In 2016,\u00a0when\u00a0the GTA market was\u00a0on fire, Mississauga, Ontario-based investor Sarah Eder was facing a crisis of her own. After\u00a010\u00a0years as a successful professional equestrian show jumper\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a\u00a0journey that took her across the globe and allowed her to train with some of the world\u2019s most celebrated champions\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Eder, like most people inching toward 30, felt\u00a0it was time for a change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery athlete faces retirement at some point,\u201d\u00a0she\u00a0says. In addition to the physical toll\u00a0of\u00a0training and riding, Eder was also dealing with the demands of a serious relationship and managing a horse farm in King City. \u201cIt just got to be a lot. I couldn\u2019t see myself doing it for another three years or so.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But athletes like Eder are always on the lookout for the next challenge. Having stepped away from her beloved horses, she was hungry to test her abilities in an entirely different setting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Armed with a degree in business management \u2013 her parents insisted she get\u00a0an education\u00a0before turning pro \u2013 Eder decided to see how corporate life fit. Searching online job boards for business administrator positions,\u00a0she\u00a0stumbled onto a\u00a0privately\u00a0run\u00a0property management company advertising just such an opening. Little did she know that that moment would launch the next phase of her life.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew nothing about real estate at the time,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know what cash flow was. Little did I know that along the way,\u00a0I was going to completely fall in love with real estate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other\u00a0people\u2019s money\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Eder’s stint managing properties alongside her boss in Mississauga proved to be the educational opportunity of a lifetime. In addition to learning the basics of property management, tenanting and the acquisition of multi-family properties \u2013 lessons she\u00a0has been\u00a0able to test and put into practice every day \u2013 Eder was also introduced to the idea of joint-venture partnerships.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was\u00a0mind-blowing,\u201d she says. \u201cI was like, \u2018What are you doing? You\u2019re taking other people\u2019s money and investing for them but you\u2019re not investing any of your own capital? How is that even a thing?\u2019 It really opened my eyes to something I had no idea existed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n JVs would soon become critical to Eder\u2019s own foray into investment. In late 2017, head over heels in love with real estate and confident\u00a0after\u00a0her year of practical experience, she decided she needed properties of her own. Unfortunately,\u00a0her previous career hadn\u2019t been a\u00a0cheap pursuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m looking at my debt and I\u2019m thinking, \u2018Oh wow. There is no way I\u2019m doing this on my own,\u2019\u201d\u00a0she recalls. Joint-venturing would be her only option.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Eder was searching for properties in the Greater Golden Horseshoe in late 2017, a time when hysteric bidding wars were still the norm. \u201cI was freaking out,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s not how I learned how to acquire properties.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n After three months of being constantly outbid, she found a seller in Brantford who was liquidating his student rental portfolio. She purchased equity in one of his duplexes and took over its management, essentially making the seller her first JV partner.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like the way I was taught was always conventional 50-50 \u2013 someone puts in the mortgage financing and the down payment,\u00a0and you manage the property,\u201d Eder says. \u201cBut after that, I thought,\u00a0\u2018Wow, there are so many other possibilities out here.\u2019\u00a0It really encouraged me to have an open mind when I\u2019m structuring JVs. And I think that\u2019s why I\u2019ve been so successful: because I don\u2019t limit myself to traditional JV structures.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Another key factor in\u00a0Eder\u2019s success\u00a0has been\u00a0her approach to fundraising, which is both tenacious and client-focused. In the five or more hours she spends each day communicating with potential partners \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ve literally made it my career to raise capital,\u201d she says \u2013 Eder tries to discover what\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0hoping to get out of their real estate\u00a0endeavours.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI tend to spend a lot of time in the beginning really getting to know my potential JVs,\u201d she says. \u201cNo numbers\u00a0\u2013\u00a0it\u2019s more about what their goals, their needs and financial outlook are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s an approach that appears to be working. Eder raised $1.5 million in private capital last year, a sum so large it forced her to shift her role from property manager to facilitator. She now describes herself as a \u201cpuzzle master\u201d, matching people who have specific strategic goals, such as flips or large multi-family properties, with investors who have the experience and ability to\u00a0make them a reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n Eder\u2019s partners have had considerable good fortune thus far, but the risk of an investor losing money in a deal she facilitated looms large in\u00a0her\u00a0mind. \u201cIt\u2019s not all about me getting rich and growing this massive portfolio,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s really that I\u2019m in this for my investors. I have developed this good relationship with them. I\u2019m invested in their goals,\u00a0too.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Go big or go home\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Even though she\u2019s only two years into her life as an investor\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a\u00a0time when most would be happy to have\u00a0one\u00a0cash-flowing single-family home under their belt\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Eder has already gained a fair amount of experience in the multi-family space, both as a short-term owner and a manager.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMulti-family is definitely the hot commodity right now,\u201d she says, conceding that affordable deals in and around the GTA are increasingly hard to find. To work around the high prices, Eder has started searching out unconventional opportunities, such as small multis on large\u00a0parcels\u00a0of land where more units can be added. \u201cWe\u2019re in that market right now where prices are still kind of high\u00a0\u2013\u00a0there\u2019s not a lot on the market,\u00a0and if we don\u2019t start to make our own, we\u2019re just going to be waiting forever for the right deals.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Eder encourages\u00a0other young investors considering a duplex or larger property as their first foray into investment to be prepared for anything. \u201cYou can never anticipate how things will go, especially when you\u2019re buying bigger multis and you have a ton of different tenants,\u201d she says. \u201cYou\u00a0think\u00a0you\u2019re going to get certain rents;\u00a0you\u00a0think\u00a0renovations are going to go smoothly.\u00a0Multi-family is\u00a0definitely not\u00a0for the faint of heart. It\u2019s so important to have the education first before you dive in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Education is key, she adds,\u00a0to being\u00a0taken seriously by older, more experienced investors. But despite reading every book she could find, attending every seminar she could afford and even signing up for persuasive speaking courses, Eder believes true success comes when investors add their own creativity and personality into the equation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like the seminars and the books were a good template,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I had to be open-minded and fill in the gaps because none of those books are a one-stop-shop with a blueprint to follow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Since walking away from an illustrious career with no alternative plan in place, Eder has turned that lack of a roadmap into an advantage every step of the way. She has been forced to learn, forced to innovate and forced to recommit herself to her new pursuit every day. Making it in real estate in the GTA has never been harder, but Eder would be the first to\u00a0say\u00a0that the wildest horses are the ones most worth taming.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2016,\u00a0when\u00a0the GTA market was\u00a0on fire, Mississauga, Ontario-based investor Sarah Eder was facing a crisis of her own. After\u00a010\u00a0years as a successful professional equestrian show jumper\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a\u00a0journey that took her across the globe and allowed her to train with some of the world\u2019s most celebrated champions\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Eder, like most people inching toward 30, felt\u00a0it was time for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22050,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8422\/revisions\/22050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}