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• Stella Ram • Season 1 • Episode 14

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How Smart Investors Are Scaling in 2025!

Hosted by Stella Ram | Featuring Martin Kuev.

"You’ve heard it before… ‘90% of millionaires became so through real estate.’ But let me ask you this—are you sitting on the sidelines… or playing offence in today’s market?"
🔥 In this powerhouse episode of The Stellar Talk Show, we’re joined by Martin Kuev—former Fortune 500 executive turned strategic investor and co-founder of the Vaughan Investors Club. Together, we unpack exactly how top investors are not just surviving—but THRIVING in a shifting market.
Whether you're a new investor or a seasoned player, this is your 2025 real estate investing playbook—packed with real-world strategies, expert insights, and mindset shifts you need to scale fast and smart.
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🎯 What You'll Learn:
✅ The investor mindset that wins in uncertain times
✅ How global economics are shaping real estate opportunities
✅ Off-market, value-add & reno-based deals—what’s working
✅ Wealth-building vs. cash flow—what’s winning in 2025
✅ Offensive investing: smart planning, partners & exit strategies
✅ Lending vs. equity investing—find what fits your game
✅ Tools to help you scale with clarity, confidence & capital
✅ Why abundance thinking is the ultimate wealth separator
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💬 Key Quote:
“The market doesn’t wait for hesitation—it rewards bold, educated moves.” – Stella Ram
📢 If this episode fired you up:
✔️ Share it with a friend stuck in analysis paralysis
✔️ Drop us a review on your favorite podcast app
✔️ Hit that Subscribe button and never miss an episode
✔️ Follow @StellarProperty.ca on YouTube for powerful, unfiltered real estate talk
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🏡 Hosted by Stella Ram
Award-winning Realtor | Founder of StellarProperty.ca | Autism Mom & Advocate | Host of The Stellar Talk Show
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i wanted to talk to you about investor mindset in today's real estate market I think there's an element of fear still out there So when it comes to uh strategies for investors in this today's market with the financial you know ups and downs we see what are your thoughts there Martin M The great thing I love about in a real estate investment in particular is that it doesn't have to be a one-sizefits-all Exactly Interest rate is something that you can't control and which can always fluctuate but you you have to control the numbers that you can control and focus on how you can upgrade that to let people know it's not just a a one variable type uh type investment You have to look at all them together Look at it all together That's true You heard it before 90% of millionaires become so through real estate But let me ask you this Are you sitting on the sidelines or playing offense in today's market because while most are stuck in fear headlines and hesitation smart investors they're doubling down adopting and building serious wealth In this episode we are breaking down how today's most strategic real estate investors are not just surviving 2025 they are thriving And joining me is none other than Martin Q former Fortune 500 exec turned powerhouse investor the man behind MK Properties and the co-founder of the One Investors Club This isn't just another market update It's your playbook to scaling smarter faster and stronger in today's real estate market Thank you Martin for joining us today No problem Glad to be here Amazing Um I wanted to talk to you about investor mindset in today's real estate market uh what are your thoughts uh there uh we we just still came out of the pandemic and there's still the rem reminisce of the rate cuts and what does this actually do with the overall market moving forward So I think there's an element of fear still out there Yes And there's still from an investing standpoint money I'm still keeping close to my chest I'm not sure if I'm ready to take that leap However from an in the true investor mindset the ones that see the opportunities the numbers speak for themselves When it comes down to the numbers then the the hopefully we try to keep emotion out of our decisions And the numbers are starting to look better They're looking they're looking really good from a cash flow perspective what you can purchase homes at All the numbers and all the variables around those numbers are looking quite healthy Uh and it comes down to investors and and once they see that opportunity will they take action and I know you know going back several years uh we run a investment meetup and we have a lot of people coming in and saying "I'm just waiting for the market to drop for the market to go down." Yes And typically I'd say from a percentage standpoint out of every 10 maybe one or two actually do that when the market drops because fear comes in Yes The market drops you fear it's going to continue to drop And for us we look at the numbers We look at exactly what we're looking at from the economic standpoint And it's still a massive opportunity out there from a buying perspective Uh it is a buyer market but there is still a bit of apprehension in terms of investors and I guess taking the next step Yeah Understand Understand And what is the um effect that has uh when it comes to like financial shifts and the global economy and you know what we are seeing with trades and things like that at this time that's a loaded question there with uh we that I guess the best term for that is uncertainty Right now we still don't know It's looking good in terms of uh discussions now between Canada and the US but it's still a bit uncertain in terms of what tariffs are actually going to do And Trump hasn't walked away from the tariffs still So what we're looking at that going it could be inflationary it could be recessionary Yes And reflationary or uh um recessionary one of those interest rates going up one of those interest rates going down So we don't know where that's going to turn out and how is interest rates going to go up or down From an investment standpoint interest rates are very important to us because they dictate how much cash flow we can have So if they continue to go up it's going to be probably it's going to be tough and we'll be back to kind of where we were in 2022 If they continue to go down unfortunately we'll be in a recessionary time frame where employment is going to be an issue Yes Um but the buying opportunities will still be there So for the astute investors then you're going to have lower interest rates and the buying opportunities are likely just going to get better And we're still in that process of going down regardless of of tariffs we still have a trajectory of of dropping the interest rates more for the course of 2025 That's what I've been hearing too So let me ask you this So if in an investor standpoint Martin like the goal is to buy and hold when it comes to real estate right uh for some people it depends on your goals Your goals could be cash flow your goals could be I typically more about building long-term wealth So it's buy and hold Yeah Buy and hold So when it comes to uh strategies for investors in this today's market with the financial ups you know ups and downs we see what are your thoughts there Martin uh good question on strategies is strategies are not a one-sizefits-all especially with real estate investment It's one of those uh things that we always ask investors what is your goals and there's something within real estate investment that should match your goals Some investors want to be active and manage their property Some want to be passive and not deal with it Some want cash flow Some want long-term wealth There's different strategies that you can do There's wholesaling there's flipping more from an income standpoint or there's the burst strategy or buy and hold which is typically what we do or you can go into development or joint venture And those are more long-term strategies Um and they have a degree of active versus passiveness but um the strategy just comes down to the investor and what the goals they have and what they want to achieve at the end Right Correct That's that's true Um so for investors in today's uh current uh real estate market what do you see is working best in their interest like what strategies is more like being used at this time right now I think it kind of goes down to investing 101 cash flow and most of them are looking to protect that investment and cash flow is your best risk risk mitigator um so I'd say several years ago if you have a great job and interest rates are going to continue to go down then maybe you could have tinkering on the cash flow but I think most investors right now you need the security and you have this security the probably the biggest thing they're looking at is cash flow and what's my cash flow today and what's my cash flow going to be tomorrow yeah that's true that's true and when it comes to the power of um offmarket value add or renovation based in investing what do you see in in today's market right now I think of all the properties we bought and sold I think I bought half on market half off market mhm um so it's not a matter of on market or offmarket it's a matter are the financials So everything comes to the financials If you can find that home run in a foreclosure motivated seller or a power of sale great you can make great money on that buy Yeah How we invest in real estate is more scalable Like there's a lot of great opportunities still in the MLS But it comes down to the numbers You have to run the numbers And it's not about looking at the numbers like the interest rates high today Yes I don't look at the interest rate in isolation In 1980 they were investing with 20% interest rates M So you have to look at the interest rate the rents what's the purchase price how are those all tied together that's going to give you a clear picture cuz essentially you're buying a business in a box Exactly Exactly Interest rate is something that you can't control which can always fluctuate But you have to control the numbers that you can control and focus on how you can upgrade that Right But some people make decisions based on just that one variable or the home prices went up this year so I can't purchase or the interest rate is this is this much And I just try to uh to let people know it's not just a a one variable type uh type investment You have to look at all them together Look at it all together That's true Um I I've been hearing a lot about um uh multi-unit investing Uh what what what's your thoughts then what's your experience there in today's market uh there's a saying in as an investor you you make your money in single family and you park your money in multif family And I'd say that's probably true for me as well Okay Uh the main difference is uh from a lending standpoint Mhm Uh when I quit my job banks didn't like me after that Uh so it was it was much easier to get a loan in a large multif family building than it was to on my own single family or you know personal residence Yes Um so from a lending landscape it's great Mhm Uh and then how they're valued M so how banks you're looking you're working with a commercial division typically it's 5 units or above and they're valuing that you that property based on income and financials where a single family home or a residential home less than five units they're valued on what is that home across the street or what's the comparables around here comparables yeah and I'd rather work with the numbers obviously and I have much more control in the numbers because multif family gives you multiplier effect I know that I can spend a little bit in renovations and it's going to increase my value of my building much much more than it would on a single family home where I may get a little bit of uptick in terms of how much renovations that I had Yes So it's a it's it basically just comes down to um you probably will want to eventually get up to multif family It's sometimes a psychological barrier but they're essentially the same It's you're doing it on a on a larger scale You may have environmental you may have to do more of inspection up front and your due diligence but um from a grand scheme of things you're you're buying a property you're renovating it and you're renting it out Yes Yeah No I see that And there's a lot of buzz about the uh the program the government announced as well The CMCLI like what is what is that doing right now what are the goals there with for investors great point um with your when you're on MLI select you have the opportunity to have much much more leverage from the bank and it's utilizing as little of your own but understanding that the banks are only going to loan to their risk level Yes And the MLI select is a great program for us because they understand what real estate can do and what it can do in the long term And from us it makes our cash flow better It makes our purchase price better It makes all those things work much much better than if you have to go to conventional loan Yes Yes Now they're a little bit more stringent and you have to have the uh the insurance aspect on it That's usually tacked on to your mortgage and paid at the end not an upfront fee So from a number standpoint from a cash flow standpoint that program is uh is great It's great Amazing I mean and do you see that is more actively being used at this time it is Once they launched it it was a lot a lot more interest And I've been on the phone with CMHC and a few times and it's uh it's getting a bit competitive now sometimes cuz there sometimes they won't accept all So depending on what type of it is there's some MLI programs some are around construction and just developing those some around acquisition Um but uh sometimes it's tough The one on on construction for example I was sitting on a call and uh there's a waiting list basically to get it to get get in there Oh wow That that's amazing Um when it comes to um playing the offense with smart planning and partner alignment like in when when it comes to investment like it's not always that you can do it on your own like if if the investment part comes to a question So coming up with creative strategies like partnering um or like looking at other allias what do you see happening right now uh well it comes down to the people's goals but I do see a lot more partnership happening just because capital is more you need more capital to invest or you may not have the disposable capital that you had before or that was available in previous generations So partnering up allows people two people to come in and buy property together Mhm I always caution that in terms of not it's a bad thing to do but have those discussions put everything down on paper Yes because anything that you do who knows what's going to happen later on Now I've been in those situations basically you know you have a a motto now is I want to date before I get married in essence And if you're buying a property together you're you're kind of getting married in a way Yeah Uh so you want to have those conversations in terms of what if something does happen how do we go about that but from a purely investment standpoint it allows you to get the market if you do pro partner with somebody However there's options out there that you don't need to partner with anybody You can do fractional uh buying as well and buy a portion of it Portion of it Uh or buy REITs or buy something on the market you may have to have lower returns Yes But uh because there's a lot more management fees around that But for the ones in terms of how we invest in syndications and partnerships and joint venture part possibilities uh you can get a much higher return But if you're partnering up then you're basically 1 2 3 four five people on a property You have to manage who's going to be managing it Yeah Who's the responsibilities how much capital's coming in what's the value of all those who's going to go on the mortgage There's a lot of questions around that Yeah But for sure from a a financial point of view it can help you go that one extra step Definitely Definitely So like if you're thinking about investing or getting into investing or partnering in investing always sit down and talk your goals through and maybe get some um advice from experts like yourself Martin to have that guidance over like you what to expect and if if you were to expect something that unforeseen what should be the next steps yeah we always have them do a consultation or some sort of discussion at the beginning Some are just raring to go If they they come to one of our classes I love real estate This is fantastic Let's go into the market Yes We go whoa whoa we we we'd like to find a little bit more about you And it's not for the sake of we don't want to go out into the into the market But we want to put them on the best path Exactly And that best path could be dependent on what their job is How qualifiable are they with the banks do we which order do we want to go to the banks on there's a a very different order I'm going to go to the banks on if I want to buy one property or five properties Um and then basically do you want to buy five or six properties am I going to put in a corporation or am I going to put my own name so those types of questions we ask them Yes And then we put they ultimately they're going to make the decision We just advise them on you should make these decisions up front because they're going to be hard to do once you have several properties Exactly No that's true That's amazing Thanks for sharing that I want to talk about abundance thinking especially in today's economy and market that we are in So um why do you think abund abundance thinking separates the wealthy from the people who are worried at this time a great great question Um I think most people are worried about what can go wrong where uh I like as I became an entrepreneur it's looking at what the upside is Mhm It's uh from a human mindset standpoint is it's I'm it's much easier for me to talk myself out of something than to talk myself into something That's true And uh there's a quote that I kind of had when I became an entrepreneur and it's uh Richard Carlson not Richard Cransson Um and he put a quote out there you know that saying about if it's too good to be true it probably is Yeah And there's a saying around that if it's too good to be true it probably is That quote in itself causes suspicion and doubt and things that people are making decisions off of something that they may not have all the information on So when I'm looking now I look at hey this may sound too good to be true but uh the upside is very very good You got 5 minutes of my time you got 10 minutes of my time I may want to sit down and learn about it I want to validate if it's not the right thing to do Most people within real estate especially in the when I started out they may have had a bad experience They may have had the recession of after the in the early 90s and they're like real estate's terrible and it's basically it comes down to the lens that you look at these opportunities So from an abundance standpoint there's a tremendous amount of opportunities out there Yes But people are we're we love schedule and we we love to get on the schedule and and and that drives us and allows us to continue every single day breaking that and getting outside of our comfort zone That's where the abundance will play in But uh it is a mindset thing for sure Most definitely Thanks for thanks for saying that because that's very important especially like if you're trying to play the investing game in today's economy Most definitely And um I have heard about lending programs and then equity um investing What's the difference and you know and which like in your opinion which way is better right now uh to focus on and why is that uh equity versus just straight lending Well lending a straight is just a debt So I'm going to get my certain percentage of interest and I'm going to get that interest Equity are tied to the property Mhm So you have much much more upside potential and probably from a lending side you have more assurances on your capital and what you have and you're secured in terms of what you if something goes wrong you can take over the property but you're basically tied into I'm going to have this certain industry Um I think it comes again it comes down to the investor and what lens are they looking at If they want steady income yes they probably want to be a debt lender and I've done that as well I a lot of investors become private lenders and if they have capital sitting rather than try to put into a bank where you're going to get 1 or 2% You can go and loan to a real estate investor or go call a mortgage broker They probably have a lot of interest in private funds and you're going to get upwards double digits probably That's Yeah that's true That's true But equity you're going to have much more upside because you're ti you're tied to the property but you're you're carrying more risk as well on that That's true That's true It's you know it's a good eye opener because sometimes when you have the cash that you want to play with cuz understanding which way that you want to go what suits your needs better is something that they need to focus on Most definitely Um so to scale in investing in 2025 what are some of the tools and um ideas or like you know information that should somebody should enrich themselves with i'd say number one is mindset first because if you want to scale most people get stuck after that first property or how do I get to the next property yes And that's where it comes down to looking at real estate and the drivers of wealth and that's equity and understanding your equity and knowing that when the property value goes up you can go straight back to the bank and always pull your money out So we always have a saying that I never want to have my money sitting I always want to have my money working M so as a property value goes up yes the bank only needs 20% of that to maintain their risk threshold So once I get to a certain point and I want to start scaling I have access to capital The biggest thing as an investor especially if you get to multif family apartment buildings is access to capital And that's going to be your biggest hurdle probably is no matter how small or large you are You're always going to no matter how much personal funds you have you're going to hit the end of the runway eventually Yes uh and getting access to that capital sometimes you can get it yourself and a lot of people just don't realize that their homes and their equity they have in their homes is massive capital for them to allow to build that out especially if it's your own home it's your own home there's a psychological barrier because it allows me to sleep better at night if I have that no mortgage on that if I paid off but from a financial perspective you probably can go a lot further and that's how I started out I started out quitting my job and taking the equity out of my own home yes uh and it was something that my wife didn't understand There had to be a learning curve there for sure but ultimately it was the right decision for me to make and financially would be something I would do day in day out for sure So from a scalability standpoint it's utilizing what do you have yourself sometimes it's the equity in your own home but once you have several properties then you have you could scale quite big It's the first few that are the hardest Yes Um but uh but you you can scale I think that's the way people look at it what can they scale with what they what they currently have And the second part is it could be other people's money It could be uh partners and whatnot But it comes down to the capital How are you going to get the capital is it going to be through yourself or it could be through other means Yeah And then having that long-term plan as to how you're going to continue to build on that is is a game changer Most definitely Martin thank you so much for taking the time today to join me and you know explore these options and questions with me This very valuable information for today's investor to see how they can scale in 2025 I appreciate your time Thanks for having me And there you have it Proof that even in times of uncertaintity strategy wins over fear every single time A massive thank you to Martin Q for bringing the heat and sharing insights that every investor new season needs to hear If today's episode lit a fire under you don't let it stop here Take action Review your goals Rework your plan And remember the market doesn't wait for hesitation It rewards bold educated moves If you got value from this episode share it with a fellow investor or someone who's been stuck on the sidelines And hey don't forget to subscribe leave a review and follow us for more real talk on building wealth through real estate Until next time I'm Stella Ram reminding you your next level starts with your next move Stay bold say stay invested and stay inspired I'll see you next time Thank you for spending your time with us on the Stellar Talk Show We hope you found value in today's episode and gained insights to help elevate your lifestyle If you enjoyed the discussion please like subscribe and share it with anyone who could benefit It means the world to us Until our next episode stay inspired and I'll see you soon on our next Stellar Talk Show