116: Real Estate Investing in 2026: Ways to Win in This Market with Realtor Chad Mckillop

00:00:00 Taylor Atkinson
Okay welcome back to Kelowna real estate podcast i'm your mortgage broker host taylor atkinson and i'm your real estate agent host matt glenn what's happening today taylor we went old school today matt we went like bigger pockets first you know 100 to 300 episodes i don't know like you're kind of looking kind of brandon turner you know with the beard long hair maybe i'm josh dorkin you think i look like frantic turner i don't know i didn't want to insult you man josh dorkin like Loved him, but he was always seemed pretty dry on the show. You know, like Brandon was the happy, funny one. So I'll take Brandon if you want. How about just all of us be Brandon? Yeah. Yeah. So we, we had on Chad McKillop. He is a new local real estate agent works for Oakland, but we really wanted to talk about like what he's done in the past in terms of investing in real estate. And then we all kind of put our investor hat back on and just kind of bounce some ideas around.


00:00:50 Taylor Atkinson
Cause what about like. optimism, you know, and like what people can do, what's like a tangible takeaway and some opportunities in today's market. So yeah, it was a lot of fun.


00:01:00 Matt Glen
of fun. It was a lot of fun. It was a fun episode to record it. Also like. Talking about things that people aren't, we kind of got away from like buying, renovating, investing, like talking about rentals. Feels like the last year or so that has just kind of fallen off the radar completely. Feels like the last three years since we started this podcast.


00:01:15 Taylor Atkinson
started this podcast. Well, yeah, like honestly, we just don't actively do it so much anymore. And we can come up with all the excuses, all the government legislation, all the decline in the market, high interest rates, whatever. But at the end of the day, there are still people out there that are doing it. that are flipping, that are burying, that are, you know, finding those opportunities. So,


00:01:34 Matt Glen
you know what I was thinking when we were recording this episode, I didn't say it in the show, but like, I think the flipping, like for Kelowna, it kind of turned into infill housing where people were buying the houses, turning them down and building fourplex. And that was kind of like the new flip for a while. It was, yeah. You did right. But then it's turned into buying five properties in a row, getting very good financing and building in small apartment buildings. Like that's a little bit of a step up, but kind of in the same realm. And now it's just kind of gotten a little bit flat. And I think we could get back to basics. And like we were talking about renovating condos in the show and townhouses. And I think there's an opportunity there.


00:02:07 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah. Stay tuned. Cause I asked Matt what the best opportunity in the market was and he did not hesitate, which is unlike both him and I will sit on a question for 30 seconds. You were like fast, man. So I'm like, I believe in my truck to go drive by and see this place now. I believe in it. Honestly, I would buy there myself. So I love that. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, it was just fun. So we talked about like principal pay down, you know, like a forced savings account, just like appreciation in the market, obviously adding value, whether that's some square footage, like putting it into the bathroom, not overspending on certain fixtures, like how to analyze deals. Chad's big takeaway was, you know, like buying, right. Right. Like start off on the right foot. If you're, if you're buying a property overpriced or something doesn't work out, then. It's pretty hard to get back from that. And then just like time in the market, right? Like real estate doesn't have to be exciting and flashy. You know, analyze something, take a bit of a risk, take action, have multiple exit strategies, times on your side. Yeah, I think for me, like I would love to start looking more. I think single family homes are not being built because construction costs are high. flipping or the burr strategy in today's market, I think there's going to be like a window of a couple of years where it actually works. You could buy, you throw in some sweat equity, add a suite, like something, you know, where you can add some value, get some rent roll in there. It's not going to appreciate right off the bat. Cause I honestly, I think the cost of materials and renovations, like if you're not doing them yourself, you're likely not going to get the resale value back. Even if you are doing it yourself, you buy a place for 700, you throw 200 into it. It's probably going to sell for 900, maybe 950. Like, I just don't think there's a huge, huge value at. However, if you can generate some of that rental income cashflow wise to kind of protect your asset. So you're not servicing the debt. I think in like, you know, 2028, 2029, when no one has built single family homes in the last couple of years, I think there will be some good appreciation there. So yeah, there might be a window for us to kind of. get back into the game. And if there's anyone listening that has a small portfolio that's doing this, we kind of want to have a few more of these style shows. So love to have you guys on.


00:04:14 Matt Glen
Yeah. This episode, like every episode, sponsored by Century 21 Assurance Realty, best brokerage in BC. Yeah, I said it and I believe it. We are growing. We have commercial real estate agents, residential real estate agents, property managers. We're also in Kelowna, Kamloops, Kootenays, Salmon Arm, a bunch of places in between and a little bit farther in the East Kootenays. question so if you're an agent looking for a spot to hang your hat or if you are a buyer or a seller or if you have a little bit of a portfolio and you're looking for a manager we're the brokers to call century 21 assurance realty enjoy the show you guys this is a bit of a different one but it was also a ton of fun okay chad welcome to the show thanks for joining us buddy how are you doing today thanks for having me i'm doing really good appreciate you guys yeah thanks for coming on yeah so i kind of wanted to um have more of like old school bigger pockets


00:04:52 Taylor Atkinson
chad welcome to the show thanks for joining us buddy how are you doing today thanks


00:04:56 Chad Mckillop
for having me i'm doing really good appreciate you guys yeah thanks for coming on yeah


00:04:59 Taylor Atkinson
so i kind of wanted to um have more of like old school bigger pockets type of show so like for podcasting background that's kind of what got me into listening to podcasts originally and i'm talking like the first you know two three hundred episodes when it was like brandon turner and josh dorkin they just brought on a lot of like hustlers and people that were like flipping five ten properties like smaller portfolios and just successful you know after meeting you over the last year or so and connecting i think you have some cool stories to tell so We'll maybe dive into that and then we'll wrap up with you as a real estate agent. So yeah, if you can kind of give us maybe a high -level overview of how you got started, first couple properties. I know you flipped 11 properties, I think. So we'll just kind of start and walk through it over the next 20 minutes and hopefully add some value to listeners.


00:05:50 Chad Mckillop
Yeah, so we started a construction company in our early 20s. And I always loved the idea of flipping. Never really saw it as an opportunity, but we saved and saved. And eventually we got our first opportunity at a flip. It was a little condo in North Vancouver. And we actually went into like a slight bidding war. And I think we had to offer 3 ,000 over asking. And I was like, I can't do it. I can't do it. And my business partner's wife was like, suck it up, guys. And so luckily she gave us the kick we needed to get our first flip. And that was... Such a learning experience, such a change in our business model. And we got hooked after that. So we ended up doing 11 more. Obviously life happens, kids happen. So it's something I'd love to get back into down the road. But yeah.


00:06:33 Matt Glen
Yeah. Your first one was a condo. Did you stick with condos? Like you're in the lower mainland. So I imagine the condos did make sense.


00:06:39 Chad Mckillop
Yeah. The dream was always to get to detached houses, but just the money side of it was so hard. So condos, townhomes, pretty much all the way through. And it was just a price point thing, right? Like when you're having to buy for quite a bit, hold, renovate, and then sell for hire. That was always tricky.


00:06:56 Taylor Atkinson
Were you flipping and doing construction for other clients as well as customers? Or was this solely for you guys? We might have done one flip for clients. We had people approach us for investments to do flipping with us,


00:07:02 Chad Mckillop
might have done one flip for clients. We had people approach us for investments to do flipping with us, but I was always too scared to work with other people's money. So we just felt more comfortable doing our own. In retrospect, I wish we did more flipping, but that was just. kind of our immaturity and youth in the game. But no, we mainly did flipping just for ourselves. And then we did renovate for the clients.


00:07:23 Taylor Atkinson
Okay, cool. So I guess, yeah, walk us through what was the learning process like? What should people look for now? Like, is this still a repeatable business right now? I mean, I know in, yeah, pre 2020, probably anyone could flip in the Okanagan and you probably just made money. based on like appreciation, right? Like if it took you a year and a half to flip and you made a couple hundred grand.


00:07:44 Matt Glen
The longer it takes the better.


00:07:45 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah, really. But now it seems like a little more difficult now. I mean, from my point of view, some of that is like the cost of labor, cost of materials, but there are probably some opportunities in the buying side.


00:07:57 Matt Glen
Not just that Taylor, there's also like legislation and home flipping taxes and taxes to sell quickly. Yeah.


00:08:05 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah. The flipping tax. Yeah. So basically a two year window. which is pretty tough. But yeah, kind of walk us through like what were the big lessons? What were the takeaways? What are people trying to do now that could be making them successful?


00:08:16 Chad Mckillop
Yeah, I think government and legislation aside, if I'm just going back to the roots of how we are going in the lessons we learned, the big one out of the gate is you've got to buy right. You got to get off the right foot. So if you buy high, you're kind of chasing that dollar the entire time. And it's really hard to cash back up. So. I mean, if a market shoots up, that's a huge bonus. But, you know, like they hit a lot of times, if you buy at the right price, you're going to do well. We always looked for a place with a need. So if we entered into a building, we always would pick a nice building, a nice area and try to find the junkiest unit. I think that's quite common to hear is the junkiest place and the nicest street. Yeah. That was one of our main focuses. And then it's a matter of where can I add the value? So the first flip we did, we added a second bathroom. It was a two bed, one bath. And then we made it a two bed, two bath, which at the time didn't seem like a huge shift for us. But we also rode the market high. We were very fortunate that we bought right at the beginning of a strong run. And then when we went to sell, we had the only renovated two bed, two bath condo on the North shore. So we had an insane amount of response. I think we had 11 or 13 offers on the place. So by no means was that our doing. That was just, we were very fortunate to be a part of it.


00:09:26 Taylor Atkinson
But I guess, how do you analyze that? Like for a value add, you're like, okay, the bathroom is going to cost $30 ,000 to put in. Like, were you working with a real estate agent going, okay, well, like here are the comps, like there's a need for a second bath. Like if someone's looking at a house right now, like how do they come up with the plan of what's going to be the best value add?


00:09:45 Chad Mckillop
That's a great question. If I can just go back to like our scenario and then maybe touch on what it was like now, like that renovation we did that flip the first time we spent a total of $45 ,000 on the entire place. and we sweat equity the heck out of it so we built our own cabinets we laid our own floors everything that needed like electrical permits pulling permits we did sub that part out that bathroom we worked insane hours so the cost wasn't so much an issue then if you're doing it now yeah i think the big thing is put a price point on it and just be super smart about your renovation so i think a lot of people get caught in by buying high -end fixtures or super expensive items And I think you always have to ask yourself through a flip, will this give me a return on my investment or will I lose money on buying this? Like a lot of people like to put in these $2 ,000, $3 ,000 chandeliers. They look amazing, but you have to ask yourself, will I get $2 ,000 or $3 ,000 out of this when I go to sell or not?


00:10:41 Matt Glen
So just like hearing you talk about adding a bathroom in a strata, how easy is that? Like when you put an offer in a place, are you looking at the strata to see like if they're even going to allow you to do this or like what it's like to work with them to do it or like. pre -approved to even add a bathroom?


00:10:55 Chad Mckillop
Yeah. So with that one in particular, we were only allowed to add one more bathroom to the plumbing stack that existed in the building. So we were the first ones and the last ones to be able to do it. It was only a three -story building, so it wasn't anything crazy. Did you know that like during subject removal or did you just kind of run into that during your renovation? The further we got along, the more organized and planned we were. I don't know if we were that organized on our first flip. I think we got in there and it was a really awkward layout of the bathroom. Like it had this weird jacuzzi tub in the corner that took up way too much space. And then the vanity was awkwardly across the bathroom where it was too big. That gave us the ability to create the second bathroom. And then we did a stacker washer dryer because it was side by side. And so we stole some of that space and created the shower for the second. But no, we were not that organized. We were young. I think we were like. mid 20s at this point and we just had a dream had a vision yeah yeah exactly and then you stopped because of an ankle injury right and kids and what was the stopping catalyst i guess taylor i'm a walking parts car at this point so injuries taking control um no so


00:11:54 Taylor Atkinson
then you stopped because of an ankle injury right and kids and what was the stopping catalyst


00:11:59 Chad Mckillop
i guess taylor i'm a walking parts car at this point so injuries taking control um no so i had an ankle injury so we were running a construction company for 15 years had a lingering injury from soccer and then needed a couple surgeries so that kind of sidelined me a little bit and then in that time i actually decided to get my real estate license so instead of sitting around for three four months doing nothing i got licensed through the ubc program i mean matt knows all about that too but shortly after i realized like i wanted to do real estate since i was probably 19 years old And then with your own business, you get sucked in for so long and it creates its own little beast on its own. So to break away is so difficult. So this bought me the time to try it. And then I eventually decided to go full -time in real estate.


00:12:43 Taylor Atkinson
And then, so for like the Kelowna market and this question for both of you guys, like you're walking through homes, condos with clients, doing showings, listings, where is the opportunity? Is there any opportunity? And it doesn't just have to be like a quick flip, but like Bridgewater.


00:12:59 Matt Glen
Bridgewater? Yeah, Bridgewater. That's where I'd buy. Where's that? On Gordon and Cook. It's an older building where everyone wants to live there. A lot of the units have separate garage stalls, too, that you can sometimes rent out separately or keep for yourself. And there's a ton of value added in that building. In Kelowna, specifically Bridgewater. Do you have a listing there? You've seen it really quick on that. Listings in the past, but if I was ever going to find a flip or do a burr or something, it'd be Bridgewater, 100%. Okay,


00:13:26 Taylor Atkinson
cool.


00:13:27 Matt Glen
And sorry, is it like a strata complex then? Yeah, there's condos and townhouses there. The location is like right by the Eldorado. The price point is good to get into. It's ideal for this. And do you think it would be a flip or like buy and hold place tenants? I don't know if flipping, like maybe Chad can answer this more, but I don't know if flipping even works with the legislation anymore to just buy it for three or four months and sell it. I think you just get taxed to hell even if you make profit. But I think if you could do it and then rent it out, even for... two or three years and then sell it might be a better option but flipping did work it worked there yeah i guess my comment to that would be like let's say you flip you make yeah let's just say the value goes up by 100 grand net profit and i mean could be off legislation changes all the time but i'm pretty sure it's 20 of the net profits right so you'd lose 20 grand which yeah is expensive but i guess the alternative would be you have to then hold that property and you kind of have dead money in the property if you don't refi it


00:14:03 Taylor Atkinson
i guess my comment to that would be like let's say you flip you make yeah let's just say the value goes up by 100 grand net profit and i mean could be off legislation changes all the time but i'm pretty sure it's 20 of the net profits right so you'd lose 20 grand which yeah is expensive but i guess the alternative would be you have to then hold that property and you kind of have dead money in the property if you don't refi it for the next two years. So I guess the question would then be, you know, is it best to save that $20 ,000 tax? And obviously we're just basing that on like a hundred thousand net. So it could go up or down and be stuck with that property. Not that you're stuck with it, but you know what I mean? Like either hold it there. So you're saving the 20 grand or like pay it and buy something else. So you're like recycling that money, which I'm sure there's people that are doing both right now. Right. I guess it just depends on if another opportunity pops up. where you can recycle it and make money on it, is it worth, you know, avoiding that $20 ,000 tax?


00:15:01 Matt Glen
Yeah. Well, it's not just that tax. Like you also have capital gains. You've got to obviously pay for the renovation, like to add a hundred thousand, like the places at Bridgewater, like three or 400 ,000, let's say 350 if you get a good deal. You buy that property transfer tax to buy it. Renovation for CAS number is 45 grand. Like, I don't think you're selling that for 550 grand. I don't know if you can build in enough profit. to just eat all the taxes and still make money. Yeah. I just don't know.


00:15:28 Taylor Atkinson
It's tough, right? Because you could say, okay, I'm just going to sit on it for 10 years and ride the appreciation. So you're going to avoid the flipping tax, but then you're going to get crushed on capital gains. Yeah. You know, like it's such a hard, so I guess like the BRRRR strategy, like to go back to bigger pockets, that is kind of the best way to defer taxes, right? You just want to defer and snowball that as big as you can. But anyways, we'll stop stealing the show from you, Chad. What, uh, where are the opportune? Chad,


00:15:54 Matt Glen
what to do? Um,


00:15:58 Chad Mckillop
I was actually going to get a little data on that. Like what we would do is when we were looking at properties, we would always try to buy something with a three to $400 ,000 gap between purchase price and sale price. And if we knew we could sell for three to $400 ,000 more, we knew that would incorporate the renovation costs, capital gains, realtor fees, holding costs. all that so that was kind of the structure we used was kind of a loose three to four hundred thousand dollars and then we always tried to renovate for about 50 to 75 bucks a square foot so 45 000 that was like a one -off that's when building materials were way more affordable we did so much work ourselves and to be honest we did more work than we should ourselves as we got smarter and a little bit more comfortable with the flipping process we started stopping more out and letting the pros do what the pros do best but yeah and 50 to 75 bucks a square foot you can do well on your flipping as far as today's market goes i'm with you guys i think the rental like the burr method is the way to go there are flip opportunities still like i'm not looking as much right now because i'm so focused on trying to find clients places now but one popped up the other day in west colonna it was in lake hugh heights and i emailed it to everybody i'm like you should buy this place you should buy this place yeah yeah attached house I think it was over a half acre lot with pool the bones were so good on it like it was original so it needed a full renovation but the bones were so good it was priced well and you could put a coach home on the property so I was thinking if you were in a situation to either Airbnb the main house or rent out the coach home renovate the whole thing there was kind of a lot of opportunity with it and we would love to live there but we're not in a position to be selling and buying and it ended up selling for full asking in three days so Someone saw the value.


00:17:42 Matt Glen
Yeah. Yeah.


00:17:43 Taylor Atkinson
Including you, you saw the value. I think with that too, like, especially with today and the last few years of government volatility, you need multiple exits. So you need like, okay, where's the value add? Good point. Like, am I adding a suite? Is there room to add a bathroom? Is there room to subdivide the lot? Would it be a good rental if I had to hold it? You have to have at least like two or three solid exit strategies. And obviously, you know, you've got your number one, but if something comes in legislation wise or the property just doesn't kind of perform where you need it to, that's where I see most clients right now getting into trouble that are trying to do flips or investments is it's like. We're going to turn this thing around in six months and sell for a hundred grand profit. Yeah. Okay. But what if you don't, like if that's the only exit and then you got to hold this bag and you're, you know, funding it seven, 800 bucks a month and you're losing. That's kind of a tough one. Can I ask both of you guys then what is your biggest mistake in your real estate landlord investing? Let's call it career. And what's the biggest win you've had? The biggest mistake for sure is selling.


00:18:43 Matt Glen
biggest mistake for sure is selling. Like, I don't think it really ever makes sense to sell a rental property, right? All the horror stories I hear with my clients, like I rarely hear the story where they regret buying something, especially when it comes to investment properties. It's always, I own this back in the day or I own this property back in the day. And it just, the regretful stories I hear and what I've experienced myself is selling properties when you probably should have held onto them. That's my own story too. I had a property in Rutland that it was a perfect rental property, cashflow, and I just sold it for not sure why. So that was a huge mistake for me.


00:19:13 Chad Mckillop
yeah yeah that's a good point it hurts hey when you look back and see what they're worth now yeah well even honestly i don't think the value has went up a whole ton for me like in that property but like the mortgage been paid down probably like 150 grand by now right and just another thing to have in your portfolio that like selling it didn't really add a lot of value to my life whereas now i would really like to have it so that for me for sure is the biggest mistake yeah


00:19:17 Matt Glen
well even honestly i don't think the value has went up a whole ton for me like in that property but like the mortgage been paid down probably like 150 grand by now right and just another thing to have in your portfolio that like selling it didn't really add a lot of value to my life whereas now i would really like to have it so that for me for sure is the biggest mistake yeah


00:19:38 Chad Mckillop
Yeah, I think on our end, in the lower mainland, we saw such extreme price increases that if I look back at some of the places we did flip and sell at the time, we're like, we're crushing it. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.


00:19:50 Matt Glen
It's doubled in value. Well, back in like 2020 and 2021, like you're like, yeah, I'm crushing it. Then you wait three months and it's went up 30 more percent. Yeah. Okay. Well, how are you supposed to plan for stuff like that? You just can't build around. We never had the capital to be able to buy one and then


00:20:02 Chad Mckillop
had the capital to be able to buy one and then refinance we just we weren't in a position to be able to do that yeah which we were always chasing and then eventually we kind of got phased out by government rules etc but yeah i would say the point i made first buying at the right price i think we might have got a little cocky at one point we're like man we just saw so much success with each one of our flips that we kind of thought we had this secret sauce that nobody had and then a couple we bought like one of the ones we bought did a beautiful renovation on the place and then the condo insurance and if you guys remember that i think a week pre -code the condo insurance spiked so people's and rates were going up like 200 300 percent and some buildings weren't even getting insured so that made condos undesirable and then like several weeks later code hits so we had a place that was going on the market within two weeks and both those things hit and before you know it we have no one who can walk through the home there's no open houses there's nothing in person everything's virtual and We just watched what we thought was going to make us a couple hundred thousand dollars go down and down and down. And we ended up actually losing money on that property, fortunately about $7 ,000. So in the scheme of things, not terrible. We didn't lose our shirts or anything. But had we held on to it, to your point, it ended up selling for way more once COVID took off. Yeah.


00:21:24 Matt Glen
Yeah. Yeah. And that's not that long after, but again, you can't plan for things like that.


00:21:28 Taylor Atkinson
I totally agree. Absolutely. Like selling is detrimental to like the net worth building, but it's also really hard because you know, you can sell and then generally like as humans, our minds look for, Oh, like what if I didn't, you know, but it's funny, like we look more on the positive side of that. So I agree. Like I sold my 23 in an apartment building this year. And like, you know, looking at it right now, okay, I don't even care what the market does. Like, okay, so, and I'm very aware of like IRD penalties when you're breaking a mortgage. So, you know, you can plan as much as you want, but like essentially you're probably going to get crushed on that no matter what. My IRD penalty on that was $123 ,000. Obviously it's like. It's a large commercial mortgage. So like the penalty is quite a bit higher. So that just crushes like a huge amount of profit. And then capital gains on top of that. And so by the time like all the dust settles, you're like, man, I really didn't walk away with like as much as I wanted to. But I did like analyze it pretty heavily going into it. I'm like, okay, well, I had about a 400 ,000 capex. Like I needed a new roof, windows, parking lot, like siding. And I wasn't going to see any of that money back in terms of what it would do to rent, right? Like we've already renovated the interior. So in my mind, I was like, I either sell now, I get liquid, I invest elsewhere. And yeah, I got to pay these fees, which suck. Or I hold on to it. I invest another four or four 50 into it and it doesn't really change. So I think like, you know, in 10 years from now, I'll still have the same mindset of like, God, why did I sell that for sure? But you generally don't look at it and go like, oh, I sold that. And then I did. xyz with it so i think that's probably one of the biggest mistakes people make right is they'll sell and then they won't reinvest or roll it into something else right the money will just like disappear all of a sudden it does seem kind of interesting like just like listening to myself talk and then you like hearing these stories like there's not a lot of incentive to sell right it's just it's basically just buy and hold whereas like in the us they have that 1031 stand for it's basically incentivizing more investment like bigger and bigger


00:23:10 Matt Glen
does seem kind of interesting like just like listening to myself talk and then you like hearing these stories like there's not a lot of incentive to sell right it's just it's basically just buy and hold whereas like in the us they have that 1031 stand for it's basically incentivizing more investment like bigger and bigger And I feel like something like that could help commercial real estate and investment real estate get rolling. It just seems like you're crunching the numbers. The profit has to be so high for you to even be positive. But the higher it goes,


00:23:37 Taylor Atkinson
the higher it goes, the more tax you pay. Exactly. So it goes up X amount.


00:23:39 Matt Glen
So it goes up X amount. You're only getting 50 % of that or less. And it's all going to taxes and fees. And it's just like, yeah, the incentives are just not there. But if you could roll over to a bigger property, you'd have some people climbing some stairs here pretty quick.


00:23:52 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah. And that's what you do. Like I refied that property a bunch of times to pull out the equity to roll it over. But believe it or not, that wasn't my biggest mistake. Although it's a huge number to pay in penalties. Yeah. My biggest mistake thinking about it was becoming a mortgage broker. And you guys are probably the same. Like once you're a professional in the industry. you kind of stop investing in it. Like you're now working with clients, you prioritizing them, like even my own mortgage. I'm like, Oh my God, I got like a month left till my renewal. I got to get on this. We're like clients I'm reaching out, you know, 120 days. I for this is how we're going to like, you just focus so much. So yeah, biggest mistake I made was being a professional in the industry instead of just, you know, investing.


00:24:32 Matt Glen
I'm glad you didn't say your biggest mistake was becoming a podcast host though. Yeah. Well, that's part of it. That's part of it.


00:24:39 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah. What's the biggest success? Like what's the one thing, whether it was intentional or not, like what happened in your real estate investing journey that either added the most wealth or value or motivation?


00:24:50 Chad Mckillop
I would say one thing that you don't realize when you are doing a flip or an investment like that is you're creating a massive savings account. So all your money is going, this is an interesting thing too. Like we all like to spend money and buy new things, but when you're buying stuff for a flip, it feels so satisfying that you're not blowing money elsewhere. when that money is making you more money on a flip it's super cool so yeah i think the saving side is really nice because then you get this big paycheck on the cash out i can talk about like our best flip it was our fastest flip too and we bought a north van for a million fifty and then we ended up selling for 1 .45 this is a condo yeah another condo wow this is scary because this is like uncharted territories when you're buying above a million dollars renovating and this is where a good realtor comes in though because our realtors like i think we can do well on this one there's value in the building it's very desirable went for it and we knew we had to do a quick turnaround so i think we had it back on the market i believe it was under three months and we went to war on that thing and yeah we blew out some walls it was a concrete build so It was like you could do a ton with it, but there was just a few things like there was a pantry that was centered in the middle of the kitchen that would kill your views because it had beautiful downtown views and things like that. And so we just renovated the heck out of it, went high end with all the appliances and everything else. Waterfall, Quartz Island, things like that. And then we had it in the market soon and it sold really quick. So that was a huge one.


00:26:17 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah, I love tax. So I have to ask, were you guys buying it like personally and then like the capital gains were personal or was it in the corp? Like were you buying these corporately?


00:26:25 Chad Mckillop
No, we couldn't get mortgages through our corporation. I don't think we made enough through our corporation. You're talking to the wrong guy.


00:26:31 Taylor Atkinson
guy. Come on, man.


00:26:33 Chad Mckillop
Yeah, exactly. No, I think we did personally, but I think on that one, we brought in an investor to bridge the gap for us, if I remember. So it sounds like that's probably like a key thing that stops people too,


00:26:42 Taylor Atkinson
sounds like that's probably like a key thing that stops people too, is like giving up some of the pie or bringing in the investor. But to turn that around in three months, that's insane.


00:26:52 Chad Mckillop
Oh, dude, we worked like dogs on that one. We had to... do some um what's it called sprinkler readjusting and moving around in the unit and for a time like when he glues the new sprinklers and you can't leave the unit like you have to have someone watching for any fires and they have to call the fire because the whole system's down so i'm like sleeping in like the construction debris one night because i was that guy so we could save some money just stupid crap like that looking back where you're like but Yeah, we are stories like that forever. But anyway, things like that just to get across the finish line and it ended up working on the end.


00:27:26 Taylor Atkinson
What about you, Matt? What was your biggest success value add thing that you did in your investing career? Our house in West Kelowna,


00:27:30 Matt Glen
house in West Kelowna, like a house with a legal suite and we added a another suite on the basement. And that honestly has been super successful. Not like the flashiest thing to do was pretty easy. Like I think we added a kitchen and put in a buyer rated door and that kind of stuff. But man, that has been Very successful. We also hit it at the right time with the government legislation where it's like, they don't really care about stuff like that right now. Right. And especially if it's like not impeding traffic and it's just like, it works well. So it's been a good success story for us, for sure. I think for me,


00:28:01 Taylor Atkinson
think for me, like to kind of go back to some of your, like your stories, like I'm sure we all have endless stories and that's actually, it was funny. That's kind of how this podcast started. Matt and I were having dinner and we were just talking about like bad tenant stories. Yeah. And then we went golfing and it just kind of evolved from there. But honestly, a lot of my success came from just like, not knowing what I should have known. So I wasn't afraid to just take action feeling seriously. And now it's like, now I like, I can see the room for error and like, I'm a little more cautious. I'm like, Ooh, but like, what if this, this, this happened? And I think I'm at a different phase of investing, but like, you know, when I bought like my first larger building. i had no idea like i thought i knew what i was doing but like really just did not know and one of like the biggest opportunities like i didn't know what rents were supposed to be so i just thought yeah like the buildings perform and it's cash flowing and then you know unfortunately one of the tenants passed away and so we like authentically were like hey we need to like fully got this place new carpet paint like we can't put a tenant in there like you know advertising that there was a death inside obviously which is like anyway so we renovated it top to bottom and then rents like the action we got on that like rents doubled and we're like oh wow like we should just proactively start renovating this so like light bulbs go off when you don't have like the intent behind it and now i look at units i'm like okay if i did x y and z like is it going to be valuable but yeah a lot of the investing like success I had was just based on taking action and then time, you know, like buying a single family home where you're like, wow, that's pretty high priced, but it's got that rental suite in it. And I could subdivide this and do whatever. And then five, 10 years go by and you're like, okay, well, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but it turned out well. So I think like taking action and then just being able to like sit in the market, you know, like dealing with problems as they come, you know?


00:29:53 Chad Mckillop
Yeah. I've seen very few people win on the sidelines. So getting in there, I feel like even if you're hitting the hard times or whatever, even buying this place like we bought in 2021, zero regrets. And it's been amazing. So yeah.


00:30:09 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe we can just chat a little bit about your real estate career on the real estate agent side of things. So this year, congrats. It reminds me of, who is it? Henry Rothengarder off of a rookie of the year film. Anyone remember that one where he breaks his arm and. It's Rookie of the Year for the Cubs. You guys don't remember that? No. Oh man, that was such a good movie. What movie is that? It's called Rookie of the Year. It's this like 11 -year -old kid or something that like he breaks his arm and then all of a sudden he has like just like 115 mile an hour fastball because he's got this weird guy. Yeah. And then he loses his ability like in the World Series or something and he has to go back to like slow pitching them in. Anyways, total segue there. Rookie of the year. You probably can't throw 120 mile an hour fastball, but you were out there hustling this year and yeah, congrats. So maybe just, yeah, give us the high level. How was the last year in real estate? If people want to become a real estate agent. Also, how come you're in Kelowna now from Vancouver?


00:31:11 Chad Mckillop
Oh, Matt, that's a loaded question. You got me there. Yes, we initially bought this house as a flip, but with possibility that we would move up. Long story short, we didn't come up here necessarily because we wanted to be here. We came up here with, like, a one -year plan. Yeah. It's kind of messy looking back now, and it's frustrating. Anyway, we actually, Kona's beautiful. Like, it's an amazing place to call home. You also failed up. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And we love our neighborhood. We have kids, so we got into a school catching those kids. Like, one of the coolest, actually, things about living where we live is... One of the first weekends we moved up, I looked outside and there's all these kids playing street hockey in the street down below. And that's my childhood. That's so rad. Yeah. So a lot of our move was because of our kids. Our oldest was just starting school. I didn't want to keep jumping schools around. So that was the intention of it. That's what we got here. As far as rookie of the year, like I was saying, I got the ankle injury, which gave me the opportunity to actually do the UBC course. And year one, man, it's a grind. Matt, how long have you been doing this for? Six years, like literally to the day. Six years to the day. Yep. Yeah. So I'm sure you can still remember year one as well. I was also working in the year. Oh, wow. Man, that's awesome.


00:32:21 Taylor Atkinson
I got two Henrys here.


00:32:24 Matt Glen
Zero broken arms, but yeah.


00:32:27 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah, we got a broken ankle, so that's close. Yeah, man, I am surrounded by some good people.


00:32:35 Chad Mckillop
That's funny. Yeah, I think the hardest part that I have is. You're starting a new career in a new city with new people. Like both my wife and I, all our network is in the lower mainland. So that's actually very tough for an agent. Yeah. Like I didn't get one hand -me -down or any kind of family referral or anything. One, it was all hustle and grind to get pretty much any kind of deal together. But yeah, I think if I was to speak into someone just joining, I actually wrote down some notes here, but I would say embrace the grind. If you're watching Selling Sunset or you're watching some of these shows, do not be fooled. It is not like that whatsoever. That's a super, super hard grind. When you say grind, like what does that mean for you? What are you up to? You're going to get a lot of rejection. Yeah. People won't take you seriously. I felt since coming from the construction side, you don't get a lot of respect as a real estate agent versus in the construction field. Your time is not appreciated as much. Yeah. And then grinding wise. Yeah. Like I was doing. usually two open houses a weekend you're networking you're networking you're just out there because no one knows who chad is and to this day probably still very cute do know who i am still but yeah you have to go find the work it's not like someone's going to come into your broker and say i want to work with that guy it just does


00:33:49 Matt Glen
Yeah, it's true. You know, like door knocking specifically, like your door knocking and like, honestly, door knocking is hard. I used to do that quite a bit too. And like the first door was always the hardest. But you knock on the first door, you get it done. Then you think to yourself, like what I can gain is so much higher than what I could lose. Like the worst thing that can happen to me is they just say no. And like, I guess the worst thing is they can just tell you to pound it. But like the best thing they can do is be a client for life, right? So the upside is so high and the downside is not that low. You just got to go out and do it. Right. And then it just turns into a numbers game.


00:34:20 Chad Mckillop
a numbers game. To this day, I literally sit in my car before I go knock on the first door and I have to have like a pep talk.


00:34:26 Matt Glen
First door. It's always the first door. That's the hardest. Like after that, someone says hi. It's like, oh, this is easy. Just go door to door and seize it. Like the first door. Yeah. Even if you're doing it two days in a row, it's that first door on both days.


00:34:39 Chad Mckillop
both days. That's just like every day. Yeah. I have to throw myself out of the car and I just knock on the door before I even know what I'm going to say. I'm like, sack out of the way.


00:34:48 Matt Glen
Yeah. No, that is exactly how that is, but you just got to do it. Especially if you're an agent with not that much business, or even if you have business, go and knock on some doors because like that can be very successful. You know what?


00:35:00 Taylor Atkinson
know what? Yeah. We get people door knocking too. And I'm bad. I usually just like, I'm like, I don't want to shut the door or whatever. See, but that's, I know. But afterwards, Emily and I are like, oh, you know, I know how tough it is. Like we should like give them, you know, a little more time a day, but yeah. So we get that too.


00:35:15 Matt Glen
get that too. Like we. talk to them. Like both of our neighborhoods, I think are like, you guys could reverse door knock when someone knocks on your door.


00:35:21 Taylor Atkinson
Hey, where do you live? Do you want to buy a house? You, you know,


00:35:24 Matt Glen
but yeah, you do that. But then after a while, it's like, Oh my God. But you say no. And like, you think, Oh, I feel bad. Like, man, just one. No, it's not that bad for that dude. Yeah. Somebody's going to say yes.


00:35:34 Chad Mckillop
If I get one more solar proposal, I swear. Yeah. Seriously. No, what I, cause I feel the same way. I don't like door knocking. I don't like door knockers, but. I try to come with some form of value to bring. So I do a referral kickback right now. So at least I'm not like, hey, man, can you give me some business? It's more like, hey, you refer me, I'll come back. And I try to give value. And that way it doesn't feel as bad.


00:35:59 Matt Glen
You know, the funniest one, my door knocking is you go knock on the door, like keep talking to them for a bit. Like, have you ever thought about buying yourself? No, we love our neighborhood. Like, well, do you have any neighbors here that you hate that you want me to try and move?


00:36:12 Matt Glen
And I always get to laugh and then like, sometimes like, yeah, I'd prefer that dude to leave and go knock on that guy's door. Yeah. That was pretty good. Totally cat with that one. Yeah.


00:36:18 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah.


00:36:23 Matt Glen
Yeah. Yeah. So you can have fun. Like he, I've had a ton of fun door knocking, but yeah, it's obviously it's hard to do and it sucks to even be the person who door knocking on the decision. Well,


00:36:34 Taylor Atkinson
I mean, if it's so hard, why don't you guys just ring the doorbell?


00:36:38 Matt Glen
No. So you could talk to a video screen where you can't even see them. Yeah. or video yeah yeah yeah that's the worst yeah one thing i would say that worked really well was starting out i went to my managing broker and i said who are the five heavy hitters in our brokerage right now so who's doing the most amount of business and then i personally tried to meet up with each one of them either for coffee for lunch and i just said like i'm your guy so if you need open houses if you need anything this year i was the yes man because there's some people who do quite a bit of business at our workplace


00:36:43 Chad Mckillop
yeah yeah that's the worst yeah one thing i would say that worked really well was starting out i went to my managing broker and i said who are the five heavy hitters in our brokerage right now so who's doing the most amount of business and then i personally tried to meet up with each one of them either for coffee for lunch and i just said like i'm your guy so if you need open houses if you need anything this year i was the yes man because there's some people who do quite a bit of business at our workplace And I just made sure never to let them down. If an open house is two to four, I'm going to be there early. I might flyer the neighborhood prior, whatever it is, like just always trying to do more. And then when you earn the trust of people within your brokerage, people do start to be like, hey, you know, I can't double end this deal. Do you want to represent my buyer or something like that? So things do start to happen, but you definitely got to earn your stripes first before the handouts come.


00:37:30 Taylor Atkinson
Awesome, man. Where can people find out more about you if they want to connect with you?


00:37:33 Chad Mckillop
My website's callchad .ca. And then my Instagram, which social media, man, another tough game. Social media, Instagram is the Chad McKillop. That's where you'll find me. Awesome. Yeah, I don't do a lot of other socials. I need to get better at that. That's for sure. We all do, my friend.


00:37:51 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah, listen, after this podcast, you will be blowing up. So you don't have to worry about anything.


00:37:55 Matt Glen
Yeah, I don't know what you're going to do with your dozen likes, but it's going to be awesome.


00:38:03 Taylor Atkinson
Yeah. All right. Well, thanks. Thanks for your time, Chad. Appreciate it. Good luck in 2026. And I can't stop thinking about this slip that Matt has down the street from me in this complex. So I might drive by it right now. But as I'm a mortgage broker, I'm going to do absolutely nothing other than just get mortgages for clients and not look after my own portfolio. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on, guys. It's been awesome.