GI150: Investing in US Real Estate as a Canadian with Ava Benesocky and August Biniaz

August BINIAZ & Ava Benesocky are founders of CPI Capital; a Canadian based real estate investment firm that focuses on identifying multifamily opportunities throughout the United States.

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Transcript:

Announcer:
Welcome to the Global Investors Podcast, a show that focuses on helping foreign investors enter the lucrative US real estate market. Host, Charles Carillo, combined decades of real estate investing experience with a professional background in international banking to interview experts in all areas of US real estate investing. Now here’s your host, Charles Carillo.

Charles:
Welcome to another episode of the Global Investors Podcast; I’m your host Charles Carillo. Today we have August BINIAZ & Ava Benesocky. They are founders of CPI Capital; a Canadian based real estate investment firm that focuses on identifying multifamily opportunities throughout the United States. So thank you so much for being on the show today.

August:
Thanks for having us.

Ava:
Thanks for having us Charles. We’re excited to be here.

Charles:
<Laugh>, it’s awesome to have actual foreign investors that come on the show cause they always talk to people that have done it and they kind of you know, unless you guys have a business doing it. So you’re interested in coming on, but a lot of investors that have done one or two deals are not really interested in coming on. So it’s great that I can find actual international investors that work with international investors all day long. And we can kind of talk about what you guys see happening, what you guys do. But give us a little background both personally and professionally, both of you prior to getting in involve in real estate investing.

Ava:
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Please go ahead. So yeah. Thanks. Thanks again for having us, we really excited to bring value to your listeners. Firstly, I’m a I’m CEO of, of CPI capital. We’re a real estate investment firm based in Vancouver, Canada. A little bit about what I did beforehand is I was in real, I, I have a real estate background. I was in real estate for over a decade. How time flies. I started very young at the age of 22. And I was in residential real estate and I helped many investors over the years in Canada, particularly there’s a lot of pain points that exist for investors wanting to invest in real estate with median home prices being very high. And of course, trying to scale as an active investor. So we, I pivoted my to real estate private equity about two years ago where we co-founded CPI capital it’s a uniquely innovative company that allows investors to invest in real estate fractional, real estate investing, we call it and relieves them from all the pain points. And that’s kind of a little bit of a me

August:
Well for sure. Yeah. Great. Yeah, myself, my background is also in construction real estate development for the past 15 years. And yeah, I’ve been significantly involved in, in real estate for a long time. It was just probably around three years ago when I realized about this concept of real estate, private equity or syndication as that, they call it in the us where an operator or general partner finds the deals. A deal brings on investors, manages the deal for the portion of the profit. Love the concept. Unfortunately we were here in Canada and the issue here was that the rental yields are so low that it doesn’t the business model doesn’t really work here. You could syndicate deals and I was syndicating deals before even knowing what syndication meant. I was finding deals, bringing on investors, but to be able to, you know, pay cash flow and, and, and, and for that, the rental yield to exist.

August:
It wasn’t really nonexistent here. So when I saw the us, we realized the opportunity that exists right across the border. And then the more research we did, we realized that on the institutional level, there’s lots of investments being done in the billions of dollars annually where a Canadian pension fund fund partnered with a gray star to purchase large multifamily properties in the us and build multifamily. So we knew that it’s already happening on institutional level. How can we offered this to retail investors? And we started on a journey, educational journey initially realizing all the tax cross board of tax items compliance issues, corporate structure needed, needed, and then you know, having to partner with operators and what have you. And we, we started CPI capital and it’s been a incredible journey and we’ve dedicated really our lives to it. So excited to be here today and chat, chat, chat with you more about it.

Charles:
Awesome. So what was your first real estate investment? Did you guys start off with a fractional ownership or you limited partners in a syndication, or how did you guys first dip your, your toes in the water?

August:
This is for you’re pertaining to the multifamily private equity, or just in general ever.

Charles:
I would say with that ever your first investment, maybe not, maybe not a primary residence, but anywhere it could be in Canada, it could be any other country or here in the United States kind of how you guys started for

August:
Sure.

Ava:
Well, mine was in Alberta. Yes. I bought a duplex <laugh> okay. That was my first real estate investment ever. And, you know, I goes back to, it goes back to investing in Canada where you’re purchasing for cashflow. There’s not much appreciation and where you’re purchasing for appreciation. There’s not much cash flow. So that was one of, that was my first real estate invest. That

August:
Was your primary residence store. It was yes.

Charles:
But be your house hacked almost right? Yeah.

August:
Yeah.

Charles:
<Laugh> nice. Nice, awesome. Yes.

August:
And, and for, for me, what was very interesting my family was always very much interested in real estate that were not big real estate investors, but they, they believed in the asset class. I was in downtown Vancouver going for a walk. And I saw a, a presentation center where they were planning to build a high rise. And there were these one bedrooms for sale at 109, 9,000. And you could put down it was a presale presale, so you could put down 5%. And I, I had some money. This is almost 20 years ago, maybe around 18 years ago. And you, you could put down some some, I think, 5% down. And at that time you could get CMHC loan, which is a insured similar to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the us. And that was the first you know, the one bedroom condo that I purchased. It was, it was delayed for, for a year or so for construction and

Ava:
200,000,

August:
200,000, we always

Ava:
Had a crystal

August:
Ball downtown Vancouver, 200,000. And then I I ended up selling it. Unfortunately I shouldn’t have never, I ended up selling it for, I think 475,000 years later, but

Ava:
Yeah, and now it’s probably worth

August:
Probably <inaudible> 700 K I would say seven 50,

Charles:
Maybe. Wow. That’s crazy. Right. Yeah. It’s interesting how you call it fractional ownership because and we call it here of syndication and it changes per different country. I remember I was at a meetup in Hong Kong and I was talking to people about multifamily go. They’re like, what the hell is multifamily? And I was like, oh, they’re like, oh, you just buy like a lot of flats and then you rent them out and stuff. And I was like, yes, that’s okay. That’s how I explain it here then. That’s perfect. Yes. Oh,

Ava:
Interesting.

August:
Yes, yes. Yeah. And, and again, there’s, there’s a lot of terms that get thrown around and a lot of Canadians are receiving their educational content coming from the us side. So it creates a lot of confusion. There’s a lot of terms that have different meanings in the us, for example you know, in the us, it’s recommended to use LLCs to, to purchase real estate. And what have you but we don’t have LLCs in Canada. We have corporations, we have limited partnerships. We have limited liability partnerships, but we don’t have LLCs this and another,

Ava:
Another good one is the, the offering memorandum. Here it’s an actual contract that’s made exemption that we used to raise capital as opposed to the us where it’s a deal presentation. So August, and I really seen the, you know, with the terminology that was used, that was so different on each outta the border. And we kind of educate our Canadian investors. Hey, that doesn’t mean that don’t get confused.

Charles:
So what is CPI? What is your current investment strategy in? I mean, I imagine you’re focusing mainly in the United States. If not all what is your current investment strategy? What type of markets are you looking at properties? You’re looking at investing in?

Ava:
Well, we love the set belt states. We follow the numbers, right? This in job growth, population, growth, income growth, and rental growth. So we love the Sunbelt states where everybody’s kind of flocking right now, the fortune 500 companies. And go ahead. Why don’t you tell our

August:
Business? Yeah, our, our business model is actually very interesting. I mean, our journey is very interesting. Anytime I look, look at real estate, private equity firms their, their, their their, their journeys always, somehow the principles started from single family and then eventually scaled up to eventually get into multifamily. And then there was a need for capital. And then they, they, they seek private equity to to do their business with us when, when we realize the potential that exists in the us. And, and we, we realized that we have to deal with possibly hundreds or even thousands of investors right away. We, we focus on what is the best product to present to our investors. And that was institutional multifamily, but institutional multifamily is, you know, hundred plus unit. In some, some cases now it’s 200 plus unit and we’re talking about tens of millions of dollars. So CPI cap all started out as a real estate, private equity firm, rather than us starting from single family. And Fourex

Ava:
10,

August:
You know what I mean, moving our way up. So it’s a very interesting process, but yes, it’s a real estate, private equity firm that partners with Canadian LPs and us LPs to purchase us multifamily real estate, both class a where, you know, there, there needs to be a value add component in the assets we look at, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be renovations. It could be, you know, some certain types of upgrades that, you know, force appreciates the asset. And that’s, that’s kind of our 30,000 view of our business model.

Ava:
And that’s exciting. That’s what we love to educate investors on is, is how you can go into a multifamily asset and force appreciate the value. That’s, what’s so exciting about our business model is going in there and force appreciating the value of the asset, which is so powerful. That’s what we call it, a wealth building machine. And, and then yeah, do that and, and everybody wins on the back end, so.

Charles:
Awesome. so you touched on it prior about the differences between us and Canadian real estate. And you use some examples. Are you able to kind of dig into that and let us know kind of taxes, cap rates, cash flow, how it differs and then how, I guess how it differs between the in Canada?

August:
Sure. I can make, I can give some tax breakdowns and, and the differences. So there is no 10 31 exchange. There is no deferral taxes in real estate, but the advantage that Canada has is on a on a primary residence, there is there’s no capital gains paid. So if a property is your, and there’s no cap at the, in the us, the cap is at 250,000 profits. Anything above that, you have to pay capital gains on, even on your primary residents, where in Canada, as long as the property is your primary residents you, you can sell it for any profit and there is no cap. So there’s no capital gains is fully tax free. As, as far as depreciation cost, segregation is not as advantageous as the us. They, you know, they do exist, but it’s much less here in Canada. What are the tax items? Is there anything else that’s

Ava:
About it for tax? But I wanted to touch on cash flows and cap rates and that kind of stuff as well. So and the great cities here in Canada, where you’re, where you’re purchasing for appreciation, cuz you obviously, as a, as a real estate investor, you want two main fundamental components and that’s cashflow and appreciation. You can’t really get both here in Canada. So in the great cities Vancouver and Toronto, a median home price is one to 1.3 million. So you’re, you’re, you’re banking on that speculation of appreciation, but you’re most likely in most cases in negative cash flow and the other provinces that you purchase in, you get a little bit of cash flow, but you’re not getting much appreciation now for cap rates. They’re very compressed in the cities that obviously in the great cities as well at a one to 2%.

August:
So they’re being advertised to be around three and a half, but the more research you do into it it it’s much low more than that.

Ava:
Yeah. So if you really look at it, the business model of, of the excitement to purchase multifamily is not, not exactly the, the greatest fun for us here. It’s for people who wanna just park their money somewhere and have really deep pockets, right? So it doesn’t work for, for our kind of pulling together their capital in our

August:
Business model, for sure. And the us population, I mean over 300 million, there is a interstate migration happening within the us people, people move. So they’re not reliant on, on foreign investors or on, on, on foreign immigration. Canada is very reliant on foreign immigration. There’s 300 thousands that I to Canada pre COVID annually. And majority of them wanna live in Vancouver and Toronto. Yeah, mm-hmm <affirmative> so that, that’s what that’s, that’s what kind of creates the demand. So something could happen as far as immigration or regulations and it will affect the market right away. So totally different market. Also the investing culture is a lot different between Canada and the us Canadians are very conservative, very conservative they’re they’re hyper, hyper cautious when it comes to investing and what have you Americans? I mean, we’ve had, we have had, we’ve had many investor us investors investing with us and you know, they give us, Hey, what is the minimum is 25,000. All right. I invest 50 K with you. Yeah.

Ava:
Like, no problem with one phone call, Canadians are like, Hey, I gotta, I gotta have a call with you again. And then another that I’m like, no

August:
Problem. The list of questions of Canadian investors, like, what is your company? What did you do before? Did you ever own another company? Like we have to go through an interview session with all our Canadian, but

Ava:
It’s really exciting educating people. It’s really, really exciting educating people and, and yeah, Canadians are so different from, from Americans.

Charles:
It’s amazing because we, we share a border and so of like that and a lot of different, you know customs and thoughts, but so tell us more about why would it be obviously not knowing United States real estate makes it difficult for someone to invest, but what other reasoning making it now, you’ve done it many of times before yourselves and for investors. So it’s not difficult for you, but if I was a Canadian investor, want to invest United States, what are the biggest hurdles let’s say that I would have to overcome whether it’s into a syndication or whether it’s or fractional ownership, or is it into a, my own property as an active investor or turnkey investor or something like that,

August:
For sure. And that’s, let’s differentiate those two you know, particularly because there is issues and concerns with both of those items. So as far as a individual investor, looking to invest in, in, in real estate, in the us Canadian investor, the, the issues and hurdles they’re gonna face is debt is, is, is getting debt. It’s gonna be the first concern. In some cases they have to, they can’t apply for any debt. And, and the other main issue is repatriation of any profits they’ve made on the us side. And then obviously remote management that goes hand in hand with owning properties in the us and also finding the right property, you know, you call it real estate agent and you’re at the mercy of the agent and the fields they sent to you. So you not have a, a consistent deal flow.

August:
So that’s the issues. As far as somebody looking to invest you know, themselves personally into us real estate, but on the syndication side, on, on real estate, private equity, the concern is there are operators investment firms in the us that accept Canadian investors, but their, their process is not tax efficient. So most syndications, most real estate, private equity firms utilize the LLC structure to put their deals together. Llcs are the most unefficient tax structure for Canadians to Canadians will be taxed, double taxed, they’ll have to pay taxes in the us. They have to pay taxes in Canada. So up to 70% of their profits is gone to taxes for both countries. And that that’s a concern when it comes to other operators saying, Hey, yeah, if you’re Canadian, that’s fine. Just, just incorporate a us LLC. And you can invest with us through your us LLC. And unfortunately, some of our investors and many people we’ve talked to have gone down route. So that’s the concern. So our firm, what it does is obviously with a extensive is on tax efficiency has created a tax efficient process where we create a fund to fund structure, Canadians invest into a Canadian fund. And the Canadian fund invests into the us fund that owns the asset, any us investors that we have invest directly into the us fund.

Charles:
Okay. So that would be just to go over this one more time. That fund, I imagine in Canada is an limited partnership. Yes. And then that is owning a share of the, I imagine the United States, most of the deals operators are doing, like you said, or LLC. So the property is usually owned in an LLC, and then you have the different LLCs around it, of like, you know, general partners and limited partners and all this stuff. So you, that LP is owning portion of the limited partnership limited liability company here in the United States.

August:
Yeah. So unfortunately, if there is a LLC involved at any part of,

Charles:
Oh, okay.

August:
It makes it on, it’s not tax efficient, so it’s, it gets a bit more complicated. So the, the, the Canadian LP limited partnership becomes an LP of the us single purpose vehicle. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so, and then, and then, yeah, so he is structured a bit different.

Charles:
I gotcha. I gotcha. It’s almost like a tenants in common kind of thing that you’d have, if you’re 10 31, something here in the United States, which you don’t have it there, but it’s something where you actually has ownership, direct ownership of the property. So, well, that makes, that makes sense. Cause we do properties. One of my partners is from Canada and that we’re doing it all right now in Georgia. And we form everything in LPs and we do everything in LPs because of a lot of foreign investors he’s originally from Toronto. So it’s something that it’s, it’s, I, I see it all the time and every time I see it, I, oh, there’s Canadian investors. Yeah. And every time I see it, I know it exactly why, why it’s being done. But so you, a, you talked about how let’s just say Canadian investors are much more thorough when they’re investing compared to United States investors or you know, Americans in general, I guess you know, us people in general, but what common concerns or risk Canadian investors have that you see when they’re considering an investment in us multifamily other than vetting you guys making sure that you guys are legitimate.

Charles:
What, what other concerns do they usually have?

August:
I I’ll let a, because she’s head of investor relations. So she, She deals with these concerns on a daily basis.

Ava:
Yeah. You know, the biggest one is the tax efficiency. Okay. I have to say, that’s a question that, like, that’s a conversation I’m having hundreds of times now with investors. And other than that, you know, they, most Canadians, they just wanna learn about how the, you know, project is being executed, like how the business model is being executed and, and really kind of just on a high level learn about the, the states that we’re investing in. And we educate our investors on a, all that as well. Those are just kind of the, I’m just trying to think it’s mostly about the tax. Because most Canadians that I have conversations with you guys, they’re, they’re so excited to learn more because the numbers are so low here compared to what we’re

August:
Seeing in the us. I think one of the major concerns that Ava saw, we both saw, I just showing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Was, was the idea that the returns we were offering on our deal presentations were too high and it literally sounded too good to be through.

Ava:
Okay. Yes.

August:
That’s. So our advisors that told us, Hey, listen, bring your returns lower on your presentation. I’m like, Hey, that’s, what’s showing in our performance. We’re not amplifying. We’re actually being conservative. That’s fine. Lowered the returns because that’s to Canadian investors who are happy with it, 4%, 5% gross. In some cases on their investments, when they see 20% double your money in five years is gonna sound,

Ava:
See, it’s gonna sound like too good to be true. Right. So they’re, they’re like, Hey, tell me more about how you guys get these types of returns. And then I explained to them, you know, from the rents we collect, where we pay all, everybody, and then still have enough cashflow left over for you guys. So that’s one of the main concerns as well was

August:
Returns are a little bit too sure. And then we explained the value add concept where you, you, you upgrade the units you know, putting washer dryers might cost us $1,200 per unit that increases the rents by 35 have to $50 per unit that increases the NOI. And just by that increased NOI, we are creating millions of dollars in, in, in a value creation. And that concept is

Ava:
On a 200 unit at $150 rent premium. You are creating close to $10 million in value. So I also, I also talk to them about that

August:
On a 4% cap ratio on

Ava:
A 4% cap. Now keep in mind a lot of people that get on calls with me, they’ve never heard of what fractional real estate investment or real estate syndication. A lot of Canadians wanna invest across borders because obviously there’s so much opportunity that exists and they can see that they just don’t know where to begin. They don’t know where to start. And then we get out there, we speak on many platforms and say, everybody, guess what? You can invest in real estate, a hundred percent passive with limited liability and kind of leave all the heavy lifting. We take all the hard work away from real estate investing. So they’re just really excited to talk about that too. It’s it’s a, it’s a con it’s actually a new concept for not only just Canadians. A lot of us investors are reaching out to me as well saying, Hey, wait a, a second. I can diversify my financial portfolio with real estate’s indication. This is so

August:
Cool. Passive investing, limited liability. Don’t have to worry about debt. And then you take 70% of the profits and there in case that they, they, their preferred returns. And I suggest to any investor who’s looking to invest, make sure there’s preferred returns being offered. Yes. And the, you, you you’re keeping the feet of the general partner to the fire to make sure they perform, because if they don’t hit that preferred return, they’re not participating in any upside. So it’s,

Ava:
And it’s back by tangible asset. <Laugh>, there’s just the list goes on. Right. So, oh gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Those are kind of yeah, that’s, that’s the conversations we’re having on a day to day <laugh>.

Charles:
Oh, that’s great. Yeah. Those are all great selling points. So obviously you guys are in Vancouver, these properties are in the Sunbelt. You’re working with operators in this, in these areas. Myself being in Florida, I would consider myself there. So what are you looking for in operators? And I, how do you evaluate ’em in house before you, before you’re offering these opportunities to your investor base in Canada?

August:
And I’ll go back to kind of the, the, the, the inception of CPI and its its trajectory and its growth. Initially, when we started CPI, the plan was for CPI to be the operator. And, and when, when we realized that by at the amount of time, that’s going into our educational content, where we creating our YouTube channel you know, and, and multiple platforms we’re on. And, and the, the time that’s being spent to cultivate and nurture relationships with investors, we realize that you know, we might not have enough you know, enough time or re is to spend on the, the asset acquisition and management. So we made the decision early on to partner with active operators, to be our boots on the ground in the regions we want to be in. But soon we realized that that model is an excellent model because we realize a lot of firms, they, they become focused in the regions, they’re in the actual operate.

August:
So if they’re in Florida, they’re very Florida focused and they have to, at some point they have to deploy capital. So they end up buying deals, maybe not the best deals that, that, but that was available. They just had to buy a deal. And when they have infrastructure, they have employees, they, they have overhead for us. We realize that, Hey, we have, you know, part at first is in the regions we want to be in. We want to be just like Ava mentioned in the Sunbelt states and the states that show certain growth metrics. But now we partner with certain operators in those, the regions. And then we sit back and literally cherry pick the best deals the operators sent to us. And then the deals that make sense that we present those deals to our investors. So our, our deal creates excellent deal flow, and also tremendous possibility for return and growth to our investors. So we ended up actually falling love with this concept of partnering with operators, the same kind of concept that larger firms like you know that use even Blackstones of the world use operator kind of model to partner with, with, at boots on the ground. And

Ava:
Then we can be diversified throughout the Sunbelt states, not just in second one area.

Charles:
Yeah. A lot of different operators. And I like the idea because the majority of time, what we’re looking at when we’re talking to partners in other operators, it’s you know, you’re just turning down deals and the majority of deals we’re turning down, which is, you know, people, I have investors ask me, Hey, when’s the next well, you know, when we find something that works, you know, we’re not pushing you, you have to make some, make sure something, you know, checks off the boxes that you are comfortable with, that your investors will be comfortable with that. Everything, you know what I mean, the whole, the whole process that you’re underwriting a deal with when they send you underwriting and you’re reviewing it and everything else that goes with it. But if your group, you know, your group focuses on raising capital. So what are the most effective methods for finding a credit investors and raising money in the us, or as well in Canada?

Ava:
Well, August and I have really dedicated our lives to kind of spreading awareness of who we are and building a really big brand. Right? So we’re, we’re, we’re speaking on many, many platform forms throughout Canada and the us, and that’s created a lot of, of, of attention for us. Absolutely being featured in news publications was another really big one for us. Just talking about talking about real estate syndication and, and the opportunity that exists for investors. We’ve, we’ve had a lot of people sign up through just creating awareness and getting out there. Yes. And then of course, nurture, we’re very good at nurturing our, our investor community.

August:
Yes, it doesn’t hurt when you have a monopoly. So it doesn’t hurt when you’re offering products to your investors at a 20%, 15 to 20% annual return that provides cash flow from day one. And then other products in the market don’t provide pre returns. Most cases there isn’t no cash flow is a, a minimum 10, most cases, some cases minimum 10 year hold. So when you have a product that differentiates itself as such, so makes the job a lot easier, but also early on, when we started kind of researching the, the cross-border taxations and compliance items and, and many other shoes, we realized there isn’t a lot of content when it comes to Canadians and investing in the us, there is on an individual level, but not on this concept of real estate, private equity. So we started an educational wing of our company that, that, that you know, a lot of time and resources get dedicated to, and that it, that I would say that’s probably our number one lead generating platform is our YouTube show, our meet up groups across Canada or events that we hold. You know, we’re very active on LinkedIn. Linkedin is an excellent place to you know, create connections, not only on for investors, but also for you know, other professionals in the industry. I have operators that contact me on weekly basis that you know, I connect with. And so of them I’ve ended up working with, so LinkedIn is another great platform to, to seek potential leads and and yeah, that’s, that’s kind of been, you know been our journey with, with cultivating relationship with investors. Yeah.

Charles:
Awesome. Yeah, LinkedIn’s a fantastic platform and I like it better than some of the other ones. Cause I get a lot less spam on it. If many ’em all, if that it’s just like, I don’t know how they do it, but compared to like Facebook and stuff, I get messages all the time. I’m trying to delete ’em and stuff. But what are common mistakes that you see real estate investors make since you have evaluated a number of operators and deals and stuff like that, what, what do you think are things that are huge red flags or things that operators do that are mistakes?

August:
Yeah, I think, I think for when I look at, I mean, again, you, the, the real estate space is very broad. But you know, generally investing in real estate, you don’t want to, you know, you don’t want to have fear of missing out and having to invest in something. If this is on a single family or on a personal level, or investing with a private equity firm, real estate, private equity firm is not to be forced to invest, or there’s a fear of missing out, taking your time, understanding the business model, understanding the operator. Also the fact that, you know, a transparency is extremely important. If, if, if a group is not being transparent, not answering your question is not being prompt. That’s another kind of red flag to look out for, particularly working with groups and, and investors have to understand that as much as we boast and brag about a real estate, private equity in this concept of syndication, it is somewhat of a marriage when you’re investing your capital is, is, is in that project.

August:
You know, you’re, you’re, you’re stuck in it for the term of the project three years, five years, seven years, and is somewhat of a marriage with the operator. So if you feel like you, you know, you are not getting along or you don’t have a good gut feeling, you should really go with that gut feeling because your, your, your investment is in the hands of the general partner and any decision to make that’s the whole concept of GPLP is that the LPs are the silent partners, the investors, and the GP makes all the decisions related to the deal. So they could decide to hold the deal for extra couple years. So those are all the you know you know, the items that an investor has to focus on. Yeah.

Ava:
Ask a lot of questions before you make a decision for sure. See what kind of communicate, what, what the communication’s gonna be like.

Charles:
That’s a big one. Yeah.

Ava:
See how much they communicate. Hey, is it gonna be monthly? Is it gonna be quarterly statements, rent rules? Like, tell me how much am I involved here because that’s a big one as well.

Charles:
Yeah. I was at, at this conference a couple years back and somebody got on stage and they were like who’s on deal list, like emails. Right. And everybody, you know, half the room raised their hand, like who like wished they had better communication from those operators or emails from, and like, you know, most of the hands stayed up and it’s crazy because it’s communication is such a big thing. But actually in the beginning of the relationship when you’ve purchased that, and I there’s well known groups, operators out there that have poor communication that are very good, but they just don’t have very good communication. So it’s something that I always like speaking to limited partners that have invested prior to working with an operator, see how it works and how is the communication and everything like that. Because, you know, it’s a, they’re good operator. That’s that’s number one. But then also it’s like, well, the, you know, your new limited partners don’t know that. Right. So it’s very important. So that’s that’s awesome. That’s great information. Yeah.

August:
I just, so one more quick point here is, is, is when, when we see these multi-billion dollar firms and funds and, and I subscribe to their information and, and you know, I speak with some of their investors and when we see the newsletter, they send out and, and the amount of access to resources they have, and, and the content that they create is, is, is either minimal or non-existent. And not only even on the, on the kind of, of emails they send out and, and investors have talked to us is like, Hey, your process for onboarding an investor. And the communication that you have is greater, greater than these, you know, some publicly traded huge reads. So that’s, that’s shocking. Right. So, I mean, it’s it’s just that’s that there <laugh>.

Charles:
Yeah, no, it’s good. It’s completely true. So other than you guys becoming experts in Canadians investing to us real estate, what are main factors that have contributed to your success?

Ava:
I’d say resilience

August:
<Laugh> absolutely.

Ava:
Yes. Resilience. It hasn’t been you know, obviously building a business from the ground up is not an easy <laugh> thing to do. But you know, resilience learning that, you know, you create a system, if it doesn’t work out, that’s okay. Just keep going, create another system and another system, and it will end up you’ll, you’ll perfect. Your systems and things will get a lot easier as you go along. For sure.

August:
For me is frankly is mindset, I mean, is limitations that we we, we, we, we create in ourselves and just is, is just a you know, it’s, it’s part of our imagination. We literally create limitations that are not there, particularly like in this business real estate, private equity is, is one of the most sophisticated businesses out there. And you know, most times you know, the, the common kind of view is, Hey, you know, this is above your pay grade. Don’t get involved in such business, but in, in the age we live today everything is done through contractors. Anyways, you know, even large firms, they have a certain executive that looks after a certain department and today those executives are for hire through great you know, online platform. So, you know, and you can have a, a, you know, we have somebody with a PhD that helps us from overseas. I mean, for a fraction of the per rice and some of the work that we do, I, I, you know content creators and graphic designers, it is possible as long as you’re great at, at managing. And as long as you have, you, you have, you have laser focus on the concept and, and the idea that you have, it’s all possible. So I would say the mindset is not allowing further to be limitations and, and, and, and, you know, creating more possibilities for yourself and your business

Ava:
Beautifully said. And if I could add one more thing, really believing what you’re doing can help a lot of people. Like that’s another thing we really believe in, you know, what we’re, what we’re doing. And we’re so excited to share it with so many people. I think people can see the excitement and, and you know what I mean? And when P

August:
Sometimes we’re a little too excited, people

Ava:
Are saying too excited, calm down. <Laugh>

August:
We’re students of the game. We love learning more like we, in our spare time, we, we watch videos and we look read books. We just, we, you have to be the student of the game because we’re dealing with investors capital. And the, you know, we are stewards of the, of their investments is so important to know everything about the business. So, you know, our FAQ list keeps growing. It keeps growing every time a question is asked that we don’t know the answer to gets added to the FAQ.

Ava:
Absolutely. Nice.

Charles:
Awesome. That’s fantastic. It’s, it’s awesome. What you said about the mindset. Cause I think that’s a huge thing. That’s a little overlooked when I, when I, I ask that question in different podcasts, so, but awesome. Very good. So how can our listeners learn more about you and your business?

Ava:
Yeah, so we have a YouTube show so you can find us on YouTube Canadian, passive investing academy, and then also we’re really active on LinkedIn, Ava beak. You can find me, I’m super easy to get ahold of.

August:
I’ll get spin. As on LinkedIn, our website is CPI capital.ca. We’re trying to buy the.com, but the too much money for it. <Laugh> <laugh> and you know, yeah, we, we, we love LinkedIn. We’re there all the time, creating content, giving a lots of, you know great information on there. Our YouTube show yeah. And, and we’re very, you know, we’re, we’re a, a leadership team of a rest private equity firm that are very easy to reach. It can give us a call, our phone numbers, emails, everything is online and get in touch with us. If you have a question or any comment and love to add value. Yeah,

Ava:
Absolutely.

Charles:
Thanks. Sounds good. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. Looking forward to touching base with you guys face to face at some point, and I’ll put all those links into the show notes.

Ava:
Thank you so much for having us.

Charles:
Have a great rest of your day.

Charles:
Hi guys! It’s Charles from the Global Investors Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the show. If you’re interested in get involved with real estate, but you don’t know where to begin, set up a free 30 minute strategy call with me at schedulecharles.com. That’s schedulecharles.com. Thank you.

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About August BINIAZ & Ava Benesocky

Ava Benesocky is the co-founder and CEO of CPI Capital. Coming from a family of accountants, Ava values hard work and compassion above all. She became one of the youngest award-winning agents at REMAX and was unstoppable thereafter. Fearless and ready to write her own story, she moved to Vancouver, where she built a strong network of real estate investors. She continued to learn and grow with resilience and persistently gained knowledge in the field of real estate investments.

Ava saw firsthand why so many people hesitated to become real estate investors, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto where the disproportionate ratio between the median home price and the median income, prices out most from becoming homeowners let alone scaling a real estate investment portfolio. Realizing the pain points many investors have when looking to passively invest in real estate, Ava pivoted her focus to real estate private equity. She co-founded CPI Capital, a uniquely innovative company allowing investors to invest in Multifamily investment opportunities and benefit from passive income, above-market returns, monthly cash flow, and limited liability. Ava is a public speaker and has been featured in publications such as Forbes and numerous Podcasts and YouTube shows. Ava helps busy professionals to earn passive income through smart Real Estate investments.

August Biniaz is a real estate developer with a passion for sharing his knowledge and helping others reach financial freedom. He is the co-founder of CPI Capital, where he enables investor partners to earn substantial returns by investing in multifamily properties in the hottest US markets.

He educates his investor partners about Apartment Syndication Investing through the CPI Academy platform, Webinars, MeetUp Groups, and one on one coaching. August brings to CPI a breadth of experience and knowledge with over 15 years in real estate, business and investing.

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