Wall Street, Real Estate Deal Structuring, & Mentoring Others With Arlett Tygesen and Host Stephen Simpson - Ep.12

On this episode Stephen interviews Arlett Tygesen. Arlett is a Finance Professional, Real Estate Investor, and Mentor.  

Arlett had a long career on Wall Street and is now focussed on structuring large multifamily real estate deals in the USA and mentoring the next generation to set themselves up for success in investing and finances.  

Stephen and Arlett discuss moving from finance to real estate and how she structures her deals, chooses her team members, and thinks about investing and legacy.  

Enjoy the Show! 

Links: 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/arlett_tygesen/

Website: https://investmidfield.com/ 

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/arlett-tygesen-95368428

--  

Subscribe: @focuscapitalpodcastwithstephen  
  
Listen on your favorite Podcast Player: www.buzzsprout.com/2358487  

Web: www.focuscapital.ca

Transcript

0:00

for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Stephen: 0:11

Hi guys, Stephen here. Welcome to the Focus Capital Podcast. On this episode, I interview Arlette Tegeson. Arlette is a finance professional turned full time real estate investor. We have a great conversation talking about her journey through the world of finance and getting more involved in in the world of real estate, the types of deals she's doing, and also what she's doing to mentor and to to help others to also get into this space as well. It's a great conversation. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. And if you're interested in finding out more about what we're doing at Focus Capital, I invite you to check out our website, focuscapital. ca, on there you can find a wealth of free information, resources, other podcasts and videos that we've done as well. And with that, I hope you enjoy the show. Arlette, welcome to the podcast.

Arlett: 1:00

Thank you, Steven. Happy to be here.

Stephen: 1:01

Great. I'm looking forward to the conversation today. We've known each other for some time now, and we've talked a lot about different investments and real estate and all different things going on in the market these days, and I think it's going to be a great conversation because you have an interesting backstory, someone from France. Finance coming into the world of real estate and now investing in real estate full time. So I'm really interested to to talk more about that and to learn about what you're up to and maybe some advice that you've got for people, coming up in the world of real estate and maybe also the same story from a finance background as well. So maybe to kick things off, it would be great if you could just share a little bit about your backstory, how you first got into finance and then maybe how you made that transition over to real estate and was it some mentors that you had, or was it someone else who influenced you, who got you on that path and maybe talk a little bit about those early influences and what sort of got you on this path and got you going.

Arlett: 1:55

Sure. Absolutely. I there's a, another podcast called it's not a straight line. And I think that would absolutely define my career trajectory, because I grew up in a family, a long line of entrepreneurs. My parents were art dealers. My whole family is artists, art dealers, graphic artists, as far away from finance and standard corporate, anything. So I thought I was going to be an entrepreneur. I genuinely thought that's. Was the only thing that people didn't like. I didn't even know until probably grade 5 or 6 that people's dads schoolmates. Dads actually went to a job at 9 o'clock in the morning and came home at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. I didn't know that existed. I thought everyone's dads is went out and sold paintings and had parties and had this crazy life because you don't talk to your schoolmates about what they do. So I grew up in that and I grew up in a large family, lots of kids. And the 1 thing my parents taught us was obviously you can do anything. Just put your mind, set your mind to it, work hard. But don't become an entrepreneur. So they were like, this has been like, life is like this up and down. We had good years and bad years. Absolutely. And my parents were in Canada here. I don't know if you're old enough to remember this. When GST came in, it decimated my parents business for a while there, because it's considered a luxury. Item, who buys paintings? It's only when you have excess cash flow, you're buying paintings, right? So that kind of decimated their business for a few years. So we had some lean years, we had some great years. And the one lesson out of that was my parents were like, just go get a corporate job, get a steady income, get a pension, those things. So I did. And I, so I went into banking. I was in I was an analyst for a couple of years. I worked on Bay street in public markets. First I was an oil and gas analyst. And so I was an associate and my 1st job in public markets was to really help the analysts edit their papers. I was an English literature major. I don't have the math background, the finance background. I had to do all that on the job. So I was hired to edit their papers. And make them sound as elegant as they possibly could, they were great already. They didn't need a whole lot of my help, but that's what you do when you're so you just do a lot of these little things. And, but at the time, too, this is so long ago. They hadn't migrated to an Excel spreadsheet calculation format yet. They were still using graph paper and filling every single square. So I saw that and I thought, oh, there, I can add some value there. I'll just migrate them into this cool thing called Excel. So that kind of streamline the analysis process from a couple of weeks to a couple of minutes really, as, so that's how that whole corporate life started. But reading it back even further, when I was 16, I learned how to ski and I was always attracted to what can I do? That's neat. And maybe the boy, the girls don't do it. The boys do the boys are always my competition. And my twin sister and I, we had the same attitude. Oh, cause we have two older brothers. So we were always competing against our brothers. And I learned how to ski. I was dating a boy. He was a great skier. Phenomenal skier. So I thought if I'm going to ski with him, I better learn how to ski. And so I did that and he was coaching. So he's busy all during the day. I'm going to get my ski instructor. So I worked my butt off, got my instructors certification. So when I was 17, I started teaching at a ski and my, one of my first students happened to be the same. The child, the daughter of an investment banker. And I was teaching up at Craig leaf and he offered me a summer job. And that's how I got into capital markets. I had, I didn't even know what it was before that. I didn't even know such a thing existed. And it was just like, Wow, my, my brain exploded, so I just went like this through capital markets and got all my certifications. I need to do and then started working at a pension fund. Eventually. I did both buy side and sell side and so started a pension fund in the oil and gas. And then again, a pioneering opportunity came up and they were launching this thing called a private equity fund to fund. And did I want to join the team? There were 2 of us on the team. So I'm like, yeah, that sounds super cool. And I moved from a 76 billion dollar. Public market portfolio split across for analysts to a 2 and a half billion dollar private equity portfolio fund of funds plan. And to me, that was like, but so incredibly exciting and so pioneering to do that. And it was really at the infancy stage of private equity back then. We're talking. Eighties. So they're like the Blackstones, the Blackrocks, the Apollos, the guys that are up here and the trillions of dollars in assets. So they were pretty small down there. So back then, so that's how I got into finance and I stayed in private. I just loved private equity. I love the people. I love the opportunities. Like I just loved what they were doing. And that's how I got into private equity. And then within private equity, I've done a bunch of things. So I was a limited partner investor for the pension fund did that for a bunch of years. I moved into we all agreed as limited partner investors on the institutional side. We. Belong to an organization called the institutional limited partners association, and it was an association of limited partners. We got together globally. A couple of times a year, we set standards policies and procedures, fairness of terms and conditions and things like that. It was really like, it's almost like the secret enclave of limited partner investors. And I, it was just an informal organization at the time, and they were looking for their 1st executive director. That's me, I'm going to do that. So we formalize the whole organization. We had 200 members representing over 2 Trillion dollars in assets under management at the time. It's now north of 6 Trillion last I looked up. It's just a, it's a phenom. It's a big powerhouse. So I did that for a few years and then I moved on to the agency side raising capital here in Canada and and then eventually moved to New York. So I didn't move to New York. So I moved to a US organization a couple of banks. I was at Bear Stearns and then JP Morgan. And then my transition to JP Morgan came about as when Bear Stearns blew up and then we were absorbed into JP Morgan. So that's another conversation. I hope we touch on that because it's the market cycles I've lived through have been phenomenal and amazing experience.

Stephen: 7:54

that's actually a very good segue. Cause I was going to ask you, I had it in my notes here to ask you about living through some of, those cycles and especially with the great financial crisis and 08, 09, I just wanted to ask you what was that experience like? It's for some people working in finance, it must've seemed like it was the end of the world at some of these cycles. Maybe talk a little bit about that and how has evolved from that? What's been the lessons learned and some of the things that that they've taken and done because of that experience.

Arlett: 8:22

that's a really good question. I think what it does is it brings a lot of scrutiny into compliance. Like, where did things go wrong? Why did it go wrong? Who moved outside of the circle, outside of the lines? And that happens really tightly for a couple years after a crisis, and then it eases off and you start this is why we have a crisis every few years, because then it starts to ease off a bit. So I've been around. Since the crash of 87, like black Monday, that was a 22 percent drop in 1 day. And then that was quickly followed up by the Japanese crash and then the dot com crash. I, my venture capital portfolio. So I was at the pension fund at that time. And we had a 2 25 percent of our portfolio was focused on venture capital. Overnight. That 10 that 25 percent allocation completely evaporated. So talk about heartburn your portfolio just takes a dive. And so that was an interesting kind of it's all eye opening, right? Because you understand where things got so frothy and why. And then I lived through a few others then and then. 2008 when Bear Stearns evaporated Lehman Brothers evaporated and, all for different reasons, but it all comes down to fundamentally someone taking their eye off the ball and not, profits and money takes over scrutiny and, participating in compliant, not participating, but, adhering to compliance and, where's the wiggle room? That's where they always get in trouble. So it's to me being a relatively new real estate investor. 1 of the things. And I encourage investors to ask me this, too, when we're raising capital for a building or for a project, they, they want to know 3 things. Have you done you do diligence? What's your background in real estate? And who's your team? And. What they never ask, I think is an important thing is what cycles have you lived through? What are your lessons learned? Because with our most recent, the last couple of years, where in 2020 and 2021, people were getting all these amazing floating rate loans in the States, which is where our strategy is and now they're completely underwater. And it's reputational. Catastrophe, right? Having lived through those cycles, I didn't get worried about a 7 percent interest rate because I've lived through 18, 20 percent interest rates, but the deal still has to pencil out. I think if you don't have the. The background in real estate, you sure as heck should have a cycle experience. And across our team, we have all been around a long time. There's a lot of real estate experience on the team. I'm not that person. I have the finance background and I have the cycle experience, but I think when you put your team together, you need to have a lot of different kinds of experience to make one whole Right size team that has the level of experience and know how to weather any kind of cycle.

Stephen: 11:16

For sure. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. And I think the other thing that, is interesting to me just with respect to your story is taking some of that experience, like you just mentioned in finance, and then moving that and evolving from that and getting into different different areas. So maybe talk a little bit about, that decision process, that thought process that you went through to say, My, my next career move or my sort of the evolution of my career is to get into real estate full time versus, staying in the finance world. Maybe talk a little bit about that and what that sort of process was like.

Arlett: 11:50

Yeah. Yeah. When I started this conversation, you asked me about my influences and I'd said, I come from a long line of entrepreneurs. I'm actually Danish. So we stake the claim of being the original entrepreneurs going out, conquering different worlds and setting up marketplaces and economies and things. I'm kidding. But I, yes. So being in finance for that long, at a certain point as a woman, you need to figure out it. When are you going to become a mom and when are you going to get married? And you genuinely cannot do both at a full steam ahead. So I really struggled with when to step out of the market, when to start a family, and I had met my husband, my now husband, and for me, it was, I was working at the bank, I was in, Like living my perfect life, super high stress. I was on an airplane all the time, but I loved every second of it. I was in the epicenter of everything that was happening. I was in, I was on wall street. Who, how does it get any better than that? And so for me, honestly, it was always how much can I make? So I, this is my next goal. I'm going to make this much. Then I'll step out and start a family. Then you'd hit that goal, and then it would happen sooner than you thought. So you're like, okay, if I did that, then I'm going to do this. And I kept recalibrating that stupid goal without really thinking that, okay, now is the time I should step out. Something's going to hit me over the head and say, or let it slip. It's time to stop because you can't continue at this pace and give it your all as a mother. And I really wanted to give it my all as a mother. And so I literally just had to throw a dart one day and say, okay, it's December 20, 2000 and what was it? 2003, and I said to my husband. Okay, let's start a family. And then I happened to get pregnant in January, 2004. So I didn't really have time to get used to that whole new mindset. But it was like the decision almost had to be made for me, but so I spent a lot of long time in finance, loved it, but I wanted to give it my all as a mother. And if anyone tells you, you can do it all, you can do all that, you can do all that. They are absolutely lying to you because you can't, you'll never be a An amazing mother, if you're on an airplane 70 hours a week, kind of thing. However, I didn't learn that lesson right away. It took me seven years. To wind down because I still love the game. I love the job. I loved everything I was doing And I had a nanny and you know We were fortunate to be able to do that And so I knew my kids were being taken care of and at this point I already had two kids So but when my kids turned my daughter, my eldest turned seven Oh my god that you're missing out on all the best moments of their life You need to step out and I fortunately not everyone can have that Has the ability to make this decision. I was able to step back from my job and I quit cold turkey. I was like, I'm done. I can't. I came back to Toronto or my, I was looking for a, maybe a little job in Toronto to keep me busy. And the 1st thing that I was offered was the identical thing I had going on in New York at JP Morgan. I'm like, no, I can't. I can't. It was alluring. Very alluring. I'm not going to lie. They were offering me a lot of money to do it, but I was like, no, if I'm going to do this, and I really want to do this you get. Yeah. It's the biggest joy in your life and the biggest gift in your life is to become a parent and I was not going to miss any more of it. So I did that and did that for a couple of years. Of course, I didn't stay completely. As a professional and as a. Any person you want the intellectual stimulation as well as the loving nurturing. I'm going to give it my all as a mother, but your brain doesn't turn off. You still want to create things. You still want to do things. So a few of my former partners and I got together and we created a quantitative analysis and benchmarking company to aggregate limited partner portfolio. So we'd try to get that off the ground for a couple of years. And it was a good thing, but again, it was starting to get busy and living on an airplane and just working a lot. So I thought I got to step out. So a couple of years go by and I'm a stay at home mom, fully embracing the volunteer mom thing and giving it my all everywhere I could. And then I just had this aha moment. Like kids were suddenly getting older. They're off to college now. And I'm like just around COVID. I'm like, I got to figure out what my, Next plan is like my second half plan. I don't, what did you call it earlier? My second, your second half, halftime. And I thought, Oh, I've got a lot, I got a lot of runway left and I'm going to be an empty nest or what am I going to do? So I thought I have all these, all this knowledge from finance. I know I don't want to live on an airplane anymore. So what can that be? And I'd said to you earlier, I've been around real estate with my husband and our whole network deep background in real estate. I thought, Oh, I can. And I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I still loved want the idea of building my own business. So it's just 1 day. I was at a meeting and I thought, oh, I have this background and this thing called real estate funds exist. I had come from a private equity fund world and I'd made a lot of money for a lot of other people. Oh, how can I make money for myself as an entrepreneur? And utilize the knowledge that I had from the private equity world. So it just was like that moment. It all came together and then I spent the better part of the last few years getting really smart about the space. I know. I don't know everything for sure. But that's why you partner with people. You stay continually educating yourself. You network, you reach out to people who have been there and are way smarter than you. I never want to be the smartest person in the room because I'm never going to learn anything that way. Okay. And I spent the time getting smart about the space, making the important contacts in the in the space I wanted to be. And I love multifamily and the U. S. Southeast is my sweet spot. So I found the right people. I put together the right team of people I wanted to work with before I pulled a trigger. So we didn't get, I didn't get crazy during the 2020, 2021. Floating rate, everything's super cheap. Let's buy a bunch of buildings. I couldn't get comfortable with that. Not that I was a genius about it. I just I was too new to the, I just couldn't take that risk. And if you can't, if you can't mitigate your risk, you should not take risks. So I couldn't understand how to mitigate that risk because I was new to it. So I sat out, got smarter. No one thought that whole thing was ever going to end. But again, I wasn't too worried about interest rates moving. Cause I'd seen 20 percent interest rates. But super happy now in hindsight, I look like a genius cause I didn't put any money out, but it really was me just being pragmatic and conservative. And if the deal didn't pencil out in a whole lot of scenarios, I wasn't about to do it. This year I felt like I put the whole picture together and we have a fantastic team. Everyone's got really interesting experience sets and we have our first building under contract now. So it's exciting.

Stephen: 18:23

That's awesome. Yeah. And I think, talking about you being pragmatic it's, Obviously all of those years in finance and your career and just reviewing deals and just working in that context, which I probably gave you the opportunity and the ability to do that. It's, it's 1 thing to, to get into a new market. And say, I've got to make something happen right away. I need to establish a name for myself, but in, in those situations that you just described, that, that was a dangerous thing because it was literally just right at the point where the bubble was going to burst. Yeah.

Arlett: 18:56

which everyone looks like a genius in hindsight when you didn't pull the trigger on anything. But, I feel bad for the people that got really excited about it deployed a lot of capital and now they're on the wrong side of things and hopefully making smart choices about how to unwind that.

Stephen: 19:11

For sure. Yeah. Okay. So that's, I guess I wanted to delve in a little bit deeper about that the, what you're doing now and what you're focused on with real estate, you mentioned, you're focused on investing in the U S and maybe before we maybe just set the stage and what sort of was the thesis behind that? I. Obviously I'm investing in industrial real estate here in Ontario and, we're looking at that specific asset class, but I've looked at a bunch of other asset classes. And so I'm always interested to know, what's the sort of thesis behind what you're doing. And it's, additionally interesting to me because a lot more people that I talk to these days. who are Canadian are looking to the U S now The opportunities for a lot of people have dried up here. And so they're looking elsewhere and they're having to open the, up new markets and travel and do what they need to do. So I'd love to hear more about that. Like the rationale behind the thesis that that you came up with.

Arlett: 20:06

Yeah, for sure. So when I first started getting serious about creating my own real estate investment company, my husband, who has a deep background in real estate said, whatever you do, stay in your backyard. If you can't go to an asset within 2 hours of where you live. Don't waste your time because you'll never know that market intimately enough. You'll never be on the inside scoop of the deal flow or the, even just the noise around the space, whatever you do two to three hours max. And I tried and tried to find that. And I love the industrial space. I think you're so smart to be in that space. I looked at every asset class. I looked at land development. I looked at raw land assignments. I looked at everything in Canada and what it does. Occurred to me was I don't have 30 years experience in Canada. And I also came to realize the way it's so competitive in Canada. The space that I ultimately decided on, which is multifamily is really dominated by a few folks. And trying to elbow your way in there. You're going to be 10th on the order of seeing anything decent. They're going to scoop it up. So I couldn't be competitive at that rate. And for at that level, and a whole bunch of other reasons I couldn't really make the economics work and it just seemed like people were doing a lot of money for a little bit of reward. So I quickly pivoted out of small multi family and I really wanted to do scale. The benefit of coming from the background I have scale doesn't scare me because I was. Managing in the billions, right? So I was deploying writing 250 million dollar checks to buy out. GPS, right? So the numbers didn't scare me, which I realize now that's a big hurdle for a lot of people. It didn't occur to me again. You'd socialize you, you internalize so many of the lessons you've learned and it becomes so normalized. But then when you're talking to a 20 or 30 year old at the beginning of their career, they're blown away that you can talk about that many digits. I'm always happy when the younger folks start asking me questions about this and what I actually have to say they care about. Because to me, like us at our age who cares? But what you've learned is so invaluable to someone 1st, starting out or someone looking to make a halftime change. So I spent a lot of time really trying to break into the Canadian market and I just couldn't. I couldn't get comfortable and then always in the background was this look at the U. S. Look at the U. S. I spent a lot of time in Florida, a lot of time in Texas in my life, and I've invested passively as a limited partner over the last 5 years. That's the way I got smart about the market. I thought, you know what? I can't make it happen in Canada. Who are these GPs that are making it successful in the U S? So I started investing down there alongside GPS as a passive investor, limited partner, and it gave me access to knowing who the folks were what was the, who are the people you need to talk to? You need to meet. Cause that's number one to be successful is who your network is. If you're going to access off market deals you're never going to get an off market deal unless, the right brokers and the right lenders. And I breaking in is the hard part, but I thought if my version of breaking in was to invest in a few of these GPs and really get access to their deal flow, their people, their networks, and understanding how things were done a little bit differently in Texas. Or Florida, and it just helped me get a lot smarter about it. So I was ready to pull the trigger to be an active investor after doing that for 5 years. Again, for me, it's all about education research, be very prepared. You can never be 100 percent prepared because you can also just get stuck in that analysis paralysis limbo, which I'm guilty of. And 1 day. You just have to throw a dart and take action. If you don't take action, you will forever sit in the sidelines. So I decided I had a, a health issue in 2023. And I thought, you know what, Arlette, if you don't throw the dart right now and pull the trigger, you're never going to. So I decided with my vision board, 2024 was going to be it. And I was absolutely focused on getting that done. In one of the toughest markets in the world, by the way, the economy taking interest rates going crazy and but again, sitting out and watching how things were transpiring and putting your team together and I just love the economics of Texas. It's a zero corporate tax. State. They're in business to be in business. They want businesses to be there. You've seen all the headlines, all the mass migration of people. People follow jobs. America is a very migratory country and people follow jobs in the states. And with all the corporate head offices moving there, because. Why not? Everyone's leaving California. They're leaving New York. Those are the two big states that are moving to Calif or to Texas. You've seen Seabury set up offices there. Goldman Sachs now, it's like the Wall Street of the South. They're trying to take a run at Wall Street. JP Morgan, my former employer, is the has more employees in Dallas now than in New York. Crazy. People follow jobs and there's still a housing gap. Housing is still pretty affordable there. But because everyone's holding onto their low interest rate mortgages, there's not a lot of supply. So it's naturally a rental economy because people move around for jobs and because the housing supply hasn't caught up. So I was looking on Zillow this morning before we chatted and the average rent. So our deal is in and around Houston. The average rent is 1875 a month. Shocking to me. That's pretty high. Our deal. Because affordable housing is a huge issue, right? Our deal, after we do our, all of our renovations, rent will still be only around 1400. So very affordable. And you're still, you're going to get a nice, beautiful, brand new, renovated brand new property and it's affordable. And the key difference is between Canada and the U. S. This is what really struck me. In Canada, as a renter, you will spend 40, 50, 60 percent of your monthly income on rent. That's atrocious to me in the U. S. in Houston, for instance, around where we're buying. It's 3035%. So you still have a standard of living. It's an affordable standard of living there. You still have excess cash to pay all your other bills. You can still do things. And, the market that we're in right now for this particular deal, it's Conroe, Texas. It's just like a bedroom community north of Houston. It leans toward white collar and white collar down. There is 80, 000 a year. And you can afford stuff. You can afford stuff. So it's a whole bunch of reasons why I love Texas. I could go on and on, Steven.

Stephen: 26:27

That's, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the specifics of your thesis. So multifamily, obviously, Texas, Southeast, it sounds but maybe talk a little bit more about what the strategy is. Is it is a value add, are you looking for class A, class B properties? Is there a certain type of size of deal that you're looking at? What sort of the checks that you go through for a deal that works?

Arlett: 26:47

So this, we love value add. I love, love, love that space. I like core plus as well. Value add is a little bit of lipstick, a little bit of renovations, a little exterior, a little interior and amenities. People, the number 1 thing people ask for when you survey your tenants is they want more amenities. They want dog parks. They want covered parking. They want storage. So you can get a little bump on your revenue just by adding some amenities that are missing. So we love value. Add because the bump is pretty significant. Core plus obviously has a place to, the returns are lower, but. You're getting a brand new building fewer problems. Right now, our sweet spot is value add. And I think we'll stick with that for the time being. We like anywhere between 50 and 200 units. The 50 size or kind of smaller on, on the deal size. And it, that's a different set of folks that you're raising money from versus the larger deals. We're starting to see some really good deal flow. And by the way, Steven, before we found this deal, we underwrote over a hundred deals just to get this one, right? It's even as the markets are collapsing and there are motivated sellers, you still need to do a lot of due diligence, a lot of underwriting we put an offer out on a building in September. We didn't get it. The seller needs to sell, but, we figured they'll come back at some point. And then this particular deal we're working on, it's called the Grove at Gladstone. Again we've been looking at this building since the springtime and put an offer, and it was refused and then we put another offer in and it was accepted. Because, things just continue to go downhill. People can't service their debt and the deferred maintenance is starting to rack up and there's just a whole lot of reasons. And, I would always encourage those guys before. For it goes to foreclosure please do a deal with somebody. You don't want that on your reputation. You don't want that on your track record. Yeah, so that's our sweet spot. And I'm hoping to go to bigger size properties, more than 100 plus. Property we'll see it's a tough market. Like those. Everyone thinks it's a incredible deals are falling out of the sky. You start underwriting them. We underwrote 1 and occupancy was nice and high. We like to see that it was over 90 percent because then, you the 90 for 90, whatever you can get the Freddie Mac lending versus. going to another lender. And you dig into the tenants, you literally walk the space and you see a bunch of mattresses on the floor. And what that tells you is they're taking homeless people off the street and filling the doors so that it looks like they have over 90 percent occupancy. It's astonishing the tricks that you learn. And it's, I think it's way worse down there than, I don't know. I just, we've seen some crazy tricky things and you quickly get to understand. So she partnered with local people like that was one of the critical things that we needed to have in our team. And we have that is the deep knowledge of the local markets and how, watch out for this guy. Watch out for this. It's really interesting. Like that little chatter that exists. That was 1 of the 1 of the more interesting stories I came across. But

Stephen: 29:38

Yeah, your comment about going through that number of deals before you found one that works that, that resonates. I've had this discussion with many people and the amount of deals and the deal flow that you got to go through that not only pass the initial test, but, get through the next test and finally make its way down to something you want to make an offer on. That's extensive. If you're doing it properly. There really needs to be a lot of filters in place to get to that point. Yeah, that's it's not surprising to hear that. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about. Canadians investing down in, the Southeast. Are you seeing competition for these deals from other Canadians or is it mostly local? Because again I'm hearing anecdotally just about a lot of people going down and investing in the U S some Texas, some Florida, other parts as well. But are you seeing that on the ground as well? Are you seeing and hearing from brokers? Yeah, that geez, there's a lot of Canadians going after these deals as well.

Arlett: 30:36

Yeah, there's definitely more and more interest. I think our biggest competition in the States, though, is the institutional investors. Like, all the private equity funds are in there, buying up all the big projects the sort of why we stuck with the sweet spot of 50 to 200. it's almost a little bit under their radar, although they're playing in every level more and more Canadians are definitely investing down there a lot more are doing it in Canada, On their own with a couple of JB partners but you are starting to see some growth on the fun side where they're, gathering accredited investors. Cause that's what we'll that's what we have as our investors, which means you have to invest a minimum of 50, 000 dollars in the deal and you have to meet certain thresholds on income or net worth to be able to qualify to invest. But in return, some targeted returns we're looking at on this particular deal is a 16 percent IRR, 2x equity multiple, an 8 percent pref paid in the 1st, 6 months of closing and, lots of little juicy bits that should be appealing. And part of what I do as I'm raising capital is I tell people here's the gold standard of what it is. Even if you don't invest in us, here's what you need to look for when you look at a GP and how they do their due diligence and how they assess risk and how they communicate with their investors and how educated are your investors before they feel confident to commit to you. It's a different. There's a lot of different things at play and the number 1 question we get from Canadian investors is the taxation issue. Like, how do I deploy money into the U. S. and I don't have to pay taxes in the States and in Canada. You'd be unfortunately exposed to that if you're doing your deals on your own and your own personal name, you're paying like your global tax in Canada and you're paying it's a mess. So we have a structure called a and the. L. P. In Canada invests into the L. P. in the in Texas and that's a flow through entity. It's called a flow through entity. So we take care of paying all the taxes in the U. S. with the I. R. S. the I. R. S. issues a tax credit. It comes back up to you in Canada. And then you simply give that to your accountant and file that with the C. R. A. So you're not exposed to double taxation. You have to weigh it with what your risk tolerance is understand how to invest as a limited partner. I would strongly recommend people look at that as a way of mitigating your tax issues. And the other nice thing about being a limited partner investors, you're limited is the name, right? Your exposure, your risk is limited to solely the capital that you invest. So if you invest 50, 000. You should be, if markets go crazy or go to bust, you should be prepared to lose that 50, 000. It cannot be a significant amount of your net worth that it would actually alter your life, but the, that means the GP takes on all the risk. We intentionally shelter the limited partners, the investors, so that it makes it appealing for them to trust us with their money that we're going to do the best job ever. We get paid on the back end of a five year fund. All of our capital comes back to us. Our returns come back to us. After the LPs get paid, so they'll get their return of capital in the 1st, 3 years after we refi on a value add strategy. So we'll refi or we'll renovate in year 1 and 2, we'll refi in year 3 and Return of capital happens in year 3, you let the money ride to the full 5 year lifespan and we target a 16 percent RR on very conservative metrics. Very conservative. So we're excited about where that could possibly go to 2X your equity, 7 percent cash on cash return. That's all dependent on how it markets, of course, and how you deploy the capital. But we think very conservatively this is going to be a real banger. It's just a lot of good reasons to invest in Texas because you can't, you cannot put those numbers on the board up here. I haven't seen that,

Stephen: 34:20

Definitely not multifamily. No, you

Arlett: 34:21

Not in multifamily. And yeah. So it's a, it's an interesting market. And I, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Georgia, sometimes Florida has got all their insurance issue risks and things, but, There's enough opportunity in Texas. You don't need to go outside of Texas, but there's other El Paso, Texas. Love El Paso, Texas. I would deploy money there in a second if I could find a deal.

Stephen: 34:41

there you go. So that's awesome. So maybe talk a bit about, you mentioned your team, and the time you spent making sure that you put together that team and you had your strategy, maybe talk a little bit about that, Arlette and what, what you're doing. What are the parts of your team? You don't need to get into all the specifics of that, but it'd be great to hear just what makes your team, what it is and what are the components and how is it divvied up?

Arlett: 35:04

Yeah, so on our team, we have a sponsor. He's tremendous very experienced has been in the market for 30 years. He's our sponsor. You need a sponsor if you're not American and you want to invest in the States and you want to have access to good lending and. Whole host of reasons you need a U. S. sponsor. So he's part of the partnership. And he has 140M in asset center management, a couple of 1000 doors. He's well established. And then rounding out the team. I think it's important. If you're going to do a value add strategy, have somebody who understands that. Construction in and out, but people don't think about that. Like what goes into creating a renovation plan? What are all the moving parts? How do you maximize the value you're going to get out of that? So one of our partners has a construction company. One of our partners has been underwriting for years and years. It's what his absolute sweet spot is. He's an Excel nerd. I love him. He's fantastic. But he also came to us with a deep portfolio that he's invested in multifamily. So he understands the investment side of things and he understands the underwriting side of things. He's fantastic. Our construction guy also has a portfolio of real estate investing that he's done on his own. And then we have an asset manager, which is 1 of the most fundamental things. If you don't know how to manage your asset after you buy it, You may as well shut the door because you need that expertise. That's one of the most critical things. And he also has his own real estate portfolio that he's invested in. So we're all coming at it as investors. We've all put our own money to work, but we all have a really interesting skillset that when you stitch it together is, if you think about it, it's all the important silos that you need. So I focus my time on raising capital. I work with investors. I can bring in deals when they come to me, we have asset management, we have underwriting. It's just a, it's a, to me, that's my dream team. So that's what I would recommend to anybody. Anyone that goes into it as a solopreneur and they think they're just going to stitch it all together. No, you need a team and there is a sweet spot for GPS, right? 3 to 5 GPS is enough. You don't need eight. If you get eight, there's no economics left for anybody. So that's I've seen that I've seen a lot because they need capital. But I think the other important thing that I tell investors to again, whether or not you invest in us is understand how much skin in the game a GP has. It's important to see a GP. Team write a check, maybe one or two of them can write a big check. The rest aren't in a financial position to do it, but they're going to throw their all into the actual deal. As long as the GP shows up and shows that they've written a check personally to also invest in the deal, that's called alignment of interest. If you don't see that, then I'd move on to the next one. Yeah.

Stephen: 37:40

Okay, so that, that's interesting and that's probably a good segue into what I wanted to ask you about next, which is, taking this information, taking these lessons, this advice, these strategies and helping people who are maybe at an earlier stage of their career, considering investing, want to do what you do one day. Maybe talk a little bit about that, Arlette and how, you're maybe using social media or other platforms that you have to help those people and pass on that information. Because I think that's something that's really interesting. And going back to this sort of this halftime thing, I think it's something that's, really it's incumbent on us to really pass on that information. So I think

Arlett: 38:20

I 100 percent agree. 100 percent agree. I didn't, I did not grow up with any mentors in public markets or private markets. Not really. I had people who I could ask things to, but I never had a woman, a female mentor take me under her wing who'd been at it for 20 years and said, here's how you think about this or that. So I had to stitch it all together myself. So now at my age and stage in this, if I can offer out any kind of mentoring to young people trying to get into or people who are halftime trying to make a life change, I am happy to download what I can if it's a value. And, I have this Instagram page now that I set up in, in May, and it just gives common sense, like girlfriend advice or mom advice to understanding. Not just capital markets, but like common sense stuff, how to build confidence, how to not blow your brains out on your first paycheck on a luxury car. Like why that doesn't make sense. And even though it's common sense stuff, I've lived it. I've experienced it all. I didn't realize it was going to add value to anybody. I started this channel in May and it went viral four weeks later. I like the first million views or something. And I found out what I Went to, my daughter goes to college in California and I went to pack her up in June and to bring her back to Canada for the summer and all of her roommates. Approach me and said, or let we follow you. We follow you. I had no idea college girls were following me 1st of all, and their whole sorority follows me. And like, how am I resonating with 20 year olds? And I realized it's so they would come over to my daughter's apartment. And I posted a physical piece of paper, which they don't even do anymore a physical piece of paper on her bulletin board above her computer, which was her monthly budget. So here are your fixed costs, Brooke, and here's what you have left over at the end of the. day. That's what you get for the whole month. That's what you need to live by. This is your budget from mom 101. And it sat there, she's supposed to fill it out. It was completely blank. Your own kids don't listen to your advice, but her girlfriends and guy friends that were coming over going, what is that? I've never seen that before, which blew me away. But you realize everyone grows up in different families, different experiences, different exposures. And that became like this really cool lesson for me when I'm thinking here I am like this 50 plus year old woman posting these weird things on Instagram and saying does anyone care? That was my validation point that I am actually providing value to a generation, is trying to stitch it all together too, right? So it made my heart so happy to see that. So here's the budget, here's how you do it. Here's what it means. And it's just I get. Text messages from all the time saying, thank you. This makes so much sense. I wish my mom could tell me this, but I'm glad I have you. And, and likewise that, at this stage in my life, unfortunately, a lot of my girlfriends are going through divorce or life changes and never had to manage their assets, manage their family money. And so they're learning at this stage for the first time in their life. Oh my God. What is a budget? Am I going to have money for my retirement? How does that look? So as much as I'm giving information and advice on the 20, 30 year olds where compound interest is your magic button, just please put money away. Everything will take care of itself. Just put it away. And at this stage what does the next 25 years look like? And you don't have the magic of all this compound interest to work for you because it's time limited. So now what does that look like? So it just started. Hitting a bunch of different demographics. And to me, it's wow, that's incredible that this is valuable. And I would encourage anyone who's this age who has some skills, no matter what, it's a value to somebody. And I, I really credit social media for this positive thing that it does. Is it can match people who would never have access to each other in a past life, right? You and I talked about this earlier in our early days. You had to stitch it all together. Yourself. There were no directories, no social media. You had a telephone. We you didn't even have a cell phone in those days. So that was for the C suite. They had the cells, but cell phones. So I would say to anyone starting out is just start with the number 1 question. What is your why? Why do you want to get into this? Why do you need to make money? Why? What's motivating you? So understanding your why is number one. And then number 2 is understanding your risk profile. What can you tolerate from a risk stance? And then craft program. Through networking and smart people and people who've been in the business for a long time. That's the hard part is the entry Steven, right? It's who do I trust? What networking groups do I join? How do I know where to start? I remember being that I remember being that and if I can help anyone to break into that, because the rest all happens, it all flows. Once you break in, like, how do you do your 1st deal? I was like, That was my question 4 years ago, how do you do your 1st deal? So I just spent the time understanding, really chiseling down my why and what made sense for me, really chiseling down on what my risk tolerance was and really refining what my strategy was and picking a point and working full out at that. But yeah, I would network like crazy if I was starting all over again I would Certainly look at real estate as an asset class to invest in because it is the long game. Real estate is the long game. And if you want something to retire on, you need to be in real estate. So I always say I'm not a financial advisor, but I have a good, healthy public portfolio. Probably 40, 50 percent of my money is in public markets. I do not day trade. This is the other unfortunate thing. People get all sucked into what, whatever social media is saying on the negative side. If you're not investing for five, 10 years at a time, you're in the wrong game. Keep your money working for you. Having said that, and I love blue chippers. I love. Dividend paying stocks. Most of my public markets is in that. I do have 20 percent of that capital at work in like risk capital. I can tolerate losing that. It will not change my life if I lose it. So I'll invest in all those crazy tech stocks. I love all that, but I can't even watch it day to day because I can't take the heart attack. But then the other half of my money is wrapped up in real estate and I love real estate as a long term play. Again, real estate is for the patient. You have a strategy and you're patient and you understand your risk and it'll pay off because real estate as a whole, in general, as an asset class has done this, it's done this, but it's generally an upward curve, as you all know. And to get involved in that, I would start looking at rates, or I'd start looking at real estate funds. So we're the sort of, Bigger private version of a REIT. A REIT is a fund. They have different strategies, but for simplistic terms, if you want to get into real estate and start understanding it and getting the materials and understanding go to their annual meetings. And then on the private side, which is an area that I invest in real estate funds and I deploy capital. It's people don't even know this exists. For those people out there, I would just start researching real estate funds and start getting smarter about what they do before you ever even think about deploying capital.

Stephen: 45:21

Yeah, that's good advice. You mentioned some of the content and some of the feedback you got specific on budgets and stuff like that. What is the most popular content that you've put out? Is it about just basic stuff like setting a budget or is it other more specific things about investing? Maybe talk a bit about that. Yeah,

Arlett: 45:41

this is interesting, Steven, when I look at it, so I've had probably a dozen videos go viral now, and it's always 1 theme. People want to know. They want the peek into someone else's life. Who's been there has been successful. Not talking about me personally, but people want That peek into the ivory tower, right? So what did the rich do differently that you don't do any kind of hook like that or any kind of content like that. Those are all my viral videos. It's shocking to me. It's like, how did they do what they did? Because it's. There, there's so many Instagram store and I don't know, social media, just saying you can get rich tomorrow. Go build a, an Amazon FBA or we'll do this. Like you'll be rich tomorrow. I would just say, stop, put the brakes on any of that stuff. There's no such thing as rich quick. All those content creators are saying all that stuff. It took them years to get to it. And by the way, they're also presenting an image. They're not necessarily living that. So I would just, it's a, it's an interesting contrast. So telling people how to aspire to wealth. Is my goal, right? And here's how you can do it, but here's the long plan. It's a long term plan. So anyone who's 20 super impatient, please just listen. I wish I had to listen better in my 20s and 30s. And again, I grew up with art dealers, artists they didn't necessarily plan for the future. They didn't have pension funds. It was hand to mouth oh, can I pay my rent this month? And the single Most important factor in that aspect of my life was my mother and I was listening to your last guest and he also credited his mother. She was in real estate. My mom was the CFO of our family business. And when I mentioned earlier, I have a twin sister when Tanya and I were 8 years old, she marched us down to the Bank of Nova Scotia, 8 years old to open up our 1st checking account. She then taught us how to balance a checkbook and she said, my daughters, my kids, but my, she has three daughters and two sons my kids will be financially literate and they will understand how money comes in, how money goes out. And I never lost that less. I never lost that thought process. And then I looked it up recently, because this year is the 50th anniversary of women being able to get mortgages on their own credit cards on their own without having their husband's signature. At that age women could only have, I think it was like eight years only that women could have their own checking account. So my mother was so progressive and I didn't even realize that, but she she never said it like I'm a feminist, but it was always, my daughters are going to be independent. So you don't realize how incredible that was until you put it in context. So I would just say to everyone, financial literacy is not. As complicated as it seems, you just haven't had the right teacher. So part of what I'm doing on my Instagram, for instance, I'm trying to demystify it. Just take a step back. I'm actually going to start putting out guides and how to like foundational stuff of just do these few steps. Just do these few steps and just become smarter. It's all about confidence, Stephen, right? When I, there's a really great quote by Zig Ziglar, and it stuck with me forever. You know who Zig Ziglar is? He was like the Grand Puba sales training. He said, confidence is going out to hunt for Moby Dick in a rowboat and bringing tartar sauce. Is that not awesome? I love that quote because it's yeah, that's confident. I'm going to get it done. I don't know how I'm going to get it done because this is Moby Dick and this is me, but it's all about believing you can do it. So part of what I do on my Instagram is I just teach people get how to confidently enter a room. So don't be a wallflower go to networking events and go pick out 3 people. You want to talk to make sure you talk to people. Don't wait for people to come to you. And I remember being 20, 30 years old, being completely intimidated going into these private equity. Networking events, and I was the youngest. Girl in the room and all these blue suits, it looked like a wall of Bay Street Bank or Wall Street Bankers, which is what it was. And I just made myself get out there and ask questions. And it just, it takes off after that. So you need a little confidence. You need to understand your why you understand your risks and you need to just get out there and network.

Stephen: 49:57

Great advice. Great advice. Okay. So maybe shifting gears then and talking about the future. Would love to hear about how you see your. Your career and your investing evolving and maybe what some of your plans and the goals are for the future, including, some of this this mentoring and this kind of this teaching that you're doing, which sounds like you're very passionate about. So maybe talk a little bit about that. What are your plans and how do you want to evolve this?

Arlett: 50:24

Yeah, so I'm actually creating a course, and I think the whole coaching thing is so overdone and it's hard to find a good coach who's not motivated by just making money. And, there's this whole scrutiny that's happening in the market now, where it's been so overdone on the coaching and even the OSC, as is really starting to come down on, Coaching and selling from stages and things like that, which I think is the right move. They should be because I think there are too many nefarious characters in this industry. And guess what? Anywhere you can make money or attract money. It's also going to attract the nefarious types. So it's hard to understand how to differentiate between who's doing the right thing and who's doing the wrong thing. The number 1 thing I would say there is get smarter about it. Find a good coaching program, but that those coaching programs on meet the people who are the members. It's not hard to find and interview them first. What are you getting out of this coaching program? Because I've signed up for a bunch of these things and trust me, they're not all great and they're all. As you've done a bunch of them too. I'm sure it's it's not what you said you were going to do. And I'm just, I'm just a number on your list of how many students can I have kind of thing. You're not really getting the benefit that you're supposed to be getting out of it. So I just want to look at that and offer here's some really good solid advice. I'm going to differentiate myself. By, however, I possibly can to just reach out. And I think that's a grassroots effort, right? I'm just going to offer a whole bunch of content for free. These are just smart moves that you can do. And if you want to get a little bit smarter, here's a program you can do. But, I think that our number 1 thing that we can do at this stage in our lives, Stephen, is offer some value back to people because karma If you put goodness out in the world and you offer some value first, that was one of the very first things you said to me, what value can I offer to you or that? And I think when somebody leads a conversation or the beginning of a relationship with that's your kind of person, right? If you offer value first with no expectation of anything in return. Guess what? The universe will listen to you and goodness comes. I really truly believe that. And I think there's enough really great people in this industry that, we're going to do well, we're going to do fine and we're going to help people and as the markets collapse or improve all those nefarious people, they come and go but really showing people, a good, honest way to do things. It's matching those people up. That's the challenge, right? So how do you get those people to meet the Stevens of the world who's genuinely going to provide you excellent advice for no expectation of return. Just listen to what I've learned and here's how I've learned and here are the hiccups. Here are the road bumps. And here's how you protect yourself. The Stevens of the world are the guys that you want to listen to not the. I don't know, name XYZ who's blown up recently, every single headline, right? But the part, the challenge is how do we match those people up? To the Stevens of the world. So that's the problem I'm trying to solve for. So

Stephen: 53:14

And I think just to add to that, I think leveraging technology now, social media, podcasts, posts, all this kind of stuff, we can do it. At scale, and we can record this discussion once and we can benefit people on and on after that. So I think, I think that's excellent. Yeah.

Arlett: 53:32

I absolutely agree. I think you're doing a great job on this podcast. You have the, I love the guests that you've had on here, and you're just imparting some fantastic wisdom. Like it's really going to be helpful to a lot of people. So good on you.

Stephen: 53:44

Appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. So maybe just also talking about future plans for. Real estate and for investing and things like that. I noticed I've checked out several of your posts and you talk about legacy as well. And so maybe speak to that as well. And what are you hoping to build on just on the asset side and the

Arlett: 54:02

Yeah. That's a good question. So part of what I. Teach or talk about or expound on is accumulating generational wealth because, and this is directed from the moms in the room, but anyone should care about this. This was my thesis when a woman becomes my age, and she's been decimated by divorce. She, the number one thing she cares about is how am I going to help my children later in life? I need to make sure that they have a future, that they have a little bit of money or a foundation or what, how am I going to take care of my children? That's your number one concern. That's anyone's concern who's a parent, by the way, and it expanded from that. It was like anyone. Should care about what their future looks like when, like I said earlier, when you're 2030, you're not thinking about your retirement, but you should. So zeroing in on our 2nd, half people for any reason, maybe you've been decimated in divorce, or maybe you just want to take it on yourself. I genuinely might. Husband had a great job. We have our kids are fine. We've put in place all the and all the things that you want to do for your kid. But I wanted to make sure I was teaching my kids a good lesson of here's how you invest. Here's how you take care of yourself. And by the way. Before you're 20, you have the most runway and therefore, here's how you do it. So I really care about legacy from that perspective and teaching kids how to be self sufficient, teaching anyone how to be self sufficient and that it's doable, right? It's not this complicated thing. People look at it and go registered investment advisors, that's their whole job. I can't do that. I have no idea how to do that. You don't have to, you just have to understand a few nuggets. And I think it's important for all of us to focus on creating generational wealth for our kids, because let's face it, the Gen Z's today are not working the same way we worked when we were kids and they're not looking at the same career path that we were looking at where we were willing to put in 60, 70, 100 hour weeks. I did that. For 15 years and, but they still need to understand how they're saving for their future. And do they have a pension? That's going to fuel them for the years that they choose to retire in, or, they want to be able to retire at this point. No, one's gonna be able to retire. And the other thing that struck me too was all the headlines around. They're never going to be able to afford their first house. That, that hit me like a knife to the heart. Cause I have two kids that are Gen Z and I want to make sure it was not just self serving. I'm looking at this whole generation going, how can they feel so despairing of their future? Do you know they're called the doomers? So our parents are the boomers. Gen Z are called the doomers cause they actually despair of their future. That to me was like, Oh, we got to change that. And we can change that. So I think educating them, helping them, showing them a different path because it's, they're taking an unusual path. So we need to provide an unusual solution.

Stephen: 56:47

Yeah. It's interesting you say that because we take for granted, our generation, we take for granted the fact that when we were going through school and university or college or whatever it may be, and just getting started with our adult lives, there was this blind expectation that, Oh yeah, there's going to be opportunities. And if I just do X, Y, and Z and save a little bit, I can get my first. And you're right. It's despair what a lot of people are feeling now, young people, because All of that's just been taken away. And so it's they're racking their brains thinking, do I need to move? Do I need to leave the country? What what do I have to do here? It's, yeah it's pretty despairing for sure.

Arlett: 57:26

One of the little things I've told sort of the 20, 20, 30 year olds who are just at the beginning of their careers. They're, they have a little bit of money. They don't have a lot of money is to think about pooling money and find your 5 friends. You all want to buy a house. Eventually, you all want to invest. Find your 5 friends. That's your JV partner group, right? Everyone kicking in a couple thousand dollars. That's the down payment for the 1st place. You live in it for a year or 2. You sell it. You share the proceeds and then you move the next guy in. It's it becomes your because I have to believe. Across a bunch of kids, whatever might take some time, but save enough money, participate in a pool and recreate that for everyone in the pool. That's a way into home ownership or investment. And then, you live in 1 of the units by a 4 plex live in 1 of the units pull the money. And that's your pathway to home ownership, right? So I think there's a few solutions. There's definitely a few solutions. I talked to talk to kids about it all the time. It's not going to be the standard way that your mom and dad did it. 100%.

Stephen: 58:27

creative.

Arlett: 58:28

You have to be more creative. You have to. And in this kind of gig economy that we live in, they're making money off of social media. They're making money in different ways. So it's what they're doing with the money that scares me that they're not thinking, it's all about flash. And, what car can I buy? And let me buy a gigantic house and spend all my money on my mortgage. And, that's not the way to do it either. Don't do that. Live in sacrifice. If you can for a few good years. And the benefits will be enormous, but if you spend everything you make right now, you have nothing for the future. And it's hard because they live in this social media world where flash is everything and keeping up with the Joneses on steroids now. And it's really alarming to me.

Stephen: 59:10

Yeah. I'm having my boys read Rich Dad, Poor Dad for teens right now. So

Arlett: 59:14

good for you. I was going to say, we should talk about books. Do you play the cashflow game with them too?

Stephen: 59:19

Oh, yeah. We've got the actual board game. Yeah,

Arlett: 59:21

That's so important. So important to do that. Yeah, I agree. It's just common sense stuff. It's so my son's school before he graduated, he was at school here in Toronto and it's a private school. And I said to the headmaster during grade 12, like, why aren't you guys teaching still not in the classroom? Pedagogy of education. Why is there still no practical advice being taught? Because here my son is grade 12, 30 plus years after I graduated, still asking the guidance counselor the same question I had, which was, I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I don't know because I don't know what's out there. And with the advent of the internet and the millions of pages of knowledge that can be thrown, they're still asking the same question, Stephen, you're going to go through that soon when your son's in grade 12. And I'm like, why can't you guys solve for that yet? What's going on? That's crazy to me. And so I spoke with the headmaster. I'm like why can't I just come into school and do some after school programming, teach them what a mortgage is, what, how to save money, how to buy your first house. Where's the practical skills? He goes, Oh, Arlette, you should come in and do that. How does March break next year work? I'm like, no one's around over March break, but thank you for the opportunity. It needs to be more indoctrinated on a more common.

Stephen: 1:00:32

they're doing. Yeah.

Arlett: 1:00:34

And not just for the kids. So if you do take biz in grade nine, a lot of kids don't have to take business. So the kids that are going to take a business class, they'll get a little bit of that. But no one else will, it needs to be mandatory for everybody's skills, natural common sense, life skills. And to this day, still not being taught in the massive way that it needs to be, because they're not prepared to graduate. They're not prepared at all. Yeah.

Stephen: 1:00:59

No, I

Arlett: 1:00:59

prepared to adult. Yeah. So I care a lot. Like I really, I know we can fix this problem. All of us have enough knowledge. And if the schools and systems aren't, academia is not going to address it. We have to address it. And not everyone grows up with parents that have this knowledge. So let's pull the knowledge. I have to say this to my girlfriends. I wish we walked around with a bubble over our head. And it was called ask me anything about, and it was like, okay, I know how to get a mortgage. I know how to buy a house. I worked in finance. I say, and then as you walk through, I know there's a cartoon or something about this somewhere. I forget what it was, but it's ask me this because the, again, it's the entry point, like how you don't know. You could be walking past down the street, one of the most important people you should meet in your life and you'll, it's a missed opportunity because you don't know.

Stephen: 1:01:44

and it's not only you don't know the information, you don't even know the question to ask a lot of times. So it's even starting at that foundational level where it's like, In about 10 years, you're going to want to ask, you're going to be asking these questions. So let's just get those out right now. And even if you're, even as as a teenager or 13, 14 year old, you don't quite fully get it. At least you're starting that process of thinking and evolving and just moving that forward.

Arlett: 1:02:13

Or even before that, they don't know, they don't care. So now you've got to turn the ones that don't care into people that care. Cause you'll have half of them that care and half of them that are like, I don't know. I want to, but I don't know.

Stephen: 1:02:24

and that's why I think traveling is so important because if we can take our kids and see how other people live in other countries and just different cultures and just different things and, take them out of our own bubbles and exposure like that, because that gets them thinking about, oh, okay, wow, like there's lots of other people who maybe don't have what we have different experiences or maybe struggling a certain way, or on the other side, or wow look at that. Maybe I would, Love to live in the Caribbean or something like that, and it's just all of this kind of exposure that we have for them, which is excellent as well.

Arlett: 1:02:56

And it's thinking, it's shifting the mindset. It's a lot of mindset work too, Steven. It's shifting the mindset or starting out the mindset in possibilities thinking, right? I can do, I think there's so much negativity out there. It's never going to be me. I'll never be. There's so much negativity. You need to, and it's a hard thing to do, but you got to work on it as a human being. Shift your mindset into positivity that things will happen. I am going to work towards these things. It's not going to like rain and fall in your lap, but having the mindset shift to say And I operate this way every single day. I wake up in the morning, go, what can I accomplish today? What can I share today? It's just having an abundance mindset. I know that's like keywords that are thrown around right now, but it really actually matters. It really like things are going to happen that are great to me because. I think in possibilities and I genuinely believe that you need to start that framing that mindset from an early age that yeah, everything is possible and everyone's going to have hurdles some way worse than others, but there's success stories on every end of the spectrum and it all comes down to their mindset.

Stephen: 1:04:02

Awesome. Yeah. Love it. Okay. We could talk for hours and hours about mindset.

Arlett: 1:04:07

I know we always have a good chat. This is awesome. Thank you so much for

Stephen: 1:04:10

Yeah, no worries. So as we're wrapping up I just wanted again to give you an opportunity of, sharing any additional information. Where can people find out more about you? We can put stuff in the show notes as well, but just wanted to give you an opportunity to just share anything that you wanted to plug or any links and things like

Arlett: 1:04:25

sure. Our website's under construction. It's just being modified, but it's titanreico. com. So t i t a n r e i co. com. That's a mouthful. So that's information you can connect with me. I've got some educational things on there, newsletter. And then access to our deals. I work with we have a new company called midfield investments and that's where we've invested in Texas. So if you want to learn anything about Texas or our deal in particular, it's closing in November. So we're very excited about that. Still a little bit of room in the allocation if anyone's interested. But you could find me at I think you should put in the show notes, Stephen, but it's our let at invest midfield dot com.

Stephen: 1:05:07

We'll put it in there.

Arlett: 1:05:08

And then pop my Instagram in there for just the common sense, girlfriend, mama device. It's our let underscore Tigerson on Instagram. And of course, LinkedIn are that Tigerson. So it's lots of different ways to reach me. So I'd be thrilled. Anyone reach out. I'm happy to have a chat with anyone. And in particular, if you're interested in learning about investing in Texas, and why Texas and. Why we love Texas. And I'd be happy to talk to anyone. Thank you, Stephen. I appreciate this opportunity.

Stephen: 1:05:36

All right. Thanks a lot again. Our lead. It's been really, it's been a great conversation talking about not only real estate, but also some of the other stuff as well at the mentorship and things like that. So I appreciate your time. And yeah, good luck with your future projects. Thanks.

Arlett: 1:05:49

You as well. Thank you. Continue doing all this great work, Stephen. It's fantastic.

Stephen: 1:05:53

So hope you got some value out of this podcast episode. I invite you to and subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, leave a comment let us know what you think and for any other information about us, what we're doing. And the types of investments we're into. Please visit focuscapital. ca, focuscapital. ca. And on there, you can find a ton of information, additional podcasts, and a lot of free resources. That's it for this podcast episode. Bye for now.

1:06:24

you next time.