it's too expensive. The prices went up faster than the rent. It doesn't work now. But markets that do work right now are not in any particular uh order. The Oklahoma City market, a big, great more than two million people in the middle of the country with low cost of living, very popular. Dallas, Texas, not far from there, a gigantic market. The most expensive markets we are in is the Raleigh Durham Research Triangle in North Carolina, very well respected market. And we're still buying something in Central Florida. So, I mean, the prices in Oklahoma City range anywhere between 200,000 to about 260,000 for brand new homes, roughly, you know. And then in Dallas, maybe from 240 to 300, in Raleigh Durham, the most expensive one, from the high 200s to the mid 300s. And so those are great places to buy. Of course, we bought thousands of homes in all of these places. Yeah, we would be happy to hold your hand. I personally, yeah, choosing not to retire, I had to find balance in my life. So I make music, there's a studio in there somewhere, and I you you can actually find my music on all the platforms. Just put my name. On Spotify, uh, you know, Apple Music, YouTube, uh, you know, Amazon video, whatever, whatever you'll find my music. And I perform live on stage with live bands, it's really fun. And I also have a health and wealth, health and wellness rather podcast where I interview some of the greatest minds in the world about health and wellness. And I also dedicate more than half my time to meet with investors. So if your viewers want to talk to me one-on-one, all you need to do is send us an email. Yeah, you know, again, it's info at icg.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

We'll make sure that that chat all your contact information is in the show notes so people can easily find you. So we'll make sure.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Some people are uh in auditory, so it's info. Yes, uh yes, they are. That's true. Info at icgr.com. And my staff will be in touch with you, and I'll talk to you one-on-one. I'll guide you, we'll hold you by the hand, connect you to our teams. Of course, if people want to come and visit and see, I love that people do that, but we try to make it simple. In my TED talk, I actually say the steps are the following buy a brand new home in a large metropolitan area in the Sunbell states, in the suburbs that is affordable, put a relatively small down payment, get a 30-year fixed rate loan, let the local manager lease out the home for you, and then proceed to do the hardest action for a human being to do. Nothing. Just let time building.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What great advice. So, so if I understand your business model correctly, you are taking. So if I wanted to purchase something, I would contact you. You would actually and your your team would help me find the home

How ICG Helps Remote Buyers

SPEAKER_01 42:00

and help me go walk me through the financing and that the whole the whole part of it. Because of course, for myself being Canadian, I don't know the rules, I don't know the laws, I don't know the contracts in the US. So I would be, I would be blind.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

So you're holding we work, you know, out of the 10,000 plus homes that our investors bought, easily 2,500 were bought by foreign people to the US. Yes, yes. And Canadians are actually easier than others because you know it's there's a lot of similarity. Yeah, I'll make it even better sounding. People ask, so what is it gonna cost me? What's it? Well, I've been on a mission to simplify this. People love to complicate. I'm trying to simplify. So we used to charge every investor for my involvement, my company looking over the local managers, and we still fight on your behalf, and we uh you we use our cloud. We used to charge for all of that. 20 years ago, I said, you know what, let's not charge anything. Make it simple. So, how am I gonna sustain the company without subsidizing it for my own money? That's not a good business. Yes. So, to do what we do, we need to be a licensed real estate broker in the state of California. Once we are a licensed broker, we can split the commissions that the local sellers pay the local teams that we work with in those markets. So that's what we do. We split the commissions with them. We don't charge the buyers anything.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Yes, yes. Well, the same in Canada. There's no, unless a realtor wants to, you know, what they want that uh relationship. But uh, but yeah, I've always said, you know, use a real estate agent, they're free for goodness sakes. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So That's ah I see that well that makes it even easier for people.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yes, absolutely. And I'll I'll be happy to uh talk to people, connect them to the local team that I myself buy with the local managers who manage my own properties, and they will uh and my advice is to start small. Sometimes I get a call from hotshots from Silicon Valley and say, I just sold a company, I want to buy a hundred homes. I say, How about you buy one? Yeah, I recommend starting with one. Yeah, because when when you are saying, Oh my god, I'm buying across the border in a place I don't know, I'm scared. Buy one. See how it runs, see how it runs. When it gets stable and it gets boring, if you buy number two, if you do, it's just a repetition of the same process. If you buy number four, downright boring already.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, what fabulous information. I appreciate it so much that you've been willing to do this and share your journey and your wisdom. And and it and really what I found as I was listening to you speak is that you do take a lot of the fear away for people that might be they might be of the unknown. I wish we had the 30-year in Canada, for goodness sakes. What are they doing?

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Well, no, it's crazy. It is crazy. The 30-year fixed rate loan doesn't exist in any other country, to the best of my knowledge, only in this crazy country called the US.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Let's make it Yeah, it's it's a it's a wonderful idea because as I say, you know, for people that there's the risk of what's happening with the rates, you you really don't have to worry. But that's what we, you know, the average is three to five years, is what the average terms that people will take here. And, you know, when when the rates are a little high, they'll go with a three-year term, hoping the five-year comes down by the time it's time for them to renew again. But that's a constant renewal. My husband and I, our home is up for renewal in September. So we're crossing our fingers. It's um, yeah, it it but it's just uh it's it's continuous. And because of that, we're starting to see a lot of trouble for people, which is really sad. Which is really sad, and not good for the economy.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

And actually, it's good for the banks, it makes them feel safe. But the banks in the US, it's unbelievable that they can give you a loan that can never keep up with inflation. It's just insane. But as long as they do, grab it.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Yes, for sure. Absolutely. Well, I could just listen to you all day. You are just like I appreciate it so much. And I think that this is going to be so helpful for so many people. So don't hesitate to reach out to everybody if you want to learn more, or just make the phone call or make the email and just find out a little bit more about this. I have a girlfriend and her husband who bought in, gosh, it's a long time now, maybe 12, 15 years, they bought brand new in Arizona and they love it. They love it. Yeah, they're not renting it out, they spending time back and forth, but but they they absolutely love it there. And actually, now that I think about it, I have another and I know someone else who has a home in Arizona as well, Canadian. So lots of cross-border shopping going on, not just with groceries. Well, thank you so much. So, so yeah, I just uh it is it's a great information and I appreciate it so much. So by the way, it's a good reference, I think.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

I wrote seven books in total.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Oh, yes, please.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

I forgot all about your book, please. Including the last one I showed you about my travel world as a young

Resources Books And Closing

SPEAKER_00 47:50

man with no money at all. But yes, the book that could really help, I think, could be a good reference, is called Remote Control, Retirement Riches. Oh, great title. You know, and it's on Amazon. Okay. The trend thousands of times all over the US. But this book could be useful. Remote control, retirement riches, written by me. You can find it on uh, you know, Amazon. I think it would be a good reference. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Do you have that on a on a website as well? Or no, no, no, okay. It's on Amazon. Okay. I'm gonna get the I'll put the name of it in the show notes for people so that they I'll throw the link in there so they can find it. It sounds like a great book to use as a reference for sure. Well, well, thank you so much, sir, for doing this. I appreciate it. And you you you have a very great story and uh and a wealth of information. And I just appreciate that you you're willing to share that with everyone. And uh, and hopefully you and the audience have been able to get some tips and maybe got past that fear of of investing in real estate or even getting into your own home. But uh, depending on where you are, don't don't I always tell people don't get out of the market. Oh my goodness, just get in and hang in there because it's I mean, in Vancouver we've seen some incredible, incredible increases. And you know, we'll see what happens from here. But but it's uh it's not always, as you said, a short term investment.

unknown 49:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Okay, thank you everyone. Thank you for being here. Take care, bye bye.