Our guests for today are the Founder and Co-Cheif Executive Officer of CPI Capital. CPI identifies multifamily value-add opportunities that allow our investors to receive gains beyond organic asset appreciation. CPI provides busy professionals with direct access to tax-advantaged, passive income-generating assets, while our experienced team manages the properties. CPI offers opportunities through Canada’s first regulated digital securities trading platform.
Our guests bring their expertise to the real estate by educating their investor partners about Apartment Syndication Investing through Canadian Passive Investing (CPI) Academy platform, Webinars, MeetUp Groups, and One on One Coaching.
Let’s dive right in and learn from Ava Benesocky and August Biniaz how to be an international passive investor.
[00:01 – 13:05] Opening Segment
- We introduce our guests, Ava Benesocky and August Biniaz
- Ava and August talk about their background and how they started CPI Capital
[13:06 – 20:01] Being Fiscally Incentivized With Skin In the Game
- Ava and August talk about seeing the need and filling the void
- Learning and growing systems
- Ava and August go over their passion for education
[20:02 – 30:41] How Do You Get The Average Joe To Google You?
- Ava and August talks about scaring people with high returns
- Hedging against inflation with a hard asset
[30:42 – 39:02] How Am I Supposed To Invest In Real Estate?
- Ava’s and August’s bad investing advise
- Final thoughts
- Ava’s and Augusts book recommendations:
Best Ever Apartment Syndication Book
Tweetable Quotes:
“we’ve democratized real estate investing for the retail investors here in Canada. And how and how have we done that? We’ve opened the doors to this type of institutional assets for nonaccredited and accredited investors.” – Ava Benesocky
“18-year-olds can start building their wealth. You don’t like who’s going to be an accredited investor when they’re eighteen years old.” – Ava Benesocky
“apartment syndication or real estate syndication, this concept of pooled capital to buy real estate upgraded and sell it.” – August Biniaz
“You’re creating jobs. You’re building a better community for others. You’re building your investor’s wealth and you and you’re creating jobs for people on both sides of the border in our situation.” – August Biniaz
Connect with Ava Benesocky and August Biniaz! See the links below:
Go to their LinkedIn – August, LinkedIn – Ava, Facebook, and Instagram, pages to connect with Ava Benesocky and August Biniaz. Visit their Website, and YouTube.
Canadian Passive Investing with Ava Benesocky and August Biniaz
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:14] Hello and welcome to Multifamily Investing Made Simple, the podcast, it’s all about taking the complexity out of real estate investing so that you can take action. Today, I am your host, Anthony Vicino of Invictus Capital, joined, as always, by Dan. Man, I really can’t think of a nickname for you today.
Dan Kreuger: [00:00:30] Krüger or I’ll take that one.
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:32] I in that one.
Dan Kreuger: [00:00:34] Yeah. They can’t all be good now.
Dan Kreuger: [00:00:38] I’m good. It’s getting warm. It’s pretty nice out finally
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:42] And warm for context for people that don’t realize we’re in Minnesota. It was like forty-two degrees today.
Dan Kreuger: [00:00:47] Well, the sun came out. I think it’s actually getting close to 50.
Anthony Vicino: [00:00:51] Oh really? The heatwave. We’ll look at that. I’ll take it. We have some fellow northerners with us today joining us on the show. We have ever been Osaki in August, Binnaz from the Canadian real estate. We try this again. They are Canadian real estate professionals and they have been for the last 15 years. They fell in love with apartments, syndications, and then they developed compliance and tax-efficient process for Canadians to invest in US multifamily syndications. They created S.P.I Capital and they are the hosts of the CPA Academy on YouTube. So go check that out. And this is going to be a really interesting show because I think this is the first show where we’ve had one Canadian investor and then two Canadian investors who have a really interesting strategy for helping their passive investors invest in the US. So without further ado, August, ever, how are you guys doing today?
Ava Benesocky: [00:01:39] Great. We’re doing fantastic. Thank you so much, you guys, for having us. Thanks for having us.
Anthony Vicino: [00:01:43] Us. Absolutely. So real quickly, everybody’s wondering, is it warm up there yet? Is it still cold in Canada? Like, got to get the weather question answered.
August Biniaz: [00:01:52] Yeah, this is getting we’re getting definitely getting warm
Ava Benesocky: [00:01:56] By day by day. It gets a little bit warmer, a little bit warmer, and our smiles get bigger and bigger.
August Biniaz: [00:02:02] We are in the warmest, almost the warmest kind of area in Canada. So it’s going to be around twenty degrees Celsius this weekend. 22 degrees. Twenty degrees. All right.
Anthony Vicino: [00:02:13] So how does that Dan, do you know the translation between Celsius and Fahrenheit? Can you do that real quick in your head that we’re going to say warm mid-40s? I think it’s probably a bit warmer than that but maybe I don’t know if you guys at home, if you’re listening to this and you know how to do the math between Celsius and Fahrenheit, go ahead. Just put that in the comments. Leave a review. But let’s talk real estate. Let’s talk specifically, what’s your guy’s experience? Because you’ve been in the game for fifteen years in real estate commercially. What’s been the path for you? What got you into it and what are you doing now?
August Biniaz: [00:02:47] Go ahead. Please, please, please, no, go ahead.
Ava Benesocky: [00:02:50] So I guess and I we started our company, CPI Capital about two years ago now. We both had this passion and love for real estate, which kind of brought us together. And he was a developer. I was a real estate agent. And we realized this need that Canadians have to put their money to invest into real estate. Now, most Canadians, want to be active investors. Unfortunately, pain points here in Canada are very little cash flow or no cash flow or appreciation, or very little appreciation. So there was there is not this cash flow with appreciation together. So we form S.P.I Capital where our investors can have the benefit of both the cash flow and the appreciation.
August Biniaz: [00:03:32] Definitely great points. And we were both real estate professionals for Ava for a decade, myself for 15 years. And we saw the struggle that the Canadian investor has when it comes to looking to become a real estate investor and on the active or passive side. Whereas, you know, if you check now, the median home price in Vancouver is, I believe, one point two to one point four million dollars. So, yeah, and the rent to value ratios are so low that, you know, most assets don’t allow for any cash flow to their negative cash flow. So we sort of need both myself as a developer where, you know, and also our market is very much affected by foreign investments here in Vancouver. Something could happen in China and it affects our market here locally. So, you know, there were just so many cycles to go through within one development project. And there’s city bureaucracy, many other issues. Just imagine California. There’s a lot of complaint in California when it comes to real estate investors and developers. Now, times that by too you know, it’s so difficult to market to break into, especially with Canadians when they’re hearing from the U.S. a lot of content comes. There are no borders. Companies come through podcasts and YouTube show about investing in real estate and somebody who is earning a decent, decent living. Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, somebody makes one hundred thousand dollars a year. They could buy a home in the US in most areas, four hundred fifty-two hundred thousand dollars a year, and be cash flowing early on. Whereas here in Vancouver you make one hundred thousand dollars a year. You have a difficult time servicing the mortgage on your primary residence, let alone becoming an investor or what have you. Of course, there are opportunities. Of course, there’s the market is cyclical and there are ways to make significant amounts of returns. But for the everyday person looking to break into real estate, that’s what and that’s why we
Ava Benesocky: [00:05:32] And there’s just like this constant chaos on how do I begin, you know, first, get it, try to get approved for a mortgage and then from there, make sure you have deep, deep pockets. So it’s just one of those things that right across the border, there’s this opportunity that just the cap rates are compressed here being below two percent and so forth. So when we found out about this opportunity across the border, that’s when we kind of our eyes open and said, wait for a second, why aren’t Canadians being involved in this? What’s going on here? And that started our journey of educating ourselves, calling cross-border tax accountants, calling cross-border lawyers, and literally probably 30, 40, and just non-stop phone calls, nonstop research. And then we, of course, can dive into the concept where there’s a tax treaty that exists between the two countries and so forth. But we kind of streamline the process now for our fellow Canadians to get a piece of the pie and be able to say for sure.
August Biniaz: [00:06:32] And it started from the need. We noticed the need that existed. And then we saw in the US which a vehicle exists, which allows people to passively invest. I believe it started with it has got made a lot easier since the Job Act in 2013 for our American counterparts. But when we saw that the process that existed, when we saw the rental value ratios, when we saw what is achievable, we went on a quest to try to allow Canadians to.
Ava Benesocky: [00:06:58] When I heard what I heard cash flow from day one, I like, wait a sec, I’m going to make about 500 people happy when I get this running.
Dan Kreuger: [00:07:07] So I’m curious, what if what are the main roadblocks for someone in Canada invested into a deal in the US? I mean, you’d think it would be as simple as just picking up the phone, calling a big operator in the US. We can’t get some money, but it sounds like there’s it’s not quite that simple. And you guys have kind of figured out what those pain points are heard about and created a really efficient resource. So I’m curious, like, what is what are the main hurdles that face Canadian residents with industry in the US that you guys have kind of identified?
August Biniaz: [00:07:38] Yeah, we’d love to talk about this. This topic is a topic that we eat, sleep, live for the two years of our lives. So the first. The issue is, is information. There is no information when it comes to Canadians looking to invest in the US, information doesn’t exist, almost all of us. We still haven’t met or seen an operator which accepts Canadian investors in their fund or their investment structures. The ones that do are not holding the hand of the investor to just basically letting the investor know you can invest through an LLC. And I don’t think the operator is doing this to there’s any malice involved. That’s just the way they’ll accept a foreign investor as long as the investment goes through a US LLC. But the issue that it causes for the Canadian investor or international investors, that there is a treaty between that country, the investor country, and the US is that if they’re getting any kind of their returns and the returns coming back through an LLC, it triggers double taxation and is not tax efficient. So, so so no one again, just going back to the question that you had, the number one issue that exists here is information. That’s what we have. We have literally formatted our LinkedIn profiles to be focused on Canadians looking to invest in US multifamily.
Ava Benesocky: [00:08:57] It’s very confusing for the Canadian as well, because the terminology is very different and offering memorandum in the US is completely different in Canada. So this whole education part, they can get very confused from the different terminology for sure.
August Biniaz: [00:09:11] For sure. And that that’s a struggle we face because we’re trying to learn to process, educate ourselves. There’s no content. And when we are doing research, we’re having conversations. We’re saying words to our Canadian attorneys and it means a totally different thing. We’re talking about apartments, indication, and my lawyers like you’re talking about more syndicated mortgages. I’m like, no, it’s in syndication. Is this really cool where you can raise money as is available while raising money in Canada is totally different and raising money in the U.S. So there’s also a compliance issue. So, yeah. So no one would be. Well, what information? Information. There is a lot of content that exists for Canadians to educate themselves and to understand that there is a way to invest passively as limited partners into US operators. That’s number one. The number two issue that exists is that most US operators don’t accept foreign investors, Canadian investors. And if they do, they don’t have the processes in place for Canadians to be able to invest in their investments. And another issue that that comes up is, is recourse is when a Canadian is looking to invest across the border. And it also plays a bit of psychology there as well. You’re investing with the US operator. Something goes wrong, something unscrupulous happens. You’re involved in international litigation. There are other issues once we see. Yeah, exactly. So we’ll work with our structure. But our system, the investors invest with a Canadian entity that can we are and we’re kind of overseen by, you know, provincial securities commissions were overseen by Canadian laws. And that then our fund invests into our US fund allowing for relief from double taxation and other items. But I would say those are probably the three main reasons why historically there hasn’t been much, you know, investment from Canadians in the US into US funds. But now keep in mind, that’s on their retail level. But on the institutional level, the billions of dollars of Canadians
Ava Benesocky: [00:11:18] Funds, that’s with a B,
August Biniaz: [00:11:21] Billions of dollars of Canadian funds are being invested in the U.S. annually. I mean, just do a Google search and pension fund partner with Greystar to buy multifamily in the U.S. this is being done. But on there on the retail side, obviously is more difficult. But we’re trying to.
Ava Benesocky: [00:11:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the end of the day, Canadians are incredibly conservative. This whole you know, when you here take my money to the U.S., they’re totally conservative. They’re not interested and they’re happy with the five, six percent annual return. And so imagine us bringing our educational thought leadership platform where they can learn different ways. It’s going to create a lot of excitement. Yeah.
Dan Kreuger: [00:11:58] Yeah. So you guys aren’t just, you know, an educational resource showing people how to do this, but you were actually effectively being an intermediary between the investors and the US and kind of bridging that gap. So there’s effectively none of the work that the Canadian investors have to do. They kind of invest through you guys. You’re a Canadian entity, and that’s very straightforward and easy. You take care of all the hard work and all the compliance issues and then get them access to these great US investments. And it’s effectively turnkey for them, it sounds like.
August Biniaz: [00:12:29] Absolutely. And to take it a step farther is not only us being the facilitator or the intermediary, we actually partner with the US operators on the deal. We’re involved in every aspect from the initial underwriting, due diligence to management, to your value add model.
Dan Kreuger: [00:12:47] Out of skin in the game,
August Biniaz: [00:12:48] A lot of the investment items we get compensated relative to the performance of the asset, such as most groups in the US do, so is a much more hands-on approach rather than just being a facilitating platform that allows Canadians to invest money. We’re involved in every
Dan Kreuger: [00:13:06] The process that’s so important. We talk about it all the time on our podcast. Take a look at how people are getting compensated and where the money goes. And if you’re fiscally incentivized, you know, if you’re if the incentives are aligned with the investors like it is with you guys, that’s very important. Whereas if there’s a similar type of structure somewhere else where someone is just funneling money into the US but they don’t have any skin in the game, you know, that’s a whole different can of worms right there.
August Biniaz: [00:13:33] Very well said. And for us, I think because this concept is somewhat newer because I mean, Menerba always joke about this in our province, there are twenty-three thousand realtors in B.C. and about both of our real estate agents recently in
Ava Benesocky: [00:13:52] My Yea, competing with twenty-three thousand,
August Biniaz: [00:13:54] Competing with twenty-three other people. So much information exists. And myself, I’m a know a bit in development, for now, well over 15 years. And I’m a licensed builder. That’s what my title is here. And there are eight thousand five hundred other licensed builders in B.C. alone,
Ava Benesocky: [00:14:10] Eight thousand five hundred twenty-three that now get this.
August Biniaz: [00:14:14] Yeah. No, I know this space where it comes to servicing retail investors to invest into us multifamily is you know, there aren’t many groups offering the product. We meet people here and there once in a while where they do offer such opportunities to their friends and family and business associates. But on a high level to allow it to a streamlined process to allow then a partnership with multiple operators in multiple regions in the US. We haven’t seen such a platform and we feel very excited to be spearheading, you know, and paving the roads for others to also start and allow us to enjoy investing in US real estate.
Anthony Vicino: [00:14:58] Love it. It’s interesting to me that you guys, noticed a need, and then you said, OK, how do we fill this? And there’s a complete void in the space in terms of others servicing the retail investor. So I’m assuming that meant that there was really not a plan for you guys to just kind of follow. There wasn’t already a paved road. You kind of had to forge it on your own. So what did that look like saying, OK, we see the need? Canadian investors don’t have access to these better investment opportunities just across the border. Now, how are we going to make that a reality? Like what was your process there? Because it’s really interesting and I would assume not very straightforward, considering you guys are the only ones that are doing it.
August Biniaz: [00:15:38] I would say blood, sweat, and tears. A lot of disappointment, a lot of heartaches, a lot of difficulties, a lot of money.
Ava Benesocky: [00:15:46] Women both left their careers. And to fully so like to solely focus on this because, I mean, you know, literally 14, 16 hour days and there’s still so much to do. We’ve developed systems. We’ve talked to new lawyers. We’ve developed systems. We’ve done this. We’ve done that. And one thing that really is something that I’m excited about and this goes back to me probably, you know, servicing a lot of investors as a real estate agent, we’ve democratized real estate investing for the retail investors here in Canada. And how and how have we done that? We’ve opened the doors to this type of institutional assets for nonaccredited and accredited investors. So that’s something huge that we’re doing. And we’ve looked all across Canada, really. And, you know, this is something that people are really excited about. It’s a lot more work in the back end for us. It’s a lot more headache. People are like, why are you guys opening the doors? I want to stick to it. I want to democratize real estate investing. I want the everyday person to have a chance on being able to grow their wealth while they’re sleeping, while they’re doing what they love. I always tell this story. My parents are accountants. They work really hard to this day. They’re both in their 60s, thirty
August Biniaz: [00:16:59] Eight, thirty over thirty years, and they
Ava Benesocky: [00:17:01] Love working hard. But they taught me to save my money. They’re super good with their money. Everything’s paid off. But, you know, to this day they don’t qualify to be an accredited investor. OK, so they’re so happy with six percent annual returns. And I’m like my dad, I just came across this beautiful concept where you can almost double that and get your money working for you. So going back to my family, I’m just making it’s near and dear to my heart that I want to open the doors up for everybody. Yeah.
August Biniaz: [00:17:30] And for me to add to that as well.
Ava Benesocky: [00:17:32] And 18-year-olds can start building their wealth. You don’t like who’s going to be an accredited investor when they’re eighteen years old. I mean, hey, we can all start. You know, if you want to be an active investor, great. Buy diversify your portfolio. Put a little bit here, put a little bit there. I would definitely do something passive. So that money can start building and then eventually you can just live off of your passive income. How cool is that?
August Biniaz: [00:17:52] Well said. Well said. Yeah, there were definitely a lot of difficulties that we went through to try to create systems. There is a lot of information that comes from US side books that have been written, a lot of podcasts and YouTube and information. But unfortunately, when when it comes to compliance issues and a few other items, it doesn’t translate here in Canada. And also the avatar, the investor itself, it’s a different person. The Canadian investor is a lot different than the US investor. Like I was mentioning earlier, Canadians are much more conservative. You know, this this this kind of fundamental ideas of, you know, like and trust is amplified here in Canada. It doesn’t go just by somebody coming to your webinar or podcast. And next thing you know, they’re going to invest with you. They’re you know, people are much more conservative. So. So, yeah, they educationist a platform that we’ve created through our, you know, YouTube show. And the experts guess we bring on to cultivate relationships and nurture those relationships through high tech CRM and things that we literally had to figure out and use and see how it works and the funnels that people had to go through and getting on calls we’ve been on, I would say well over thousands and thousands, I would say, of calls. So so it’s a lot of learning, but a lot of great information comes. I mean, one of the people, as I follow, is Anthony, especially on his LinkedIn.
Ava Benesocky: [00:19:19] He doesn’t stop talking about you. I swear to God, he thinks, oh, look at Anthony’s like look at this new thing that you just posted. And I love his marketing and I love his advertising. Oh, my God.
August Biniaz: [00:19:29] No, no. I enjoy it. I, I feel so engaged with your material. But again, your marketing material and educational material is dependent on who is looking at it. I’m looking at it from my goggles. And to me, I love your content. I love the way you deliver it and I love following it. But that’s what we do in learning. We’ve been trying to identify the Canadian investor. What do they look for? What we have to create to build that trust, to become thought leaders in our niche-focused industry, and to try to build something from the ground up?
Anthony Vicino: [00:20:02] Yeah, I would imagine that with the Canadian investors, they’re not even aware that this is an option to them. So it’s not something that they’re probably actively seeking out. They’re not Googling apartments, applications. And so, like, how are you connecting and getting the word out to those people that maybe don’t know yet that this is something that they could participate in?
Ava Benesocky: [00:20:22] That’s for sure. That’s a really good question, actually.
August Biniaz: [00:20:25] One more so. So just on just to add to that Jeremy role, our friend. Yeah. Who was who is a passive investor, but he’s a master passive investor where he actually teaches investors how to find the right operator. What to look for is like got classes on that. Now here on the Canadian side, the option doesn’t even exist. Whereas in the USA, you’re kind of picking and choosing, hey, I believe in this market. I want to invest with this operator here and is from the ground up. So we’re exploring put
Ava Benesocky: [00:20:57] It to you this and I’ll put it to you this way. My own parents who have they know like love me and trust me, OK, this is no like a dress. It took about twenty times hitting them with this apartment’s indication for them to, first of all, see, this is way too good to be true. Every single person we meet that’s never heard of it before about casual from day one in the type of returns you can receive in a three to five-year bracket,
August Biniaz: [00:21:20] Limited liability launch
Ava Benesocky: [00:21:22] Of the entire concept. This is too good to be true. You guys from doctors, lawyers, accountants, you name it, who I’ve talked to my own family members. So what it takes is it takes hitting them over and over and over again, the same concept, and then literally following us and learning about how the process works and educating them. So it’s not as simple as someone watching YouTube for us. It’s like, OK, wow, I just heard about you guys. So-and-so is starting to talk about you. OK, I know I can trust them now. I heard about you guys. OK, now I want to follow you guys and I’m going to dissect what you’re doing. And you know, six months later, we have a lineup of investors now that are like, hey, where’s the deal at?
Dan Kreuger: [00:21:59] Yeah, I’ve noticed on our end, I’m sure you might have seen this as well as that. I think people still assume that if there’s a higher rate of return, that there’s a higher degree of risk in a deal or in any investment. They see a higher rate of return, then that must mean a suicide risk. But that’s not the case. Obviously, we all know that. But I think that’s probably one of the big kind of hurdles to get people over is just that. Yes, this is a higher rate of return, but it’s actually lower risk than some of the more conventional investment options you might be looking at, like just the general stock market or mutual funds or something like that.
Ava Benesocky: [00:22:33] So it’s funny you say that, actually, because when an advisor from Canada was actually you know what? You guys should literally put your, let’s say, 15 percent to 10 percent because you might be scaring people away with the higher.
August Biniaz: [00:22:47] We were literally advised to bring down the troop returns. And one more thing is, usually, as soon as you talked about pooled capital, you know, people associate that with venture capital or so associated with the risky kind of, you know, a startup business idea, whereas our investments, the purpose indication is backed by real estate and not by a pool of real estate, by a specific project that the investor that I prompt them to always ask questions, want to see the pictures of, of what the asset looks like. You can feel, touch, see the and you’re about to invest into not only that, the quarterly reports, you get a T12. Yeah. The caller to reports you’re getting, the Harvard operator sends those reports to you, whoever you’re investing with. But the reports you’re getting, you can analyze them. You can kind of see the performance of the operator of the sponsor that you partner with. So it just checked off too many items on my list, which made that perfect business for me to dedicate my professional career too. And I say this very strongly because, you know, prior to me and Anthony, I have spoken about this, my attention span hasn’t been always you know, nothing has been exciting enough to keep my attention and focus on a certain type of business. I’ve always kind of been looking at shiny objects and getting confused even within the real estate sphere. But apartment syndication or real estate syndication, this concept of pooled capital to buy real estate upgraded and sell it. And the investor gets the majority of the profits, obviously, depending on who the operator is. It it’s a problem if you fell in
Ava Benesocky: [00:24:33] Love with it, it’s like a win win win. You’re making a better community for people to live in. You’re building your investor’s pockets and you’re making a great life for yourself.
August Biniaz: [00:24:44] You’re creating jobs. You’re building a better community for others. You’re building your investor’s wealth and you and you’re creating jobs for people on both sides of the border in our situation. So and making money like always being more altruistic but his self as well.
Dan Kreuger: [00:25:01] Yeah, I know. I don’t know where to go first. Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. I mean,
August Biniaz: [00:25:08] No, please.
Dan Kreuger: [00:25:10] Yeah. I remember the first time I really started doing the math, the first time on this business model, and that kind of light bulb went off and I was like, this makes perfect sense. It’s so simple and it seems too good to be true, but it’s not like that’s where it got addictive for me as well. So I can relate to that feeling of that excitement when you found this model. And it’s like this is so scalable. It’s so simple, so lucrative. It’s a low risk. And then you just get obsessed with it. It’s amazing how I was going to ask specifically what types of deals you guys are looking for. Like we think it’s implied already that you guys are looking at us multifamily properties. But specifically, what types of things are you looking for? And I’m curious if that’s changed over the past 12 to 18 months with the whole covid thing. Have you guys adjusted the parameters for the types of properties that you’re looking at or do you still have a fairly specific niche that you’re after?
Ava Benesocky: [00:26:08] Go ahead.
August Biniaz: [00:26:09] Yeah, you always like to say a comment you always make.
Ava Benesocky: [00:26:14] We have a pretty strict set. We have a sandbox that we stick with kind of blanket
August Biniaz: [00:26:21] And our criteria. We’ve been pretty consistent with our criteria, obviously, is it isn’t that multifamily space? It is a value add multifamily. You know, what I love about value add is that in real estate you buy a piece of real estate and you hope to sell it one day and somebody’s going to pay you more than you bought it for. Now, what is going to help you in the process is the market appreciation, the depreciation of the dollar, which is going to make your asset worth more. But also. But in the business that we do, the assets that we focus on, which has the value add a component, add an extra layer. It adds an extra bonus, which is forced depreciation. So you’re reaping the benefits of market depreciation, devaluation of the currency, and your force depreciated by doing small renovations. You know, in the case of multifamily, you’re doing increasing rents, and the tiny bit of rent on, you know, on the units equates to millions of dollars of growth, depending on.
Ava Benesocky: [00:27:20] I’m just drilling right now as you’re talking.
August Biniaz: [00:27:24] We just had lunch. They were going. But yeah. So so so our asset is multifamily hundred plus units with a value add a component in the Sunbelt state. But again,, we are open-minded about the type of assets and operators we work with currently. That is our focus. That is where our energy is. But long term, as S.P.I grow and scales absolutely will look at different type asset classes and different operators, you know, managing different types of funds
Dan Kreuger: [00:27:59] Like so you stated in your same sandbox through covid post covid didn’t make any kind of adjustments to the types of deals you’re looking at. You’ve been pretty consistent
August Biniaz: [00:28:08] Because of the resilience, the multifamily value that showed through. Yeah, I mean, when covid hit, I thought it was going to be blood on the streets and in some cases what it was. But as soon as the trillions of dollars got printed by the Fed and all the larger institutional multifamily owners got floated and people were literally getting rents, like in my mindset was the moment Corbitt had that idea of trillions of dollars being printed and being mailed out never came. It was never an option I looked at. This is a catastrophe. That process got implemented then. And then I’m like, did I even fell in love with the asset class more? Because I’m like, hey, you want to get a bubble? The government is the most powerful, the richest government in the world. Got involved and made sure that you know, people who are paying that workforce are living, paying between that like eight hundred and twelve hundred dollars a month rent, that they have a roof over their head because if they’re getting evicted, they’re going to go on the streets and burn the city down. You know, somebody who’s living in a class asset or somebody living in a mansion, they could downsize if the economy goes hard. But the person who’s working hard and is, you know, is in blue-collar in those type of asset classes, they need to have a roof over their head. Otherwise, there’s going to be a big, big issue. The whole society at home.
Dan Kreuger: [00:29:31] Yeah. And the bonus there is not only doing all that money printing help floats all the residents who might have had trouble paying, but at the same time, that also just, you know, adds a shot of nitrous oxide to the inflation that you guys talked about, the benefits, these assets long term. So it floated everybody in the short term and then over the next five or so years, that’s just going to add to the inflationary pressures, pushing the values of these properties up even more. So it’s I mean, I’m not a big fan of printing money. It’s not really a good long-term strategy, but it really helps the story for the asset classes we invest in. And so we keep it up as
August Biniaz: [00:30:07] A hedge against inflation is, you know, like real estate and in particular, this cash flowing real estate, which is you’re buying a business, you’re buying cash flowing business from day one, you know, and being somebody who’s from a development background, there are so many things can go wrong from ground-up development. There are environmental issues. There is, you know, city different levels of government issues that could come up, city bureaucracy. There are public hearings when you’re buying it and already build an asset, already stable, cash-flowing asset from day one. It’s it’s gold. It’s gold.
Anthony Vicino: [00:30:42] Or you could even just look at lumber prices over the last year and how that skyrocketed. If you’re a developer and you’re planning on building and now suddenly lumber is 20 times more expensive than it was like, that really hurt the budget. So it becomes difficult narrative stuff. But guys, this has been a great conversation. But we did fly right through the beginning of the show because we just dove right into the meat and potatoes. But we didn’t get our dessert yet. So I’m tired of waiting. I. My advice, I need my bad investment advice, so what do you guys have in your back pocket for bad advice?
August Biniaz: [00:31:13] Bad advice, bad advice. What do you think over here? Bad advice. You guys only
Dan Kreuger: [00:31:18] Have good advice. I’m sure I
August Biniaz: [00:31:20] Know what bad advice we’ve heard from others. I mean, bad advice for the Canadian, which really breaks my heart, is investing in real estate is this blanket statement of invest in real estate. And when somebody has had a difficult time getting a mortgage from their primary residence, as I said, the home prices are so expensive here in Vancouver and Toronto. Now, that person is being told to invest in real estate. Hey, man, I’m having a hard time paying my mortgage payment on this million-dollar condo I just bought. How am I supposed to invest in real estate? So I would say, you know, just just just kind of being a cheerleader to invest in real estate, which would be my number one advice when it comes to the Canadian investor.
Anthony Vicino: [00:32:00] I love that because it’s an interesting take and it’s one that Dan and I have talked about, which is that not all real estate is equal. And we talked about it through the lens of some real estate in some markets is not as desirable as other markets. So that’s one layer of how real estate is not the same. Or you could look at it in different asset classes and say in twenty-seven, twenty-eight single-family homes got trashed, but multifamily did pretty well. Or you could look in twenty and say, OK, office got kind of hit hard, but industrial did great. And so not all real estate is equal and you guys are taking that one level further, which is real estate in Canada. Or, you know, if you’re investing overseas, it’s not equal necessarily to the lending environment or the macroeconomic situation that we have in the United States, which makes us such an ideal place for investing, because you can get that confluence of cash flow and appreciation simultaneously, which is a bit of a unique unicorn.
Ava Benesocky: [00:32:57] So I’ll take that.
Anthony Vicino: [00:33:00] All right. I love that. That was my that’s one of my favorite pieces of advice because it’s a real estate show where, like, real estate is not to invest in real estate. All right, guys, so before we let you out of here, let’s get your book recommendation for the week. I think I know what it’s going to be. I have a gut feeling.
Ava Benesocky: [00:33:18] Oh, really?
August Biniaz: [00:33:20] Ok, well, you know what? You should do your recommendation because you’ve got a signed copy from the author, personalized to did. Whoa.
Ava Benesocky: [00:33:28] Nice apartment syndication book by Joe Fairless.
Anthony Vicino: [00:33:33] It’s one of my favorites. Yeah. How did you get a signed copy?
Ava Benesocky: [00:33:36] Well, I you know, I’m friends with, you know,
Anthony Vicino: [00:33:39] Come on, Joe, hook a brother up. I need a book asking.
Ava Benesocky: [00:33:43] You shall receive.
Anthony Vicino: [00:33:44] Yeah, I guess. What’s your book?
August Biniaz: [00:33:47] My book has got to be the checklist manifesto. God, he lied and
Dan Kreuger: [00:33:51] I heard that one before from Mr. Anthony.
August Biniaz: [00:33:54] I love that book. I love that I pulled it out last time Anthony was on our show. And it’s something I use every day. Obviously, I use task management software for my daily tasks. And even when I and Ava met, I was using this task management for everything. I mean, my own personal tasks as well, but also coming to us. And now the checklist manifesto. It was vindication, though, how important lists are, but also the good feeling it gives you when the checklist gets get done. And also that the feeling of chaos, when you feel when things are not going well, you notice that the checklist is so messy.
Ava Benesocky: [00:34:33] So just reading the checklist manifesto-like changed our world around. And I think we’re like we worked really hard on having our checklist in order and our systems in order. And that book is just has brought us a lot of a lot
August Biniaz: [00:34:47] Of you just got to contact the author to get a signed copy of the book to
Anthony Vicino: [00:34:51] Do that. What do you get? Checklists in the systems are key for scaling. And one tip I’ll recommend for people if you ever if you didn’t do your to-do list for the day or you didn’t set it out like you really do, get that dopamine burst when you get to check things off. And so a little trick is if let’s say you didn’t do your list for the day, at the end of the day, you’re looking back on your day. What you should do is sit down and write out the tasks that you got done for that day and then check them off. And once you get to do, then as you get to have a little mini celebration for what you accomplished that day, which I can speak for me and Dan, we don’t often sit back and reflect on just how much we got done in the day. We’re just kind of forward, grind-it-out type of guys. But it’s really beneficial for your mental and emotional psyche if you take time every now and then just to reward yourself with that little dopamine, it’s like, look what I did.
Dan Kreuger: [00:35:40] I think focus it on success. And things that you did well are such a good thing to do just for your mental state. That’ll get you much more motivated to get up and do stuff tomorrow as opposed to saying they’re focusing on the stuff you didn’t get done. Yeah, I was going to ask what I know. We’re getting to the top of our show here, but I do just I’m very curious what other people do on their end as far as, you know, systems of tools they use. What do you guys use for your to-do list? You mentioned that you had a soft.
Ava Benesocky: [00:36:07] That use yeah, we use something software called Asthana.
Dan Kreuger: [00:36:11] Yeah, that sounds too good.
August Biniaz: [00:36:13] Very cool. We use a pediatrician, so we get the cool kind of timeline where you can have it in a like chart. Yeah. You literally like, you know, I think snapshots and send it to our lawyers and the occasion to do the that within a matter of two weeks and then have all these other things that are
Ava Benesocky: [00:36:29] And you can assign tasks and you can you know, it’s really, really great. But the free version is just as is great.
August Biniaz: [00:36:36] Yeah, definitely. I use a free version for four years prior to purchasing the paid version and not for years. I was running building multiple homes with that software.
Ava Benesocky: [00:36:47] So we actually take what’s on our calendar and we put it into Azana and we have like each day literally whatever didn’t get done moves up to the neighbors like it. So everything always gets done because it just kind of do and then good.
August Biniaz: [00:37:01] And when Anthony gave his viewpoint about us and he used psychology behind it, that’s why I love the information and content he has. Whenever I see one of his posts on LinkedIn right away is like a different perspective. I love my son, and that’s why I love the guy.
Anthony Vicino: [00:37:15] Thank you all. I’ll see you guys before we let you out of here and let you go about your day. Where can people get a hold of you? Like we have some Canadian investors like we want to reach out. We want to learn more about this. We want to invest with these guys. Where do they go to find you?
Ava Benesocky: [00:37:29] You are really active on LinkedIn, Ava Banaszak, August Bonifaz. Or you can check us out on Canadian passive investing on YouTube, which will be S.P.I Academy.
August Biniaz: [00:37:39] But yeah, for now, is Canadian passive investing. You just put that into YouTube will pop up our website is S.P.I Capital Dossie and above. In Asaka August, Binnaz will pop up on Google or LinkedIn with our union with our unique last names.
Ava Benesocky: [00:37:57] Sign up on our newsletter or investor list and put your phone number. I’ll personally call you. So there you go.
Anthony Vicino: [00:38:05] I just really I just looked it up. If you Google Canadian passive investing, you guys pop up in like the number two spot right behind an ad for Yield Street. So I think it’s got a great website. So if you’re at home and you want to connect with these guys, just go Google Canadian passive investing. You can’t miss them.
Ava Benesocky: [00:38:19] I love it. So thank you.
Anthony Vicino: [00:38:21] And so that’s going to do it for us. We want to thank you guys again for joining us and for you at home that’s maybe on the treadmill or driving to work or wherever you are that you’re listening to us. You want to say a mighty big thank you and we’ll see you next week. And.
