"Inspired to Invest" Podcast

It's NEVER Too Late To Take A Chance On Yourself!

• Serena Holmes • Episode 79

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Do you ever feel like it's too late to start over?

Think again!

Welcome back to episode 79 of "Inspired To Invest". This week Debbie Balfour is with us. To watch rather than listen, click here.

Debbie is inspiring investor and coach from Vancouver, BC, who started her real estate investing career at the age of 50.

Debbie shares how she reignited her youthful passion for real estate, and the decisive steps she took to transform her dreams into reality.

Tune in to discover her strategic approaches, like joint ventures and private lending, and learn from her unwavering determination that ensured she never lost money in her career.

With a focus on education, community, and mentorship, Debbie's story will motivate you to take action on your own investment journey.

But real estate investing isn’t just sunshine and rainbows—it's about resilience too. When a devastating fire destroyed her home, Debbie's portfolio of six properties became her lifeline.

Through her experience, she brings to light the critical lessons about insurance that every investor should heed.

From the importance of accurate home valuation to choosing the right insurance policy, Debbie’s story is a compelling reminder of the unexpected challenges that can arise.

She candidly addresses the pitfalls of being underinsured and dealing with insurance delays, urging listeners to seek reliable recommendations and understand their policies thoroughly.

Don't miss the essential insights from Debbie's journey that could save you from similar pitfalls.

To connect with Debbie, go to @debbiebalfourcoach on social.

“Inspired to Invest” is proud to support the Beyond Success Program, a not-for-profit financial literacy program for students, launched by More To Give & MAK Investments. Find out more at @more2give.ca.

Join us again on Feb. 5 for our next episode!

Thank you for tuning into “Inspired To Invest”, hosted by Serena Holmes & remember, "when you invest in yourself, the sky's the limit!"

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Serena Holmes:

Hi everybody, welcome to Inspire to Invest. I've got Debbie Balfour joining me from Vancouver, bc, today. She's a professional real estate investor as well as a real estate investing success coach. With four years of professional real estate investing experience in both Alberta as well as British Columbia. She has employed strategies ranging from joint ventures and burs to rental strategies for long, mid and short term rentals, private lending as well as private equity. She's the host of let's Talk Real Estate Investing podcast. She's a creator of a transformative five week online course and creator of the REI Business Transformation Academy program. So thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be with us today. How are you?

Debbie Balfour:

I am wonderful, thank you. Thank you so much, serena, for having me.

Serena Holmes:

So obviously we were talking a little bit offline before I hit record and we were talking about how you got started in real estate a little bit later in life. So I thought that was kind of an interesting thing to touch on. Maybe you can talk about how that came into your life and why you kind of move full force with it at this stage.

Debbie Balfour:

Definitely so. Yeah, so I mean, I didn't start real estate investing until I was 50 years old and it was always something that was in the back of my mind, even when I was young. So, even like in my, in my early 20s, when my parents were moving from our you know family home they were buying a new home I was like, oh, I should buy this over from my parents and, you know, have roommates. But back then you didn't have readily, you know, information at your fingertips. There was no Google, there was no YouTube, there was none of this. So, you know, I didn't know how to do it. I wasn't sure, I'm like I probably can't get a mortgage. So I made excuses, basically, and you know it was too difficult, didn't think.

Debbie Balfour:

So, you know, went on, moved on, and then 2008, when the market crashed, and especially in the US, and my mom was living there to same thing, it was like, oh, like you know, they were con, they were townhomes in her complex going for like 58,000. Yeah, us. And I was like, oh, but I probably can't get a mortgage in the us and all this kind of stuff. When I had money on my line of credit, yeah, you know, I could have bought like four or not and hadn't made much of a dent in my went with my son to a you know to, uh, I know wealth tour or whatever they call it. Um and um, you know we're um speaking about real estate investing and he wanted to go on to take the workshop. I said I'll go with him to do this and then I left there going, okay, I'm doing, I'm going all in with this. Yeah, I'm gonna go forward. And I was 50 yeah.

Serena Holmes:

So what was your first step then? Because obviously in your bio we kind of talk about a number of different strategies that you've done in a fairly short period of time. So where, what was your first step beyond that summit?

Debbie Balfour:

So once I did that and I, you know, I got into the group. I got coaching, you know I because I couldn't do. I knew I couldn't do it before alone, because I did take some training in 2016, but didn't go all in. Yeah, I thought I could do it on my own and I never did. I never got started. So I needed help, I needed a community behind me, I needed coaching, you know. I needed like I, you know, needed people to work with. So that would that's definitely the first step is getting not just the education, because knowledge is nothing without how to actually implement it. And that's the, that's the big part how to actually implement it. And that's the, that's the big part. Um, and then the next one was I was like I needed to get started, like today, because I just invested a lot of money in coaching, but also I had like a short runway left in my life and it was like I had all this time to make up for. So I was like I'm gonna go, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get going.

Debbie Balfour:

So I started out by doing a financial joint venture partnership. Um, that was my first thing, because I wanted to get in the game. So I took some of my money that I had and did that while I was so I was investing um and while I was learning and looking for other opportunities as an active investor. So that was my first and the second was private lending. I kind of what I did was the money because I was using my HELOC. The money what I did was invest in private lending the amount that would pay back for the private lending money that I was borrowing from HELOC and for the money I had used for the down payment for the financial partner JV. So that it the actual what I did for private lending the money I was making on that paid the interest on my HELOC.

Debbie Balfour:

Yeah yeah no, I understand completely yeah.

Serena Holmes:

Now, when you look back at some of the different things that you've done in the last four to five years, what would you say you're most proud of or you look at as your biggest success?

Debbie Balfour:

Um, I think it's just all the knowledge that I gained through practical steps that I didn't hesitate. And, you know, sometimes I think maybe I should have stepped back a bit and not gone. So you know, it takes some time, some time to you know. So there are some lessons learned there. But the fact that I took action, yeah, and you know, and although you know, and they were all so far, I haven't lost any money on any of the actions that I took, and then each of those was, you know, got me. You know, got me more learning, got me more edu. You know what not to do, what. You know what got me more learning. Got me more. You know what not to do, what. You know what I should do. And also I learned from that what I like and what I didn't like.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, so when you do talk about things that you like or don't like, can you talk about what those would be and why?

Debbie Balfour:

So, um, I was going against my why for like, so I did births. I was working, yeah, so I'm no longer working now, like as in, I'm not no longer working for a corporation, working for myself, but at the time, I was working for a corporation and doing this on the side and I did births because I loved making something ugly into something beautiful. Yeah, and I and I, you know, although I have zero interior design training, I fancy myself as a, as a designer. So so I really liked that. So I've, you know, I've actually renovated five properties. Nice, that was fun, like seeing the end result, you know, getting the lovely compliments from tenants or from guests when I was doing for short-term rentals.

Debbie Balfour:

However, I spent so much time doing that, yeah, on those renovations, doing things myself. There were some places I painted myself or that I was constantly there to keep an eye on things, which were some of it was like like three, four hour drive from me. Yeah, so, being there all the time and then doing stuff, it took me away from my why and my why is the time spent with my loved ones. So I was, uh, I hadn't seen. I didn't see my mom for like three months at one point, um, and that was she's part of my why to spend as much time with her as possible?

Debbie Balfour:

Um, because I lost my dad, you know, when he was like only 57. So that's that's. Knowing that, you know, tomorrow isn't promised, um is a big thing. Same thing with my kids. I didn't have the weekends with the kids. Uh, I was there. I mean, like, another thing on my vision board is to eat healthy and and to cook and be able to cook healthy, but we were having, you know, we were eating out all that constantly, all the time. So, yeah, yeah so those were.

Debbie Balfour:

That's kind of you know a thing. So that's the the you know. Thinking back, I should have maybe done something more passive, right yeah, which would have alleviated that because I had enough money. The money that I spent on five properties right as down payments was enough to do a really good passive investing.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, yeah, no, I understand that, and there's pros and cons to everything. Right, so you live and you learn. At least now you know going forward, what you kind of want to stick to Now in terms of things like challenges what would you say is one of the biggest obstacles that you've faced and how you know you've worked on overcoming it?

Debbie Balfour:

you know, you've worked on overcoming it. So, um, one is regulations, especially recently. So, um, you know, we know that that governments have been putting in a lot of regulations. Uh, so the big, the. I mean we have all suffering from the interest rates ones. But here in bc I had my, my, three of my properties, no, four of my properties were short term rentals. Right, one I was saying three first because one was already a 30 day plus. But BC has recently, in May of this year now, said that unless it's your principal residence you can't do a short term rental in it, and they've defined short-term rental as anything less than 90 days oh, 90 days wow, yes.

Debbie Balfour:

So even my 30 day plus ones don't qualify. Wow, yeah. So that's. That's challenging, that's been a challenge, um, and I've done several different strategies on different properties to overcome that One. I sold one closest to home. I sold because that one was. The market is still very good for that it's. You know it was a condo, so the condo market is still in high demand. It was low supply, high demand on the condos. The market price was still high on that, so I decided to sell that one, yeah, and and then the other reason was I wanted to. I was highly leveraged, so I needed to bring down my HELOC a bit there.

Debbie Balfour:

And then the second strategy that I've done is the two of the properties. They're side by side, they're duplex, right, so front and back, yeah, actually. And those ones I converted to co-living oh okay, because it wouldn't have called. I couldn't, uh, sustain it as a long-term rental. Yeah, nobody was. I tried selling, nobody was biting and I couldn't. I don't, I'm not selling for a loss on it. So I um, so I did co-living, what I mean. But co-living is like the student rental for not, that's not students, so I do have some students in there. So my place was airbnbs. They were short-term rentals, so they were beautifully furnished, they had everything in it. So I advertised that by room, bring your suit, just bring your suitcase, everything provided in there. And I've been able to get much higher rents by doing the room by room, yeah, um, than I would, by even renting it out as a long-term you know, furnished rental.

Debbie Balfour:

I tried that strategy too. I was doing like a few at a time to see which one would go first. But as soon as I advertised for the co-living. Within minutes I had 10 people.

Serena Holmes:

Wow. And how are you finding the quality of those tenants?

Debbie Balfour:

They've been pretty good, so I've been very good at you know at screening.

Debbie Balfour:

Yeah, I do have one, as I say, that that's, you know, messy and I went against my gut on that one too Right, and I was, like you know, I should never go against my gut, but with her I was, like you know, kind of iffy on it and she is becoming a problem for me right now because she's messy, she's not just like you know, like she's used to having a living at home with her parents, yeah, and she's not cleaning up after herself. I've been sending group messages, just not picking on anyone but say remember this, remember that now are there any rights?

Serena Holmes:

that would be different because it's a co-living situation instead of the entire property as a landlord yeah, well, slightly, in that she's affecting other people in the home.

Debbie Balfour:

Yeah, so she is renting her room really and not the entire home. Yeah Right, so, yeah. So I just actually got off the phone with a lawyer to say how do I approach this, because I haven't spoken to her directly about this issue, and only that I recently found out about some of the things that have been happening. And I'm like guys, you guys needed to bring this to me so I could speak to her at the time.

Debbie Balfour:

So I did call, I did, I have spoken to a lawyer so, and she's given me pointers on sending an email pointing out in in my lease agreement where she's in violation of that you know, saying that, you know giving her time to rectify. So then you know, know that over the next month we're going to see how things are and that if this doesn't you know, if it's not rectified, then we will not then have to look at going taking further action.

Serena Holmes:

yeah, yeah, no, understood okay, well, on that note, we're just going to take a really brief break for our sponsors and we'll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back to Inspire to Invest. I've got Debbie Balfour here with me today and she's talking about some of her successes and challenges as a real estate investor and also how she got started with investing a little bit later on in life. Now, one of the things that I always like to ask people is what's one of the craziest things that they've ever experienced as a real estate investor?

Debbie Balfour:

Well, I don't know if this is it kind of impacts being a real estate investor, but last year I lost my entire home in a fire, yeah, so I think that's the craziest thing that's ever happened. When you look out your window and your your neighbor's hot tub is burning down, your house, the whole backyard was on fire. I had like two minutes to you know, to get out, for me and my sons to get out. I think that that's probably one of the craziest things that's happened and it has impact. It's helped with the philosophy, though, around real estate investing.

Debbie Balfour:

So, you know, I lost my home and everything like all my belongings, everything. I lost it all, and so I could have been in a really bad situation with that, where you know it was. I was already, you know, mentally in a bad situation there, and two months later I lost my job. I could have said, look, I lost everything and gone downhill, but because I had my home leveraged with on other properties so my five other properties that I spoke to about I also had, you know, as a managing partner, another property that I own too, so that would be six properties that I have.

Debbie Balfour:

At the time of the fire is that I had to think back when I was saying things like I've lost it all, that I haven't lost it all. I actually have six properties. Yeah, yeah, right. But if I didn't do that, you know I would have lost it all. Because now, um, if I didn't have a HELOC on my home, my house would have been worth zero, like I was assessed at 200 000. Yeah, right, last you know for this, for this year's assessment. So imagine trying now to get a heal off.

Serena Holmes:

yeah, yeah, no, it's crazy. Now I know that we had a discussion a little while back about some of the lessons that came about from your house burning down, and one of them was around insurance, so I thought that there were some really valuable lessons that came out of that that I thought you might want to share.

Debbie Balfour:

Oh, definitely, I'm crusading on this now because it's really important as a home, as a like, even for your print. For me, this is my principal residence, but also for others it's. The same thing applies for the rentals. Um, it's really important that that calculation that they're doing on your home, where you're paying your premium on it um, that is correct for rebuild. Yeah, so there are two types.

Debbie Balfour:

On principal residents, there are two types of of insurance that you can get. There's single allowance, where it's replacement cost, and there's guaranteed replacement, which is whatever it costs to rebuild that home. The insurance company has to pay, but that is only relevant to principal residents. Yeah, Okay, money. We all want to pay less money, so we're always looking for the best deal when it comes to premiums. So we'll go with insurance companies that say, oh, here's your. You know this premium is low, but when you're looking at those premiums, I really want everybody to look at the actual allowances for each area, because that is critical. I am actually under insured because I trusted my insurance broker to do the right calculations. I'm 300 000 in shortfall.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, rebuild my home yeah, that and I know you also talked about just um. You know where that's also left you in terms of getting back into your home, compared to your neighbor, like I think you said, that they're already like back in and you're still.

Debbie Balfour:

Yeah, so that's also the thing. Really speak to people, try to get references. Speak to people. We've got a huge community here as real estate investors, so go out there and ask people who have had floods, who have had things right, you know, know what were, was their experience with their insurance company and what insurance company was, because we can all say I love my insurance company when we haven't actually put through a claim.

Debbie Balfour:

Yeah, but for me, my insurance company I have as soon as I can get out and I wrap up this claim and I can get out, I'm out because they have done everything possible to delay the. You know, there's nothing inspiring them to pay you out, because the longer they have the money in their bank accounts that's invested in private equities, right and the private market, the more money they're making. So the longer they will take to pay you out and the more excuses and the more they were going to try to say that's not valid, this is not valid. So well, like my neighbor was has been in their house since, uh, july the beginning of july, right and our homes burned down together and they're the reason why my home burned down. This was not my fault. So a lot of us say think this will never happen to me, right, so I'm not going to put much.

Serena Holmes:

you know I'm going to say you never know. I mean I actually. I think you're probably the fourth or fifth person I know whose house has burned down, so I think it's far more common than people seem to think, right, yeah more common than people seem to think.

Debbie Balfour:

Right, yeah, and if you're in the okanagan too, um, you know, forest fires are a big thing, but this was not a forest fire, this was a hot tub fire yes so so it's you know it can happen to you, so you know, pay the extra money. Um, make sure, read the details of your policy. Do you know that there are actually lawyers that you can send your policy to?

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the average person definitely does not do that. Yes, yeah, I think that's definitely really important when it comes to advice, and that kind of leads in perfectly to my next question is obviously you have been part of these different real estate investing communities as well as a student and now as a coach, so what would you say is?

Debbie Balfour:

some of the best advice that you've come across in the last four to five years. Um, I I think that for people who are the best advice for people, that that I hear and is constantly there, but everybody it's just kind of becoming very gimmicky is how important the right team is, and the right but the right team is not easy to find and it will take you, like you know, it took me three tries at an accountant before I found one that I like.

Serena Holmes:

So you will go through. I'm laughing because I had my own business, so I understand completely when it comes both to like lawyers, accountants, employees.

Debbie Balfour:

Contractors, all of these things. You will go through quite a few and you know, fail fast. When it doesn't work for you, get out. Yeah right, fine and same, but but the right team is really really important yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, so I think that's, that's the the biggest advice.

Serena Holmes:

I would say now in terms of where you're at. I know you talked about some of the things that you didn't like and then also the things that you do like. Now that you kind of have a better idea of where to drill down on, what would you say is next for you in terms of your you know? What do you think your next five years would look like, or what do you want to look?

Debbie Balfour:

like Funny thing is is that I said that I you know about the passive investing and things like that, and I actually want to go active now. But the reason for this is now I don't have. I'm now a professional real estate investor and a coach, so I don't have that. I'm not trying to fit in real estate investing while I'm working. That created all that stress. Yeah, so I can. So I am looking at active investing in the sense of I'm going to stay away, though, from being a landlord because of all these regulations, and I want to be more in the in the area of, you know, infills, land development, maybe even flips, right once I can you feel that the market, the, the, the, the demand is there, that I'm not going to hold a home too long on there, yeah, but, uh, yeah, going into that active, uh, side of things is definitely the way I want to go. Providing beautiful homes, like I said, making something ugly into, you know, something beautiful or something that isn't there, yeah, that sort of thing.

Serena Holmes:

I'm rebuilding my home right now, which has been really fun actually, yeah, yeah unexpected and I'm sure not how you wanted to like remodel the property, but no, it went right back to lining so I could, like, I've been able to, like, totally transform most of it.

Debbie Balfour:

I've had to keep, you know, the the architecture on the outside, the same, um but um, but the inside I've done lots of changes to make it more what I would have always wanted. I think we were putting in things that we've always wanted, but also thinking about resale too. Yeah smart.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, yeah, because that's the thing I think. A lot of homeowners sometimes do things that maybe they like, but you know they're not thinking of the time that comes when they're looking at potential buyers. Now, obviously, the name of this podcast is Inspired to Invest, so I always like to ask people what's a particular quote that motivates or inspires them.

Debbie Balfour:

So actually, you know, there's a whole bunch of different quotes that I've liked, but something just in the last, like this weekend a quote I heard and it really resonates and I would like everybody to think about this. You can make lots of money or you can make lots of excuses, but you can't do both. So stop making the excuses, start taking action and then, even like small things at a time, even if you're scared, like do small steps and that smaller step leads to another step, leads to another step. So take action, you know, and you will make money, but stop the excuses.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, yeah, no, I think that that's great. Now, in terms of anyone that wants to get in touch with you, what's the best and easiest way for them to get in contact?

Debbie Balfour:

So I've made my email address and my website really easy to remember. So it's debbie at debbiebalfourcom is my email address, and my website is wwwdebbiebalfourcom. So, you know I've got, you can email me. I'm also on, you know, facebook, instagram and I'll share. I'll share those, all those handles with you, but those are the quickest and easiest and easy to remember.

Serena Holmes:

Right, so we'll include all that in the show notes for below and, of course, for your time. Thank you for being with us today. For anyone who has been watching or listening, we appreciate your time as well. If you have enjoyed this episode, please make sure that you like, comment, subscribe or leave a review. You can also follow along with us on social at Inspired to Invest Podcast. And, of course, remember, when you invest in yourself, the sky's the limit. Thanks again.