The 5 Questions Podcast
Join us as we unlock real estate and business insights, one question at a time.
The 5 Questions Podcast
Building Wealth Beyond the 9 to 5: Steve Couper's Investment Journey
Steve Couper shares how his aviation career inspired his transition to real estate investing as a way to secure his family's financial future and create generational wealth through strategic property investments.
• Started real estate investing to secure financial future after his aviation career ends
• Chose real estate to provide both financial resources and knowledge to his son
• Prefers value-add buy and hold strategy to create immediate equity and long-term growth
• First home purchase taught valuable DIY skills while doubling his investment
• Uses conservative risk management approach with focus on preserving investor capital
• Plans to support business growth in Abbotsford as Chamber of Commerce Director nominee
• Implements time blocking strategy to balance multiple careers and family responsibilities
• Prioritizes family time and reserves weekends for personal life
Contact us to learn more about real estate investing strategies or to be featured on a future episode.
As I sold that property. I sold it for twice what I paid for it.
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 is an accomplished professional with over 25 years of experience in the aviation industry and real estate investing. A best-selling author, multi-family investor and podcast host himself, he's here to share his insights to help aspiring real estate investors find success and balance in life. I present to Steve Cooper. Steve, welcome to the show today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me, Mario. It's wonderful to be here. I look forward to this interview.
Speaker 2:Steve, the concept of the podcast is real simple Five questions about real estate or business and we get straight to the point. You ready, let's go. All right, steve, as mentioned in the intro, you have a successful career in aviation. What prompted you to venture into real estate investing and maybe how did you transition into getting more involved in the real estate space? Thank you, mario.
Speaker 1:That's a great question. So I love my job. My career is something that fills my cup every day. I've been working in aviation my whole life and I'm very fortunate to have this career. I can't say enough about that. But unfortunately I'm also a third time lucky husband and as a consequence of that, you know, I've been financially started at zero a few times here. So, recognizing that the career is wonderful, but also where I am in life, I had to do something different. I had to do something to change the future.
Speaker 1:After I no longer work at Cascade, where I employed, I need to make sure that I've got a future planned out that secures my family. I can't leave it to chance. I want to make sure I'm taking the right steps to ensure that my family has the funds necessary to fulfill their dreams right. It's all about trying to achieve our goals, and I want to make sure that I give not only the money but also the knowledge and the skills necessary for my son to be able to move forward. So I looked at different opportunities, different investments, tried to vet out what I did and did not want to do. I chose real estate investing because there's secure funds on hard assets that provide scheduled returns. It's actually my preferred investing strategy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like you said, I like what you said is to leave not only financial help to your son or your family or loved ones, but also to show them a way that they can continue pursuing and making the money work for them at a future time.
Speaker 1:You know's, it's something that becomes less and less secure as time goes on. It seems like there's more and more things that are causing us to sense that risk and I wanted to make sure that I don't necessarily um need need my son to inherit my mindset on real estate, but I want him to see how business works. I want him to gain financial literacy and business acumen and be able to actually understand how to use that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Brings us to our second question and talking about real estate, you're a value add buy and old type of investor. Why did you choose this strategy over other strategies? Because there's many in real estate and maybe what are some advantages do you see in that strategy?
Speaker 1:Thank you for asking that. It's actually something I've mulled over for quite some time to try and see what was my preferred strategy. I like the value add opportunities because that's where you see a property that needs a little bit of TLC. There's an opportunity to look at this property and perhaps there's an increase in rent, so perhaps there's an opportunity to make the building more efficient from an expense perspective. That provides you with a lift in what we call the net operating income, and that net operating income is how multifamily properties are assessed.
Speaker 1:Really, the value of that property comes in the numbers, so there's an opportunity for an immediate lift that pays my investors back what they helped to support to procure the property. And then it's going to be a buy and hold. We're going to hold onto that property as long as the life will allow to make sure that every five years we're refinancing the property, we're pulling some equity out, we're refinancing for another five years. Well, just imagine now we're doing that on multiple properties, so that a portfolio is building where every year we're in a position where we're able to refinance another property and build that equity income. That income is, I think, something magic that everybody thinks about, but most of us, I think, are thinking in the terms of the transaction when we first start into investing, but the reality is that the real benefit comes in the portfolio you build and the continuous growth of that portfolio, and that's how that generational wealth can be preserved too.
Speaker 2:You're right, if you buy one property a year, it'll pay off over and over. But imagine if you do you buy one property a year, it'll pay off over and over. But imagine if you do two or three properties per year. Um, that is big, big money that you can see, year over year, constantly paying you for the work that you did, you know, at the beginning.
Speaker 1:So yeah, well, absolutely and I mean. So that's the. The value I want to offer my investors is find those opportunities where we can actually build that portfolio together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Brings us to our third question and again going back to real estate, it offers we talked about it a variety of investment opportunities, opportunities. What is it about real estate that made it stand out for you? Maybe compared to, maybe the stock market or, you know, other types of investment now, maybe crypto, we touched a little bit on it, but really, why real estate compared to other types of investment strategies? I?
Speaker 1:guess that there's certain comfort in what you know, mario. I bought my first house a fairly long time ago. I bought that property for $27,500 in the middle of New Brunswick a fair number of years ago. This was my first home. I didn't know much about what I was doing, but it was a great opportunity for me to learn the value of real estate. I repainted the house inside and out. I replaced kitchen cupboards. I built a garage. I didn't know how to build a garage on my own. I actually worked with the neighbors. They showed me. It was an opportunity to be interactive with the property and understand okay, this is how you mount kitchen cabinets, this is how you pour a foundation for a garage. We framed it. We actually built the roof on. You know so.
Speaker 1:So, anyhow, all that to say, I got to learn in the trenches and I was right, happy with that, because that's something I've leveraged ever since. But the reason I choose real estate is because, as I sold that property, I sold it for twice what I paid for it and I got to live in it for four years. So I feel like I came out ahead. I came out ahead not only with the knowledge that I'd gained in the tools, but also in the knowledge that, oh, investing in real estate is something where you can actually see your equity built. It's a lesson I learned slowly, but I nonetheless learned it. So understanding the power of real estate was something that I built through.
Speaker 1:You know, we've owned 10 houses or so by now, and we've gone through the process of understanding that in personal real estate, I transitioned to professional real estate investing a few years back, where I decided it's time to learn how to avoid the mistakes I've been making in the past and how to really put this knowledge to work to secure our future.
Speaker 2:And real estate, do you find, compared to other strategies, it's not a get rich quick scheme, but it's a more stable and safe if you know what you're doing, if you know what you're doing, if you know what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And you know so, in all of the properties I underwrite now I have a risk management strategy that I try to employ that ensures that you know I follow a few simple tenets. The first rule is never lose money. The second rule is absolutely never lose your investors' money. I want to make sure that I'm building in a risk management strategy that is overcapitalizing the properties, if needs be, to make sure that there's enough cash flow to de-risk any cash calls. There's no need to cash call. I call my investors and say, hey, we're in trouble here and to make sure that we're factoring for interest rate changes and we're not finding ourselves in financial strategies that the government's going to rip out from under our feet and so on. So I'm a pretty conservative investor. I guess is one of the things that I can say. But real estate investing for me is something that is you're investing in hard assets. It's something tangible that I know. I understand the potential and now that I've invested in an education to learn how to do this professionally, I'm confident in everything I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Brings us to our fourth question. We're going to go in a different direction now You've been nominated to represent Abbotsford as Director of the Chamber of Commerce. What are your goals in this new role? It's an exciting new role, and what do you plan to contribute to the community?
Speaker 1:Thank you, mario. Actually, you're, it's a. You're right, this is an exciting new role. It's a bit of a diversion from what I, what I'm doing, but it's it's actually in line with things that I care about very much, and it is only a nomination. At this point in time. I should I should stress, but you know where stress.
Speaker 1:But what I think about is I live in Abbotsford and this is a part of the province that's poised to grow.
Speaker 1:We're looking to add 100,000 people to this neighborhood in the next 25 years and to do so, we need to have business that's going to draw them in. We're needing to be able to make this a business-friendly environment that encourages and supports the businesses that we have today and encourages new ones, and, at the same time, we're probably the most vulnerable to the tariffs that are being introduced back and forth between us and our neighbors to the south, which threatens our ability to support these businesses and encourage their growth. So what I'm looking to try and do is understand where people need help and see where I can lend a hand or advice or try and influence change that will support this growth that we need. We need to see more young people in the valley here. We need to see more people get interested in the local industry and try and support what we're doing, and we need to be prepared to grow. So I'm all about trying to set the framework for that and anything I can do to contribute. I'm all in.
Speaker 2:Encourage the young ones to start new businesses.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really good. And finally, Steve, our fifth and final question for today as a seasoned professional, how do you manage your time? You need to balance your career now, your investment, a real estate investment career. You have a podcast of your own, your family life. What type of tools do you use or strategies to stay organized?
Speaker 1:Thank you, marielle. You know it's really fresh and it's really an important question. I think that it's something that I struggled with for a fair bit. I find there are many distractions that can absorb, or can consume, a fair amount of your time. Social media is a big one. You can get started rolling down your feet and the next thing you know two hours have gone by. So for me, I've actually adopted something called time blocking. I think it's a really powerful tool that, coupled with some self-discipline, can really ensure that you're accomplishing and succeeding at the things that you feel are important accomplishing and succeeding at the things that you feel are important.
Speaker 1:So I've broken my day into half hour chunks. Specifically, before I go to work as I told you, I work full time and after I come home, I have broken my, broken my day into half hour segments and I've allocated those segments to certain things. So I'll wake up in the morning and have a cup of coffee, and that's one segment. I allow myself time to actually get ready, but then I'm on the exercise mat and I'm practicing whatever I need to try and feel like I'm ready for the day. I've got time to make the lunch walk the dog.
Speaker 1:I'll be analyzing some deals first thing in the morning, potentially interviewing somebody for my podcast in the morning because a lot of the folks I deal with are on the other side of the country and that time zone works for them and then I'm off to work and I come back home and I'm on a podcast or I'm learning something from one of the masterclasses that I'm part of, and then I'm doing some follow-up with prospects and at the end of the day then I'll get on social media. So if I start the day with social media or the news, I'll lose time. If I save that for the end of the day, then at the very least I'll have got the things out of the way that I need to do before I get into the things that I want to do.
Speaker 2:I think that helps. That's very good insight. Time blocking is such an important part of staying organized in your life, and what I like from what you said is that you do time block but you also reserve time for leisure and it's not, you know, an unbalanced time blocking.
Speaker 1:Well, you know you're right time blocking. Well, you know you're right. And I mean, I think most important that I missed thank you for reminding me is that I booked time with my wife and my son after I'm finished with the work that I need to do during the day to be able to say, okay, this is now family time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I try not to schedule anything on the weekends.
Speaker 1:We'll see how that works.
Speaker 2:Hey, listen, we're always learning. Steve, thank you so much for taking the time to be on one of our episodes. Lots of value, lots of lessons. I hope that our listeners take a little piece of your knowledge and take them, take it on their journey. But for now we'll leave it at that and once again, thank you for taking the time to answer some questions.
Speaker 1:Great fun, Mario. Thank you for having me. I look forward to seeing the episode and seeing what you've got next in store. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning into the 5 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.