Real Estate Property Management Systems That Actually Scale With Andre Dénommée

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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Michelle Kesil interviews André Dénommée, a seasoned real estate investor and property manager. André shares his journey from military service to real estate, detailing how he started his business during the pandemic and the growth he has experienced since. He discusses the importance of organization, networking, and social media in building a successful property management business. André also emphasizes the significance of education for new investors and shares his plans for community service and future business expansion.

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André Dénommée (00:01)
the power of social media.

I did not realize at the beginning how social media was important to be known. I’m part of a real estate investing community that we have conferences and all kinds of stuff across Canada. And first time I went there, I didn’t know anybody. But I had my, at that time, probably 3,000 Facebook friends, new friends that I didn’t know. And… ⁓

going to that conference, the first conference, there was about 600 people and you meet people you don’t know, they know you by name and ⁓ start to talk

Michelle Kesil (02:11)
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, Andre Denommee who is a real estate investor, property manager, yeah, owning multiple businesses in the real estate sector. So excited to have you here today, Andre.

André Dénommée (02:23)
Real estate investor property.

Thanks for having me, happy to be here.

Michelle Kesil (02:36)
Yeah, definitely. So I’m excited to dive in with you. First off, for those not familiar with you and your world yet, can you share what your main focus is?

André Dénommée (02:46)
So I’m, but first I’m a 25 year veteran. So I, when I switched from the military to my civilian life, that was during COVID. So I was working from home mostly. At the beginning I started my business and I transitioned to my new world. So it started my, everything started a little bit by accident and 20, at the end of 2020, I started to transform my house into a legal duplex.

to have some additional income and I wanted to start, I was curious about this real estate investing thing and from this I said okay I’m going to manage my own tenants, my own properties so I started my company the property management. ⁓ That grow slowly, I started to add all kinds of services, renovation, maintenance, grass maintenance, ⁓ everything around the house we started to ⁓

to offer to a point that at some point I was by myself and needed to hire people. Now we’re 13 on staff. So it grew in a nice way. ⁓ So five years in business brought me from managing my own house to managing multiple properties, having a full renovation service.

Cleaning service, grass maintenance, junk removal, maintenance and we also now offer our ad-air property management services out of town. we are in Windsor. We also ⁓ offer in Windsor, Ontario, Belleville, which is about 45 minutes from Kingston, which allows us to serve 150 kilometers of the 401, the most used highway in Ontario. So it’s giving us lots of visibility. So from the beginning to now, really nice growth.

and we’re certainly 48, so I’m in a growth phase. I’m young, I’m a young pup, older than you, Michelle, but I’m still young, and lots of times in front of me to actually grow this even better.

Michelle Kesil (04:50)
Yeah, amazing. That’s exciting. And what markets are you operating in?

André Dénommée (04:56)
We’re in Kingston, Ontario. So Kingston, Ontario is located right in the middle of Toronto and Montreal, two large center, Ontario and Quebec. And we also are two hours away ⁓ from Ottawa. So two hours and a from Toronto, two hours and a half from Montreal. We are two hours from Ottawa and about 45 minutes drive to get to the bridge to get to the USA. So we are… ⁓

Yeah, we are located around the Thousand Islands. Yeah, really, really, really nice spot.

Michelle Kesil (06:19)
Awesome. And what got you started with real estate? Like what made you want to dive into this world?

André Dénommée (06:28)
So I always been interested into real estate when I was in the military in a Quebec province. I wanted to buy some multifamily. That’s what I wanted to do. And ⁓ what stopped me to do it was, yeah, but when I’m going to be transferred, who’s going to take care of my buildings? ⁓

I didn’t consider trusting a company. I didn’t know about property management. I didn’t do research. I just never did it. So when I got here in Kingston, at some point I said, okay, so would like, you know, the bug hit me again with one of my friends that was starting to do it. And I decided to give it a shot. So it happened a little bit by accident, I would say. It’s something that I had in the bag burner, but it was not fully deliberate at the beginning. It just did it because

was maybe a little bit curious, wanted a little bit more income. ⁓

So tried it, I liked it and I kept doing it. So I used the, uh, the Burr methods, which is buy, renovate, uh, rent refinance repeat. So I did that five times in Kingston. So I own five legal duplexes here. Uh, just bought another property in a small town close by. So it’s going to become a triplex. So that’s going to be, uh, there’s going be 13 doors for myself in Kingston, which is not huge, but, uh, it’s, uh, it’s a nice start. And, uh, because I’m doing property management for people out of

town. I decided to test myself with the out-of-town services. So I bought two buildings in St. John’s Newfoundland which is about 3200 kilometers from here. So it’s not like I can go for a service call. So I need to rely on people outside of town. which helped me to understand the dynamic with what can happen out of town and what the out-of-town investors are looking for. And it also gave me the

the vision of exporting my business outside of the city and ⁓ actually open new new centers. in a nutshell, my real estate investing journey enabled me to start my business, which evolved with time.

Michelle Kesil (08:37)
Yeah, absolutely. And what do you feel are some of the main keys that have allowed your business to be able to grow and to run smoothly?

André Dénommée (08:47)
So in property management, you need to be really organized. And that is something that ⁓ it’s one of my strength. Military probably helped me out for sure. The discipline when you…

you run a business, if there’s no discipline in the business, I’m not talking discipline yelling at people military style, it’s not what I’m talking about, but have a good structure and make sure that people are actually following the structure and discipline within these boundaries. So that’s another key that is very, very important. So I guess my military background certainly helped me out to transition towards this business model.

Michelle Kesil (09:26)
Yeah, definitely. And what does your current business model structure look like?

André Dénommée (09:33)
So, in the second half of last year, I switched my business model. So I used to have a one-stop shop in property management. We’re offering all the other services. I split the business in two, so now we have adare@ property management that takes care of property management only.

And in Kingston, have a sister company, is Adventa Home Services that takes care of all the phone calls, the service calls, renovation, cleaning, ⁓ junk removal, maintenance. So everything that is around a property itself that we manage, we can actually services internally.

When we manage different cities, we don’t have the home services companies and locations. So what we need to do is to have strong partnerships with local vendors. And so when I’m going out of town to start a new venture, I make sure to connect with local vendors. And let’s say I interview them and make sure that we are a good fit. And I make sure that the services they can offer

going to help me long run. So basically I’m looking for a company that is very similar to what I have in place in Kingston to help us to have a stability out of town. So my business model here ⁓ even if I don’t offer the full one-stop shop internally out of town, we are still offering the one-stop shop for everybody that invests with us out of out of town.

Michelle Kesil (11:43)
Awesome. So what are you most focusing on solving or scaling to next for your business?

André Dénommée (11:51)
That’s funny because we are having these conversations right now. I’m pushing to scale that business.

In the last two years, two years and a half, I really work hard to build the foundation of the system for the business to make sure that we have a smooth operation. And I’m really happy where we are right now. Can we evolve even more? The answer is yes. Will we? The answer is yes. But with what we have in place right now, we are in a very good spot to be able to be ⁓ to be able to scale. So yes, right now we are at the scaling phase for sure. More employees,

had a new guy starting on Monday on the renovation side. Usually in the winter here we slow down but in our case we looks like things are accelerating which is good. ⁓ So yeah so we’re certainly in the scaling phase right now. Which is fun by the way. Can be stressful, you need to invest lots of funds but it’s fun. It’s fun to see the growth of this business.

Michelle Kesil (12:56)
Yeah, absolutely. What is an obstacle that you have overcome in your real estate journey that now looking back you can see the lesson learned?

André Dénommée (13:10)
in my investing journey, ⁓ the obstacle is right now. Since the beginning, I purchased everything by myself. So as you know, in real estate investing, if you want to scale, you’re have to partner with people. So, you know, everybody’s saying using other people money and stuff like this. So I’m at the phase that my mindset is shifting right now to understand that we need to ⁓ partner to be able to do a bigger project.

These smaller projects that I have around it, they’re great. But if you really want to scale your game, need to go into multifamily. So I’m at that stage that multifamily is the next step, which means the mindset that is shifting right now is really important. And that’s going to be to find the trusted business partners to actually grow a multifamily portfolio.

So that’s a, I don’t know if it’s an obstacle, but it’s certainly something new that I need to work on.

Michelle Kesil (14:14)
Yeah, absolutely. And what are some lessons that you’ve learned on your journey that maybe you weren’t expecting? That kind of hit you blindly.

André Dénommée (14:30)
So

the power of social media.

I did not realize at the beginning how social media was important to be known. I’m part of a real estate investing community that we have conferences and all kinds of stuff across Canada. And first time I went there, I didn’t know anybody. But I had my, at that time, probably 3,000 Facebook friends, new friends that I didn’t know. And… ⁓

going to that conference, the first conference, there was about 600 people and you meet people you don’t know, they know you by name and ⁓ start to talk

all that to say that everything was about social media, they saw me on social media, they were following my progress and I was a familiar face for them. So all that to say that if you are showing

giving value to people on your social media, you will be recognized and people is going to even follow you that you don’t, you’re not even aware that they’re following you. And at some point they come out of the wood and say, I would like to work with you. And that happened in the past. So yeah, the power of social media is certainly something that I was not expecting.

I should have expected it, but I was not just not aware of this.

Michelle Kesil (16:37)
Yeah, definitely. I think there’s a lot of power in how we build our brands. Awesome. So what are you most looking forward to for this year in regards to any business opportunities?

André Dénommée (16:44)
Absolutely.

So we’re working on the possible partnership in Kingston here to grow the business in Kingston. So possible another company that we are working together. We’ll see if that’s going to actually work. We have some opportunities out of town to open new centers for the property management. So that is on the property management side. When it comes to the home services,

like we’re scaling at a fast pace on the service that we’re offering and something you know I was at a Kingston Home Show last spring and Friday night is senior night and I talked with a lot of seniors and one lady said Andre what you offering I feel like I could stay in my house longer by having you around me and it really hit me.

and I put in place a ⁓ maintenance program for the seniors and it’s something that I needed to wait but I’m going to roll it out in the spring and I really want I’m going to do something for them at discounted price I really want to help our seniors to stand their own longer so if I can make the difference in their lives by offering them ⁓

service that they won’t have to worry about. They have an issue, they can contact us and we’re going to service what they need to be, what needs to be serviced. It’s really what I want to push this year. I think that our seniors deserve help and I made it my mission. So I’m really excited about this portion for this year for sure.

Michelle Kesil (18:40)
Yeah, amazing. That’s awesome that you want to be in service in that way and help people.

André Dénommée (18:48)
Why not? I have the ability to do it, so why not?

Michelle Kesil (18:51)
Yeah, definitely that’s a powerful mindset to have.

André Dénommée (18:54)
You

Michelle Kesil (18:58)
What is some advice you would give to investors that are just wanting to get started in their journeys?

André Dénommée (19:05)
network as much as you can. Go to these investor clubs, local investor clubs. ⁓ Read on social media, read stuff. Take it with a grain of salt once in a while for sure, but more importantly educate yourself. Find courses that going to bring value to you. If you can join ⁓

real estate investing group that are actually give education, good education, join them. Yes, it costing money, but it’s going to save so much headache down the road. education, education, education is certainly, certainly the key in real estate investing when you start. And once you will have started, keep educating yourself, keep being aware of the, of your market. ⁓

make sure that you keep networking with people. If you have a few buildings, don’t stop there. Keep pushing and make sure that you’re… Sometimes it’s good for our ego to be the smartest person in the room, but I would say try to be with people that’s going to elevate you instead of you elevating the people. It’s good to elevate people, I’m not saying don’t do that, but make sure you are in crowds that people are going to elevate you. That’s really, really important.

Michelle Kesil (20:25)
Yeah, definitely. I think that’s great advice. As far as your networking journey, are there any specific networking strategies you’ve used that have supported you?

André Dénommée (20:36)
So yes, we have a local ⁓ investor club here, ⁓ education every month. It’s one evening per month. Of course, you need to get out of your living room. Maybe you like to have a glass of wine at night, talk to the wife, talk to the husband, but get out of this and go to these networking events. ⁓ It helped me to, ⁓ it helped my business to grow, but

I also feel like I gave value to people around me and it really makes me feel good about giving value to other people. You have these smaller events, I would say try to get to the bigger events. Yes, some of these bigger events are to be sales pitch. You got to feel like you get out of it and okay they just wanted my money to do something but you’re going to still get value in these bigger meetups.

Yes, go to small and larger events, that’s really important. They’re totally different.

Michelle Kesil (21:40)
Yeah, absolutely. The relationships that you build can change everything for you. Awesome. So what are you kind of planning? Because I know you said you like separated your businesses. Is there like any other plans for adding more to those kind of assets of yours?

André Dénommée (22:06)
So what you mean by personal investment or you talk about the business? So we would like to give ⁓ more ⁓ more services like paralegal. So I have most most likely this year we’re going to explore the feasibility to have paralegal service within the business, property management business. ⁓ Also something that is big. I’m not sure about you guys in the US, but here the

Michelle Kesil (22:10)
The business.

André Dénommée (22:36)
To be able to manage condos, you need a license. So that would be, we don’t have the license right now. It’s not something that I felt like I needed, but as we grow, I think to get the condo license will be a game changer for us. So in 2026, under property management, ⁓ it’s certainly to work on these two aspects, the paralegal and the condo license.

Michelle Kesil (23:02)
Amazing. Well, before we wrap up here, if somebody wants to reach out, connect, hear about what you’re up to, where can people find you and connect with you?

André Dénommée (23:05)
me wrap up here.

So you can find us on the internet at adare@ Property Management. You just search us, you’re find us. Adventa Home Services, more local than Kingston for all our services. You can find me on Facebook, Andre Denommee My name is on the bottom of my face there. So you can send me a friend request. I’m on OpenBook. We have ⁓ adare@ Property Management.

Adventa Home Services on Facebook too. You can find us on Instagram. You can also find us on LinkedIn. So we are a little bit everywhere. But yeah, so feel free to reach out. As I said, I’m an open book. I like to share. I like to share my journey. I like to share what I like to do. And ⁓ I’m passionate about it. So yeah, do not hesitate to reach out.

Michelle Kesil (24:04)
Perfect. Appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

André Dénommée (24:08)
No problem, thank you very much.

Michelle Kesil (24:10)
And for the listeners tuning in, if you got value, make sure you have subscribed. We have more conversations with operators like Andre who are building real businesses and we’ll see you on the next episode.

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Real Estate Property Management Systems That Actually Scale With Andre Dénommée

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