Introduction

It's a few minutes past seven o'clock and I'm at the back of the room at a REIN™ event. Patrick Francey, C.E.O. of REIN, is on the stage, opening the program. I take in the room—about 500 investors who are quietly creating their financial independence in the Canadian real estate market. Imagine that! Behind the bad news headlines of eurozone economic woes, a jobless U.S. workforce and the constant noise about where real estate markets are headed in Canada (which bubble will be the first to burst?), is a group of sophisticated investors hanging on to their financial goals. In fact, many of them are telling me that despite investing for more than 20 years, there has never been a better time to invest in long-term positive-cash flowing Canadian real estate. And I agree with them, but only in certain markets.

They are not crazy—and neither am I. I am not in the bullish or the bearish camp. I am pragmatic, neither a blind optimist nor a pessimist, and I am definitely not conflicted about my message. So let me be clear: when it comes to investing in your future, I really do believe that today is the perfect day to start whether in smooth economic waters or turmoil.

Being a pragmatist, I am not telling you to quit your day job, cash in every stock you own or leverage your family home to access a line of credit you can use to buy the first piece of real estate you come across on today's market. (An important disclaimer here: I will not now or ever try to sell you on the merits of a particular piece of investment property.) But I am telling you that real estate investment makes sense. It made sense 25 years ago when I bought my first investment property, and it still makes sense today.

The REIN Connection

Let me explain why I am so confident. A lot of Canadians know me as “that real estate guy.” They hear me on the radio or see me on TV and they recognize my voice and face. Some of them know that I am a founding partner of a national organization called the Real Estate Investment Network™ Ltd., more commonly known as REIN. I got involved with REIN 20 years ago. This relationship is critical to my story—and to my lasting enthusiasm for this particular asset class. But my real estate investment story does not begin with REIN.

By the time REIN came into my life, I had already invested in Canadian real estate, and looking back, I do wish that REIN had been in my life from the first property purchase onwards. In its earliest days, REIN was a pretty small organization, and I liked the fact that hanging out with this group of investors gave me access to what felt like rather exclusive opportunities to talk about real estate investment with like-minded individuals. Some of these people had already amassed impressive hands-on expertise thanks to the success of their own portfolios. Imagine what that was like for a guy like me! I was not yet a real estate investment “insider,” but I was honing my investment skills, strategies and systems by surrounding myself with people who were fully immersed in investment real estate. The environment we wanted to create in REIN gelled quickly as those of us involved started to improve our results and reduce our risks by leveraging each other's experiences.

That early REIN experience became the catalyst for everything else I did in business. Building an atmosphere of collaboration, and openly sharing secrets, strategies and contacts—all the while providing amazing value for the members' dollar—were and remain the foundational elements of REIN.

Back then, the real estate education industry was far from cohesive and it definitely was not based on the philosophy we have since adopted. While I genuinely liked what I was learning from my REIN counterparts, in a lot of cases I also worked with investors outside of the organization. There I discovered a lot of activities and people whose underlying motives were suspect. These individuals were teaching business models that simply could not be sustained. These experiences to this day inspire the REIN team to stay focused on the business plan we established: help many and in return, you, too, get helped along the way.

I knew that you didn't have to take advantage of people's naivety, greed or desperation in order to have a long-term profitable business that also made a difference in the community. In the field of real estate investment education, there are promoters out to make a lot of fast cash for themselves while simultaneously generating lasting pain for a high percentage of their clients.

With my own portfolio growing along with values that were strong and sustainable, my wife Connie and I assumed full control of REIN in 2001 as the others retired. We made it our focus to make sure that this organization stayed far away from the shark-like promoters whose business models were all about separating honest people from their hard-earned money. As with most businesses, we made mistakes. We worked with some people we continue to respect today and with others whose influence was detrimental to the positive impact REIN was generating.

I am pleased to say that REIN stayed the course—and Canadians took note. Since 1992, REIN has grown from a British Columbia-based organization with a few dozen active members to a national association with more than 3,400 members. Right now, it is also being launched internationally. Thanks to its focus on teaching members how to buy and sell real estate to create long-term wealth, REIN members have secured more than $4 billion of Canadian real estate. None of that real estate is connected to REIN, the organization, because we do not sell property to our members. What we do continue to offer is a safe place to learn, access to exclusive research and direction on what tactics to use to profit in each segment of the changing economic cycle. Many of our members attend evening workshops once a month, plus all-day workshops every three months or so. Those who can't make it to these events automatically receive full digital recordings of the proceedings. They come out regularly because they see these gatherings as a chance to learn, to meet like-minded investors and to stay ahead of market trends.

Internet access has also helped us to find new ways to help investors. In addition to hosting valuable members-only market research data on REIN's website, we also post templates for all of the documents a strategic investor—either rookie or veteran—needs.

If you want to see what a first-class joint-venture agreement looks like, or peruse the details of a professional statement of accounts, just click your way to my blog at www.DonRCampbell.com and discover the latest Canadian, U.S. and international market research. Those are good examples of the kind of hands-on business tools REIN membership delivers.

REIN relationships are also critical. It is not uncommon for me to attend a REIN event and overhear snatches of enthusiastic conversations that include comments such as: “That happened to me, too. Here's what I did . . .” or “Do you know who I should talk to about that contract/that property manager/that neighbourhood?” I love it!

In addition to the relationships that investors build by participating in REIN, REIN's market research and analysis is second-to-none in the Canadian real estate industry. It is used by media, industry groups, cities and investors across the country. That unbiased data really sets REIN apart. Because it is market-driven and geographically applicable, this information helps members make well-informed decisions about the real estate investments they buy, sell or hold to generate long-term wealth. Do you need to know more about how a new transportation route in Vancouver or Hamilton might impact real estate values in certain neighbourhoods? Check out REIN's website. Do you want to know more about how the oil sands development might affects housing prices in Edmonton or Saskatoon? Those are the types of questions that strategic investors need to have answered, even if they don't know it when they begin. Best of all, REIN doesn't propose a thesis and then search for the data to support it. We let the actual data lead us to the conclusion, be it good or bad.

Good Answers to Tough Questions

Without proper, unbiased information, an investor is really just a speculator. That's precisely why this book is so timely, especially given the turmoil that continues to disrupt the world's economy. The Little Book of Real Estate Investing in Canada summarizes a sophisticated approach to real estate investing. “Sophisticated” does not mean “complicated.” On the contrary, I am a huge proponent of the Authentic Canadian Real Estate (ACRE) system. Backed by two decades of field experience, the ACRE system is all about learning how to do things right and then doing them right, again and again.

I would never tell you that real estate investment is easy. I can assure you that it is a learned skill—and that those who learn to do it well can expect success.

To help you understand what I mean by a sophisticated approach to real estate investing, this book follows a very specific path. Those who already own investment property will be able to read this book and then review their portfolios, business strategies and goals with a fresh perspective on what they should do next, or do differently given a changing market. And many newcomers will find that the book encapsulates the basics so that they will be able to move with confidence towards buying their first piece of real estate investment property. Here is a synopsis of what the book covers:

The same goes for my relationship with sports. I do not shy away from the notion of winners and losers, and I know which side of the score sheet I want to be on. When troubled by a particular business snag, it sometimes helps me to shift into the realm of sports. Again, it is an issue of creative reframing and deliberately finding a fresh perspective. This cognitive approach helps me to see how my inability to hit a home run, for example, may have started in the dugout, long before I stepped up to bat.

Again, I want to welcome you to The Little Book of Real Estate Investing in Canada. I have read a lot of business how-to books that left me wondering what they were really trying to tell me. That will not happen to you with this book. I promise to be straightforward (sometimes brutally so). You have questions about how real estate investment works in Canada and I want to answer them—and more. This little book can't tell you everything you need to know. It does tell you what you most need to know.

I know thousands of Canadians who got their start in this business by buying a single revenue property. I know what real estate investing has done for them and I know what it can do for you. You just want the facts? Then that's perfect, because facts are all I've got!