An Inspiring Story About Rebuilding After A Divorce
Curious about how a blue collar worker from England transforms into a real estate powerhouse in Canada?
Welcome back to episode 80 of “Inspired To Invest”. This week, Darren Wright is with us.
Join us for an insightful conversation with Darren, who shares his extraordinary journey of flipping single-family homes and scaling up to managing 138 apartment units in just four years.
Discover the pivotal moments that fueled his transformation, like attending conferences and diving into “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” which shifted his mindset and empowered his leap into real estate investing.
Darren takes us behind the scenes of his strategic transition from single-family homes to multifamily properties, highlighting the importance of education, networking, and the resilience required to weather personal storms, including a difficult divorce.
Darren’s story is not just one of financial success but also of personal triumph.
Despite facing the challenges of dyslexia, Darren’s unwavering perseverance, bolstered by the support of his wife, allowed him to rise above adversity.
He candidly shares the ups and downs of his real estate journey, from navigating tenant evictions to the larger-scale thinking required for managing apartment buildings.
His experiences underline the power of seizing opportunities during challenging times, offering inspiration and practical insights for anyone looking to rebuild their life and achieve their dreams.
Darren’s journey is a testament to the power of resilience and the unexpected paths success can take us on.
To connect with Darren, go to @darren_wright_investor on social or https://darrenwrightinvestor.com.
“Inspired to Invest” is proud to support the Beyond Success Program, a not-for-profit financial literacy program for students, launched by More To Give & MAK Investments. Find out more at @more2give.ca.
Join us again on Feb. 12 for our next episode!
Thank you for tuning into “Inspired To Invest”, hosted by Serena Holmes & remember, “when you invest in yourself, the sky’s the limit!”
Real Estate Transcript
Speaker Names
Serena HolmesHost
00:02
Hey everybody, welcome to Inspire to Invest. I have Darren Wright joining us today. From Brown in Manitoba, he and his wife started their journey by flipping houses, which evolved into single family property rentals, and now they’re specializing in apartment buildings through joint venture partnerships. They scale their business to 138 units in less than four years, which is pretty impressive, if you ask me. So thank you for taking time out of your busy day, for being with us today. How are you?
Darren WrightGuest
00:27
I’m very good, thank you. Thank you for having me on your podcast. I really appreciate and grateful to be here so we can maybe encourage others to invest more in real estate. I believe a lot of people can get a lot from it and change their lives, so I’m always happy. A lot of people can get a lot from it and change their lives.
Serena HolmesHost
00:45
So I’m always Absolutely. I think you know we were just talking a little bit offline about where and why you got started, but I think that’s really a good place to kind of begin. Our chat is if you can take us back to what life looked like before real estate and came into the picture and what the catalyst was to kind of bring you into the space that you’re in today.
Darren WrightGuest
01:03
Okay, so before I was a real estate investor, I was an electrician. So I’ve been an electrician for over 30 years and I came from England. When I lived in England, I used to work for a flipper, so he used to buy run-down houses and he used to fix them up and I did the electrical work and I learned a lot of creativity from him on how he was able to buy these houses run down and and sell them to people who, you know, come to afford to actually buy a house but their mortgage was cheaper than the rent and he used to help them with the down deposit.
01:36
so it was a really good, affordable way for people to get started well so I that kind of sparked the idea of, yes, I would love to be able to do this someday, but that was many years ago.
Serena HolmesHost
01:47
Yeah, so what was the market, or what is the market like in Britain compared to Canada, since you’re in Manitoba now, I think it’s the same everywhere.
Darren WrightGuest
01:56
Everybody has the same struggles. You know trying to break out into the housing market to be able to live in the housing market. You know different areas of expense as well, so it is very similar that I find that way. But I have all my experiences in Canada. I’ve never actually done the real estate investing in England.
Serena HolmesHost
02:18
How long have you been in Canada for now?
Darren WrightGuest
02:20
2007,. So 17 years now.
Serena HolmesHost
02:24
Okay, got it. So obviously you just started into real estate investing in this capacity about 40 four years ago. So what was the the catalyst into that?
Darren WrightGuest
02:33
yeah, I actually started about seven years ago in real estate and I started flipping houses. So you know, I went to a weekend conference and I was reading the books I read read Rich Dad, poor Dad which was a game changer on mindset, on how you could do it, and it was changing the mindset of you know, I can’t afford to do that. I never thought I would be able to do it. I used to work for someone who did it but I never thought I could. I could not take that risk because I had a family and I had to bring all my income every you know, every week, so I couldn’t risk everything that I had. So it was a real mindset to go to these conferences and listen to, you know, mentors and coaches speak and just getting that education was the real thing. That changed my mindset. And then I started flipping houses and doing that.
Serena HolmesHost
03:22
So so now there are people that you know that’s kind of their bread and butter and what they’re really passionate about. But you’ve also now gone into more apartment buildings and joined venturing and stuff like that. So is your strategy still to improve the value of those apartment buildings or are you just acquiring them like? Maybe you can talk about that strategy?
Darren WrightGuest
03:40
yeah, absolutely. Um. So with flipping, I was transitioning from flipping into small multifamily. I always wanted to do apartment buildings, but I still had the limited mindset of I can’t do this. I can only do the small ones.
03:54
What I’m, what I’m used to yeah, as you’re getting your education, you keep learning, you know, you get your education, your network and you take action and then, with any mistakes, you make, you get some more education and and more network, and it’s just a cycle that I kept going around. So when I went through, we all went through corit. So, and just before corit, I was going through a divorce. So in 2020, I lost everything. I lost all the real estate that I had, that we were flipping, all multi-families had, and I also had to close my electrical business that I’d run for over 10 years.
04:30
And this was all because I was going through a divorce. So I was white, white, clean and the only thing I really came out of was my education and my network, so I could start again. And because I was starting with absolutely nothing, I had no net worth or anything to back me up. I just had, you know, the knowledge and the education. So I said we have to start in apartment buildings, because that’s what I wanted to do and all the education we’ve got on flipping houses, why don’t we just do it on a bigger scale?
05:01
yeah we’re able to then find the 12 unit property and do the same thing. You know, we added value to it and we refinanced it, we paid investors back and we still had the partnership. So you know all partnerships.
Serena HolmesHost
05:15
And then we just kept going from there so can you talk a little bit about that experience just going from single family to multi-family, like what would you say are some of the biggest differences that you can kind of pass along to someone that hasn’t gotten to that level yet?
Darren WrightGuest
05:32
A lot of it is the thinking of it, because obviously, if you’re flipping a house, you’re just doing one single family house, whereas if you’re doing an apartment building, you’re then going to do 12 units or 10 units or no matter how big it is. So you need more contractors. You need a contractor that can handle the scale of that, and then maybe you need to do little things. Maybe you don’t want to enter the whole building, Maybe you just do a floor at a time or break out four units. Um, when you’re using a bigger contractor, they want to do a minimum of four kitchens at a time. They don’t want to come and just do a one here or one there. You can get a lot better pricing for it. So you can. You can scale up that way and we found by not doing the whole building one, you’re still getting some income coming in by.
06:19
Maybe if you got a 12, you do three stages. You just do four units and you know they’re vacant, you’re working on them and then your next ones are moving out, and then, as you move to the next phase, you got people moving in, so you still got rental income coming in. And then you know you’re working through and some people want to stay in their own units, so we’re able to move them to one that hasn’t been renovated, renovate their unit and then have them move back yeah so that was the differences and that’s what I was going to actually ask you like are all of these in manitoba?
06:52
yes, they are okay, so they’re local for you.
Serena HolmesHost
06:54
So I was going to ask are you offering people cash for keys or are you just, I guess, moving them around depending on what they want?
Darren WrightGuest
07:01
yeah, we try and be as fair as possible because some of these people who live there, you know most of the time we are able to give notice for renovations. But in here it takes. We’re under a strict rent rent control here in manitoba, so it takes four months. But we do offer incentives like cash for keys. You know, if you’re at the first month we’ll give you, say, $3,000. If you’re at the second month, you get $2,000. If you’re going to wait for the four months, then you just get up to $500, which is what we’re assigned to. So you know we’re trying to incentivize them, you know, to move um on and get some extra money as well. So it’s beneficial for them and it helps us move the project quicker because obviously we got money out of high interest when we’re doing these projects. So we’re trying to get through as speed as possible yeah, no, understood now.
Serena HolmesHost
07:50
You went from that 12 unit now to 138. So what does your portfolio kind of look like, just in terms of how that’s broken down? Um, so we started with that 12 unit, now to 138. So what does your portfolio kind of look like, just in terms of how that’s broken down?
Darren WrightGuest
07:57
So we started with the 12 unit and then, you know, we birthed that property and then we used the same partner and moved on to a 10 unit and we did that and then we moved on to another 12 unit and then it all just started coming together where we got 16 units so we’re able to get some partners where we just did the buy and hold on that and then, because we’ve done these with realtors and we’re able to close, then they started offers deals that weren’t even hitting the market then, so that this next one was a 48 unit property and then we got the 40 unit property as well. So that took us up to the I believe that’s the 38, 138 there.
Serena HolmesHost
08:44
Now what would be the price point on a property like that, Like when you compare a 12 unit to a 40 unit or a 48 unit?
Darren WrightGuest
08:51
Pardon.
Serena HolmesHost
08:52
What is the price value for those Like? What are you buying those up at?
Darren WrightGuest
08:58
Our first property, I believe we paid for the 12 unit was, I think it was $550,000. So we got that experience. It was obviously in downtown. It’s not the desirable area. It has no parking, so obviously the rents can’t be as much as what we’d like, right, but we’re able to fix up and refinance and still pull money out. The next 10 unit was another cheap property. I think we paid $460,000 for that.
09:31
The 48 unit. I think we paid 3.6 million for that one. So you know that was again. That was a different type of deal where it was a share sale rather than an asset sale. We’re able to save on the buying costs. You know we had no land transfer taxes to pay, which was a good thing for us and they were saving for the seller because they didn’t have to catch up the depreciation we absorbed that.
Serena HolmesHost
09:55
So now, as you’ve kind of gone down this path towards bigger things, what would you say are some of the obstacles and challenges that you’ve faced?
Darren WrightGuest
10:04
For the growth. Totally, I would just be in the real estate investing yeah.
Serena HolmesHost
10:09
I would say, like is there anything that you found challenging when it comes to underwriting the deal or, you know, ensuring that tenants are moving around, like what would you say are some big obstacles? That’s come with those larger projects well my wife.
Darren WrightGuest
10:23
We’re a partnership. My wife deals more with the property management side and I do more of the project side, so I find the properties and then she manages them, or did we now have a full-time property manager and we have a full-time maintenance? So it’s been getting easier. We produce, you know, procedures on on how to do that, but we have done a lot of learning here. We get the education. We paid a lot of money in coaching and mentorship, but when you’re dealing with residential tenancy boards, it’s a whole different learning as well. Yeah, my wife took the course for property management to learn all the rules and regulations and it’s all about documenting everything and trying to be as fair with the tenant as possible, trying to break down those barriers of not going head-to-head and trying to fight it out, but trying to negotiate and find a mutual respect in what you and trying to fight it out, but trying to negotiate and find a mutual you know respect and what you’re trying to accomplish.
Serena HolmesHost
11:20
Yeah, yeah, understood. Is there anything that any one specific thing that you would look at as something that you’re most proud of or you look at as your biggest success?
Darren WrightGuest
11:30
I would say my biggest success or two, two parts really is one being wiped out and starting again, because that was a real difficult time that I went through, that I worked all my life and you know I had a successful business, and then to lose all that when I just thought I was finally getting out of. You know, working in poverty, and then to be able to rebuild again. I think that’s a real what I like to inspire other people to do, that it’s never too late yeah and always recover.
11:57
So you know, take those risks. And another thing is I’m dyslexic and I’ve always had a struggle with, you know, the reading and the writing side of things. And that’s where my wife really helps. You know, I’ve always passed a lot of things on to her. You know, can you check this and and then use tools on that. So you know, overcoming those difficulties, um, I think is a real accomplishment that that we’ve been able to do as well yeah, no, that’s huge.
Serena HolmesHost
12:23
Now, on that note, we’re just going to take a really brief break for a word from our sponsors and we’ll be right back. Hey, everybody, welcome back to Inspired to Invest. I have Darren Mitchell here with me today. Sorry, darren Wright, I’m going to backtrack on that. I’ll just start again. Hey, everybody, welcome back to Inspired to Invest. I’ve got Darren Wright here with me today and he’s talking about how he scaled to 138 doors in just four years after literally being wiped out prior to that. So his story is very inspiring and I think it’s perfect for people that are listening that could be going through some challenges and tough times right now. Now, before the break, we were talking about, you know, some of the things that you were most proud of and, you know, maybe deemed your perfect success. I always like to ask people what’s the craziest thing that you’ve ever experienced as a real estate investor? Do you have any crazy tenant stories or anything that you think would be entertaining for anyone watching or listening?
Darren WrightGuest
13:14
Yeah, lots of tennis stories, because they’re always characters. But I would say the most difficult eviction that we had, where we had to go to the tennis board, we were going to hear him and then he still wouldn’t move out. So then we had to get a court judgment to move out, and then we were still physically moving that person out and they just don’t want to move out. And then we were still physically, you know, moving that person out and you know they just don’t want to move and you know we’re trying to help, you know, carry these things out yeah and then you’re trying to give them a break because you woke them up.
13:44
you know it’s only 10 am in the morning, so they’re still fast asleep, and um, and then my wife got a telephone call from an advertisement that we have um, you know the local forums that we buy apartment buildings. And just because we had a break, she took that call and that was the call that led us to getting the next 16 unit property, which was an off market.
14:10
So, even through the craziest evictions, you still need to be able to take time. It would have been very easy for us to just give up at that stage. It was like you know, we don’t want to do any more of this, but it was just a crazy time and actually led to something positive as well.
Serena HolmesHost
14:26
Yeah, and that’s the thing I think you always just have to almost compartmentalize certain things as you’re going through it. Now, can you talk a little bit about what that process looked like? I have a client that kind of went through something where, similarly like they got the judgment to evict the tenant and they didn’t leave, and in her particular situation, you actually kind of book an appointment with the sheriff and they’re aware of, like the sheriff is coming on this date and that situation the tenant left in advance. But would that be the same type of process in manitoba, just in terms of how well that’s handled if someone still is just not vacating?
Darren WrightGuest
14:58
it is yeah. So we had to give, obviously, um, the notice for an eviction and then ignore that. And then you’ve got to go to the hearing, which is the residential tenancy board, and you have to present the evidence and then you have to win that hearing. If you don’t, then you can’t appeal that decision where it’s all new kind of court case somewhere else that it goes a little bit more serious. And then once you get the eviction and usually get uh damages on on that which was, I think, a hundred dollars, uh, which we will never see and we didn’t expect to see it, um, one of the most difficult things that we didn’t like about it is you had to present evidence on why you’re evicting this person and he was, um, he was hassling some of the female tenants that was part of it.
15:51
So we had security cameras and we took pictures of the video footage and presented this for the hearing. But the week before the hearing you have to present this evidence to the tenant. With that he then took it upon himself to steal all the cameras and break into the room where the security camera was and steal that all the cameras and break into the room where the security camera was and steal that and then from that he then stole um the money out of the laundry machines and ripped one apart and we noticed him because part of the machines were in his unit when we actually got possession of it, so we’re not.
16:26
You know making assumptions, we know where it’s going yeah and it’s just in a 12 unit building, just one person can destroy it. For the rest, we had two more people move out while this is going. Yeah, and it’s just in a 12 unit building. Just one person can destroy it. For the rest, we had two most uh people move out while this is going on. So that’s the hard, the hardest part. So once we and it’s and they mail out the uh, you know, right for an eviction.
16:47
So we’re still waiting on all this time and then once we get that, then you’ve got to go to the king’s bench and and ask I want um. It’s called a writ and you have to call the tenancy board to make sure they’re not appealing the decision. So then once we get that writ, it just means now we have a right where we can call the sheriff yeah well, the sheriff is another, I think eight hundred dollars. So that’s why we were trying to do it ourselves.
Serena HolmesHost
17:14
Yeah, was, was you know, uh moving out now how long would that entire process have taken? Like in ontario, it can take a year or two years, like it’s. It’s pretty tedious, but what would that look like in manitoba?
Darren WrightGuest
17:26
I think it was three months. Okay, that’s a lot better, yeah, but even, but, even if you get the sheriff, the sheriff will just move them out of the property to allow you to change the locks. Yeah, well, we did that. He moved out, we changed the locks. He’s still got a lot of stuff in there. We said, well, we’ll clear it out. We’ll either leave it on the stairwell, we’ll put it in storage, as we’re supposed to. But it was a ground floor apartment and he’d already broken the window and we had it boarded up on the outside. Yeah, he was smart enough that he unscrewed the board. He would break into the unit, unlock, go around, screw the board back on and then use the apartment without lock. He’d lock the door while he was in.
18:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah he took us a couple of days because we drive around and so it’s still a board still on, it’s good and we check but still there, yeah and he was. When he was there, the only one went in. What are you still doing here? So yeah, even then he took a little bit of work wow, yeah, that’s definitely crazy.
Serena HolmesHost
18:27
Uh, now, in terms of the education, you talked a lot about learning. Uh, what would you say some of the best advice you received through some of that education?
Darren WrightGuest
18:37
Mindset. I believe mindset is the biggest obstacle that you have to remove the limited thinking. You always think there’s not enough money, there’s an abundance of money. There’s a lot of people out there that have money, that want to make money on their money and they want to beat inflation. They want beat, you know, the stocks or anything like that, who believe in real estate but don’t have the time you know to do it. They don’t have the education to do it so you can really form good partnerships. It’s all been about partnerships for our growth yeah, no, I love that.
Serena HolmesHost
19:10
Is there anything that you look at as like the biggest lesson that you’ve faced?
Darren WrightGuest
19:16
Biggest lesson is you just getting over the fear. Just fear, don’t. Don’t let fear hold you back. It’s getting over that fear and and just keep pushing through. Even now we get doubts. You know I’m going through. We got an accepted offer on the. The package is 59 units. It’s two buildings. So even even now, going through the process, you know, of getting the funding and things like that, you still have the butterflies in your stomach that you know this is our next biggest deal. So we’re still going to keep pushing through and saying, yeah, we can handle it. We’ve been gearing up staff ready to go to, ready to take on these properties.
Serena HolmesHost
19:51
So do you have an idea in mind of how big you want the portfolio to grow to?
Darren WrightGuest
19:56
yeah, 2,500 units 2,500 not necessarily not insignificant yeah, um, in Canada, we are going to go into the US as well. We have been forming a company down there which is taking a bit of time being being Canadian, um. But the reason why I want to get to 2,500 units is because I believe in generational wealth, so we can hand this over to his kids, his grandkids, and I don’t want to be the parent that hands over a job to one of our children and say you have to run this and I’ve done the norms. I’ve spoken to other big investors and when you get to 2,500, you have a company so big, you have all the big investors. And when you get to 2,500, you have a company so big you have all the management in place at every level that you really do not need to be there. You just need reports and just keep it going. So that’s what I want. I want to hand them a business, not a job.
Serena HolmesHost
20:45
Yeah, no. I love that. Now, in terms of favorite quotes, the name of this podcast is Inspired to Invest, so I always like to ask people if they have a particular quote that motivates and inspires them.
Darren WrightGuest
20:59
Well, if you don’t do it, somebody else will. Awesome.
Serena HolmesHost
21:01
I love that. Now, for anyone that does want to get in touch and wants to maybe learn about some of the opportunities that you might have as you’re growing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?
Darren WrightGuest
21:14
I’m two ways. I got my website DarrenWrenwrightinvestorcom or my YouTube channel as well. I try and inspire people to go on there and we can connect on there as well.
Serena HolmesHost
21:20
Perfect, so we’ll include that in the show notes below, of course. Thank you for your time to share your story today and for anyone that is watching or listening. Please make sure that you like, comment and subscribe or leave a review. You can also follow along with us on social at Inspire to Invest Podcast, and remember, when you invest in yourself, the sky’s the limit. Thanks again. Thank you, stop.