On to this week’s guest, Lynne Tham. She was nervous to come on the show which is not uncommon. Public speaking by some surveys ranks higher on the lists of fears above death it self….
Lynne’s kids including my friend Simon told her to just do it and she did!
I’ll post Lynne’s full bio on our website, www.truthaboutrealestateinvesting.ca. It’s a wonderful Canadian success story of a teenager immigrating to Canada, falling in love with the greatest country in the world. Started a family, stayed at home to raise the kids, picked up a side hustle in multi-level marketing, excelled, became a single parent, became a Realtor, had a wake up call at age 55 that she needed a retirement plan. Invested in real estate, de-invested in real estate and now a pretty successful stock hacker.
I know we have several full time professional, uber successful real estate investors like Ryan Carr and coming up next Leslie and Jamie Collard and their 160 units but for the investor who wants to take it easy and be a bit more passive…. Well it worked out for Lynne.
Full bio:
Proud mom of two successful adults (Simon and Melanie) who form our family real estate team (we do between 40 - 50 deals per year as a team). I'm a constant advocate for personal growth in my own life and determined to create my own financial future goals of being able to live, travel and work from anywhere in the world.
My own story - came to Canada by myself as an 18 year old, without knowing anyone, from the UK, to be a nanny, in 1978. It was supposed to be a one to two year work stay. Fell in love with the country, got married at 21 and became a Canadian citizen. Being a stay at home mom I was recruited to sell Tupperware in the '90's and this was beginning of personal growth for me. I realized that I was a sales person and loved motivating myself and other people to reach goals. I was with them for 10 years and ended up owning a distributorship with them in the Toronto area.
After becoming a single parent in the 90's, I had a five year stint in the car business, being a business manager and selling cars, but long hours and very little personal satisfaction, motivated me to take my real estate license. I became an agent in 2006 with the desire of being able to have the ability to increase my income and have the flexibility to travel to see my kids, who were both now living in the U.S. (Melanie on a gymnastics scholarship at Iowa State University and Simon modelling in NYC). After building my business for six years it was a welcome addition to have my Mel join me in the business after she graduated univeristy and then Simon, two years later. Both of my kids did not have real estate as a career goal but they kind of fell into it after realizing that it was a great way to earn good money and also be able to pursue other passions (not to mention my daughter's teaching degree did little to generate an actual job in teaching and Simon realized that modelling looks don't last forever - but as his mom, I would disagree :) and he's still modelling now)
Five years ago, at age 55, I was staring at my future and realizing that I needed more of a retirement plan - at that time, my net worth was basically the equity in my Mississauga townhouse (at the time, worth around 775k, and I had a mortgage of $300k on it) and I had $200k in RRSP's and that was it. When I looked into what the Canadian pension was, if I waited until 65 to draw it, it was a wake up call. This started my journey into how to build a consistent income of at least $10k a month within the next five years. I had met with an investment guy from a reputable company, regarding what to do with my RRSP's, who told me he could generate me a guaranteed 8 - 10% annually with their various investments. It sounded a lot better than the 2% than my Scotia funds were generating, but luckily, I was introduced to investing in second mortgages by profunds in Burlington and decided to put my money there (it has now grown by over $100k in four years). Simon had introduced me to your podcasts and it opened up a new world of exploration. Around this time, I was invited to an event at my Keller Williams brokerage, put on by two agents who were representing, Brian Pullis's project in Orillia. They were offering an investment opportunity to purchase a townhouse in an older complex that had been refurbished and all the interiors gutted and renovated. The homes were offered at $247k, and they were offering a $7k builder incentive and on top of that, my 2.5% real estate commission, so essentially I could buy one of these homes for $235k. Again, embarrassingly, I hadn't realized that I could take an 80% line of credit against my primary residence to take the down payment for an investment property, and I had always had the mindset that I needed to pay off my mortgage before doing so. I got the line of credit and purchased my first property. The type of property fit me well as it was easy to manage, (one year property management was offered for free), and it cash flowed ($1400/month in rent). This was a great first experience and it encouraged me to buy a second property in Orillia, which I had realized through listening to one of your podcasts (and Jules McKenzie), was listed in REIN's top 10 cities in Ontario to invest in. The second property was easy as it was new construction and the builder was only requiring $20k down. I closed on it a year later and after buying it for $345k and putting $20k into it, it attracted good tenants and covered itself.
I sold the first property 3 years later and made around $70k net, and I just sold the second one (closed yesterday) and made $145k in three years.
Last year, I had looked into the possibility of buying another investment property (at the time, I owned only one of the Orillia properties), but it had become so much more difficult to qualify for a mortgage and I was approved to buy at $600k, with B lender financing and it would have to be a legal duplex, generating $3400/$3500 month for it to work. I realized that it was too much for me at this point in my life, to drive to Oshawa (where it seemed like the only opportunities to do this, existed in this price range).
In the summer I attended your IWin meeting where the discussion came up about the upcoming stock hacking course. I was so inspired by Adriano's story and I had been listening to your increasing interest in doing it yourself and was following your progress. Unfortunately I was in Portugal in September when the first class was offered but as you know, Simon attended and he seemed to be quite inspired and impressed. What sealed the deal for me was hearing Habib's podcast with you, in the late fall, and I knew I had to sign up.
Since taking the two day course in December, it has changed my life. No other words for it. I started with $150k from my HELOC and then added $40k two months later. Since just before Covid, as of today, I'm up $54k, which is nicely falling into my goal of $10k/month and is opening up my future. I plan on taking the profits from the sale of my investment property and adding it to my account, with the goal of making $15k to $20k a month consistently. I am constantly amazed at how options trading is not only something that I could grasp but is so easy, enjoyable, flexible and unlimited. I now find myself talking real estate clients (especially the ones around my age) out of buying their first investment property and doing options trading instead. As you always say, there's a place for both and they go hand in hand, but for me personally, and other's in my situation, looking at retirement and how to fund it, in my opinion and experience, this is an incredible option.
