Rapidly Scaling and High-Volume Wholesalers in Canada

For this episode, I welcome fellow 7 Figure Flipping Mastermind members, Luc & Jess Boiron. Jess and Luc are a real estate investing couple from Toronto, Canada, and both are lawyers who also hold MBAs. Luc had been investing in RE since 2007 on a small scale, and in 2016, Jess and Luc founded Bliss Realty Inc. to flip houses. Since then, they completed over $50m in real estate deals before turning 30 and their business has grown to be the largest wholesaler in Canada operating in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal with 16 employees. In addition, they are growing their rental portfolio with a mix of short term rentals and small multi-family properties in Ontario.

Luc started by sharing how he and Jess met. They were both in an exclusive dual law/MBA program and because they completed so much education, they feel like they started their adult working life later than a lot of people. Luc’s dad was a commercial real estate agent and owned some commercial properties, so he grew up learning about mortgages and other real estate topics. He bought his first rental property when he was just starting his undergraduate degree in Toronto and talked about how many lessons he learned from it. He continued to buy and sell properties throughout the time he was in school, and then worked as a lawyer for a year after graduating. He said he was too entrepreneurial to be a good fit at many law firms, but conversely, Jess worked at the best firm in Toronto for seven years after graduating. Jess said she loved practicing and was slower to move into the real estate investing side, but finding out that she was pregnant really made up her mind.

Luc and Jess tell a great story of how their business plans were initially foiled by an accident that Luc had. He was originally planning to move to California to start flipping houses because his brother lived there and was going to fund Luc’s work. Right before he was supposed to leave, he had an accident and surgery, and was, therefore, unable to travel and did his law internship instead in Toronto. Another sibling of Luc’s helped him find some properties near where they were living and they began flipping houses in Canada, which they didn’t even believe was possible before they tried.

Because of privacy laws in Canada, you can’t pull lists at all to find deals, so we talked about how they were able to find deals privately. Luc talked about how they were able to target potential buyers through Google Ads without violating privacy laws. They have also incorporated other marketing techniques including scouting run-down neighborhoods and doing every-door direct mail to those property owners. Luc shared their average buy and sell prices in their area, as well, demonstrating the wide range of their market.

Since at the time of this recording Luc and Jess were about to give birth to their first baby, I asked what role they would both be playing in the business as they juggled that with being parents. Jess gave us a lot of insight into their personalities and how they had decided to structure their growing business to accommodate working harmoniously together while having their own autonomy. I asked how they are able to separate business from their personal lives and they both said it is sometimes a challenge because they are both so passionate about what they do. They said as they become parents, they may have to find ways to draw a firm line in the sand for when they stop working each day.

When I asked them to give us a snapshot of where their business was just before they joined 7 Figure Flipping, Luc told us that they had figured out flipping and wholesaling in their unique circumstances, but they didn’t really know how to build a team. He goes into great detail on how they managed to build their team and grow their business, with support from the mastermind group. In about a year, they grew from three full-time employees to sixteen full-time employees, they have expanded to three different markets, and have moved from doing two deals a month to at least that in a week.

We talked about hiring, company culture, incentive structures, using personality profiles, managing the different motivators of their team members, risk tolerance, transitioning from flipping to wholesaling, and so much more! This is a fun, practical advice-packed episode with an investor couple team that is just killing it, so don’t miss this interview with Luc and Jess Boiron on Just Start Real Estate!

Notable Quotes:

“We were eternal students before we started getting into real estate, having both done nine years of post-secondary education.”

Jess Boiron

“With real estate, time heals all wounds.”

Luc Boiron

“I went into law hoping to make good money so that I could qualify for mortgages in order to buy real estate, which is not necessarily good motivation to become a lawyer.”

Luc Boiron

“The fact that you are both all-in on the business is huge.”

Mike Simmons

“We are now managing our expectations and how we want to work with our team and where we draw that line.”

Jess Boiron

“You know that is insane growth, right?”

Mike Simmons

“It is really once an employee is on the job that you really monitor them and make sure that if you have the right person, you pour a lot into them and help them grow and take ownership of their role.”

Jess Boiron

“We have had really great employees that do take ownership and so the new people we bring on just feed off of that.”

Jess Boiron

“I want our lead managers to understand that we help people.”

Luc Boiron

“I think that there is a lot of skill, diligence, and intuition that goes into hiring, but there is a certain amount of luck.”

Mike Simmons

“You guys have built a team now where there is positive peer pressure for ownership and caring about the company.”

Mike Simmons

“It is uncomfortable to be a bad employee in a group of good employees.”

Mike Simmons

“We tell people all the time that you really need to care about the problems of the homeowners and you can’t just care because it is going to get you to that money that you want. Just pretending to care is very transparent.”