Thomas Beyer is a “Christian Capitalist”, a family man, a multimillionaire, and has been a real estate investor for over 20 years. We talked about life, real estate, syndicating deals, raising millions of dollars, and the recovering from the pain of failure. If you're interested in learning how to syndicate large deals, you will be thrilled to learn from someone who purchased over 40 buildings so far in his career.
Show Notes:
00:00 - Intro and Thomas Beyer’s track record.
03:20 - "Thanks for being brave enough to talk about your faith publicly."
04:00 - Thomas talks about the pain of failure.
05:40 - "For us there is only trying, the rest is not our business."
06:30 - How to become a best selling author in Canada.
07:25 - Sometimes you work with partners or employees who don’t turn out as you thought a few years prior
08:00 - Thomas shares how he got to a place where he bought 2000 units. He started buying in his late 30s with one condo
11:20 - Thomas had an epiphany that EVERY building you see is owned by someone. That starts an awareness which leads to the thinking “how can I own that one.”
15:00 - Thomas discovers after buying three condos that you can buy the entire building for half the price of purchasing individual units.
16:30 - The evolution from JVs to Offering Memorandums using Corporations, Trusts, and Limited Partnerships
19:30 - Why Thomas moved to Canmore, it was near Calgary and Thomas needed to travel for his work with IBM. (His son grew up with Sam’s cousin.)
20:50 - Canmore house cost $400,000, ten years later sold for $1M. Real estate did very well there thanks to Olympics. Then the 2008 crash
22:15 - On the topic of the financial crisis, an example of timing being out of our hands came up. The difference between massive success and catastrophic failure can be slim. Being forced to take a 10 year mortgage term at 7% interest was a blessing in disguise.
25:00 - Selling a building in the US - Sold in Denton TX for a large profit.
27:10 - How to raise funds: answer questions. MyREINSpace, Twitter, Facebook
27:50 - Thomas enjoys intellectual debates: abortion, same sex marriage, politics, and of course real estate
29:05 - Thomas believe in “earn, learn, return”, that is why he spends his time helping others with free answers to questions.
29:45 - Debate on overpaid public servants: “20% less salary means 25% more people working”
33:15 - Thomas’ take on putting on seminars and real estate training. (Says RENTS memberships are way too cheap). Thomas was more active and travelling more in the past when he was actively raising money.
37:15 - There is a season for everything. Pruning the portfolio, stretching yourself too thin trying to be in the education / event management business. RENTS meetings should be quarterly for the price, or charge $200/mo like REIN. Story about a networking group Thomas ran when he was in the software business.
41:20 - When is enough enough? Thomas gives his definition of success. Talks about life throwing you wrinkles. 1 house paid off, 1 second location paid off, and enough of an income to lead a good life. Is $1M in portfolio value enough? $10M? Perhaps much less if you choose to live abroad.
45:00 - Thomas chose to not take his company public, and decided to do more smaller projects instead. You can buy 10 buildings a year, or one per quarter, or one a year, or sit back for two years and do nothing. That’s what great about real estate: it’s project based.
47:00 - "People have drowned in rivers one foot deep, on averageTM”
48:20 - Next Saturday will be a great event and there will be lots of stories to share. Oct 6th at Thompson River’s University is the RENTS Bootcamp.
You can get registered for the Bootcamp and a recording of it at
