Can the power of setting clear goals and a concrete timeline truly set you free?
Welcome back to the “Inspired To Invest Podcast”. Today we have Austin James Neill with us, a former aircraft engineer turned real estate investor who is living proof that setting goals and a timeline can set you free.
To tune into the episode, click here for video for video or here for audio.
In our conversation, Austin takes us through his thrilling journey of success, transition, and the challenges overcome along the way. Imagine an investment as a catalyst for change in your community – that’s what Austin does.
He’s not just an investor; he creates impact.
Our discussion takes a deeper turn as we navigate the crucial aspects of setting expectations and initiating hard conversations in business partnerships.
Ready for a sneak peek into the future?
Austin shares his ambitious plan for a $350 million senior center development, which promises to make a significant impact. Achieving your ‘freedom number’ – sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? As per Austin, it’s an impressive $25,000 a month net income for himself and $50,000 net for his business. And, it’s not just about setting goals and time blocking, but also relishing the journey that gets you there.
Join us as we learn and get inspired by Austin’s compelling story.
To connect with Austin directly, he can be found at elias_range_realestate on Instagram, under his name on facebook or https://www.eliasrangestays.ca online.
He also has a report called “Getting The Inside Edge”. To request a copy, please email him at austinjamesneill@gmail.com.
We also have a page dedicated to this podcast on Instagram and Facebook where we preview guests each week, highlight their episodes, top takeaways, tips, quotes and more.
Are you a full-time real estate investor with an inspiring story to share? Apply now.
Thank you again to our sponsors Francis Five Properties & Maynada Media for bringing us this episode! To learn more about them, go to:
✨ @francisfiveproperties on Instagram or LJ Francis on Facebook
✨ @getsocialwithaleks on Instagram or https://maynadamedia.com online
Tune back in on Wed., Jul. 19 for Episode Six for an episode with Jacqueline Francis from Francis Five Properties. Her and her husband Leo are have built a business on land development, multi-family property conversions and so much more.
Thank you for your support – and remember, “when you invest in yourself, the sky’s the limit!”
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 100:02
Welcome to the Inspired to Invest podcast, where we’re sharing stories from real estate investors and how investing has changed their lives. This episode of the Inspired to Invest podcast has been brought to you by Francis Five Properties and Maynada Media. Welcome to Inspire to Invest. Today we have an amazing guest with us. We’ve got Austin James Neill joining us, from beautiful BC And, for anyone who is not familiar with him, he is driven with a passion for impact investing and real estate development. He’s deeply curious about the world and he has a desire to actually make a really big difference With his expertise and experience. He tries to create projects that not only generate profit but also have a meaningful impact on society and on the environment. So, without any further delays, Austin, welcome to the show.
Speaker 200:55
Thank you, Serena. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 100:57
It’s a great to be on here. Pleasure to have you Now. you haven’t obviously been in real estate for that long. What were you doing before you became a real estate investor?
Speaker 201:07
Yeah, so prior to real estate investing I was, or still am, an aircraft engineer working on helicopters in British Columbia and the Yukon, so that just involved traveling around fixing helicopters And I also ran a small plant business selling plants ahead of my house and shipping them across Canada.
Speaker 101:27
I didn’t actually know that.
Speaker 201:28
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was fun. It was on Etsy and it didn’t make a ton of money. Sometimes I lost money, but I just like selling plants and I like growing plants, so it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 101:40
Very interesting. So then, how did real estate come into your life in this capacity?
Speaker 201:45
Well, growing up we actually before I was 14, we moved in over 10 houses and I was always really curious. I read a lot of books. I was really into personal finance. I’d read over 10 books before getting into the stock market. And then COVID hit, stock market crashed. I started buying and I quickly realized I couldn’t leverage anything in the stock market and I actually knew real estate pretty well. So I started studying it and it just kind of transpired from that.
Speaker 102:17
Yeah, nice. So then, what was the actual catalyst? Was there someone that you spoke to or someone that said hey, you should consider doing this? What was kind of that moment where you thought that you could actually turn this into something?
Speaker 202:29
Totally Well, i was buying a house and I put my first 50 grand down on the house. We actually went over our loan or what we could get pre-approved for, so I had to put extra down I think it was 40. We needed and I had to put an extra 10. And I started thinking about it and I said well, you know, i just bought the house, signed all the papers And I was just like we could literally make more money if we don’t live here. And you know, we bought the perfect house, nice townhouse it’s actually a white horse Yukon And we set it off with furniture. And I said, even before we moved in, i told my girlfriend Megan, i said we’re not going to be here more than six months And she said what do you mean? I said, well, look at it like this It doesn’t make sense for us to live here, because we’ll make more money and we’ll be able to grow faster.
03:20
The catalyst for me getting into real estate was we were in white horse Yukon. I had just bought a house, i’d put 40 grand down and there wasn’t an extra 10%, or sorry, $10,000 I had to put into it And it was a large chunk of money at the time And I realized that the money was going to grow on this house either way with the appreciation And if I wasn’t paying the mortgage, if I had somebody else paying the mortgage, i would be able to live at a lower cost somewhere else and make this property grow for me. So it was really then in conjunction with a real estate and private equity course that just kind of blossoms into full on real estate investing.
Speaker 104:05
So then I guess, when did you transition full time? I mean, I think there’s a lot of real estate investors that will kind of straddle their employment and then their investing just so that they’ve got some job security and cash flow and stuff like that. So what was your experience in respect to that?
Speaker 204:20
Yeah, yeah, so it was kind of both. My job as an aircraft engineer, i like to say, is predictably unpredictable, in that if the mining industry goes down, you can expect your job to wiggle away pretty quickly, and that’s just meaning the work just dries up. The companies don’t have any work, the real estate was going good and we were buying more properties. We had bigger projects coming down the pipe, so we have a senior center we’re working on, and that required a lot of work. I was also doing renovations on a property, so it made sense to work on the renovations to build my own wealth rather than build somebody else’s wealth. Doing so and building my own wealth, i was able to make an impact in my communities, serving organizations that needed housing. So for me it was a very simple transition. We had a bank rule, we had private funds and we set ourselves up for a timeline and then we were able to hit that timeline and from there we were able to take off.
Speaker 105:27
Right, yeah, based on your experience, obviously you’ve got a lot of different things that you’ve done. What would you define as your biggest success, and why was that specifically so important to you?
Speaker 205:37
Yes, Great question, Serena. Thank you so much. Biggest success for me personally would be getting a government organization on board and signing them as a client for my business, specifically medical professionals working at hospitals. That’s the biggest success for me because it really goes back to my roots of working in a medical background, going way back and serving These government organizations, and hospitals specifically, are having a really tough time.
06:16
The nurses and doctors working at the hospitals are few and far between now. They’re hard to come by, especially in full-time staff. So hospitals are actually closing because of these issues and it’s actually a chain problem. So they’re struggling to find the staff, but they’re also struggling to find the housing. So we’re now providing the housing. The hospitals closing is incredibly important to me because the medical staff that work there they need really nice places to live or they need appropriate places to live, and we’re supporting them by providing housing to them, rental housing to them. That’s really important to me. If our emergency care staff are understaffed, underhoused and working the butts off, that’s just not a good situation to be in as a community and as a city. So it’s of our biggest interest to support that and solve issues What area do you have those properties in now?
07:20
That’s in Northwestern BC and we’re working to expand that with the organization all across BC.
Speaker 107:27
Okay, great, awesome. So that definitely is important because obviously people need access to resources and care, definitely making your impact there, but I’m sure it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. So I guess, just in terms of some of the lessons that you’ve learned so far, what do you think are a couple of the biggest lessons? Knowing what you know now, what would you go back and do differently if you had that opportunity?
Speaker 207:49
For sure. Yeah, biggest lessons, oh God, i mean there’s so many and I take them all as blessings, really, and those great opportunities. Thanks a lot for your time. Ahhh, we were trying to close on one of the properties and it I didn’t have the money lined up at the same time. You know, people always ask the chicken or the egg and it’s really both.
08:10
You’ve got to be working both pipelines. You’ve got to have some capital available. You’ve got to be working that. You’ve got to have like a model of say like, hey, we’re going to, you know, to your investors, we’re providing this type of investment. Here’s what we’re looking at for interns And you’re also looking for properties, building those relationships with agents, brokers, getting everything sorted at the same time, cause when it came to close, we, we had the offer accepted, everything was going good, but the funds weren’t in my account, things were being delayed, so that was. That was really stressful, i would say, and that was a really good lesson to just have the money either beforehand, if you can, or be running the pipelines at the same time and really have strong relationships there.
Speaker 108:54
Yeah, and I think what’s hard about that is it’s something that’s kind of, you know, maybe out of your control to some respect. So I think as much as you can pre-plan will obviously lessen the blow. But, with that being said, just take a really quick break just to hear a word from our sponsors Introducing Francis Five Properties.
Speaker 309:10
Hello everyone. I hope everyone’s doing great. My name is Leo Francis and this is.
Speaker 409:15
Jackson Francis.
Speaker 309:16
Together we are called LG Francis from Francis Five Properties. We are real estate investors, business owners and entrepreneur. Some of the real estate investing strategies that we’re involved in are multifamily Valiad, we’re involved with replication rentals And now we’re also doing a small development.
Speaker 409:37
So if you’d like to learn more or get involved with any of our projects, please reach out to us. We would love to share what’s going on. Our socials are Facebook at LJ Francis, Instagram at Francis Five Properties, LinkedIn at Francis Five Properties, or you can email us at FrancisFiveProperties at gmailcom. We look forward to hearing from you and helping you scale your business.
Speaker 310:02
Take care for now, bye, bye.
Speaker 110:08
Thanks again for following along with this episode of Inspired to Invest. In addition to real estate investing and running my own brand experience agency for 18 years, I also published a book called The Accidental Entrepreneur in October of 2021. This is my story and it chronicles how I turned tragedy into triumph to embrace my destiny in entrepreneurship. If you’re interested in picking up a copy, you can find the link at serenahomesrealtorcom and you can also find my link tree with all of the retailers in the details below. Thanks again for your support.
Speaker 510:43
Hi, I’m Aleksandra Sydorow. As a social media strategist, brand builder and business consultant, I help real estate investors grow their reach and build their brand. In today’s digital age, having an online presence is critical for the success in the real estate industry. If you’re looking to grow and elevate your brand, visit www.maynadamedia.com to book your free discovery call. Let’s work together and take your brand to new heights.
Speaker 111:14
And welcome back to the Inspired to Invest podcast. We have Austin James Neill here and he’s talking about how he’s using real estate investing to have a positive impact on his community and, hopefully, the world. So now we talked a little bit about your successes and your lessons. Now, when it comes to obstacles, what do you think is really the biggest obstacle that you’ve faced so far and what did you do to kind of push through that?
Speaker 211:38
Yeah, yeah, one was finding really good business partners, and something I’ve now found is it is incredibly hard to find really good business partners that suit you and that of the opposite skills that you need to compensate for. So it was a lot of studying on what really a good business partner looks like looking at good dynamics, following other people, going to talk with them, getting each side. We don’t wanna leave ourself astray or run ourself down the wrong course by not doing the research, not planning and not really figuring that out. So that was one of the biggest obstacles I faced so far. Now I have a really good business partner who runs his own construction business And again, i’m in real estate and private equity and development. He’s a builder, so he knows all of that stuff. So again, it’s really complimentary to what we’re doing, but it’s huge not having a business partner and not having somebody like that on your team. You’re taking on more risk and a ton of other things. So I would just say, yeah, doing the research, putting in the effort to make that happen.
Speaker 112:55
Yeah, And I think it’s important to note that when you go into a partnership with someone, I think you need to expect that there’s always a chance that that may not last forever. So it’s always good to talk about what the ending could look like and what those expectations are at the outset. And that was a learning that I had with my business that I was issued shares in the company but we never even had a partnership agreement.
13:16
So when my partner decided to exit four years in, you know it was. We were on good terms, but she had some personal things that happened in her life and she wanted to exit the business. And then we had to go through that process of valuing it, you know, coming in the middle with her expectations and what I could pay for, and things like that. So I think that it’s always wise to try to, you know, set the tone for what that could look like, just so it makes for an easier transition if something unforeseen happens.
13:41
And hopefully you’ll be on good terms, but it doesn’t necessarily always mean that you will be, so I think it’s really important to make sure you’ve got you know that stuff laid out from the very beginning.
Speaker 213:50
Yeah, yeah, and having those hard conversations and continuing to have them. You know like, okay, this isn’t working. You know like we got to, we got to change something before it happens. Or you know, before it gets worse. And and also knowing, yeah, like it could not work out right. Like you know, going into it like hoping for the best and planning everything, but it’s, it’s still not a guarantee.
Speaker 114:11
Yeah, No, absolutely. And and I guess, when it comes to advice, like I know that you’re big, I’m educating yourself in this space the way that I am. what do you think is the best advice that you’ve been going, that you’ve been given, and how have you kind of put that into practice?
Speaker 214:24
Yeah, so some of the best advice I’ve been given or I’ve come across is I see I’d see a lot of people doing business business to like client or business to small business And for me what’s what’s really upheld me forward is going is changing the model a bit and going business to business.
14:51
So selling to businesses, corporations, governments And and it’s given me it’s a different clientele and it’s a different model And it’s not always for everybody. You know, if you’re really big on clients and serving the public, you know this may not be the model for you, But something I found is it’s just, it’s a huge market and I found the ceiling on it is very large. You know, working for government organizations and large corporations it’s it can be really rewarding in that you get the maybe you’re serving isn’t on, you know, directly on the client you’re working with, but it’s on a broader kind of spectrum.
15:33
So, you don’t necessarily get to see everybody you help, but you you’re able to have a much bigger impact through that. And that was one of the lessons I learned was just just switch that model, switch the thinking. Who is the end user that’s going to use this product? And you can go from one person to to an organization, to a government, to a country, and and those are just some ideas that you can. You can play with and and think about and find a problem and solve it.
Speaker 116:00
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s really smart. Now I guess what would you say is next for you with your plans? And there was a question that came up recently with a meeting I was part of where the question also came up what is your freedom number? So if you were to define, you know, your pinnacle, whether that’s a certain number of doors or a certain number number in terms of revenue, what would that look for you? look like?
Speaker 216:21
for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So first question what’s next for me? Well, we’re right now we’re working on large commercial developments where it’s public, private and and government. So we’re building a 250 unit senior center And it’s roughly a $350 million development. Yeah, we’re actually building a city park for the city which we’re going to donate back to them and a conference center. So that’s really exciting And we’ve got more of those planned, along with master plan communities and other things.
Speaker 116:57
Question about the senior center. Yes, This is different in BC, but here in Ontario one thing that I was really surprised by when I got my real estate licenses is that there’s actually no rent control with long term care for seniors facilities, And you would think of all the people in the population. You know the seniors are vulnerable in the sense that they probably are on fixed incomes. Clearly they’re not working anymore, So I was very surprised to see that that didn’t apply to them. You know there’s a lot of rent controls for, like other parts of the population of regular tenants. So I’m just curious if that’s different in NBC compared to here in Montreal.
Speaker 217:32
I don’t believe there is rent control for senior centers Like down in North Vancouver and in Vancouver you can pay up to like 25 grand a month for like a high-end senior residence.
17:43
Now there is programs to get into a senior center if you are a senior, with BC housing and things like that. So if you’re below a certain income, you can apply for this and still get into our senior centers, because it is a private senior center, but yeah, so that’s a really big one for us. My partner is in Vancouver. They’ve done 16 of these in the last five years So I’m now on board with them planning and doing the development side. So that’s really really exciting. Again, serving a ton of people in this huge market is something I wake up in early four and go to bed late four all the time just because I’m so excited about it. And then your second question was your freedom number.
18:33
Is my freedom number. Yes, that is such a great question And to all those you guys out there define it early, early, early early, commit yourself to doing the work, to getting that freedom number And I’m sure you’ve explained it before what the freedom number is, but I’ll just run through it quickly is that number that you can have everything you want, you can have the life you want. I’ve heard it called lifestyle freedom day, which is another great one, where you’re free, you’re financially set up, and that number for me right now is 25,000 a month net income to myself. Now I do split my profits in my business with my business partner, so that’s 50,000 net to the business And that has me outside a lot, having fun and going to events, and I honestly think working more isn’t making more. I think we need to work less and make more because we’re able to meet more people, were able to go out more, so that’s really my freedom number And that actually happens December 17th 2025.
Speaker 119:51
Nice, literally, you pinpointed it That’s my 30th birthday, and it’s not a day past.
19:58
Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, i found for me real estate investing wasn’t completely on my radar. But when I was trying to buy my first house, the way that I kind of looked at it was like freedom 35. So you always see the commercial like freedom 55. I’m like, well, that’s not like a good stretch away. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your life then, obviously, but like I don’t want to be working that hard up until 55. So for me I define that as I wanted to be mortgage free by the time I was 35. And I pretty much missed it by like four months Just that’s great, I actually had the money.
20:33
but I was waiting. It was in US dollars And I had sold my first rental property in the States And when we sold it the dollar was, say, like $1.37 to one, And two weeks later, when we closed, it dropped like $1.24. And I was like Oh no.
20:47
I’m gonna lose like $25,000 if I exchange this now. So I just kept it in the bank account for like Nine months or something like that, waiting for it to swing the other way. So I think we exchanged around a dollar thirty one or thirty two, and then I pretty much paid off my mortgage at the beginning of 2018, january 2018, so it’s just amazing technically I guess I could say, but like when it was done, done, and then it was kind of like once you’re there, it’s like okay, well, what, what next?
21:14
like you still need money. Yeah everything right, yeah, that was really like, that was my, that was my big freedom number.
Speaker 221:20
That’s amazing. I love it. I love it and, and, yeah, i think people, people get mixed up in thinking that’s all working. You know a lot of that’s a lot of setting. That is thinking, you know. So you’re not just thinking about it once, you’re thinking about it constantly, day after day, you’re building it, you’re. It’s a balloon that continues to grow, of course, and not so much in the essence of a balloon, because people think balloons are fragile and they can pop.
Speaker 121:46
Looks like at one point in time is one thing, and now it’s more. Like you know I have enough money to live off of, but how can I start creating that Generational wealth to take care of my daughter down the road and maybe the children that she may have down the road? and it you know, obviously it’s gonna evolve throughout your journey, but I think that’s the beauty of investing that you can think forward. It’s not just like you get that paycheck every two weeks and it could always be gone in a moment’s notice. I think that’s the most important thing to consider when you start investing in yourself and you start investing in your future 100%, 100%.
Speaker 222:16
Yeah, the the best investment I’ve made is always in myself. You know whether I put that money on a credit card and you know bought a course, or you know went to a seminar or did whatever. But it’s always paid tremendous returns.
Speaker 122:28
Yeah, no, agreed. Now, if you could go back To the beginning, when you first started investing, is there any anything that you would tell your former self based on the things that you know now?
Speaker 222:40
That’s a really good question. Tell my former self. I would say have more fun. You know they’re like there was a lot of Battle with this all the time and it’s like, well, should I just be working, you know, all day and and And not being have any fun. You know like they like the hustle mentality and everything, and you know I’m on board with that to the most extent. But I mean you get two lives and The first one is when you realize you only have one life and and then you get to live that one life And yeah, the second one’s when you realize you only have one.
23:16
So Now I’m time blocking. I wasn’t doing that before. So time blocking is is absolutely incredible. For those of you guys who don’t know, you’ll get a lot more done in less time and you’ll be able to slot that free time for whatever you’d like to do, whatever you do in your free time. So I would say time blocking and and just really enjoying the journey, because there was there was times I actually got sick from overworking and stressing too much. So I would just say, yeah, time block and and really enjoy the journey.
Speaker 123:50
Yeah, yeah, no, i think that’s important. I remember I was taking a mentorship exchange back in 2014 and I remember all kind of sitting around all of us mentees and stuff like that, and we’re all talking about like What we were excited about, happy with, and I was like I’ll literally be taking the most holidays I’d ever taken, which, at that time, was a month and the challenge when you’re a business owner, an investor, whatever it may be, is that you know getting away from your business can be really tough and for us, you know, i would take a week, one year, nothing, the next year, maybe two weeks, but like it was all over the place and a big challenge was just, was, honestly, payroll?
24:24
at that time I was like, well, who’s gonna sign the paychecks? like, yeah, i haven’t set up at that point in time, but when we hired a bookkeeper to go direct deposit, i could literally just hit a button and transfer the money. So it didn’t matter where I was, so that literally was so freeing and it didn’t mean that I didn’t like I would feel like I was Always accessible on holidays and stuff like that. But that was, you know, my little milestone, that I kind of felt like I was, you know, starting to to move forward and starting to achieve a certain level that I wanted to see in my business.
Speaker 224:54
Yeah, yeah, that freedom is really everything once, once that button comes around, yeah, i mean it’s huge.
Speaker 125:00
So, in terms of quotes, i always find them super motivating and inspiring for me. What’s one of your favorites?
Speaker 225:06
Yeah, so my favorite quote is by Albert Einstein and I absolutely love it just because it I feel like it describes me so well. People always say you know, like Austin, you do so much and you know it’s, there’s, there’s, there’s so much around you and there’s so much going on, like, like why and what for. And When I saw this, it just it totally clicked because it’s me and he says I have no special talent, i am only passionately curious, and I think it couldn’t be more true.
Speaker 125:38
Yeah, no, that’s amazing. So for anyone that is out there that wants to get in touch and to learn more about what you’re doing or maybe get involved, how can they find you?
Speaker 225:46
Yeah, great question. You can find me on Facebook at Austin, james Neil. You can email me at info at aliasrangecapitalca, and Yeah, you can find me as well as BC.
Speaker 126:00
Great, awesome. So we’ll include that in the details below and, for anyone out there that has enjoyed what they’ve seen, make sure that you subscribe to this YouTube channel and you can also follow along at inspire to invest podcast. So thanks again for tuning in and, of course, austin, thank you for your time today.
Speaker 226:16
Thank you so much, serena, it’s been a pleasure.
Speaker 126:19
Thank you again to our sponsors, Francis five properties and Maynayda media, for bringing you this episode of inspired to invest. The views represented on this podcast are for general information only and does not constitute investment or other professional advice or an offering of securities. The hosting guests featured on inspired to invest Make no representations as to the performance of any particular investment. Should you decide to make an investment, you are responsible for conducting your own review and analysis. It is recommended that you obtain independent legal accounting and tax advice from licensed professionals.