Why did I decide to embark on the adventure to build my own retreat centre?
I’ve always had it in my head that I wanted to own some form of building, like a multi-family mid-rise or something along those lines. I think this was born of many little seeds throughout my life.
To answer why, I need to take a detour, and reflect back on my life growing up.
The background, life as a kid
Both sides of my family were involved in real estate. My Mother’s father built and owned a residential building in South Africa, while my father’s father, who I called “Ninni” because I couldn’t pronounce “Nonno” as a baby, was a civil engineer who moved between Italy and various parts of Africa building things. The most talked about in our family was the Van Stadens Bridge in South Africa.
Although I didn’t really understand it while growing up, my uncle, known to me as “Zi”, again because I couldn't pronounce “Zio” as a kid, turned out to be somewhat of a real estate mogul as he slowly acquiring apartments around Cape Town through his life, and often espoused his belief in real estate as an investment vehicle.
Finally, the house I grew up in, in South Africa was built and designed by my dad and Ninni too. As was the house I was born in and my grandparents’ houses too.
My entire life I grew up with the very strong theme in the air that renting meant throwing money away, while owning your own home meant freedom and long term safety.
What I didn’t know at the time was that my parents were heavily in debt from building our house, literally borrowing money from one bank to pay off the debt at the other bank while we lived in a house furnished with cushions and a table my dad built as living room furnishings.
This was all while my dad has quit his job to start his own professional photography studio, which was in the upper floor of our house. All this to say, that there may have been some “entrepreneurship” (aka. risk-taking) in the family too 😛
Moving to Canada
When we moved to Canada in 2001, the option of renting didn’t even come up. At the same time, South Africa was pretty strict on taking money out of the country, so we just took whatever we were allowed, which when converted to CAD wasn’t as much as one would hope for when looking for real estate in Vancouver.
After my first year at the University of Victoria, living on campus residence, all the friends I knew were then looking for a place to live. I pitched my parents on the idea that we by a house that I could live in, and rent out the remaining rooms to my friends. After showing them the numbers, they accepted. I found a place and shared it with 4 other guys, covering the costs for my own accommodation.
Thankfully, property values increased and our rent was covering the the mortgage, so I decided to keep the gig going. I found another apartment where I could live with just one other person. Be remortgaging the house we had the down payment on the apartment, and the additional free room in the house meant that we could get more rent, while I also subsidized the apartment’s mortgage by renting out the second room.
Eventually another apartment in the same building went up for sale, and knowing the area and building, we found a way to buy that one too, by now leveraging the other two properties we already had. In this case, it was relatively inexpensive because it needed work, so that was my job, getting rid of wallpaper, repairing walls and doors, painting, and cleaning. Victoria was a great market and we had no problem renting it out.
By now Zi’s message ringing in my ear was proving true, real estate would be in my future.
After University - Commercial Real Estate at Trilogy
By now I knew I wanted to do something in real estate, and I wanted to something that was “business” related / entrepreneurial so I started looking for jobs at a real estate development companies.
My first job out of university was in Vancouver at a company called Trilogy, headed up by John Evans.
Before I joined, John had a piece of land and was trying to sell as a hotel project. When he couldn’t find a buyer, he just said “screw it, I can make my own hotel”. That’s how the OPUS Hotels brand was born. Cherry on top; he was right and that hotel is still winning awards some 20 years later.
Later, John acquired a hotel in Montreal that was operational, but needed renovation and included a large unfinished area and beautiful terrace that he wanted to turn into a supper club.
This is how I learned the extent of Trilogy’s “throw you in the deep end” mentality.
I was barely a year out of university and get called in for a Saturday meeting with John, the CEO. (cue me shitting my pants)
I arrive and John says “Our project in Montreal is not moving fast enough, we need someone on the ground. When can you move there to run the project?”
(This was also John’s style; you can’t get a “no” if you don't ask a question).
Me: “uh, umm, it’s my mom’s birthday next week, so I guess right after that?”
John: “We’ll fly you back for her birthday, you’re booked on the redeye tonight”.
And that’s how I landed in Montreal to build a 700 person supper club and renovate 136 hotel rooms as a 22 year old kid. PS. they speak French in Montreal…I don’t.
At one point during construction the trades teams tell me there’s no way they will meet our May 8th target.
Time for another John story. I get on the phone to give John the bad news. He just says, “We’re getting it done by May 8th. Invite the presidents of all our trades companies to the grand opening. They’ll never let their teams miss a deadline to a party they’re invited to”.
We opened on May 8th, bang on time. the only thing that didn’t make it was a horse-sized lamp stuck at customs.
I spent 7 years working for John. I did everything from research and filing to running multiple restaurants and bars as the national F&B director, to operating our property management company after having to fast track an extra diploma to get the required licensing. I wrote feasibility studies, I lobbied the city for rezoning permits, I wrote commercial leases, I negotiated deals for the F1 Grand Prix and the 2010 Olympics, and I stacked chairs, painted walls, hung chandeliers and even turned around a restaurant renovation in under 7 days, 3 times! Like I said, everything!
Fast Forward 10 years
I left Trilogy in 2014 to do my MBA in Italy. That led me to Germany where I started working in the music industry for my uncle. This was not real estate!
But it was fun, I got to meet artists and my uncle was also a “throw you in the deep end” kinda guy. I was re-writing all our legal agreements within a few months and looking at how we could optimize our logistics and cashflow, and generally helping him to make the business “acquisition friendly”.
I spun up an arm of our company in Canada, I started flying back and forth to close distribution deals with Canadian music labels who were looking for ways into the European market. At the same time, I opened a little office where I was able to leverage Canadian grants and government funding to hire business and computer science students at my old alma mater in Victoria to build out Proof of Concept so that I could learn about this new thing called blockchain.
That’s when I met folks at The Orchard, a partner and now acquirer of my uncle’s company. They asked me to join them as a product manager, building software that serves our music label clients. This division eventually got merged with Sony Music to create Sony Music Product Design & Engineering, where I work today.
I love building in general, I love starting with an idea or a hollow shell, and turning it into something. But what software lacks is the touch and feel, and what B2B software lacks is the show and tell. Everything we build is for our clients only, that may be tens of thousands of clients, but if you see the blank stares of my family and friends when I try to explain it to them, you’d understand.
Building physical things is different. You can literally feel and smell it as it changes. You can show it, point to it, and share it. That’s what I miss.
So that’s why I want to do something in Real Estate, but why a retreat centre? For that you’ll have to wait till my next post 🤷
TLDR by Notion AI:
Family Background and Early Exposure
- Both sides of the family were involved in real estate, including building ownership and civil engineering projects
- Grew up with the belief that owning property meant freedom and long-term security
Personal Real Estate Experience
- Purchased a house during university, renting out rooms to cover costs
- Expanded property portfolio by leveraging existing properties
Professional Experience in Real Estate
- Worked at Trilogy, gaining diverse experience in hotel development, renovation, and property management
- Managed significant projects, including building a 700-person supper club and renovating 136 hotel rooms at age 22
Current Perspective
- Misses the tangible aspects of building physical structures compared to current work in software development