How Systems Let You Scale Real Estate Without Burning Out | Portfolio & Process Mastery

Nicole Fiore (00:00)

Those types of things were taking REA like multiple hours a week, which is crazy. Like there’s things that need to get done, right? You need to have invoices filed because you need to have your invoices filed for when you do your taxes. Because if you don’t have those things filed properly for your taxes, tax season is awful. Like I remember tax season of 2022, it was…

Micah Johnson (00:22)

Right.

Nicole Fiore (00:27)

It was just late nights and, you know, like my husband and I are two people team, like now we have an EA, but it’s him and I, and we have two kids.

Micah Johnson (02:08)

Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson, and today I’m joined by Nicole, who’s been making some serious moves in real estate since 2017. Nicole, welcome in, glad to have you.

Nicole Fiore (02:20)

Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Micah Johnson (02:22)

Absolutely, I’m excited for our talk today. I think our listeners are really gonna take some value away from understanding how systems are the point. They are the thing that makes sure your business keeps going and growing. And I’m excited to dive in on that. I think it’s an important message. So for folks who may not know you yet, let’s talk about what your main focus right now is and what markets you’re operating.

Nicole Fiore (02:45)

All right, so my husband and I run a company called Coast to Coast Homes, and that is how we are set up right now. We have projects and a portfolio across Canada. We live in Moncton, New Brunswick, and we have a number of properties here that we help run. And then we have land developments in Nova Scotia. We have a land development in Ontario, as well as a few properties and an apartment building.

and we have land developments in Victoria, BC. So we are literally from one coast to the next, East coast, West coast. Yeah.

Micah Johnson (03:18)

literally coast to coast I love that.

I love that living out that name. Well, take us back for a second. How did you and your husband get into real estate? What led you to where you are today?

Nicole Fiore (03:29)

Right. So the name Coast to Coast Homes didn’t come from having properties coast to coast or even dreaming about having that. It was literally that we were living in British Columbia at the time and my husband’s from the East and he had just driven out from like Halifax all the way to Vancouver. And so that was where Coast to Coast came from. And we

Micah Johnson (03:31)

Thank

Nicole Fiore (03:51)

We basically attended a seminar for free and then signed up for the three-day workshop and then signed up for the education program and then jumped in with both feet. We started just by buying our own duplex. Well, it was a single-family home that we renovated and turned into a duplex. We did this all like thousands of miles away from it. We did it all from afar. We were living in BC when this was an Ontario property.

And then we did it again and realized that we had two Ontario properties and we were kind of maxed out of our mortgage capabilities, like our borrowing capabilities, because Ontario properties were like, two Ontario properties was just over a million dollars of mortgages. And we knew we needed to find some kind of strategy or way to keep growing. We weren’t.

going to settle with just two properties and we didn’t want to wait like the five years it would probably have taken for us to refinance those properties. And so we joined another group that taught us how to partner with people and buy properties together. And then we realized that apartment buildings were, you know, an extremely efficient way to grow your portfolio and to grow your wealth. And so we took another course and taught ourselves how to do well.

they taught us how to analyze, purchase, and then also run apartment buildings. And then we started partnering with builders, one builder in Truro, and then we have a builder in Victoria, and we build single-family homes. Typically, now we call it the missing middle because that’s of like a little bit more trendy, but it’s always been this sort of like middle income earners.

building custom homes, we’re building homes for people who you know deserve to live in a nice home to call their own. And so we build and price accordingly for that.

Micah Johnson (06:42)

Okay. It’s powerful. love that mission there. One thing I really enjoy that you’ve said so far too, and I think this is always step one in real estate is the education part. It’s education. That’s the first action. You went to the seminar and then you took the next step and then you took the next step and now you’re buying property and then you took more education. And I just want listeners and watchers out there to realize that is always step one. I know we all want to get to writing the offer. I know, but that’s not step one.

That’s like step 10 in the process of real estate investing. And the first few are all education-based. How did that help y’all be successful and get you where you are today?

Nicole Fiore (07:23)

So when we talk about our story, usually we talk about the sort of like growing and then educating and then growing and then educating. We’ve always been really good at leveraging that education and like sort of pulling out exactly what we need from it. But then you get to a point where you’re like outgrown the education and you know you need more. And so, you know, there’s, I mean, there is a lot of real estate and

investing education out there, but you have to be pretty precise about who’s gonna work or what’s gonna work right for you. you know, initially it was sort of just a foundational education. Then it was more specific to partnering, then it was more specific to apartment building. And then what we knew what we needed was business.

like helping build a business and helping scale specifically a real estate investing business. And so we joined a mastermind that was for that, which again, a little bit different from the other programs that we had been doing before, but it was exactly what we needed at that moment. yeah, I mean, don’t think that education is helpful.

Like what you get from the education is obviously helpful because it gives you the points and it gives you the ideas and you know the structure But what you end up pulling out of it and taking with you is the community and the sort of like network the support network I know that our very like the second education group that we were part of we’re all still part of all of these networks that we you know started back in 2017, but

the very first or the second group that we joined, when we encountered issues or something that we had not encountered before, it was so comforting because it’s scary to sort of like get outside your comfort zone and think outside the box. And I don’t mean think outside the box as in like creative financing. I just mean like we’re all raised to sort of.

you know, get a good job, buy a house, pay down your mortgage, you know, and hope to, you know, retire wealthy. But when you go into real estate investing, you understand what good debt is and you understand that it’s okay to like not pay, you know, like when you buy a house, don’t pay down as much of the mortgage initially. You have to sort of retrain your mind to understand how, you know, like

Micah Johnson (09:39)

Right.

Nicole Fiore (10:01)

leveraging works and equity works and how to leverage one property to get another property. so using our networks to sort of help us push our own concept of what we could accomplish, that was probably the most helpful part because you can like be book smart and learn as much like you can learn all the things. But if you don’t have the belief in yourself and you don’t think that that’s that you can

Micah Johnson (10:02)

Right.

Nicole Fiore (10:30)

you know, accomplish these things and you might not get very far or you’ll get a certain way, but you won’t get to where you could probably go if you had those support systems in place.

Micah Johnson (11:18)

Real state the team sport. It takes a village like raising kids because there’s still it’s such a huge term and it gets so niche down. I love how you explained general education. The niche education, the niche education, which is really how it goes. And then once you get to the more niche educations, you run into the masterminds. You run into the communities where you realize, OK, I have all access to the information, but I have access to people who are

Nicole Fiore (11:23)

Yeah. ⁓

Micah Johnson (11:48)

doing it. And that’s the big difference. There’s like we all been through the book knowledge part and then the real world knowledge and that gray area in the middle. When you have those people to call, Hey, Tony, I this is what I’m going through, man. What what do you do? What’d you see? I went through that a couple years ago. This is what think about this. Think about that. It really gets you unstuck fast. It gets you I call it velocity for your business. It gives you that chance to scale in a way

That’s effective, right? Everybody gets obsessed with scaling, but you do it the wrong way and it falls apart. When you do it with people, it grows because you’re not, it uses the proper tools at the proper time. And that’s something we were talking a little bit about pre-call that y’all ran into is where you grew really fast, that’s the systems underneath it worked there. Take us through that part of your journey and how important it was to set those things up.

Nicole Fiore (12:20)

It does.

Right, so, you know, one of the things to know about us is that my husband is in IT, and for his job specifically, he creates documentation, he creates workflows, he understands processes, that’s his job. He makes things more efficient for his company. And so when we started growing, you know, we had one property, then a year later we had another property, and then very quickly we started just like acquiring properties. We had acquired

30 properties in one year, either to flip or to hold. But I mean, that’s a lot of properties. Sorry. Some of them were apartment buildings. And so it was a very busy time. We had partners for all of them. We were setting up corporations to hold apartment buildings.

We were dealing with lawyers and accountants and bookkeepers and bookkeepers and bookkeepers because it’s very difficult to find a good bookkeeper for real estate investing. A lot of them don’t know what they’re doing for our specific set of needs. You need someone who either is a real estate investor or who has been working with real estate investors for a long time. And so my husband, as somebody who works in like

workflows and processes, he knew that we were struggling and he knew that we needed them, but we were just going too fast to set them up. Because you do understand that sometimes you have to take a step back and you have to go slow in order to set up these processes. But we couldn’t figure out how to do that because we were moving so fast and growing so fast. so, you know, at some point in 2022,

there was a market shift. We had already decided to stop acquiring properties at the beginning of 2022, but that was also when there was a market shift and things slowed down. know, like rates started going through the roof and that was when we realized that, okay, now is the time that we can look at our processes and look at our systems and look at our bookkeeping and really get a handle on

you know, creating a system that can work not just for today and like not just for our 30 properties, but when we scale and like again, and we, you know, like get to 150 properties, the same system is going to work for that one. And so it takes a long time. Like I remember we started in 2022, but it didn’t even feel like we were really settled into it until around 2024.

maybe even towards the end of 2024. Like it takes a long time. I mean, in that time, like you said, we were in a more scale-focused mastermind. We were getting lessons from all the people, like all the amazing speakers that we got to connect with. And we eventually got to a point where we felt really comfortable with what we had created.

We knew that it was scalable because that was our goal. And of course, when AI started doing what AI can do, we started being able to create automations where there’s automatic processes that happen. Nobody has to do anything. When an email comes in from a vendor into our accounting email, it automatically gets filed where it’s supposed to go in our G drive.

Those types of things were taking REA like multiple hours a week, which is crazy. Like there’s things that need to get done, right? You need to have invoices filed because you need to have your invoices filed for when you do your taxes. Because if you don’t have those things filed properly for your taxes, tax season is awful. Like I remember tax season of 2022, it was…

Micah Johnson (17:27)

Right.

Nicole Fiore (17:32)

It was just late nights and, you know, like my husband and I are two people team, like now we have an EA, but it’s him and I, and we have two kids.

And so, you know, like he’s late at night getting that stuff done, and I’m the one with the kids, and both of us feel like we’re not getting enough from the other, right? And so getting to a point where your paperwork and your filing

is when a bookkeeper, an accountant, and a mortgage broker all say, your files are pristine, I love working with you, I will always work with you, you’re in a good place, right? And so, and we get that. Like our mortgage broker is always so upset, like impressed with what our filing looks like. like, I love working with you. I ask you for something and you send it right away. It’s amazing. You know, like it’s…

Micah Johnson (18:29)

Right.

Nicole Fiore (18:30)

It’s

a great feeling to have. so that’s what we worked on for years. And it feels really good to be in this place where we’re at right now.

Micah Johnson (18:42)

Well, and it’s, it follows right along with your whole journey where you’re not upfront. You don’t know you’re supposed to build those things. You’re learning other things. And then you get to a point in the business where you realize, okay, I actually want a business doing this. I want this to be bigger than just me buying a property a year. I see more potential. And that’s where it shifts to building that machine that trades in real estate. It’s no law. And now we’re into basic business fundamentals where these go beyond just the industry that we’re in.

and you have to grow as a person. that is very stretching is a good way to say it because you’re doing things you haven’t thought of before. You’re having to problem-solve in ways you haven’t thought. The way you described it when you slowed down, there’s an old quote from the Tao Te Chang, which is this ancient book that says, two feet to gain the next 10 yards. it’s so, exactly, it’s getting, taking that time to step back because good things got you there.

Nicole Fiore (19:32)

Yeah. It’s like the arrow.

Micah Johnson (19:40)

And it’s funny how good things can get you frustrated where you’re in those late nights and you’re doing those things. You’re like, I didn’t get into this for this. And that’s where it’s like, okay, so what are you going to do? You can either solve a problem or quit. And we’re not quitters. So it puts you in that place of who do I need to call? What’s that thing I need to set up? And it’s just a bite at a time. And it feels like a huge mountain up front. But like y’all showed, even though it took two years, now you’re in that place where

Nicole Fiore (19:40)

Mm-hmm.

Micah Johnson (20:08)

When you have a lender saying they want to work with you, you’re in a great spot. That’s a great spot, right? Cause it’s one, they’re not going through your files with a fine tooth comb every single time you’re getting speed, you’re getting honestly preference. They see your file come in and set up a different file. All right, Nicole’s here. Let’s work hers. We know we can get that one through because they’re there to get paid too. They get paid on getting the mortgages out. So what do you think they’re going to do? Choose the easy ones are all the hard ones, you know?

Nicole Fiore (20:35)

Exactly. Yeah, that is exactly it. It feels good. Like I said, it feels really good. And I know my husband being who he is, it’s like a little internal, like he’s like, yeah, yeah, he just loves it.

Micah Johnson (20:49)

Yeah.

And that’s when we’re doing, there’s another call I do with folks where we do a deep dive on their business. And there’s one question that I asked them where it says, what keeps you up at night? And if you can ask yourself that question and honestly answer it, it is revealing to you where you need a system and a process. That’s what it’s revealing to you. Cause any loose end, that’s what’s haunting you at one o’clock in the morning. That’s what wakes you up thinking, God, I got to fix that. What about that? What if this happens? What if this happens? So if you’re experiencing that out there,

All those are indicators to take a look at something. It doesn’t mean something’s necessarily wrong. It just needs some action needs to be taken in that particular area of your business. And if you don’t have people around you, your first step is those relationships. Who can you go talk to? Cause that’s, man, I love that about real estate. We know what’s happening. It’s not like this is a brand new industry. It’s been happening for a century at least. So what, what, how does it work? The mastermind you’re part of, those are people that have already built it.

And they’re still in the process of building it. And that is, again, I said it earlier, real estate’s a team sport. When you’re in those rooms with those people, it’s also relieving a lot of stress. Cause one thing my mentor tells me, Hey man, if the solution to your problems in your phone, you don’t have a problem, just make a phone call. And it’s like, okay, deal. That’s great. So like being intentional about getting in those rooms is important cause it, man, it just sets you up for success.

Nicole Fiore (22:10)

Exactly.

Micah Johnson (22:20)

Now, before we check out, y’all created something based on your experience with building these systems, right? Take us into that and how you’re helping other investors out there.

Nicole Fiore (22:30)

Right. So when we knew that we had you know something unique in our system, our EA took it, I think she kind of took it upon herself to create this because this is the system that she sort of works on or works in every day. And we are also part of an AI mastermind because of course we need to be leveraging this amazing system that is out there.

And so she took it upon herself as like a side job to create. Basically, we call it the core install. And so it’s a package, well, like it’s an offering for our company, but what it is is a package that then we will sort of like install on your system. So if you’re working in G Drive, if you’re working in Google workspace, and you obviously have systems that are filing that you need to have set up.

for, like I said, your accountant, your bookkeeper, your mortgage broker, all the things that need access to your files, she’s created this sort of like plug and play system where she will take a look at your… You sort of need to qualify to get this system because it doesn’t work unless you use G Drive and have to have a certain level of organization, I guess. And then she basically will set up

the automations that we have set up, you know, like I can’t remember, I don’t think I said it here, I think I mentioned it earlier, but REA, she automated herself out of $250 a week in her pay, like when she set this up, because it works so well, because, you know, instead of her going in and downloading invoices and replacing invoices, now she has it automated. And so we…

We created, she basically created a package that she’s now able to offer to other investors. She only takes two investors a month, just because it takes time and she wants to make sure that we have the quality of service to whoever wants to try it and who, and us. She still works for us. And yeah, we call it the core install.

You can reach out to us. We don’t have like a specific webpage for it. We just have like a sales page within our website.

Micah Johnson (24:56)

Okay. Who was that ideal? So you mentioned a couple things. They use G Suite and those things based on where they’re at in their business. Who’s the ideal fit for that?

Nicole Fiore (25:08)

So right

now we’re looking at investors who are just starting out so you don’t get to a crazy point when you have 12 properties and you’re still not organized. So we’re looking at around three, people who will have about three to six properties and we sort of offer it on a sliding scale based on how many properties you have because the more properties you have, the more automation that will happen.

Micah Johnson (25:32)

Excellent, excellent. And again, it’s just y’all are filling a gap that you noticed yourself, because that’s that spot. When you get three to six isn’t an accident. You’ve done some very intentional moves to get to that point. And typically if you get there, you’re not going anywhere. You like what you’re doing. You enjoy real estate. You’re going to be in it for a long time. So then getting those systems set up, it’s really that next step. So I appreciate y’all offering that out. What an EA, that’s incredible.

Nicole Fiore (25:48)

Mm-hmm.

Micah Johnson (25:59)

Again, real estate’s a team sport. As you grow, you need more people. You started out you and your husband, now you add that one. Those are all the little things that make it a legitimate business. One thing I know talking to lot of folks that own this and having friends that own these companies, all of us go through up front that imposter syndrome phase where you’re, what am I doing? Am I just really, is this real? And then you get to that point where like, okay, this is real. I need to set this up.

You build for growth. That’s something you were nailing on earlier. You don’t scale and then build tools. You build and then scale. Cause if you just dump a bunch onto something that’s broken, you are inviting catastrophe into your life.

Nicole Fiore (26:37)

That’s, yeah, well that’s

when you get, you know, like this division between my husband and I and he’s up late and I’m like, where are you? And, you know, he’s like, well, why are you helping me? yeah. Exactly.

Micah Johnson (26:48)

See these two kids on my arms? That’s why.

Well, Nicole, I really appreciate your time, your story, your perspective today. Thanks so much for joining us. I mean, building a business coast to coast in Canada, getting the systems belonging to community. You’re just nailing the things that I see create long-term success in this business for others. So thanks so much for sharing with us. I think we need more folks out there in the business doing it like y’all are doing it. For those that are listening and watching and want to learn more about you follow along with what you have going on. What’s the best way for them to find you?

Nicole Fiore (27:18)

Thanks.

So our website is coasttocoasthomes.ca and on Facebook we’re just at Coast to Coast Homes Canada, right? And then Instagram we’re at Good Homes Canada.

Micah Johnson (27:40)

Excellent. Thanks for sharing that again for those listening and watching check the show notes We’ll have all Nicole’s links there for you Reach out to her follow along if you feel like you need that system in your business touch base with them. See if you qualify Success is not an accident in real estate take advantage of meeting people and using the systems that we already know work for sure as Always if you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode share it with someone else you think you get value out of

And as always, please don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast. We appreciate every single one of you that follow along out there. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators just like Nicole out there building a real business in the industry. Nicole, thanks again. Everybody, we’ll see you on the next episode.