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The 5 Questions Podcast
Join us as we unlock real estate and business insights, one question at a time.
The 5 Questions Podcast
Cash Flow Secrets of Student Housing with Patricia Wilson
Patricia Wilson shares her journey from marketing professional to successful student housing investor, revealing how relationship-building and treating tenants like clients drives her $1000+ monthly cash flow from each property.
• Relationships and energy are critical to success in both marketing and real estate
• Student housing properties evolved into a co-living model with young professionals making up two-thirds of tenants
• Patricia's marketing background gives her an edge in property promotion and tenant acquisition
• Modern, contemporary styling with good lighting attracts quality tenants
• Joint venture partnerships require clarity, documented expectations, and mutual respect
• Education is the foundation of real estate success—invest in yourself first
Invest in yourself through education and experience. The money you pay to learn from people who have done it before will come back to you, and if finances are tight, dedicate time to free resources that will help you determine which real estate strategy fits you best.
https://pwilsonmarketing.ca/
And it cash flows over $1,000 a month.
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 a seasoned marketing and communication producer with over 30 years of experience and a passionate real estate investor focused on student housing, she leads creative teams to manage a thriving rental portfolio and she brings a unique blend of strategy and heart to everything she does. Welcome, patricia Wilson. Welcome to the show, patricia. Patricia, the concept of the podcast is very simple Five questions about real estate or business and we get straight to the point. You ready, okay let's do it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, as mentioned, you have over 30-year career leading marketing and creative teams. What key lessons from that world have most influenced your approach as a real estate investor today?
Speaker 1:Oh, what a great question investor today. Oh, what a great question People relationships. It comes down to relationships building the team in either industry, really trusting them, knowing their strengths, knowing your strengths and your weaknesses, so that you have that covered in the scenario. Yeah, it would be relationships and trust. Trust that you're doing the best you can in whatever team environment you are, and bring your best.
Speaker 2:And when you say relationship, can we talk a little bit more on this? Because I think this is a very important point that people should know? Real estate is all about relationships. Some people think it's you know. Oh, if you know how to calculate your numbers, then you're good, but you need people around you. So when you talk about relationships, what do you focus more? When you're trying to learn about someone, for example?
Speaker 1:Generally all my teammates in either industry have been through referral, through another relationship. So, honestly, I go with energy. Yeah, Um, it's I. Honestly, I go with energy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I, I, I go with um the sense if I can communicate, um they're open, um they don't care that I drop F-bombs a lot. I know that's rude, but there's a certain certain people out there that do not like swearing and you can't work with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I think the point that you're saying here is the energy between the two people has to flow.
Speaker 1:If you're going to be partners? Yes, if you're going to be yeah, go ahead you have to give each other, especially in the marketing and production side, because it's the creative energy of brainstorming and coming up with the solutions to meet timelines, to meet the budget. It has to be a lot of back and forth and you have to trust each other. You have to like each other. I work with people I like and they like me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That it. That's key, and you know I have worked with people I don't um like yeah. And it just makes it a lot harder for yourself.
Speaker 2:It doesn't flow well.
Speaker 1:It doesn't flow. Every little mistake that can happen happens, and it's not because anybody's trying to make mistakes, it's just there's. I like I can't tell you. I've had about a dozen projects in 30 years that from day one, no matter what we did, the team as a whole, it just went sideways. Yeah, and I can't pin it on anyone or pin it on anything, it's just the energy wasn't there.
Speaker 2:Well, let's continue with our second question, because we talked about you specializing in student housing.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So what inspired that focus and what makes student rentals a smart investment in today's market?
Speaker 1:What inspired it was the cash flow. One day in 2011, early 2011 or late 2010,. I can't remember, but I was part of a real estate group called Real Estate Action Group here in Vancouver and it was led by Ozzy Jurok and, anyways, by being a member of that group we had access to deals, listings. Anybody could put their deal up, whatever you know, it was a portal. So one evening I'm logging in and a member had posted my first house, the 650 Lambert Avenue, and I'm looking at the numbers and I instantly bring up my spreadsheet that I was blessed to get from Kyle Green back in the day and I put it in and I'm like and I do it again, because I'm like there's no way it can cash flow that much. And I put it again and I'm like and I do it again, cause I'm like there's no way it can flash flow that much. And I put it again and I was like, okay, so I show the numbers to my husband. And he's like, okay, go check it out. So I went, I looked at it. It's on the Island and I live in Squamish, it's in the NIMO and I went in there and it was not even eight years old yet. So everything was very new and it was full, full leased up and, um, I just enjoyed the vibe, the energy.
Speaker 1:The first year I'm not going to lie was brutal because I was still under the misconception of real estate investing being passive or cash flow being passive, so I wasn't proactive about the leases. I didn't know that the leases were going to expire soon or whatever. I didn't really pay attention to that side of the property management of the vacancy. Over the years I have learned tons and what I really enjoy about it is actually meeting the students actually having tenants. The student housing model is the term I use, but it's actually becoming more of a co-living model with young professionals that can't afford their own place yet after they graduate first couple of years. So over the last six years my tenancy is two-thirds young professionals and one-third students.
Speaker 1:And what I like about it is the turnover. I know a lot of people don't want turnover, but I get these students staying between 12 to 18, 24 months. With the co-living scenario, I get them staying 24 to 36 months. So the turnover is not like it used to be, where it used to be by term right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that helps the cashflow, obviously, with your vacancy rate being smaller. But it gives you an opportunity to raise rents if you can, which I have over the years, and it also you're never empty because each room is an individual lease. At least that's how I operate A lot of. I have a very different handling of my student housing. I know a lot of people. I've met a lot of investors that do student housing and they're much more hands-off um. So I enjoy doing the property management. I enjoy putting the tenants in um and making sure the dynamics fit in. This everybody gets along and stuff like that. But what got me into it was the money cash flow, pure cash flow nobody's gonna argue with you on that.
Speaker 2:if the cash flow is good, no and it's still cash flow.
Speaker 1:This the Nanaimo house or duplex. I own both sides now. I bought one side in 2011, the second side in 2014, and there's six rooms per side and it cash flows over $1,000 a month.
Speaker 2:That's good, very good.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Brings us to our third question, and I wanted to ask you how has your creative background helped you find, renovate, market your properties differently than maybe the average investor?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, the average investor, depending on their training right or their education, don't use all the don't really aren't aware of the marketing tools that I am Like. I already own domains across the Canada for student housing. I have a template for my websites and I've utilized SEO. I got my Google profiles for each house. I've utilized SEO. I got my Google profiles for each house. All the tools that I use for my clients to succeed in their business.
Speaker 1:I treat it like a business. Maybe that's the difference between your average real estate investor or your new real estate investor. I don't know, maybe it's a side hustle or whatever, but I treat it as a business. The minute I'm looking at a property, I'm looking at how I'm going to market it. Who's around there? Obviously, the market is hugely important and the community. For student housing. You have to be within 20 minutes of walking to the school. Ideally, 10 minutes is the perfect scenario, plus having amenities and the bus route there too for going out. But my marketing has brought in. I'm not afraid to try different messaging and communications through Facebook, places for students, kijiji. You know all rentals like and experimenting with different copy and stuff and see what's attracting. I can see what's giving me the best return of the marketing kind of thing. So and I treated like I think, because marketing to me is my business, that has translated nicely into treating the student housing as a business versus just income, extra income and my retirement fund kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And there was one word in the question was renovate, and I'm curious to know what you're going to say about that. But your creativity is there something that you do in each of your houses that is specific because it's student housing? Is there something that you put in like a type of amenity or something that comes out?
Speaker 1:I try to make them very modern, contemporary, funky, especially the Edmonton one. I went in with a healthy budget and I just changed the lighting. I just added really great furniture and added furniture pieces, because the cool thing is, all the places I've bought have come with some sort of amount of furniture so I added to it and made it more contemporary, more modern. The two duplexes I have, or three, all have light, lots of light. You need brightness, you need it to be welcoming and you need space. With six people living in two floors so you need living space that works well for different personalities and cooking styles. So you try to make it as welcoming as possible. I've never done a reno per se. I'm not a fixer, flipper or whatever that. Edmonton, all I bought is cosmetics. Everything is more cosmetics to attract the clientele I want, which is young professionals, master students, even first-year students, because the parents at this point are looking at the places. So making it look new and fresh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good, Very good. Question number four and this we touched a little bit on it, but I want to go deeper with you. And this we touched a little bit on it, but I want to go deeper with you as a deal, finder and joint venture partner what do you look for in a successful real estate collaboration and what should people know before they partner up with someone?
Speaker 1:Again back to the original question about teams and liking who. You have to like the person you're joint venture. You don't have to be best friends, you don't have to be. You don't even have to be friends to be honest, your business acquaintance, with respect and trust. You each know your strengths and weaknesses. Again, back to strengths and weaknesses and respect each other's role. Back to strengths and weaknesses and respect each other's role. So I'm the working partner in my JV and the money partner is very passive and that's how I approach it. I make it very black and white in the beginning of the initial interest.
Speaker 2:Agreement.
Speaker 1:Agreement. Or you know, even when chit-chatting with that, you know at a party and people ask you what you do, kind of thing. Um, I just really focus on expectations. What do each side of the the agreement want? Like you know, I want this, what do you want? And having it documented so that there's no surprises, no question marks. The joint venture agreement is pretty clear Clarity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, clarity, that's what I was going to say. There's one word that comes out of it, it's clarity. You don't want surprises.
Speaker 1:No, because owning a home is enough of a surprise. You don't want surprises. No, because owning a home is enough of a surprise. No-transcript relationship that started the whole joint venture has to be solid and very clear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it brings us to our last and final question for today.
Speaker 1:Yay, that was apt.
Speaker 2:You're clearly passionate about helping others grow, whether it's in your business or real estate. What's one piece of advice you'd give someone who is starting their journey either in business or real estate? What's one piece of advice you'd give someone who is starting their journey either in business or real estate?
Speaker 1:Education, education. Let's focus on real estate. Um, you really should educate yourself the fundamentals of real estate and you know the pillars that make a market good, why you'll make cash flow and your personality. You might not be a property manager Like my students are my clients in my business, so I treat them as clients. I've seen a lot of property managers and real estate investors treat their tenants like they're not worthy of their attention.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And it's a partnership. So to learn all that, to feel it out, but make sure you know what you want if you're going to get into real estate, your why and we all talk about our why and I found when I started real estate investing I didn't have a why, I just wanted, I just liked it. I just really enjoyed the vibe of real estate investing, the knowledge, the people. Eventually I got my why, other than I want more money, yeah, but education is what my portfolio grew once. I decided to invest in myself, to learn more, pass the fundamentals like joint ventures.
Speaker 1:I highly recommend Michael Ponte's classes. They're phenomenal. Like surround yourself with like-minded people or people that know more than you. Pick their brains, go to networking, ask questions. Don't be afraid to say I don't know this, you know. And with money or without, whatever is part of the equation you want to do, you should always do your own alone. I think everybody who's a real estate investor should have something in their portfolio that they've done themselves, because they've learned how to get there, and then they can really understand what that means to have that in their portfolio, either as a joint venture or whatever you know. But it comes down to education and experience getting that.
Speaker 2:I like the fact that you put the importance on education because it costs money. Right, when kids go to school, you buy supplies, you pay for the school taxes and all this. But as adults, a lot of people think, oh well, I'll just learn it on my own. Well, invest in yourself. Invest in yourself. The money that you pay to learn from people that have done it before and better than you is going to come back to you yeah, yeah, and that you know.
Speaker 1:invest in yourself and if it's, if it's financially difficult, then put in the time, because there is, there are a lot of resources out there. You just have to put in the time and then, once you put in the time, you'll know what you want to do in real estate, because there's so many strategies out there that it is very overwhelming.
Speaker 2:Well, Patricia, thank you so much for giving us your insight today. Thank you for having me. I hope that all of our listeners will take a piece of your wisdom on their journey and I'm looking forward to see you soon. See you again very soon.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me, mario, take care.
Speaker 2:Bye-bye. Thanks for tuning in to 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.