The 5 Questions Podcast
Join us as we unlock real estate and business insights, one question at a time.
The 5 Questions Podcast
Market Trends and Strategies for International Real Estate with Danny Sai
Explore the complexities of international real estate investing with unique insights from an experienced investor. Learn about common misconceptions and the importance of a business mindset.
• Challenges facing cross-border investors
• Importance of treating real estate as a business
• Misconceptions within the Canadian market regarding US investments
• Tools and resources for identifying profitable property deals
• The role of clear goals in successful real estate investing
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How bad will the market go? It's a financial investment. I think a lot of people get this wrong in real estate.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast, where we unlock real estate and business insights one question at a time. Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast. I am your host, mario Lamar, our guest on today's show. He is an international real estate investor. With his experience and insights, he helped many, many Canadians invest in the US real estate market and he is an award-winning real estate investor. Danny Sai Danny, thank you so much for being on the show today with us.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Mario, and thank you for the introduction. I like to keep it very simple, but the whole media is full of a lot of shiny objects and shiny titles. But I'm just a simple real estate investor. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, that's good, but we're going to poke your brain because you did some great stuff with real estate and I want to learn more about it. The concept of the podcast is five questions about real estate or business and we get straight to the point. You ready, let's go? Okay. So your journey spans continents, many, many continents, from Asia to Canada to the US. I want to ask you what initially drew you to international real estate investing and maybe how did you navigate these unique challenges of each market?
Speaker 1:That's a great question, mario Mario. I was born in Hong Kong and gold is cheaper than real estate in that island. Wow, affording a home for myself was close to impossible, even not having a nine to five, but even being a business owner, yeah. So, as we know, when we buy real estate, we want real estate to at least be break even or cash positive. Real estate to at least be break-even or cash positive. And I read books on real estate and these are the things I took away from the book. So I invested across to a market where it was more cashflow positive and also maybe I could use so one of the examples.
Speaker 1:As I said, I was born in Hong Kong. I invested in China because it was a great market. I just thought that with more than the population that they have, with 1 billion people, how bad will the market go? It's a financial investment. I think a lot of people get this wrong in real estate. They think real estate is a home to buy and a home to sell. A lot of real estate agents do that. So there's a big population of real estate agents versus real estate investors out there. So, to get this right, when you're an investor, we look at it whether we can be cash positive, whether we are investing in a landlord-friendly city, state, province. So I think that attracted me to go cross borders.
Speaker 2:And is there any challenges that different markets have versus the other?
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely so. Investing in a different market, you will always face challenges, and the challenges are language, and it's not saying the language of Canadians is English and the language of Americans is English, but there's a big difference in the language used, right? So the way we take things in Canada versus we take in US is two different ballgames. The system is different. That's a big challenge. The legal documentation is a challenge. That's a big difference. The financing is a difference. So there are a lot of challenges.
Speaker 2:So there are a lot of challenges. So that brings us to our second question, because you know being investing in different markets also, sometimes we need to learn about these different markets and you openly shared about doing mistakes in your early days of investing. Yes, can you walk us through maybe one moment and how it shaped your investment philosophy for today?
Speaker 1:Sure. So one of my biggest mistakes in the early days was to purchase pre-sale. Okay, and because I was not an investor mindset, I was a common man's mindset. Right, as I said earlier, we have more real estate agents than we have investors, and an agent will tell you a pre-sale is always a good deal. The reason being is that the city is growing, the location, the price versus. You know and they'll usually show you the other part that the price today is not going to remain today and with inflation in any country, whether it's in Asia, whether it's US, whether it's Canada, it's the same thing that you could profit from that investment. However, my mindset today it goes reversed and it's not rocket science. But is that property going to cash flow if I'm going to rent it out? Right? Am I buying this for myself and do I need that much space for me to invest in that? Maybe not.
Speaker 2:Well, the number one thing that investors and that's the basic your property should cash flow, because you can maybe swing it by a little bit of time, but you can't grow a business if none of the properties cash flow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you said it. Spot on, mario. If this is going to be a business, it has to work for itself, versus you working for it all your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's the change in my mindset today very important point that our listeners should should take away from. This is one of and the biggest mistakes that most investors do in their early stage is they fall in love with a property instead of treating it as a business and in your case, like you mentioned, cashflow was was maybe missing a little bit in the early stages and then now you're shifting or you shifted for a while now, but your mindset on treating it as a business and how you can grow from from one property to the other yeah, you know I, I have this philosophy today.
Speaker 1:You know I, when one has pain, it's very painful, yeah, but when one converts the, it's very painful, yeah, but when one converts the pain it becomes very powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, because you'll never make that same mistake twice. Yes, sir, and you can teach others not to make that same mistake. Yes, sir. Okay, that brings us to question number three, and you help many Canadians. But if somebody or a Canadian would be exploring the US real estate opportunities or market, what's the biggest misconception they have and maybe how do you help them overcome these misconceptions?
Speaker 1:That's really one of the biggest problems we are facing today with Canadians, and Canadians think that the US financing system is like Canada, and that is a big misconception. The other thing which is right now live in the news and 95% of the public watches news. I don't, but I get forward, yeah, and that with the new government coming in, you know it might not be the same. Yeah, in my view and I could be wrong and I hope I'm not every country, whether it's the United States or whether it's India, or whether it's China, or whether it's Australia or Great Britain, they are looking for investments to come into the country so the economy can flourish. So we're watching news and the fear that's in a lot of Canadians today. That should be diverted because at the end of the day, as I said, when we are running a real estate investment, it's a business, and a business if you can see a profit now, the only way that will just wash away is if the US dollar changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, that's in the minds of a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, learning how to properly learn how the banking system works differently than in Canada, because we're talking about US real estate investing now. That's one of the things that most people have a misconception about.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, and I'm having an event on the 18th of January 2025, just to answer questions, like you asked me just now, and a lot more than that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we'll make sure to try to put that out there. It's coming soon, though.
Speaker 1:Yes sir.
Speaker 2:Question number four you have a lot of experience, as we mentioned, and maybe what kind of tools you use, or one practical strategy or resource or tool you recommend for identifying profitable cross-border deals?
Speaker 1:That's a million-dollar question, Mario. We're there to give a lot of value to our viewers. That is a million-dollar question. You know you want to hit it right to the top, so your listeners get a lot of value. I really appreciate that and I'm going to try my best to answer this shortest and spot on. For curious investors, they can go to a public website such as Zillowcom, realtorcom, to find deals. Okay. However, if you want to run an investment business in the US, you've got to havea lot more experience to go into public records, access public records such as county records right to understand whether that deal is a good deal and whether you can buy it.
Speaker 2:I love your answer because there's something to differentiate just buying a few properties and growing a real estate business. When you go to realtorcom or Zillow, you see the deal in front of you but very limited knowledge of the history of that property or or this. Why is it for sale? And that will give you the answer on how to make your offer, how low, how high you can go and really how to acquire these properties. And you're absolutely right, accessing these city or counties database information. That what differentiate a seasonal real estate investor versus a professional one.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir. And to add to that, I do understand and I do know a lot of fellow investors are going to Zillow and Realtorcom and finding deals that might be an auction. But I have a friend who lost $110,000 yesterday. Wow, that's a lot of money. And my fellow friend started his journey more or less the same time. However, he thought that real estate is something that he can win by himself, versus getting into the right community, finding like-minded people, knowing that somebody has your back, knowing that you can do a joint venture with somebody in the community. Do a joint venture with somebody in the community. And so you know.
Speaker 1:To that question, I purchased an auction property again in Cleveland, ohio, on October 26th. We closed that property. It was on auction. Now, auction properties don't allow you to access the property before time. It just goes on auction and you bid. Who bids highest wins the property. However, with our relationship in the market, we were able to access the property. We were able to see what's inside the property before we went and bid. Now, that is a very big advantage when you know what to do and you know how to do it and know when to do it to succeed in your transaction.
Speaker 2:Well, you said it Real estate as a business, you cannot do it alone. If you want to do it alone I did it at the beginning myself too, and I lost money on a deal because I tried to do it alone If you do it as a team, you build a proper team around you, much more solid as an investor, very likely to less to make a mistake. And that's millions not millions, but maybe in some case, but thousands and thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars saved by avoiding these mistakes. That's right. By avoiding these mistakes, that's right. Talking about having a proper team, you know, and doing it the right way. Looking back at your transformation, that's our fifth question for you. What role did having clear goals, a vision, play into your real estate, turning your real estate into a profession, and maybe how can others replicate that success that they want to have the same success as you?
Speaker 1:Wow. That is, as I said earlier, when you have pain, how to transform that power. It's exactly what I did, Not that I'm a pain-free person. I do have a lot of pains or problems, but way lesser than a normal person, I would say. So your question is how did I do it? Did I understand it correctly?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's say you know, you look back at your transformation from when you started to now, having clear goals, having a vision, and if somebody wants to replicate or do like you, accomplish the same nice steps or goals that you did, or now you're successful, you're an award-winning real estate investor, how can somebody do like you?
Speaker 1:I would say before your goal, set your vision right, because goal is something that you will go and achieve, but if you don't know what that looks like, you're not going to achieve it or you might achieve the wrong thing. So one of mine and my wife's mentors was Bob Proctor. Mine and my wife's mentors was Bob Proctor, and his example was when you're a pilot, you know that you're flying from A to B. Everybody knows it, yeah. But when you're flying A to B, are you prepared for some windy clouds, rain, thunder, and that's the vision right when you are setting your goals. Let's say you're setting your goals in normal life, that you are trying to achieve a million dollars. Now, if you get a million dollars, mario, will you be satisfied and happy?
Speaker 2:Most people are. I won't, because it's not about the end goal in my mind.
Speaker 1:Right. So a lot of people pray that know, pray that you know they can reach a million dollars. And then, when they reach a million dollars, they say this is not enough Because the goal, the vision, was wrong. Yeah, the vision if in the first place, they could think big and they could expand their mind and think $10 million it's just the extra zero. Yeah, and then make the goals in those steps. Now remember, $10 million is not going to be achieved in one day or in one month. This is a long-term vision. Now, when you have expanded your vision, you will set your goals. The goals are set based on how big your vision is. If your vision is small, your goals are small. When your vision is huge, your goals list will be huge too. But guess what? You can work towards it. You can do one, two, three simple math and keep going, and you might get stopped when you're going on your goal, when you are writing your vision. It takes a lot of time, yeah.
Speaker 2:I give the example, often, of a staircase. You know, if it's a big, big staircase, you don't just climb it in one step. Each step is a goal. You do one step at a time. One goal at a time. You might stop halfway because you're out of breath, and then you continue and you go on the next step and eventually you reach your goal or the top of the staircase. So, yeah, well, danny, it was so nice and so satisfying to talk with you. You got lots of knowledge, lots of experience. I hope that our listeners are going to take away a few pieces with them on their journey and thank you again for taking the time to be on the Five Questions podcast.
Speaker 1:Thank you, mario, and I appreciate you having me on your podcast today.
Speaker 2:No problem, We'll talk soon. Thanks for tuning in to the Five Questions podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode tuning into the five questions podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, like and hit the notification bell on our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode. Stay tuned for more insights and tips to transform your real estate and business game. See you next time.