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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Michelle Kesil interviews Martin Ouellet, a former army lieutenant turned realtor and real estate investor. Martin shares his journey from military service to real estate, discussing his focus on building a community for investors and families, his investing strategies, and the mission behind his initiative, Moving Heroes, which supports veterans and uniformed personnel. He emphasizes the importance of networking, values, and community in achieving business success.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Martin Ouellet (00:00)
The network, who I met, who I connected with, who share the same values. ⁓ This is very deep. So when you have, when you recognize, when you know your own value, your worth, when you have a set of values that are life principles that you obey by and you respect yourself and others enough to go by them and recognize when you doubt.you can really go on the road and it’s okay to, you know, tango left and right
Michelle Kesil (02:08)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Martin Ouellet, who is a former army lieutenant turned realtor and real estate investor in the Canada area. So excited to have you here today, Martin.Martin Ouellet (02:30)
Thank you, Michelle.Michelle Kesil (02:32)
I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching being mission driven in your business. So let’s dive in.First off, for those not familiar with you and your work yet, can you share what your main focus is these days?
Martin Ouellet (02:49)
Since I retired fromCanadian army ⁓ about five years ago, I have really refocused my investor journey towards being also an investor in real estate and a real estate agent. ⁓ So in addition to serving families moving out in and out of my own town, we’ve continued to build a portfolio with investors. So we have, live in Kingston, Ontario, which is between Montreal and Toronto, right in the middle. ⁓
Kingston Investors Club, can find it on Facebook. And we have monthly meetups where we have a guest speaker, we discuss about the market and different ways to either start in real estate, creative financing, different experts, the process of buying, due diligence, ⁓ exit strategies, ⁓ taxation, different RBNB, ⁓ et cetera, how to use registered funds that we have in Canada.
similar to the US, to finance projects, etc. So my focus is really on being and building the ecosystem around
families and investors that become investors probably after having purchased a first property or diving straight in from tenants to investors to scaling up their business to multi units ⁓ as a real estate agent in the process of buying and selling and as a local community coach for the club.
Michelle Kesil (04:22)
Awesome. And can you share what markets you operate in?Martin Ouellet (04:28)
My direct local market is Kingston, Ontario. ⁓ basically my team, the Whitted Group, fueled by Concentrum Radistic Group, from the ⁓ east of Toronto, so Quinty West area, up to Brockville. So basically I would say it’s about 250 kilometer radius around the city of Kingston, Ontario.But, and in the process of being a veteran, a realtor, I stood up Moving Heroes, movingheroes.com,
which is basically a network of veteran military spouse or realtors across the country that focus on serving uniformed personnel, either veteran from the military, first responders, peace officers, public service, health providers, health care providers. So that network is all across the country.
in Canada and we basically refer clients to these experienced agents for a five-star service flawless relocation ⁓ and understanding that the uniformed personnel are called for duty to move very often short notice so having an agent that understands the reality ⁓
of these families or these members is really helpful. The beauty of it is that a portion of the proceeds that we get from referring these personnel to real estate agents is carved up ⁓ and given back to true charities, including Moving Heroes, to people in need, including building subsidized housing for veterans, youth, and homelessness. So we’re pretty proud of that. And that’s my national scaling activity for the upcoming year.
discussing with different partners that have ⁓ the uniform and national heroes cost close to their heart.
Michelle Kesil (07:10)
Amazing that you’re supporting people in that way. That’s beautiful.So can you share a little bit more about your investing journey? How did you get started as investor and what type of asset classes are you focused on investing in?
Martin Ouellet (07:28)
We have to go back to ⁓ my return from Afghanistan in 2008. ⁓ I spent 10 months in Afghanistan in Kandahar. Came back from there. I had owned a house for a few years before. Sold a house in Quebec City.beautiful province, to the Ottawa area, the capital, with some equity in the house. So I had listened to podcasts like yours, different people, the Robert K. Zwercki training back in the days was very popular and believe me, coming to Canada to teach. So I was surrounded by people that were successful in business and I had invested.
their profits in real estate for all the good reasons of growth of capital, securing capital and sustaining wealth. So I’ve explored that. I basically give a call to 10 real estate agents in my area, met with five, picked one. The one I picked had the portfolio that I was targeting at the time. It was owning about a dozen of smaller…
family properties or single home and for me that was not bad so I ended up buying my first semi detached dad for all and three months later like later my first sixplex ⁓ using my own money from my line of credit from my own property and savings and then learning right off the bat how to write the first lease with them
tenants and the first two months the upstairs tenants of the sixplex are not paying. It’s wintertime in winter in Canada. get five feet of snow outside and I’m chasing for rent knocking on the door until I realized that once they left and I shook hand with a gentleman, a neighbor, a property maintainer. We renovated the units and I learned what burr was about. Buy, repair, raise the rent, refinance and repeat.
So I learned my first lesson in the first few months. That was a five year plan for that sixplex and after three years I had turned over all the units and I had made my profit ⁓ and that just leveraged me to look at other options. In the process to accelerate the thing, I did rent to own because it was popular and a good.
increase the value of properties in area of Gatineau, east of the capital in Quebec, otherwise in Ontario, there’s a river, New York, New Jersey type of relationship.
So we did rent to own for about three years. Well, we were all supporting the financing of the properties internally. It was not external investors for that part of the portfolio. In parallel, going to networking events, we encountered a gentleman from Quebec City and we basically invested and raised funds, the first fundraising activity we did, to convert a six unit into six condos in Quebec City. ⁓
that made the Real Estate Wealth Magazine 2010 or 11, I believe, probably 11. And we had made like 88 % in a few months of return. So that was just like a very good way to start the business. And this is when we stood up Continuum Real Estate back then in 2010.
Evolving from that, we basically went to explore Florida and Costa Rica as two destinations. Being in our 30s, young early 30s, we selected Costa Rica and we participated and promoted the development of a condo hotel called Oceano Hotel and Residence back then. And now it’s Oceano Hotel.
boutique in Costa Rica on the west coast. The hotel has opened its doors in 2014, so it’s been more than 10 years now. It’s going well. We own about 20 % of the shares back then, and then things have moved. We have people that bought some, sold some units. Still some units, like fluctuating, for people interested to buy. can reach out to me.
There’s a good return but the real value is that you have a place to go in one of the condominiums with a lock off unit that can be rented if you’re not there or both side kitchen suite and ⁓ lock off unit. So when you go and occupy the place you have a place to go and it’s rented as a hotel when you’re not there. So that’s pretty good concept. Really proud of that.
always top two at the Trip Advisor each year. So a very good team, a local team that we trust, so it’s pretty good. So that takes me to about 2015. I had a lot of deployments with the Canadian forces back then. And remember I was in the Army. So I deployed to Kuwait for almost a year. I came back from Kuwait, was… ⁓
moved to Ottawa, the capital, from Kingston, the city I live now, and I was very busy. I was a lieutenant colonel in the army, ⁓ so different tasks ⁓ on the communication systems, cyber, staff officer, came back to teach in Kingston in 2018 as a directing staff on the army staff college, the equivalent of what the Marines do in Camp Pendleton or
back east and I was teaching that to Canadian. ⁓
captains and majors of rank. So basically operational planning, strategy, how to plan, prepare and deploy forces to any circumstances and scenarios. Could be war fighting, to peace support, to sustaining ⁓ natural disasters. So those skills of planning really served me well in addition to master in business and marketing through my career.
to refocus and analyze. just did a SWOT together like Strait Witnesses, Opportunity and Threat of my own town, Kingston, Ontario. And I realized the powerful aspects of buying and building multifamily properties. So basically bought a lot of one, two, three bedrooms, properties, single family home, made a duplex with it. Do the BIR, buy, repair, renovate, create two rents, refinance, get all the money out, move to the next one. So I’m a very
intense person in a way. did 12 in a year and that was an objective because my friend had done it. said I’m gonna do it too. So we basically converted and refinanced 12 in 12 months and that really gave us a lot of capital to play with, capital to come back. So then the focus became on buying larger multifamilies which we did.
in early 2020 up to 22. And then we basically with natural turnover of tenants, some being encouraged by buying a house, I had my real estate license as an agent in the process, understanding the value of having both and I really loved it. And to be honest, I was already selling condos in Costa Rica. I was also selling my rent to own. I was just not paid for it. So now I could be paid on the buy and could be paid on the sale and I could be paid to help clients.
I was already doing due diligence for friends on projects. Now I was the agent and I was being paid to do it and I really love it. ⁓
So we bought multifamily, helped tenants move out, buy houses, renovated the place, value went up. And now we are in refinancing sequence. I would say now after like the five years from 2020, we’re going to have a series of refinancing, multiple properties each year. So it’s good that the interest rates are going back down a little bit. And then we’re refinancing a lot of properties or we divested some that we decided to.
scale up and go into bigger buildings. So I’d say that right now we’re already into buying ⁓ let’s say
20 to 50 years old multifamily properties, 12 units and more. I will not say no to a good six, but that’s the focus. And with Moving Heroes, we are actually building now 16 units and more in different locations starting by local where we are. And it’s brand new buildings, one bedroom apartments and the objective is to give back.
via Moving Heroes, via the referral of realtors, of clients through Canada with Moving Heroes to realtors across the country that can help uniformed personnel buy and sell. We take a piece of those commissions, plus sponsors, plus charities, and we subsidize rent for veterans, personnel, uniformed first responders in financial needs, long-term rent into those units. So very nice evolution of ⁓ the same cause,
more means to the needs and we’re very proud of that.
Michelle Kesil (18:05)
Yeah, amazing. What a journey. Sounds like you’ve had so many different layers of evolution and progression. So I know you mentioned the Moving Heroes project, but is there anything else you’re really focusing on solving or scaling to next in your business?Martin Ouellet (18:14)
Yes.I think that…
to understand the scale of moving heroes, this is a nationwide. So take the US from California to the East coast and how many buildings can you build to serve veterans in needs? There’s kind of no limit to how many. We’re not urging to do things, we’re really growing organically. We have agents joining the network each week, each month. We got the trademark. ⁓
approved last year. ⁓ So we’re really focusing and it’s Canada US, we’re really focusing on growing a solid core of real estate agents that can serve people well. We are committed to build one building at a time for at least the first and full of buildings to get the best formula. There’s many ways to do that. You can do all commercial building and subsidize rent with charities and sponsors. You can do partnerships with charities
and private to do buildings. For example, you guys have your own American way to have your veterans regrouping into associations. We have in Canada what we call the Legion.
And there’s other groups like this that are non-for-profit and are struggling to have a location to operate. Or they have a piece of land, but they don’t have the money to maintain their buildings. So there are ways to partner with them to say, okay, we’re going to partner with you, provide the land, we’ll build a building, we’ll offer you a space for your organization. We’re going to have multifamily units and we’re going to offer some of the units for veterans. And we’re going to rent the rest of the market. And you don’t need to
struggle to fundraise each year to sustain your cause and your members will basically have a partnership to share wealth. So those are the ideas that are ⁓ percolating in my coffee maker and my heart ⁓ that we’re leading towards and we have examples of success of this having happened in different places in Canada. ⁓ But the focus is really to
Offer good service to buyers and sellers. Advise properly investors into their own growth. Improve the portfolio and seize opportunities when they arise to acquire, use or ⁓ resell multifamily. While we’re taking the profits of that and partnership with people to build new buildings. So I think that encapsulates a lot of the activities that I’m going to be focusing for the next few years. ⁓
locally and nationally.
Michelle Kesil (21:07)
Yeah, absolutely, sounds incredible. What do you feel are some of the main keys that have made the biggest difference in allowing your business to be able to grow and to run smoothly?Martin Ouellet (21:10)
It is, yeah.The network, who I met, who I connected with, who share the same values. ⁓ This is very deep. So when you have, when you recognize, when you know your own value, your worth, when you have a set of values that are life principles that you obey by and you respect yourself and others enough to go by them and recognize when you doubt.
you can really go on the road and it’s okay to, you know, tango left and
You know, like, you can never be straight line. You’re always gonna go in a certain direction. But to have those life principles and be surrounded by people that share those same values, faith, family, and business, don’t reverse it. It’s proven that you get lost. Going by that,
When you hit the ditch, you know you’ve hit the ditch because you have principles to compare your life to and you have friends that will be close enough to you and care enough to help you get up or recognize it that you have hit the ditch. And one wheel in the ditch, you can still come back. Two wheels, you may need help. Four wheels, you do need support. So the biggest, biggest impact in my life has been who has been surrounded myself with.
who I listen to, what I read, you see some books here ⁓
and who I meet and who I help. Because when I help somebody to get their first properties, to just discuss about who they are in life, what they want from life. Because I am also a growth, the director of growth or teaching marketing for mission entrepreneur. ⁓ And maybe for people listening, if you have an idea, we’re teaching at the University of Ottawa, supported by veterans
Canada, the Canadian version of the organization that supports veterans. ⁓
a business certificate teaching people how to build a business plan. So we’re talking about SWOT earlier, how to analyze the environment, different factors, your own, the problem you want to solve, understanding the problem, the Marine Corps way to solve a mission, what’s the problem? Define the problem in the environment, who are the stakeholders, who is with us, who is neutral, who is an opponent. There’s no enemy in nothing, there are opponents. Competition in business, opponents in reality.
Everybody is there to achieve what they want to achieve. Good and bad is relative. So we teach that into the business planning course, is one semester, they get a business certificate. So I’m teaching business growth into that aspects and I’m transposing my military career, investors focus life and the good to veterans and business. And we’re transposing this back and forth towards
teaching it, experiencing it, sharing it in network events. ⁓ And you see that big ecosystem that we’re building from growing, buying your first property to creating wealth and sustaining it with the opportunity of entrepreneurship once you find your cause that is close to your heart. ⁓ I would say that my life is my business.
I did not have, I cannot wait for Friday night to be off my business or my job. I stopped working a long time ago. I stopped having a job a long time ago. I am motivated to be on this podcast. I’m motivated to go see the client tomorrow morning. I’m motivated to go play hockey because we play hockey in Canada. After that podcast at noon ⁓ on the military base, which is close to my current house because I retired where I…
I feel at home. So my life is my business and my business is my life. it’s, I feel pretty fortunate to have reached that. But you ask people, people, people is what makes it happen. Not just an idea in your, in your brain.
Michelle Kesil (25:31)
Yeah, definitely. Relationships are everything in this space. Thank you for sharing that. So before we wrap up here, if somebody wants to reach out, connect, learn more. Where can people find you and connect with you?Martin Ouellet (25:44)
Pretty easy to find me with Moving Heroes, movingheroes.com, movingheroes.ca in Canada. You can find me on social media, Martin Ouellet, O-U-E-L-L-E-T, Real Estate. I’m gonna pop up different podcasts, different social media platforms.and feel free to write me a DM or connect via the website ⁓ into the contact there. ⁓ if you have any curiosity about Canada, I can introduce you. ⁓ Costa Rica, I can introduce you to about all the regions, being for vacation or investment. It’s always a pleasure to share what other people did with me before. ⁓
Michelle Kesil (26:28)
Perfect. Appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.Martin Ouellet (26:33)
Thank you, thank you Michel and the team.Michelle Kesil (26:35)
And for the listeners tuning in, you got value, make sure that you have subscribed. We have more conversations with operators like Martin who are building real businesses. And we will see you on the next episode.
