oBlog

Dan Barton's keynote to the Victoria Prodigy Chamber of Commerce group.

Good evening prodigy chamber members and guests.

Who here would like to create more wealth and prosperity in their lives?

Who here would like to do that with early any effort at all?

Well, if this is a room of entrepreneurs and business owners, then I’m sorry to say, I think were all in the wrong room! Since I bet we have all experienced that entrepreneurship can sometimes be far from effortless.

Since, to this day I still have to meet an entrepreneur who hasn’t put a ton of time, energy & money into growing the company, an idea, a thought.

I have come believe; that it’s for the perceived freedom, that entrepreneurship and business ownership offers, that lures so many in.

It’s commonly a belief that freedom doesn’t come easy and freedom doesn’t come cheap. To entrepreneurs freedom comes to those who are willing to persevere their time, energy and money and risk it all on a thought, on an idea.

2008 proved to be an ‘interesting’ year. I had the wonderful opportunity & was blessed to receive the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award from the Chamber of Commerce. I also had the opportunity, as did many of you, to see every stock market and real estate market around the world take a nice steady decline.

Some called it a roller coaster of a life time.

My clients are often astonished when they meet me for the first time. Basically they’re surprised that I own a successful real estate investment business and I’m the ripe old age of 24. Better yet, I’ve been the owner of Oasis Properties for less than 3 years and have gone from being roughly $30,000 in debt to now having over 7 million in assets as of writing this article (2007). I’m a perfect example of the lesson of not judging a book by its cover! My business is thriving despite all the naysayer’s supposed advice when I first started out on this path. I’m of the opinion that my company has achieved the success it has through my own strong beliefs in myself combined with a strong sense of personal integrity, which I strictly adhere to in all my personal and business dealings.

I am also a firm believer in sharing and giving back to the world in any manner that I can, so that others may benefit from my experiences - both my successes and mistakes. I refuse to use the word failure, as in my opinion failures are mistakes that one has never learned anything from. People make mistakes every day – it just depends on whether or not you gain insight as to why you made it that counts. Personally I believe if you are afraid to make a mistake this means that you’re not pushing yourself out of your ‘comfort’ zone enough and trying new methods or ways to better succeed. You’re stuck in ‘safe’ mode and being too comfortable means you’re not moving forward to realizing your dreams. In other words, you need to conquer your fear of making mistakes in order to succeed.

For those of you who are looking to build a successful business venture, I’ve jotted down the 4 key reasons why my business has become so successful in such a short time to share with you. Here is what may be a familiar quote that sums up my core values:

Are you petrified of losing your shirt, pants, socks AND shoes by investing in real estate? Are you terrified of purchasing your dream property for fear of finding out that it was the prototype for the movie “The Money Pit”? Or, is one of your biggest fears that you will actually succeed in your real estate venture beyond your wildest dreams?

Instead of letting fear hold you back from taking that first small step and getting your feet wet, consider this statement: fear is an instinct designed to keep up alive but not to control us. How can you overcome your fears and be successful in real estate? Well, let me tell you how I’ve done it.

Get out of ‘analysis paralysis’ and just do it!

First, gather up all available information about the property that you’re looking to invest in and then take a leap of faith and go for it. I’m not suggesting that you run out and buy the first house for sale on the block or the property with the really gorgeous landscaped front yard. You still need to do your homework first which includes getting a qualified appraisal; a full property inspection; get pre-qualified from a lending institution; and have your down payment sitting in your bank account. When you have each one of these factors in place and are ready to go, the right property is already yours for the taking (or buying) and is waiting for you to show up and sign the purchase agreement.

Easter Seals 24 Hour Relay is an annual community based fundraising event that challenges groups of people to run or walk Relay-style for 24 hour, and is produced by the BC Lions Society for Children with Disabilities. Teams of runners and/or walkers made up of Corporate and Recreational groups collect individual pledges or organize team fundraising events to raise funds towards their collective team totals. Every dollar raised helps send disabled children to Camp Shawinigan!

Oasis Properties has participated for the last three years as part of “Team Carebearz,” and this year, raised a total of $15,500 this year! A big thank you goes out to those who pledged their support for our fundraising team this year, as this now brings our running total over the past three years to over $37,000 raised! For the past 3 years we have won the #1 Small Business Fundraising Team position, and this year we came in as the overall #3 fundraising team. We look forward to participating next year!

Here’s the episode of CBC’s The Hour with George Strombolopolus with former CIBC World Markets Chief Economist Jeff Rubin. The folks at REIN kindly made it available. Rubin wrote a book called Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization and it sounds like an interesting read. If you have read it, let us know how it was by making a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Most unsophisticated financial planners will tell you that investing in real estate is risky because of low rates of return; it ties up your capital for a long period of time, and possible tenant problems from rental properties; depreciation of property values.

Say it isn’t so!

In the long run, real estate has always appreciated in value simply because they’re not making any more land. The population growth is rising and consequently land is being snapped up quicker than Dorothy’s heels clicked in Kansas. Some of the ways to assess the risk factor of investing in real estate is to look at the fundamentals such as migration patterns (immigration from other countries); in migration (moving within the country itself); job explosions in certain areas of the country which create a shortage of available housing, and reasonable interest rates from financial institutions. All these factors affect investing in real estate – and for the good.