"Inspired to Invest" Podcast

From Private Equity Powerhouse To Multifamily Real Estate Mogul

• Serena Holmes • Episode 85

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It's nothing short of a transformation.

Welcome back to ep85 of "Inspired To Invest". This week, Arlett Tygesen is with us.

To watch rather than listen, click here.

Discover Arlett's journey which includes a significant shift from managing capital markets for a Canadian public pension fund to spearheading her own real estate investment company Titan REI. 

Arlett brings her 17 years of experience to the table, sharing insights on overcoming challenges like imposter syndrome and the thrill of managing a $2.5 billion fund allocation. 

This episode unravels the secrets behind her strategic investments in commercial multifamily properties in the U.S. Southwest and offers a blueprint for aspiring real estate moguls.

We unpack the nuts and bolts of structuring real estate deals, emphasizing the vital role of risk mitigation, due diligence, and the alignment of interests in partnerships. 

Drawing from personal experiences in private equity, we highlight the need for a competent team and the tricky nuances of securities laws. 

Aspiring general partners can glean valuable advice on the importance of starting as limited partners to truly understand the process from the ground up, avoiding common industry pitfalls.

The conversation gets gritty with a look at real-world challenges in real estate investing, from deceptive seller tactics to the empowerment of women in finance. 

Arlett shares bold strategies for overcoming obstacles and building generational wealth, underscoring the need for women to take charge of their financial destinies. 

With a focus on Texas's booming market and the promise of opportunities for accredited investors, this episode offers a rallying call to action for anyone ready to pursue their dreams in real estate.

To connect with Arlett, go to @arlettetygesen on social and https://midfieldrealestate.ca.   

Thank you to the REI Loop for bringing us this month’s episodes. 

To find out more about this revolutionary software to help you streamline your real estate acquisitions/dispositions, manage relationships with clients, and scale your portfolio. Find out more at @thereiloop and online  

“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 Apr. 2 for our next episode!

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

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Serena Holmes:

Hey everybody, welcome to Inspired to Invest. I have Arlett Tygesen here with me today, from Titan REI in Toronto, not Tartan Titan. She's a 17-year veteran of capital markets, which primarily focused on the private equity asset class as a limited partner of a Canadian public pension fund and working on the placement agency side for a major US bank asset management group. Over the past five years, arlette has devoted herself to building an investment portfolio in the commercial multifamily space, specifically targeting the southwest areas of the United States, including the current 120 units across two properties that she currently has under contract. Her team has 75 years combined investing experience in real estate and she's also invested as an LP so a limited partner on a portfolio exceeding 1,700 doors. So thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us today. How are you?

Arlett Tygesen:

I'm good. Serena, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I love your podcast. You always have a really interesting set of guests and good conversations, so thank you for having me.

Serena Holmes:

Awesome. Well, thanks for being here. You obviously have like very significant experience, but maybe you can take us back to the beginning of really where real estate came into the picture for you.

Arlett Tygesen:

Sure, I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family, so I always knew I would be forging on my own at some point. I did grow up in a typical corporate upbringing, but was surrounded by all these entrepreneurs at home. My parents are art dealers.

Serena Holmes:

artists, art dealers paint, like you name it A little opposite to real estate investing A little bit opposite.

Arlett Tygesen:

And you know, it's amazing that most of my siblings moved into finance or medicine as well. So we kind of just did the opposite of what our parents were doing, but all of us have sort of slowly migrated back into more of an entrepreneurial space. So after leaving capital markets I spent quite a bit of time there on lots of different areas, but primarily, as you said, on a limited partner side and then on the capital raising side, and now come full circle to become a GP. So it was always my dream to have my own company. I didn't know if it was going to be real estate, I didn't know what it was going to be. I've always had lots of little companies on the side as well, always a bit of a hustler and kind of scrappy that way. So it's it kind of.

Arlett Tygesen:

I just had a moment about five years ago where I didn't want to go back into traditional private equity. It was a lot of time and a lot of airplanes and a lot of time away from my family and I wanted to see if I could sort of bring all those experiences together and create something. And then I just one day I was at a real estate conference like, oh, I could do this. I could do this. The one thing that was missing, though, was my acumen on the real estate side. So I was fortunate COVID hit, and I was fortunate to be able to really dig in and really learn the real estate side and understand what strategy I want to focus on, build my team and, you know, not take any immediate risks or jump in too, too quickly. I'm a big, big proponent of research and education first, but then knowing, when that moment happens, that you got to take action too.

Serena Holmes:

So then, what was that catalyst then? So obviously you had this background in private equity. What was that exact moment where you made that shift and like, did you rip the bandaid off or did you just kind of start slowly? Like can you talk about that transition?

Arlett Tygesen:

You know it's like that's a really good question. I think about this a lot Like what was there at that seminal moment other than that aha moment at a real estate conference that I was randomly at? I don't even know why. I was like there was no master plan at the time and even with my background and what I did and the knowledge I had and how early days I was in private equity, this was 25 years ago when I started and it was very nascent. The industry was pretty nascent. Public pension funds were not investing in private equity.

Arlett Tygesen:

I had this really really interesting opportunity and I'm very attracted to pioneering opportunities. So when I was at the pension fund, I was actually working in public markets as an analyst, first in oil and gas, and then they were starting this thing called a fund of funds on the private equity side and they approached me to see if I wanted to co-manage it with my partner and they gave us a $2.5 billion allocation and it was go write some checks around the world, go figure out what private equity is and how we can make money in this space, and so along the way I've always looked for those really really interesting pioneering opportunities and I don't know if there was any one catalyst, but it was. Suddenly I was realizing I'd made a lot of money for a lot of people and I still had this little entrepreneurial bug in the back of my head going I want to do this for myself. So back to your earlier question is even with all that experience and acumen, when I started this I had imposter syndrome.

Arlett Tygesen:

I'm like why me? Why would I think I can do this? How arrogant of me to think that I could be like the Blackstones or the Apollos or the big guys. They weren't so big when I started. But I was like why me? Am I this? And I just had to take a moment and just shift my mindset and go of course I can. Of course I can. I don't like the word can't. So the second that creeped into my brain I just had to shake my head and say of course I can. Just do it, take action.

Serena Holmes:

So now, when you're dealing with something like a two and a half billion dollar budget and you're looking at opportunities to invest in, what were some of the specific things that you were looking at and how did you kind of vet those big opportunities and how would you split up like two and a half billion dollars? Like I'm just so curious, because that's obviously a very significant number. So I'd be curious to know, like what kind of things, like what markers are you looking for, what kind of success are you looking for? And, you know, did you have any bad decisions along the way? Like maybe one one of those work out?

Arlett Tygesen:

Oh yeah. So I've lived through a few market cycles, so $2.5 billion sounds like a lot. But within the context of the pension fund, when I was working on public markets, for instance, the pension fund was $76 billion assets under management at the time. It's now north of $120 billion, but at the time the capital markets took up most of that allocation. So I was working on a much bigger portfolio allocation. So I was working on a much bigger portfolio.

Arlett Tygesen:

So, moving over to two and a half billion on the private equity side, even though it sounds big, it doesn't take much to deploy that capital. So we had a strategy to deploy it geographically so it was a global mandate and across the different subclasses within private equity. So buyout, venture capital. I didn't have a mandate for real estate because we had a separate real estate group, but it was primarily you know I don't remember what the weightings were but probably 70% buyout and within buyout, that's the large buyout, the midsize buyout, the small. You know there's a lot of little subclasses within there.

Arlett Tygesen:

So we took a while to build that strategy, interviewed a ton of general partners. We were very thorough on our due diligence. In fact we probably set the standard for due diligence back in those days and if anyone saw us coming into a deal, other pension funds or family offices or whomever it was the whole spectrum was investing in private equity. Back then they sort of looked at that as a stamp of approval. So it sounds like a lot, but it wasn't.

Arlett Tygesen:

But to your second question very early on in my career and you're too young to remember this there was something called the tech boom and tech bust. That was, like you know, at the beginning of the turn of the century of 2000s. In 1999, venture capital blew up and along with that we had a 25% allocation to venture capital that way and overnight it was basically eviscerated. So that was a startling because we're talking quite a lot of capital at this point. But we just kind of regrouped and helped some of the general partners we build and we resuscitated what we could out of it. And you carry on because the markets are cyclical. So it came back.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, I found that really interesting. I was at an event on the weekend and they're actually showing a lot of the history behind currencies and real estate and things like that, and then they're adopting you know how US politics has even affected things like Bitcoin and crypto and all of that. And it's just really interesting to see. You know historically how those cycles have really proven themselves right. So I think that if you want to try to figure out how to move forward, sometimes you just have to look back.

Arlett Tygesen:

Absolutely, and that's part of fundamental analysis. If you think about it, If cyclical nature in the investment world is is, you know, every seven to 10 years there's a market change, it's predictable. It's the timing of it's not predictable, but the fact that it's going to happen is fairly predictable.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, Now, in terms of starting your own business and going down this path, underwriting your own deals, what are some of those best practices that you learned from the private equity space that you're infusing into your own business?

Arlett Tygesen:

Yeah Well, first of all, I'm very risk averse. You know, given my background working for a pension fund, you know you lead with risk risk mitigation first. So when I go into a deal, I look at who the team is. I look at the underlying fundamentals. You know there's a lot of really deep dive due diligence and I have a fantastic team that I work with now. I had the benefit of kind of interviewing and observing people from afar to see how they were operating within their own deals over the course of COVID. So they didn't know that I was assessing them, but I was assessing them and I have this fantastic team now that I work with and everyone has their air of expertise.

Arlett Tygesen:

And one of the things I wanted to make sure was on the origination side of things or, you know, finding the deals that we were executing on really thorough due diligence and I'm talking investment banking level due diligence right. A lot of people rush in because they fall in love with the asset, they think they can make it work, and they don't do some fundamental things like well, can you actually analyze where the cash flows are coming from, and are you cash flowing from day one or is it three years down the road. You don't do those deals if you can't have a sightline on cashflow, for instance. So it was, it was. It's about being very, very thorough and don't fall in love with the asset. And, first and foremost, your first step is how do I mitigate the risk?

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, Now I think sometimes people like they understand what has to happen, but they don't necessarily understand. How Can you talk a little bit about things like working with securities, for example, to structure a deal when you are engaging limited partners to basically fund acquisitions and fund the deals?

Arlett Tygesen:

Yeah, so it is a security product, so we are required to follow the laws of the OSC and the SEC, of course. So the way we structure our deals are limited partnerships and general partnerships. So a limited partnership is where our investors are called LPs and it functions in the way that it sounds, so they have limited liability in the deal. The worst, the worst or the biggest risk that an LP is facing is is complete loss of their invested capital. So if they give us a hundred thousand dollars, you're losing. The potential is to lose that a hundred percent of your equity. You don't participate in any of the downside that the general partners face, any of the potential lawsuits, nothing like that. So the general partner takes on the bulk of the risk and for limited partners, we give them the bulk of the returns up front to show that there's alignment of interest.

Arlett Tygesen:

We're working very hard to make sure everyone wins in this deal. But the timing of payouts we feel very strongly and anyone who's looking at a general partnership to potentially invest as a limited partner make sure this fundamental thing exists, called alignment of interest, and it's where you see the timing of the payouts for limited partners, which should be front ended. You know, we also offer an 8% preferred return, which is a little bit of cash flow leading up to when we can actually have a financing event such as a refi. But the GPs we get paid on the back end. So if it's a five-year deal we don't really start making any money until really any year four and five. So it's called the alignment of interest and you have to make sure that a general partner is offering that.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, no, I think that's smart and I mean we have obviously seen a lot of devastation in our industry with companies that you know maybe they raised money the wrong way for their acquisitions and you know there was a lot of things that weren't communicated appropriately to investors. So when you are structuring a deal, can you talk about just that actual timeline of how things would come together, like would you start by engaging your securities lawyer to kind of have something maybe like a GPLP contract outlined, or would you start with trying to find the property Like what would be the actual you know five steps or something.

Serena Holmes:

Because I think for someone to consider tackling it can feel really intimidating or overwhelming because they just don't know you know the order, maybe like when they put it together.

Arlett Tygesen:

Right. I would strongly recommend, if anyone's looking to get involved or become a general partner, make sure you've had experience as a limited partner first. It's such a great training ground because you can sit back next to zero, next to no liability. You can observe the GPs and get involved and see what they're doing. That's what I chose to do, because I'm risk averse Other people might start right off the bat being a GP to do because I'm risk averse. Other people might start right off the bat being a GP, but I wanted to make sure I understood from the real estate market because I had a lengthy background in private equity. None of it scared me. I just wanted to see how it was done in the real estate side of things. So I would recommend starting making sure you have all your documents in order, your company structure in order, because that's a special kind of lawyer you have to talk to to get your entity set up. And so we have our entities in Canada and in the US because we deploy capital in the US and Texas primarily, and so I would get your legals in order first, your business strategy, sort of like what's your operating plan, and then go out to market.

Arlett Tygesen:

Unfortunately, in reality it rarely happens like that. There's never a good timing when you're starting out. So we had a great deal come to us pretty quickly. After underwriting probably 100 deals in the last six months, we found this great deal. We were in the throes of getting all of our legals created. Then we had to suddenly jump into capital raising and you know it's kind of this is the game, as you know like capital never matches up with the timing of when you have a deal. And then when you have a deal, then you need all the legals. So you know, now we're obviously in a different place, but we have all of our legals and you can kind of reuse those legals. You don't have to recreate them every time, but fundamentally get your entities set up. I'm happy to talk to anybody about what those entities are and who to talk to. We have a couple of great attorneys that we deal with in the U S and just make sure you understand what those legals have to be.

Arlett Tygesen:

Like we, we you know it's an exempt market, so you have to understand what an exempt market is and how you have to operate within the confines of compliance, Because that's the other big thing that people kind of ignore in this industry is how important compliance is. There's a lot of cowboys out there that are just operating in the gray areas and I think it puts a bad taste and it makes the rest of us look bad for those who are operating within compliance. So very, very fundamentally important.

Serena Holmes:

Awesome. Well, on that note, we're just going to take a really brief break for a word from our sponsors. We'll be right back. Sure, hey, everybody, Welcome back to Inspire to Invest. I've got Arlette Taggison here with me from Titan REI and she's talking about everything from legal structures and securities compliance to building a robust portfolio of units across Southeast United States. Now one of the things that I always like to ask people is what's one of the craziest things that they've experienced as a real estate investor?

Arlett Tygesen:

Where do I begin? I'm often amazed when we are looking at a property and we're doing our physical tour of the properties. I'm always amazed at what sellers try to get away with when. So we primarily look at distressed properties sometimes yes, sometimes no, but of late, because of the market, we're looking at really great discounted properties where the seller's gotten in trouble, they're not servicing their loans and they're, you know, deferred maintenance is building up.

Arlett Tygesen:

So you see a lot of uh, you know, rundown places that look fantastic in the photographs.

Arlett Tygesen:

And then you go and see, wow, it's amazing.

Arlett Tygesen:

And within that, the other thing they try to do is really bump up the occupancy so it looks like it's, uh, fuller than it is and, um, they're earning higher rents than they are. And the telltale sign is this was this blew me away the first time I saw this, because I'd never seen this before uh, mattresses on a floor in a unit, and that, literally is they're going out to the street gathering homeless people putting their, putting a bed, a mattress, not even a bed in a unit and saying that it's populated. It blew me away when I saw that the first time. Wow, like, how did you think we weren't going to figure that out. So you know, because we see the rent rules and things and you know just all the little games that they play, so that you know a sophisticated investor is going to know how to unwind that, where to find the true rent rules, what documents to ask for the T12s, what have you you really need to dig in. That's where your acumen on due diligence really really matters.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, I mean I can understand that there is a multi-unit property I was looking at in Cape Breton and I think it was something like 22 or 30 units across six properties and when I asked to see the rent rolls I just got these like random word documents with like just look like random things on a page and I was like what is this Like? Not like an actual like balance?

Arlett Tygesen:

sheet, not a profit and loss, and I was like, yeah, I like the ones that are written in pencil, they just, they just give you a little yeah, I was like is this a joke, like you know?

Serena Holmes:

and I think at the time, like they tried to say, like after all, expenses are paid. If you put this much down, you're seeing maybe $85,000 profit, net profit, a year. I'm like, but is are, is are you sure, like you know? And it just sounded like the owner like to your point. It was just a little old school. It didn't sound organized at all. He bought it for cash. He was like ideally looking to sell it for cash and there was really no way to know. So you could be thinking you're coming into something that maybe could be profitable or you could be taking a massive loss, right? So, yeah, definitely an interesting. I was. I was just very surprised that that's actually what they sent me and thought that was acceptable.

Arlett Tygesen:

Yeah, and often those, those old, those old landlords haven't changed the rent in years. And you know, there's just you know. Then you got to turn over the tenants because it's not going to. That's not the vision you have in the building. Yeah, yeah.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, now, in terms of things like challenges and lessons, what would you say is one of the biggest obstacles that you've faced now that you are on the GP side?

Arlett Tygesen:

I think access to great deals or finding great deals I think we have great access. We source our deals off market primarily. We have really good, solid relationships down in Texas. My partners have been working down there for quite a while.

Arlett Tygesen:

Anyone who's starting out in this business, that's kind of the holy grail, like how do I get access to these great deals? Similarly, how do I structure a great team? Like who are my attorneys, who are my lawyers and who is my GP partnership as well? So just taking time to get that right is important. And then you know, I think part two of it is it's such a male dominated industry and you still, as a female, you know there's still conversations that go on, and I'm this is not a male bashing thing and I don't want to turn to that at all but you know, having seat at the table is, uh, can be challenging and having a voice can be challenging, and I've just always my sister and I so I do this business with my people don't know this. I have a twin sister, uh, and she and I are a Titan and, uh, we decided that, you know, if there wasn't a seat at the table or there wasn't a table, we were just going to build one ourselves.

Arlett Tygesen:

So, that's kind of what our strategy is and it's served us well and it's you know you go into a room, you have the knowledge, you have the experience, you have the acumen and you have a checkbook and people will pay attention to you and it's just. It's a little bit about knowing and feeling that you do have a seat at the table, and I spent a lot of time mentoring young women about building that level of confidence. You know they probably have a great skill set or have some great experience, but they're intimidated about walking into those rooms and to me it was just about shake off that intimidation. I learned that very early on in my career. You know I was, I had tailwinds. You know I'm walking around with a two and a half billion dollar checkbook. That makes you pretty powerful and it gave me a sense of confidence. But without that you don't even have to have that. It's just believing in yourself, believing you have a spot at the table. If there's no table, you build your own table.

Arlett Tygesen:

And not growing up with mentors in that industry made me want to double down on providing any kind of guidance I can to young women who are coming up in this business or even just trying to learn financial literacy right. It's just a fundamental thing. People are so intimidated by it. I spent a lot of time demystifying it and walking people through it. You know there's simple steps you can take. You don't have to know the whole thing. Just do a few things and and you'll be set. And you know, I'm all about building generational wealth and teaching moms and women how to put that in their mindset, because a lot of us have abdicated that to our husbands or our partners and that's just the worst way to go through life. You need to have your own level of understanding and your own level of control.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah 100%.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, no, I think that that's really smart. I mean I even interviewed somebody recently and their husband had passed away and I think you know she's very smart, very educated, career driven, but she had kind of gotten comfortable and trusted her husband and then when he passed away he realized just they hadn't left things in the best place for her to take over. They were significantly over leveraged and kind of ended up in that I don't want to say worst case scenario, but in a scenario you probably wouldn't expect from somebody that is in her position, career wise, and it still happens right on the spectrum. But I think you can never ask too many questions and I think it's imperative when you are married to make sure that you are in all of those different things, cause you don't know when things could change.

Arlett Tygesen:

Know who your lawyer is, know who you're um, know where your will and your estate lawyer is.

Arlett Tygesen:

Yeah, Understand have a will number one when you're. My kids have a will. You know anyone over the age of 25, my kids are still under 25, but they, we've taken them through what that looks like and what they need to think about. Anyone, everyone needs to have a will. Everyone needs to just have a discussion once a month or once a quarter with your partner to go through finances and really you know, really be a participant in that decision-making and where it's going. I know way too many people, way too many women, especially later in life around my age, who are getting divorced and have zero financial acumen because they've abdicated it to their husbands.

Arlett Tygesen:

So you know what I try to do on the real estate limited partners side, because real estate is a long-term game. I talk about putting money to work for you, laddering it so there's some commercial or cashflow returns every year. Invest in a couple of limited partnerships. It's a very passive way to do it. You don't have to be an expert, but you do have to find good partners that you trust, do your homework and then that'll serve you well because you're not only building, receiving cashflow, but you're building long-term equity right. So the asset will appreciate, either through forced appreciation or just market appreciation, and real estate is such a great way.

Arlett Tygesen:

There's risks, of course. There's risks to everything. To have a substantial portion of your portfolio and it's not, we're not talking about a lot of money but you know, have a substantial portion of your portfolio in real estate. I always say balance it with a little bit of stock market. You need some equities. I really love index funds because they're you know, they're dividend paying and there's a regular cash flows and then have some real estate. So you know, personally I'm sort of 30, 40% stock market and very long on real estate. I really believe in that asset class.

Serena Holmes:

So yeah, no, I agree completely. Now, when you look back at, you know your entire career. What would you say is something that you're most proud of?

Arlett Tygesen:

I'd say building the relationships that I have, because real estate in any investment business, anything you do, really it's a people business and if you can build great relationships, you never know where it comes back to serve you later in life. And I always lead with what everyone should do this and I know you do this. You lead with offering value first and if the universe repays you, if karma comes your way, it's because you've provided value first and we're all at a level in our lives where we've had some level of experience and we can offer that, some kind of help to somebody, advice or a direction or a referral or something. It's always served me very, very well to lead with that, with no expectation of return, but it always does right. So I I would say probably building great relationships and continuing, continuing to nurture those relationships, because relationships need nurturing.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, no, absolutely, and you just never know when things are going to come full circle for you right Now. Obviously you have done a lot of education. You've got a lot of career experience. What would you say some of the best advice that has been passed along to you?

Arlett Tygesen:

I would say take action. You know we can get stuck in this analysis. Paralysis we always tell you, always hear about those terms, and I was guilty of that. I was sort of you know, covid kind of allowed me to do that too, because there just wasn't a whole lot going on. But you can. You can literally analyze things to death and never take action. And then time just gets, you know, consumed and you'll look back and go, oh, I should have done that three years ago. I should have done that two years ago.

Arlett Tygesen:

All I would say is take action. So take mitigated risk action. So become a limited partner. So that's, you're mitigating your risk there. Learn the ropes of real estate that way. I'm talking commercial multifamily. So we only buy big buildings. I'm not talking about single family. You could do it in whatever. But partner with somebody first, learn the space, get smart and then commit to yourself that you are going to take action. Put a date on a calendar, put a vision board up there, just say you know, january 2024 is the day I'm going to start taking action on my own, because we just don't. You know it's entrepreneurialism is a different kind of animal. Those of us that are, you know our mindset's different, so taking action isn't as challenging for us. But the vast majority of people are not entrepreneurs, but they sit on the sidelines and wait too long to get smart about something, to jump in, to make an investment. You know, we're a global nation of watchers and observers and the rewards are for the folks that take action.

Serena Holmes:

Yeah, no, I agree Now in that, in that sentiment, what would you say is next for you? Cause you're obviously have this robust portfolio. You're working on acquiring new things, Like where exactly do you want to take?

Arlett Tygesen:

it. Well, our team, you know we have aspirations to do a few deals a year. I would love to do three, four deals a year. This current one that we have under contract is two properties, 120 units, from a very motivated seller. They're hard to find and you know, we all thought this distressed market was going to be a lot more robust than it was. But you know, I think, with the, you know the extend and pretend loans and all those things that lenders are offering, it's kind of delayed or deferred, the real distressed opportunities. So that's an issue in itself. But you know we're seeing some terrific deals. We want to I easily want to be 5,000 doors within the next year or two. Have, you know, north of 100 million, 200 million in assets under management. It's all very doable. We're putting those steps in place right now and the team's very strong and capital raising is going really, really well on this particular deal. So I believe we'll have it closed even sooner than our close date. So continue to deploy capital in the States.

Arlett Tygesen:

I love Texas, we love Texas, especially post-election. Texas is in business to be in business. The one of the stats I really love and I think you must have heard me say this before is the uh u-haul has a growth index that they've been tracking uh equipment, one-way equipment rentals for years now. It's called the growth index and the number one state for one-way equipment rentals, truck rentals, is texas. Six out of the past eight years know people are moving. There is zero corporate tax rates, your personal tax rate, low cost of living. You know our rent here in Toronto as, as you know, you know you could be spending 60, 65% of your take-home pay monthly on rent in Texas. It's like 35% and you know it's. It's a low cost of living and if you're not spending all your money on rent, you've got life. You've got an opportunity to do other things raise a family, have lots of opportunities there. So I just love Texas for a lot of reasons.

Serena Holmes:

Awesome. Now, obviously, the name of this podcast is Inspired to Invest, so I always like to ask my guests if they have a particular quote that motivates or inspires them.

Arlett Tygesen:

Yes, I'm going to read it because I don't want to mess it up. I love this one and it's I love quotes too. I love that it just like you know, in a few short words it actually encapsulates everything that you're feeling, and lots of big emotions too. So the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams, and that's Eleanor Roosevelt, and I love that. Because that's Eleanor Roosevelt, and I love that because that's a take action kind of quote. Right, if you think about it, you believe in yourself. You have these dreams, we all have these dreams. Let's stop being observers, let's start deploying, let's start taking action. And I think that kind of encapsulates that whole sentiment.

Serena Holmes:

One of my favorite quotes as well. Now, for anyone that wants to get to learn more about your opportunities, or even just to learn, learn from you. Because you share so much great content online. What's the best way for people to find you?

Arlett Tygesen:

sure, probably easiest is my linkedin. Uh, it's arlette tigason. Um, and you know we offer some educational things. We have some great little freebies if people want to start learning about the industry. Um, that's all on my website and I know you're going to put the other socials in the in the notes below. But, um, linkedin is probably where we talk most about market conditions and any opportunities that we have right now. So I would just encourage anyone. You know we only take accredited investors, so there's a threshold there for income, but you know I'd be happy to take anyone through what that all means and how they can get involved.

Serena Holmes:

Well, thank you for your time today. Of course, for anyone that is watching or listening, we appreciate your time as well, and if you have enjoyed this episode, make sure that you like, comment and subscribe below and you're following along at Inspired to Invest podcast on social, and remember, when you invest in yourself, the sky's the limit. Thanks again, thank you.