The Truth About Financial Independence for Canadians

What are Canada's most experienced real estate investors seeing right now?

In this episode, Erwin Szeto sits down with Nick Karadza to discuss the state of the Canadian economy, where investors are finding opportunities today, the future of real estate investing, student rentals, Toronto density projects, and how AI is changing business and investing. They also explore why the easy-money era is over, what it takes to adapt in uncertain times, and why building the right network may be more important than ever.

Nick also previews the Your Life, Your Terms Event on Saturday, October 17, from 8:15 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in Mississauga, Ontario. Details are available at - www.yourlifeyourtermsevent.com

If you’re looking for ways to build wealth more intentionally, create more passive income, and explore strategies beyond buying another rental property, join us at the next Zero Down Wealth Strategy event.

We’re hosting two upcoming sessions:Tuesday, October 27th (Zoom only): https://wealthhacker.krtra.com/t/MWJBhX3QtFrKSaturday, November 7th (Oakville + hybrid): https://wealthhacker.krtra.com/t/UCtn7w6XdxlF

Walking through the math, the loss scenarios, and how it fits alongside a real estate portfolio.

What if one $800,000 bungalow could become four homes worth $4.5 million, without dealing with tenants?

In this episode, Erwin sits down with Daniel Zimberoff and Ming to explore condominiumization, missing middle housing, and how developers are creating more housing options in Toronto. They discuss turning a single property into multiple ownership units, the economics behind walk-up townhomes, development risks, financing, construction costs, and why this model could be part of the solution to Ontario's housing shortage.

Whether you're a real estate investor, developer, or simply curious about innovative housing strategies, this episode offers a fascinating look at a growing trend in Canadian real estate.

📌 Connect with Daniel and Ming:

Website: https://harvietownhomes.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harvietownhomes/

Email: [email protected]

Erwin Szeto sits down with Sadaf Chowdhury, Director of Investment Sales at Equitable, to discuss how Canadian investors are looking beyond rentals. They explain professionally managed stock funds with insurance features, estate planning, annuities, investment loans and how AI is changing professional fund management. 

• What a 25% down investment-loan strategy means 

• How professionally managed stock funds can include estate-planning features 

• Investment loans versus traditional margin accounts 

• Why Canadian investors are looking beyond rental properties 

• How AI is changing stock selection and portfolio management 

  
  

  📌 Connect with Sadaf:

  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sadaf-chowdhury-ca/

  
  

Free training: Join Erwin on Saturday, September 12 (Oakville + Zoom): ⁠⁠iWIN Integrated Wealth Planning⁠⁠

or Tuesday evening, September 15, (Zoom only): ⁠⁠iWIN Integrated Wealth Planning for a deeper dive into zero or 25% down investment-loan strategies for qualified Canadians. Learn how the strategy works, what the risks are, and how to decide whether it may fit your financial goals. 

Educational purposes only. Investment loans and professionally managed stock funds involve risk and may not be suitable for everyone. Approval and performance are not guaranteed. Suitability depends on income, cash flow, risk tolerance and goals.

Victoria Suen bought her first investment property at 19 years old. She couldn't qualify for a mortgage on her own, so her sisters signed for it. Sixteen years later, she's a licensed architect and the founder of BuildEx Design, helping investors turn some of Toronto's tightest lots into 4 and 6 unit buildings. 

This episode is a crossover. Erwin's wife and business partner, Cherry Chan, CPA, sat down with Victoria for her Real Estate Tax Tips channel, and the conversation covered ground worth sharing with the full TAFI audience. 

Victoria walks through the missing middle: the duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and mid-rise buildings that used to be illegal to build on most Canadian lots, and why that's changing fast. She and Cherry get into the real numbers: lots as narrow as 22 feet fitting 5 units, development charges waived under CMHC's MLI Select program (worth $50,000 to $80,000 per unit), and why most investors are getting 80 to 85% loan-to-value rather than the 95% sometimes advertised. 

In this conversation, we cover: 

• What the missing middle actually is, and why cities stopped allowing it for decades 

• Why Toronto now allows up to 6 units on lots as narrow as 22 feet, with no parking requirement 

• Why Ottawa is eliminating parking requirements entirely starting September 2026 

• The 3 moving parts investors need to line up: design, cost, and financing 

• How CMHC's MLI Select program waives development charges and improves financing terms 

• Why most investors leave around $100,000 in a project after refinancing, and pull the rest of their capital back out 

• The most common mistake investors make when projecting rent 

• What happens when a century-old Toronto home hides a crumbling foundation behind the walls 

• Why Victoria started her own firm instead of staying inside a traditional architecture practice 




🚨 Free live webinar: "The Strategy That Beat the Market by 28%" — Sat Sept 12 (Oakville + Zoom): iWIN Integrated Wealth Planning

or Tue Sept 15 (Zoom only): iWIN Integrated Wealth Planning

👉Reserve your spot free

Andrew Hines spent 5 and a half years building one of Canada's top 3 real estate podcasts. Nearly 1.3 million downloads. Then, at its peak, he shut it down. 

Andrew is the co-founder of multiple US-based real estate acquisition companies operating across Florida, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. His teams run house flips, land investments, creative finance deals, and direct-to-seller acquisitions. He also owns Grotto Getaway, a glamping and cottage resort near Tobermory, Ontario, that did $655,000 in sales last year. 

In this conversation, we cover: 

• Why Andrew shut down one of Canada's top real estate podcasts at its peak 

• Why he sold his entire Ontario rental portfolio after the pandemic lockdowns 

• How his team finds motivated sellers in the US using public liens and tired landlord lists 

• How he made $163,000 on a 47-acre land flip without picking up a hammer 

• Why hard construction costs in Florida run a fraction of what they do in Ontario 

• Why Grotto Getaway, his glamping resort near Tobermory, hit $655,000 in sales last year 

• Why he believes Canadian real estate investors now need to think like business builders 

• What he'd tell an investor deciding whether to stay in Ontario rentals or move capital south 

Andrew's arc is the arc TAFI exists to cover: someone who built real wealth in Canadian real estate, watched the rules change, and rebuilt his entire model instead of waiting for the old one to work again.

📅 UPCOMING FREE TRAINING — "The Strategy That Beat the Market by 28%"

Saturday, September 12, 2026 · 9:00am ET · Hybrid (iWIN Office, Oakville + Zoom)

👉Reserve your spot (Limited seats): https://www.infinitywealth.ca/20260530

Real estate investors understand leverage. 25% down, 75%from the bank, let the asset grow. But what if you could apply that same principle to the stock market, with no tenants, no tribunals, and no 2 a.m. calls? 

Mozzie Chleilat is an Account Manager Business Development at DUCA Specialized Lending, one of Canada's leading credit unions. He works with financial advisors and their clients to structure investment loans into professionally managed stock funds. The core product is the 3:1 loan: put 25% down, DUCA loans you 3 times that amount, and you're invested in a $100,000 portfolio from a $25,000 starting point. 

In this conversation, Erwin and Mozzie cover: 

✅How the 3:1 investment loan works and why the 25% equity requirement exists 

✅The minimum loan ($50,000, requiring $16,667 client equity) and the path to $1 million with limited underwriting 

✅How DUCA counts 90% of gross rental income toward debt servicing (vs. 50% at the big banks) 

✅Why DUCA does not report this loan to credit bureaus as a trade line item 

✅The net worth qualification pathway for investors whose income on paper doesn't reflect their assets 

✅DUCA's soft margin breach program: why they give you 30 days and options, instead of calling your loan the moment you hit a threshold 

✅Erwin's own AMD margin call story during COVID: no phone call, no email, just liquidated overnight 

✅The right investor profile for this strategy: long-term horizon, comfortable with leverage, cash flow to service interest 

✅Why 80 to 90% of Mozzie's clients are overallocated in Canadian real estate and looking to diversify 

✅A real client case study: a doctor who exited a Cambridge rental (down 8%), deployed capital into the market, and stopped being a landlord 

Chapters0:00 — Show Intro8:34 — Mozzie's background: RBC, Equitable Bank, specialized lending 11:44 — What is the 3:1 investment loan and how does it work 14:14 — The $25,000 example: what day one looks like 16:44 — Minimum loan $50,000, how it compares to buying a rental 18:50 — Interest-only structure, no prepayment penalties, interest may be deductible 21:41 — How to qualify: no income docs needed up to $1 million 23:44 — Corporate and personal loans available, up to $2 million combined 26:14 — TDSR 44%, net worth test: 1.5x the loan amount 29:14— DUCA counts 90% of gross rental income (banks count 50%) 36:44 — DUCA does not report this loan to credit bureaus 42:44 — Erwin's AMD margin call: bought at $45, liquidated without warning, stock went 10x 46:14 — Buy the dip, dollar cost averaging, Cherry's annual investment strategy 50:14 — 25% down in the stock market vs 25% down in real estate: the simple math 52:14— Why 80-90% of investors are overallocated in Ontario real estate 55:14— REIT funds vs S&P 500: why DUCA steers clients toward the index 58:44 — How to reach Mozzie Chleilat at DUCA Specialized Lending

Byron Darlison founded Rise Vision in 1992 in Toronto and ran it for 30 years without raising a dollar of outside equity. For 25 of those years, by his own admission, the business was unfocused, unpredictable, and running him. In year 25, he hired a Metronomics coach and installed a business operating system. In the 5 years that followed, profits went from break-even to 20% sustained net margins, his work week dropped from 60 hours to under 10, and the business grew to serve organizations in over 100 countries. 

In year 30, he sold Rise Vision for an 8-figure exit to a Taiwanese industrial display manufacturer, with no earn-out and no employment clause. His team still runs and grows the business today. 

He now coaches a small number of founders privately and serves as Mentorship Chair and Accelerator Coach at Entrepreneurs' Organization Toronto. 

In this conversation, we cover: 

• Why 25 years of hard work without a system produced inconsistent results, and what changed in year 25 

• What a business operating system actually is, why most founders fail to self-implement one, and why a coach changes everything 

• How Byron's team internalized the system to the point where the business self-corrected without him 

• What made Rise Vision attractive enough to sell with no earn-out, no employment clause, and a premium multiple 

• The owner's outcome framework: why most founders never ask what they actually want from their business 

• Why the definition of strategy is the word no, and how narrowing to 1 core customer changed everything 

• The founder's dilemma: why founders who solve every problem are the biggest bottleneck in their business 

• What the great wealth transfer means for buyers and why many boomer-owned businesses are deeply undervalued 

• Why Byron says entrepreneurship is less risky than employment, not more, if you are willing to do the work 

• How AI has allowed Byron to run a 14-agent software development pipeline from his home, solo, at a fraction of traditional cost 

Byron's arc is one of the clearest illustrations of what TAFI is now built around: multiple paths to financial independence, and the discipline to pick one and execute it properly. 

What does it actually look like to go all-in on AI? Mike Schwarz, founder and CEO of MyZone AI, negotiated a hall pass from his wife, adjusted his medication, and spent 3 to 4 months working until 2, 3, and 4 in the morning to find out. The result: 200 plus autonomous AI agents running across 7 divisions of his business. 

Mike has 25 years in tech, from building nightlife social networks in 1999 before Friendster existed, to running a full AI solutions company out of Vancouver today. He coaches CEOs and speaks at Entrepreneurs' Organization and YPO events. And he says the window for getting ahead in AI is measured in months, not years. 

In this episode, we go from first principles. What is AI. What is an agent. What is the difference between an agent and ChatGPT. Why legacy SaaS companies are down 50 to 60 percent. And what a non-developer can actually do right now to start automating their business. 

Real examples from this conversation: Mike's agent replied to 183 unread LinkedIn messages in 30 minutes, starred the 19 personal ones, and left them for him. He built a custom math game for his son in an hour using an AI coding agent. And after a sales call, he can send a fully personalized 5-page proposal website to a prospect in 10 minutes. 

Mike's one thing: master the art of learning. It's not about being technical. It's about being a sponge. Because the window is short and it's moving fast. 

Mike teaches regular free monthly workshops at myzone.ai. Upcoming: June 18 — How to Secure Your Agents. July 9 — How to Become an Agentic Developer (no coding required). 

Milena Simsic made $300,000 in commissions in her first year as a realtor, without any prior real estate connections, using nothing but TikTok and Instagram. She had no social media presence before she got her license. She figured it out in public. 

Milena is the founder of WindSocial Realty in Windsor, Ontario, and the publisher of the Windsor Real Estate Insider, a newsletter and magazine that grew to 9,000 subscribers in under a year. She also runs Windsor REI Social, a 3,000-member community that fills events with 100 to 200 investors. She is currently switching brokerages from EXP to Real and building a community for realtors who want to learn AI-powered marketing. 

In this conversation, we cover: 

• Why Windsor's single-family homes have held value while student rentals and investment properties have softened 

• What the Gordy Howe Bridge delay and the EV plant mean for Windsor's growth trajectory 

• How Milena made $300K her first year as a realtor off TikTok and Instagram alone 

• Why she replaced her virtual assistant with Claude AI and built her CRM systems in an afternoon 

• How the top agents implementing AI are going to absorb market share from those who are not 

• Why she left EXP for Real, and what Real is getting right that most online brokerages are not 

• The health crisis that doubled her business once she fixed it 

• Why business owners are particularly vulnerable to loneliness and what she did about it 

• How Windsor REI Social went from monthly to biannual events and why that made it bigger 

Milena's arc is the arc TAFI was rebranded to celebrate: a factory worker and ICU nurse who saw where the highest-leverage play was, went all in, and built a media brand and a business that works without grinding 60 hours a week. 

CONNECT WITH MILENA SIMSIC Windsor Real Estate Insider: https://www.windsorrealestateinsider.comInstagram / LinkedIn / Facebook / YouTube: search 'Milena Simsic'

Chapters

00:00: Introduction and Cold Open 

01:20: Milena's background: factory worker, nursing, COVID, Windsor 

03:00: Breaking news: brokerage switch from EXP to Real 

04:00: Windsor Real Estate Insider magazine, 9,000 subscribers 

05:30: Windsor market conditions: what is holding and what is not 

07:00: The Gordy Howe Bridge delay 

08:30: EV plant, population growth, downtown development 

09:30: What investors are doing in Windsor right now 

13:00: $300K first year off TikTok and Instagram 

17:00: Building Windsor REI Social to 3,000 members 

22:00: AI adoption gap: top agents vs. everyone else 

28:00: Replacing a virtual assistant with Claude 

31:00: How many hours per week to run the business 

33:30: Teaching other realtors AI-powered marketing 

38:00: The Windsor pageant: why she entered, first runner up 

41:00: The autoimmune condition, the health pivot, business doubling 

45:00: Salsa dancing as the one thing that started everything 

48:00: Business owner loneliness and why dance helps 

51:00: EXP vs. Real: why the switch and what Real is doing differently 

58:00: AI tools, Fiverr comparison, what Claude does that nobody else can match 

01:01:00: Advice for young people: build your skill set, buy a business, zero excuses 

01:03:00: Wrap up and where to find Milena 

In January 2026, Ming Lim and Bryan Ma closed on AccounTrain, a 25-year-old bookkeeping firm based in Ottawa with clients across Canada. They beat out five other offers. They paid 1.3 times annual revenue. They spent almost two years searching for the right deal. 

Ming is the managing partner of Volition Properties, where his team has helped Canadians transact on more than $300 million of Toronto investment real estate. Bryan spent 20 years in Canadian financial services. He's a CPA, a CFA, and holds an MBA. He worked at three of the biggest professional services firms in the country and most recently at Intact Insurance in mergers and acquisitions. 

In this conversation, we cover: 

• Why these two real estate operators are buying a business instead of more rentals 

• How they sourced AccounTrain through Poe Group and a buy-side community called Village Wealth 

• The difference between bookkeeping and full accounting firms, and why the simpler business won 

• How multiples in this industry actually work (1.2 to 2.5 times revenue depending on quality) 

• Why vendor take-back mortgages are standard in business sales, even though they're rare in Canadian real estate 

• The seller's 25 years of institutional knowledge that was kept entirely in one person's head 

• How Bryan and Ming approached due diligence with Bryan's M&A background as the advantage 

• The lifestyle case for a business over a rental portfolio 

• What they're modernizing now that they own it (CRM, workflow management, AI tools) 

• Practical advice for small business owners with messy books 

This episode is part of TAFI's coverage of the great wealth transfer from retiring boomers to the next generation of Canadian operators. If you're an active real estate investor looking at what's next, this is the playbook.

📩Connect with Ming and Bryan AccounTrain: https://accountrain.com/ (Their bookkeeping firm) Volition Properties: https://www.volitionprop.com/ (Ming's real estate brokerage) Reach them through LinkedIn or via the AccounTrain website

📌 Free training on the investment loan strategy: Saturday, June 27th (Oakville hybrid):https://wealthhacker.krtra.com/t/x5X1OCIDrAXc and Tuesday, July 7th (Zoom only): https://wealthhacker.krtra.com/t/n98gpqD3cVoQ Walking through the math, the loss scenarios, and how it fits alongside a real estate portfolio.

📌 Timestamps00:00 – Welcome & Tesla update01:30 – Investment club math ($35K → $140K)07:12 – Introducing Ming Lim & Bryan Ma09:30 – Why buy a business when you already own real estate 13:00 – How Ming and Bryan met and decided to partner up 17:00 – Two years of searching, joining Village Wealth 21:00 – Bookkeeping vs full accounting, why the simpler business won 26:00 – Deals closing in 24 to 48 hours, the competitive reality 31:00 – Multiples in the industry, 1.2 to 2.5 times revenue 41:00 – Vendor take-back mortgages, standard in business sales 46:00 – Maintaining the seller relationship after closing 52:00 – AI in the accounting industry, where it is and isn't useful 63:00 – Cash flow management as the real value of bookkeeping 67:00 – Toronto market check-in, May 2026 72:00 – Final thoughts on buying a business