Portfolio Review: What should Jeremmy do Next?

0:00This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills, fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate to see. According to Indeed Data, Sponsored Jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today, with Indeed. Get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit at Indeed.com slash podcast, Terms and Conditions Apply. Alrighty folks, as promised, this is another Portfolio review. This is something I look forward to doing 100 times this year. I think this is number 12, might be number 13. We got the one in only Jeremy. How you doing, Jeremy? I'm doing well yourself. I'm doing well. Why don't we just start with who is Jeremy? Where are you at with your Portfolio? And then we'll get into the kind of Q&A section. So what's going on? Yeah, for sure. My name's Jeremy VanWorden. I am living currently in British Columbia, Canada. I have a wife and five children. And we invest in Michigan.

1:02So I have a small Portfolio at the moment, hoping to grow it. So right now I have a single family house. It's a three-bed one bath. I'd say it's worth somewhere around 240. Rents for about 15, 50 a month. It's been recently fully renovated. And I have a Duplex, which is a side by side two-bed one bath. And that's probably, I just made around 300,000 or so value. Rents are coming in there at about $2,500 a month. Second Duplex is a two units that are three-bed one bath each. So it's quite large. Yeah, my favorite property. And this one's worth probably $360, $375 somewhere in that ballpark. I haven't had recent evaluations on them, but that's my guess. Rents there are about $3250. And then I just recently, as of fall of 2025,

2:02sold what you would call a crocodile. Michael, nice. So got rid of that one. And it was just kind of costing me money. It was kind of bringing the rest of my Portfolio down. So I'd be losing money there. And the other rentals are having to float at feet. Yeah, first off, Kudos for that. A lot of people build a smart portfolio. It's very common to have one that just doesn't work out. And a lot of people just struggle. And they just let the good ones pay for the bad ones. I want to compliment you on that first. Some people look at going backwards like, oh my God, I lost a unit. No, you saved a headache. So yeah, folks, if you have an alligator and you're feeding it month after month after month, year after year after year, sell that damn thing. Put that capital, put that equity to use somewhere else, full blessing on that. So nice work there, okay. Yeah, so, and then what I did a bit that money basically is I took that money. I renovated the single family and I renovated the second unit in my larger duplex.

3:06I already done the first unit. So basically I have the one duplex and the single family all completely renovated, getting good rents. Very cool. And then... What's the equity position right now in the Portfolio? Like 50%, 70%, I mean, just roughly. Yeah, so basically my portfolio, let's say my portfolio in totals around 900K. Okay. And that I'm carrying on right now is two 12. So my current loan to value is about, it's not 23% range, I'd say. Yeah, yeah, it's, okay. All right, so you're equity rich. Right, let's see what happened was I purchased my, I purchased my first property in 2011 when I purchased that first duplex. Let that one season for a couple of years. And then I was on holidays and I was basically using this rental property to pay for my holiday. Didn't pay for the whole holiday. But I thought this is kind of cool. I need to, you know, I need to do more of this.

4:07So, something's good more is better. Yeah. So what I did was I, after that one had seasoned, I did a cash out refinance on that one and that's when I purchased the other three properties. And of course the one that I, one of them I've now sold. That was in 2013 is when I bought those ones. Since then I did a couple cash out refives on the one duplex and the two single families. The mistake I made was I took that money and I put it into other investments, business, whatever. And those didn't do, you know, they just didn't do what my real estate has done for me. And so I kind of, you know, sitting here in 2026. Now, looking back at, you know, at the last, say, 16 years and saying like, why did I ever stop doing, like why did I stop doing what was working for me and go try something else. So now I'm here to get back to what, what has worked for me in the past. That's the desire anymore anyways. That's really cool. I do want to call you guys attention to a video.

5:07I talked about this morning with Isaiah, Canadian investor. This is very common. A lot of folks, you know, had that proof of concept move forward and then they get what I'll call shiny objects or rabbits or butterflies. And you get kind of distracted. So I will tell you, if you have something that's working, continue to do that. That would be, that would be my long term advice for you. But yes, all right. So let's get into where, what, I know you came with a set of questions. Why don't we jump into those? Yeah, so I think, you know, being a long distance investor, I'm gonna have a little bit of a different, like, I don't have the option to do, you know, a burrow where you do it yourself or a house hack where I'm living in one side of a duplex and renting out the other, you know, or even what Dion does where he's, you know, you're a self-manages and stuff like that. I just don't have those options. So right off the bat, you know, my, you know, say, 10 to 12% of my rents are going to management, right? Yep. And so things look a little bit different for me. In my mind, it feels more like a long-term retirement play

6:09rather than like, hey, I'm trying to replace my income right now. You know, I'm working up in Canada here right now and I don't need to pull money out of my rentals to feed my family's lifestyle right now. So, but, you know, that's just where I'm at right now. Of course, what I love to see that in the future where I could, you know, pull some of that income for a living, absolutely, I would love that. But, yeah. So my first thought on that, you know, that statement is, that's very much who I am in probably most of the people at one rental at a time. We're not looking and dare I say, don't even recommend saying, you know, how fast can I replace my income? I think that sets up a recipe for disaster. I think you make lots of bad decisions and those compound and really create chaos and likely pain. I love the idea of, you know, a 10-year vision. I mean, I just think it takes 10 years to get rich. And, you know, if you could, you know, add one a year, one every two years, structured, safe, quality, you're,

7:10you're just like, hey, that's just like, you know, checking a box, right? Oh, I did this one. And then, you know, two years later, up, got another one. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, I don't have to be in a hurry. Like, wait. Yeah. No, that's great. So, I guess, I'll just get into my questions now if that works for you. Yeah, please, it's terrific. So, so right off the bat, I would say like, if you had my portfolio, what would be your recommendation? You know, the loans that I'm holding right now are all in that 3.75 to 4.25. So, really, really great rates there. Yeah. Low payments, like my one duplex that is my bigger duplex, I've never refinanced that one. So, I think I owe like $31,000 on it and I have like a $200 mortgage payment every month. So, you know, I love that. But I also realized I might need to sacrifice some of that in the name of the growth. Because I am in the growth phase, for sure.

8:12Yeah, well, I guess my question there is if, if you don't tap that, do you already have, like, are you able to save money from the day job and lifestyle? You have five kids, that's a lot of mountain feed. So, the answer might be no. But yeah, I would like to get you on a strategy where once a year, maybe once every 18 months, you're adding a quality unit. So, if you can do that from income and cash flow, no reason to go tap that equity. But if the answer is no, there is no other option. Right? That's my answer there is, is can you save for a down payment from your day job? Yeah, I would say, no, I would say I want to keep my, you know, my income up here in Canada for my living expenses up here in Canada. You know, my properties down there, like I said, I've pulled a little bit up, but really not a lot. It's, you know, they have paid off my student loans because I went to college in the U.S. so they've paid off my student loans. They've done good things for me, but I want to keep the two separate things. All right, so I think that's very wise.

9:13It's probably what I would do as well. So what I would, looking at the portfolios, I see it. I think there is no reason you can't get to 450K, which would be a 50% LTV, right? So that's roughly 240 grand of money. Now, again, I don't really care how you get there. You could take one of these assets all the way up to 80% and leave the others alone. You could take multiple loans out. Again, this is my goal for, if this was my portfolios, what puzzle pieces can I play with to get to 450K in debt, which would give me 240 grand to read a ploy. It would keep this portfolio relatively safe, likely still cash flowing. And then, so that's, that's answer to step one, is I think you have to tap it and I would not go above 50%. Okay, keep it under 50. That was one of my questions for you. And then, how do you feel about, so I know what my buy boxes, I want to be, you know, small multi-family in Michigan,

10:13and I know what I want, do I, you know, I can look at say like a B-class neighborhood and get something that's, you know, say it for aplex, that's not going to maybe give me the cash flow or maybe I'll be a break even kind of play, but it has better appreciation versus, you know, and then maybe in that, I need to put in, you know, 30 or 35% down in order to do, to make it work. How do you feel with that, putting in a bigger down payment in order to make the numbers work? So I'm not opposed to that. It's all about yield to me. I think, you know, if you're, if you're looking to stack one property a year or one property every 18 months, I think that's, that's where you want to play class B, you know, versus going for the cash flow in class C, I think that's a disaster waiting to happen. If you, especially out of state and all these other things, I've seen plenty of people lose trying that and it becomes an alligator and they just are forced to sell it

11:14maybe even at a loss. I think there's nothing wrong with buying quality rentals in today's market at today's rate. You're going to put more down, but again, you're keeping your portfolios separate, right? Life here and then you're letting your assets buy the next asset, you know, 35% down. I've done that plenty of times. I've done 40% a couple of times. Yeah, okay. Okay, no, that's helpful. And then what about, what about like, like because I want to, you know, my next step, I kind of have this dream of, I want to, you know, maybe like a fourplex or even like one property that has two fourplexes on it would kind of be like my dream, I've seen a couple of these pop up. And then how would you feel about me selling a, a single family, the remaining single family that I have in order to make that happen with one, knowing one thing though, which is that I cannot do a 1031 exchange because I'm a Canadian citizen. And so there's no tax benefit to me

12:16doing a 1031 exchange because the, you know, Canada will just tax me on the money that I saved down. So yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with taking a small seed. In this case, a one of a single family in turning into a four or eight, I did that a lot. You're just playing monopoly, right? What is it? One red house becomes, or a greenhouse becomes a red hotel. Nothing wrong with that, great strategy. I would make sure to match quality, right? If the, if the house is a B by a B. But yeah, I don't think there's anything like, these people that are trying to optimize life because of the tax code, that leads to a lot of bad decisions. If you're paying taxes, it means you made some money. Yeah, right? Yeah. I would rather pay taxes than do a bad 1031. And I know a 1031 is not an option, but I've seen plenty of people do bad 1031s because of the IRS. And I'm like, God, you're gonna pay for that one way or another. Yeah, fair enough. Okay.

13:17Yeah, I don't know if I have any other specific questions. Yeah, so the last thing I would say here, back to your fourplex in the B area being expensive. Again, the one thing you have on your side is time. Like I would, I would do what I'm, what I'm telling everybody to do is I, you know, I don't, what's a, like what's a list price on a fourplex today? Is it like, is it half a million bucks or what's, what's rough listed? Yeah, like I would say, you know, if you find a fourplex that meets the 1% rule in a B class neighborhood, you know, you're probably in that 600 to 700, like, let's, let's say five fives to high snipses. All right. Yeah. So we'll just, well, I'll just pick 600 just because I have a simple example. So again, if you're, if you're fishing for a fourplex and you're seeing them all at 600 and, you know, finally, one of them goes, you know, 60 days on market. So it's been listed for quite a while, but you like it. There is nothing wrong than writing an offer at 500

14:18because I think a lot of people get into this game and they feel like they have to pay list price or close to list price. Let me tell you this. If there's something on the market for 600 and your offer is 590, that's not disrespectful. Write the offer it 499 or 500. Look for a counter because if you can end up negotiating a 550 purchase price, that's less money you have to put down. Right. You're no longer talking 35% to 600. You're now talking 30% of 550. So because you don't have to buy every deal, use time to your advantage and just write more aggressive offers. Yeah, I'm a real sage and up here in Canada. So we've been seeing more of that lately. I like it. Yeah. And, you know, I will say that when you see these, you know, like I said, before I say a fourplex that meets the 1% rule or duplex, even for that matter, in the market that I'm buying and these are selling, you know, one or two days on market multiple off.

15:19Right. Yeah. They're selling fast when they're coming on market priced, right? So, you know, I need to be in a position where I'm ready to. Yeah, you got to be able to stroke that check. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, it's not really an option to, you know, if a good product comes on to see it sit around for 60 days, it's probably not. Well, that's, again, that's why you know you, that's why you haven't buy box. You know the rhythm of the market. And if the market right now is selling quickly, then you need to strike fast. And that's, that just tells me you're doing the work. So congratulations. Most people aren't. So again, that's why you do the work. You have a buy box. It looks every day because the rhythm of the market will tell you, and right now it's telling you, if there's a quality asset at 1%, it's going to sell in 48 hours. So go get it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. So don't be afraid to refinance, but keep it at that 50% loan to value. I would. You're saying across the total, across the total portfolio, I could do like, I could say do a 75 on one of my duplexes.

16:21Correct. And then leave the other duplex alone. Absolutely correct. Balance it all out. Yeah. It's the, it's the, it's a portfolio total of, it's worth 900, you know, go to 450. Yeah. And then hopefully for, for subsequent properties, we can get it to where, you know, the cash flow is, is, you know, like you said, every one to two years, kind of creating enough for down payment to, to add an additional one. Bingo. Yeah. Very cool. Awesome. Any, any other parting advice for me? No, again, I think, you know, kind of going back to the early story, like folks, when you find something that's working, you find the markets that's working, you know, there's no reason to get distracted. Don't look, don't, don't say I'm bored. This is too easy. Keep stacking chips. Yeah. Jeremy, thank you for doing this. Any last closing thoughts or, or for anyone? No, I think that's, that's super helpful. I mean, it kind of, I think it kind of reiterates what I'm already kind of thinking. And now it's just a matter of talking to, you know, some mortgage brokers

17:24and trying to do a re-fi and get ready to buy. There you go, Jeremy. Well, thank you very much. Keep, keep me posted. Let me know how it goes. Thank you for doing this. And we'll talk next time. Sounds good. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it. Take care.