Scott Dillingham: 00:21

Welcome to this episode of the Wisdom Lifestyle Money Show. I'm your host, Scott Dillingham. And today, I have Jonathan Fairman with me. He is an expert at joint ventures. In fact, he does so much of them and and has made so many connections that he actually has a specific app for it that I've used with success.

Scott Dillingham: 00:40

So I'll touch on that in a minute, but I wanna welcome you. So welcome, Jonathan.

Jonathan Faerman: 00:44

Thank you so much, Scott. A pleasure to be here with you today.

Scott Dillingham: 00:47

Yeah. I know. That's that's awesome. So I'm I'm really excited. So I guess before we get into the meat of the subject, one of the things that I always do is I have the investors kinda tell us their stories.

Scott Dillingham: 00:58

How did you get started, you know, from wherever you began and to get to where you are today?

Jonathan Faerman: 01:04

Absolutely. So I started the my investment, my investor journey, with a condo downtown Montreal, which is where I live. Bought a condo in a in a plant, so it was, being built. Moved there, lived a couple of years, grew a family, and then I moved out to the suburbs, but I kept the condo, to rent it out. So the I think that's when I became a kinda like an investor.

Jonathan Faerman: 01:31

Held it a couple of couple of years, and then came time to sell it, sold it, made some profit. It's okay. Now I'm ready to grow my portfolio. I want to invest in multifamily properties, something bigger with more units. And then I realized at that moment that I didn't want to do it by myself because it's the time commitments, the the money commitment, etcetera.

Jonathan Faerman: 01:53

And I went to it with a partner. And I realized that I didn't know people to do it. So that that's how the idea of Investium came to be as a place for people to connect and to meet to invest in real estate together. I had met my wife online, so I kind of knew that meeting people online to go for a long term relationship kind of worked. So that's how that's how I created Investium.

Jonathan Faerman: 02:18

It took a couple of years, in the make, and then we are live now. And that's how that's how I got started with this.

Scott Dillingham: 02:26

That's awesome. That's awesome. So I don't know if you guys caught that, but his platform is called Investium. Okay? And, so did you develop this yourself, or did you hire people?

Scott Dillingham: 02:35

Like, there's a lot that goes in.

Jonathan Faerman: 02:37

I hired an agency in Montreal, something I'm very proud of, to have hired, a Canadian, business, an agency to help me. We partner. We're still obviously, in a relationship now. They use state of the art technology, and we have this platform online built here in in Canada.

Scott Dillingham: 02:58

That's awesome. That's so cool. So, you know, I wanna share a little bit about my story with your platform as well. So, when Jonathan and I met, he said that he has, this platform, that connects, investors for for joint ventures. And, it was actually funny because one of the problems that you said to me was that you have a ton of people with money, but you're struggling to find the investors that have the deals.

Scott Dillingham: 03:27

And from the market that I've seen, it's the opposite. Right? It's you have the deals, but you can't find the money. So I just thought that was an interesting problem that you have because you're gonna solve a solution in the marketplace. But so we met, and I was like, you know what?

Scott Dillingham: 03:42

Let's try it. There is a, multifamily, apartment building in the States. And, you know, I'm aware of it. And so I put it in there just to see what would happen. And I know the platform was built in Canada, with Canadians as like a first, you know, model.

Scott Dillingham: 04:01

But I put it in there. And there's interest, right? People want to invest into this project. And, the project to this point hasn't moved forward because the the seller wants a little bit too much money. So the goal is to get the seller to, you know, accept a more reasonable, value, you know, something that will support an appraisal.

Scott Dillingham: 04:23

Because right now, the seller, it's like, maybe 5 or 600,000, he's got it overpriced. So it just hasn't moved forward. But but the interest was there from the investor. So I thought that that was a really cool thing. So literally what you've built works in Canada and the States, and it's it's super cool.

Scott Dillingham: 04:42

So that was my story. Now I would love to hear more. Do you have some successes that you can share from the platform?

Jonathan Faerman: 04:51

I I have one personal success that I can share. So after I build the platform, I was ready to use it to to invest. So I did exactly what you did. I created a group, spoke with with investors. And in a couple of days, I was was I was on a Zoom with 1 ready to invest.

Jonathan Faerman: 05:07

We are prospecting some units, outside of Montreal looking for some more, profitable market, which is this is another advantage. By myself, I wanted to invest in Montreal because that's kinda like my reach. But with the other investors, you can reach much further, like you in the US or with these other people that I met outside of Montreal, so you can tap into more profitable markets. To me, that that was amazing. So that is a story for me that I actually was able to use it to meet someone.

Jonathan Faerman: 05:34

We were prospecting the units, to buy. It was it was it was great. So in the platform itself, there are no transactions happening to to abide to to the loss. So there are no transactions for money exchange in the platform itself. It's a place where you can make connections, and that is happening.

Jonathan Faerman: 05:49

You we are making connections. People are chatting together. There is interest being built, and it's very easy to switch from the the online to offline and actually interact with people.

Scott Dillingham: 06:00

Yeah. No. Absolutely. And the one thing that I really liked about the platform too is the layer of privacy that you filled in. So one of my concerns was okay.

Scott Dillingham: 06:11

So there's this deal that we, you know, have access to. Is everybody gonna see that, you know, does that limit, my ability to secure the deal if other people come in and swoop it up? And it's not like that. So you you actually create like a group for that project, and you can choose if you want to allow somebody to come in and have access to it or not. So I thought that was actually really cool.

Scott Dillingham: 06:36

Right? So it does protect you if you've got some really, unique. And then, yeah, you you let them join. And then you there's a chat function built in so you can communicate with them. They ask questions.

Scott Dillingham: 06:46

You can answer blah blah blah. And then, obviously, if the deal moves forward like Jonathan said, then you you guys meet up offline and you arrange something with lawyers and whoever else, you know, needs to be part of it, and then get it going. So I really, really like that. So I wanted to tell you that too.

Jonathan Faerman: 07:02

Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm very happy to hear privacy was one of our main concerns with building when building the the the platform. That's the first question everyone asks. Okay.

Jonathan Faerman: 07:13

How are you going to protect myself? What are you doing to protect me? Just always the first question. And we've we've, created many layers to protect the investors. So that number 1 is when you create the account, it's a 2 two factor authentication with your phone so you cannot create multiple accounts.

Jonathan Faerman: 07:30

Then when you log in, you can identify your your your identity with the government ID. So, again and you obtain a check mark, lime, takes 2 seconds to do another layer. Then what you were referring to is this private investment groups. I think it's one of the most cool features of this where you can create a private investment group, where you will put your, your the deal that you are, ready to to take or your idea. And you can message people to join you, people they can message join themselves, but you select who who is in there.

Jonathan Faerman: 08:02

And in there, you can, there I've seen people, they, they share links of properties they are prospecting. They share PDFs with the properties they are seeing or with the deals. All of that is available and no one from outside can breathe into that. So you can, like you say, you protect yourself. Otherwise, it will be very easy for someone else to to steal your deal and make it more difficult for you.

Jonathan Faerman: 08:23

Absolutely.

Scott Dillingham: 08:24

Yeah. Yeah. So I love that. Another thing that I love, and I'll let you say it, but let's talk about the price. Let's tell everybody the price of the platform.

Jonathan Faerman: 08:33

It's a very good point. Yeah. So investment is completely free, to use for everyone. So it's free if you want to join as someone with deals and you you you need to attract investors. It's free to join and use.

Jonathan Faerman: 08:47

If you're an investor and you want to partner with people, it's basically free for everyone to do everything. That's awesome. Certainly.

Scott Dillingham: 08:55

And I'm curious. Right? Because, I mean, you could make a business from this, but why did you choose the the free model?

Jonathan Faerman: 09:01

Because I want to lower the barriers of entry to investing in real estate. And I find that if you suddenly put a price tag to it, people are going to be very reticent to create an account. I think nowadays, people that are they have so many apps. They have so many accounts, so many services that everyone is really thinking thoroughly. Okay.

Jonathan Faerman: 09:20

Do do I really want to put my email here and create another account? And then I will have to remember, I will start to getting emails. People are really think thinking these things through. So if you on top of it, you add a price tag into it, you you really, really are are against your your your your favorite here. So what I did is I let it to be free to attract the most investors possible and and the most, people possible to really build a community.

Jonathan Faerman: 09:45

That that was that was the reason behind it.

Scott Dillingham: 09:48

That's awesome. It's smart. And I I gotta say too, like, I've used Facebook groups for different things and even our private investors hub. Right? We've taken it off Facebook and off social media and wanted it separate and segregated.

Scott Dillingham: 10:03

Because through the social media groups and things like that, there's so much spammers, there's so much fake accounts, like, there's just identity theft, right? There's all these things going on there, where I do find, like you said, with the authentication and things that you need when you're signing up with with the account, it's literally tied to your phone. So, a lot of times people are not gonna make those fake accounts. So even now weans out a lot of the the bad people. So I I really like that you didn't just set up a a Facebook group or whatever.

Jonathan Faerman: 10:34

Yeah. That that was that's one of the questions I also received. Like, what's the difference between this and Facebook? And the difference is not only the features and functionalities that let you really have this private thing and choose who you you are, but also the quality of the people. I I find that more and more Facebook and LinkedIn, the quality of the people there really decreased as these platforms became more popular.

Jonathan Faerman: 10:59

Number 1. And number 2, the fact that in in at Investium, when you create your profile, you're adding some information that relates specifically to your investment preferences. So when people, they see your profile, they can really know who to contact, not to waste anyone's time. Right? So, yeah, if I know that Scott is interested in multi finalists in Ontario, well, I'm not going to contact you for a land development in Alberta.

Jonathan Faerman: 11:26

Right? That's just we're wasting everyone's time. Those specific features and that specific information makes it way more useful for everyone.

Scott Dillingham: 11:36

Yeah. No. I I love it. So I know we're gonna put the link in the description of the show for for everybody to download the app. But for those watching live right now that maybe wanna just jump on this without waiting for the show to be published to the podcast, what's the link, or how do they get your app?

Scott Dillingham: 11:55

How do they get your app?

Jonathan Faerman: 11:57

So the, it's it's a web app, so, likely, there's nothing to install. So you go into, into the web. You can do it on your on your, mobile or your laptop or tablet or whatever. It's a web app, so you don't need to install. You don't need to download anything.

Jonathan Faerman: 12:12

It's www.investium.ai, or you can search search on Google Investium. It should be the first one. Very easy to to see. On the on the landing page, you will see basically the the the features, then you can create an account. It takes literally a minute to create an account.

Jonathan Faerman: 12:31

You just need your phone number to to authenticate. And that's it. You answer 5 questions on your your insight, and you can start seeing other investors. You can start interacting, interacting with people, create your own investment group. If you have a deal in mind, if you, let's say, you saw a property down the road that you think has potential, but again, you want to do it with someone, you can create a group saying, hey, multi family or building or whatever in Southern Toronto or, or, or something.

Jonathan Faerman: 13:00

So you don't need to give out all the information and people that will message you to request more information. You can allow them to go inside of the group and then you can share all the details with a more reduced and select number of people.

Scott Dillingham: 13:14

Awesome. Awesome. I love it. And I know you said, you know, this is a newer app. It took a couple years to build and develop.

Scott Dillingham: 13:22

So what's your vision? Where do you see, the app going long term? Or or what would you like to see from it?

Jonathan Faerman: 13:29

Absolutely. So we just recently added a feature to enable people to create their their investment team, to invest in real estate. You need a team to help you. You know it better than me. You are, you are basically the team that helps everyone invest in real estate.

Jonathan Faerman: 13:46

So we are adding a feature. We just added a feature to create a team, to help you invest. And in the future, something I want to do is to help people with finding deals. That's something I want to do, go through, perhaps the web and and contacting specific people to create some kind of, place where you can see the deals. And I think that would really help, investors.

Jonathan Faerman: 14:12

I think there are a lot of people looking for deals all the time, and it's not it's not easy to find. Right? Even going to MLS, it's impossible. Right? It's very difficult to to see what's good with from Valve.

Jonathan Faerman: 14:25

If you contacted someone, they promise you they're going to to send you a list with off market properties. But what they send you, the you don't know of the quality of those things. So I think I think there is a need for that, to to help find the the the right deals to to at least help create a short list. And then you will, as an investor, you will assess based on your on on what what your preferences are. But I think there is a need for that, and that's something I want to do.

Jonathan Faerman: 14:56

Plus giving extra help perhaps with partnership, agreements. That's also something very, very complex that requires help. Thing number 1 thing to create a partnership is to have a very exhaustive partnership agreement to know exactly what everyone needs to do and what what's going to happen. So those are some of the things, I want to do next.

Scott Dillingham: 15:20

That's awesome. And you know what? You are right about the the properties and reviewing the deals. We do that on a very minor level. Of course, we're we're never gonna be to the extent of of you because we we provide more of the general education plus, mortgage financing, right?

Scott Dillingham: 15:38

That that's what we do. But we do have a spot to list properties. And one of the things that we do, just to share, and this is why it's so important, because anybody can say, Oh, this is an awesome property. And you you kind of don't know the motivation behind why they're selling it. Like, are they tied to the property?

Scott Dillingham: 15:56

Is there some type of gain that they're going to get that they're not telling you? Why are they promoting it if it's such a good deal? So one of the things that we do is we filter them. So even this week, I had a realtor who sent me a property. On paper, it sounded great.

Scott Dillingham: 16:12

It was a $1,200,000, like, luxury home with a mother-in-law suite, and it had a garage that could be rented. And, so it it brought in, like, a substantial amount of money. But when you factor in the debts and stuff and you actually underwrite it, it looked like the deal was gonna be about 40% down, to make it cash flow. Right? So that's not a good deal.

Scott Dillingham: 16:36

I I mean, maybe to some people, right, if if they wanna live in that home, but this was all being structured as a rental. So it wasn't a good deal. So we told, you know, the realtor, you know, sorry. Like, we're not gonna post it for you. So, I think that that's really important because you don't wanna you don't wanna see a deal and think it's great because it's on some platform and then you wanna buy it, has to be underwritten.

Scott Dillingham: 17:00

So we do have a a filter. So I'm hoping you have something similar, some type of filter or, you know, make it so people have to list the actual expenses and income of the property, that type of thing. Just a thought. Just a suggestion.

Jonathan Faerman: 17:13

But Yeah. No. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's something.

Jonathan Faerman: 17:16

That's why I'm still developing, this and it's not there yet. There there are a lot of nuisance. Also some even perhaps some liabilities into this. Something that you propose something. Someone may come back to you later saying, hey.

Jonathan Faerman: 17:31

You told me to invest here. So that's why it's a it's a very tricky tricky subject, right, between suggesting something or showing, look. This is something for you to consider versus you should invest here.

Scott Dillingham: 17:44

That's right.

Jonathan Faerman: 17:45

Lot of a lot of nuisance there. You need to be very careful. It's people's money, and these deals could be a lot of monies, life savings. So you need to be very, very careful, in vetting. I think you are doing great how you vet them even, like, manually, 1 by 1.

Jonathan Faerman: 18:00

Yeah. So you really look at everything.

Scott Dillingham: 18:03

Yeah. And we're doing it from, like, a mortgage financing standpoint. Right? Like, we see it the way that the lenders will see it, so we kinda know what they will or will not use. But, again, like you said, that doesn't mean if it works from a lending standpoint, that that's still a good investment.

Scott Dillingham: 18:18

Right? So it depends on the client, right? What what's great for someone might be terrible for somebody else. So I think that's where again, your feature where you list your niche and where you want to invest is so important, as well. So that's super cool.

Scott Dillingham: 18:33

But no, that's that's awesome. So, I mean, we're gonna be wrapping up here. Is there any other things that you would like to say or, to touch on? We'll make sure that the investium dotai link is is down below so, people can join for free. Is there any final thoughts that you have for everybody?

Jonathan Faerman: 18:51

Final thoughts. Yeah. So I would say to to give it a try. That's that's, something I've seen from others. Couple of questions I received is like, how how do I get started?

Jonathan Faerman: 19:01

Because I think once you're before starting this, it it looks like, something daunting. How how do I and I the the the best way just to to get started is just to say hi. As soon as you just say hi to someone or you introduce yourself in a group, you create a group and you invite you invite someone, it's just taking that first step of saying, hey. Hi. I'm I'm Skolt.

Jonathan Faerman: 19:22

I'm looking to invest in this kind of property in this, area. That's it. That's all that it takes for someone else to say, oh, yeah. Yeah. You you know, me too.

Jonathan Faerman: 19:31

Let let's go into business together. Let's look into this. People that get really excited about this, everyone that I'm struggling with, they get really excited about this. So it's just to say hi. That that's all that it takes, just to say hi.

Scott Dillingham: 19:44

That's awesome. Yeah. No. Thanks for for sharing that, Jonathan. So we're gonna let you guys go.

Scott Dillingham: 19:48

Thanks so much for tuning in today and for listening, and, look forward to, seeing your platform grow, Jonathan.

Jonathan Faerman: 19:56

Thank you so much, Tony. It was a pleasure. Take care.