Transcription of Episode
Lauren Cohen 0:02
Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon, depending on where you are. I’m Lauren Cohen, host of Investing Across Borders where we teach you how to invest, live, work and play across borders. And I’m here today with my fellow Canadian guest, who has also made her way to the US actually on the west coast of the country in Los Angeles, in the Los Angeles area, Nadine Lajoie. I bet that not a lot of Americans say your name correctly, Nadine?
Nadine Lajoie 0:31
Yes, exactly, they kind of mess it up. But it means the joy. So that’s not a problem.
Lauren Cohen 0:36
Exactly. You’re always joyful. It doesn’t matter if they say your name wrong or not. So as you see from Nadine’s background, she is a tax expert. And she helps you to save money on taxes, which is awesome. And I met Nadine, I don’t even know how we met to be honest with you. Do you remember how we met?
Nadine Lajoie 0:54
It’s probably ceo-space I would say seven or eight years ago, something like that.
Lauren Cohen 1:00
No, it wasn’t so long ago that we met, we met only about six or eight months ago. And I remember I was posting about something and you responded. And I said, Oh my goodness, a fellow Canadian and ceo-space, and I got all excited. So Nadine and I became of course fast friends as I do with most of my Canadian partners, especially the lovely women. And Nadine, tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you to this amazingly interesting country that we both live in.
Nadine Lajoie 1:34
Thank you so much, first of all, Lauren, to reconnect with me on Facebook and inviting me on your podcast. And I’m really happy today to share a different tax strategy with your people. I have a bachelor in actuarial science. So I wanted to become an actuary. I studied in 1989 to 1992. But because of the recession 1991 I never got a job, I got offers to get to work in actuarial in 1998. Six years later, it was too late. I was already a financial planner having a financial business in Canada.
Lauren Cohen 2:15
You were still in Canada then?
Nadine Lajoie 2:17
Yeah, we we’re still in Canada. And after three years and a half in the business, I was able to build a $10 million tax shelter for a million dollar client and being able to give him 39% more money at retirement. So that was a win win win situation. And after that, I present that concept and that program to his attorney and his CPA and he said, Hey, we have other clients for you. So at 36 years old, I was blessed to be able to semi retire from that business because I was dealing only with new Thai millionaire with their CPA and the attorney. So I came here in the US that was my goal. I traveled 21 states 10,000 miles with my RV, I was a motorcycle racer, I became a champion motorcycle racer. And when I arrived in California, that was my dream for my life. I said, Okay, I really need to find a way to stay in the US. And of course for about a year I went back to Canada the first year and I studied all kinds of businesses in Canada, and in the US franchise. All kinds of things and real estate kind of popped up.
Lauren Cohen 3:32
And as 90% of my clients thank goodness,
Nadine Lajoie 3:36
Yes. And there is two major reason is because my clients, my rich client in Canada, I was always asking question, hey, how did you become so rich? Or how do you keep your taxes low, and he said real estate is either they made their money in real estate, or the Save taxes with real estate. I’m like, Oh, I’m loving it. So I started a class with nuval reach University at that time, there was a 120 hour class over two years 10 different weeks so I studied for probably 500 600 hours on how to invest in real estate which is applicable in the US and in Canada. So from there I started my real estate investment in the US in my immigration process. I wish I would have known you at that time.
Lauren Cohen 4:31
You’re not the only one that says that!
Nadine Lajoie 4:32
My god, I went the wrong route. Trust me, they kind of refused my immigration the first three times. I totally I got accepted the third time because I was working on wholesaling deals. We were buying 54 houses at $6,000 each and flipping them at $8000. So that’s how bad the markets was. The market was already down like 35% and I was trying to convince my friend in Canada to invest with me, because I saw the opportunity. I’m in finance, I was an actuary. So of course, economy, a stock market mutual funds, everything is cyclical. And I knew like in 2008, when I can gain the US part time in 2010, full time, I knew that was the right time to invest in real estate.
Nadine Lajoie 5:03
Knowing the right time to invest in real estate is certainly ideal to paving your path to success.
Nadine Lajoie 5:41
Yes, and you bring a good point, because most people like me at the beginning, I knew two strategies right, buy an old and fix and flip. Right. We were saying that is only that. But once I do, I did my classes, and I just covered it was probably 15 or 20 different real estate strategies. I’m like, Oh, it’s awesome.
Lauren Cohen 6:05
What’s your favorite one Nadine?
Nadine Lajoie 6:08
My favorite one that I would like to do is multiplex but here in California, my goal was to come here and find a triplex with a basement like we have in Canada, and live in the basement and rent the other three, but now that doesn’t exist. And I thought also that I can put 10% or 20% down, and I would be good to go. But because I was Canadian, it took me with my visa, it took me three years to get my social security number.
Lauren Cohen 6:41
What visa was it that you were denied the first two times?
Nadine Lajoie 6:45
I got my e two visa investor visa?
Lauren Cohen 6:49
Why did they deny you?
Unknown Speaker 6:51
Okay, the first time they said I do not have enough money invested at risk in the US.
Lauren Cohen 6:59
So this comes back to, and I’m sorry, I’m gonna have to play lawyer here. That’s the substantial investment component that we talked about, is it a substantial investment. And so the second time was?
Nadine Lajoie 7:12
The second time, I had five houses at that time, probably over $250,000. So we were sure we’ll get it. The first time I had maybe two, three houses at 100 or 120, something like that. But the second time, they said I didn’t have proof that I had money invested in the US, I had my property taxes. My company already started my utility bills, my deed of the house, but you know, those packages are so big. So the third time, they just resend that little tiny package about the property bills and the deeds of my property. So finally, and I had that 54 deals that we were working on, I got a bunch of emails and I put that in the lady said, Oh, you again? I said, Yeah, that’s me again, it was the same woman three times. I couldn’t believe it. And in that process, it took me three years and a half, and three times the same woman. She said, Okay, I’ll give it to you for three years. But finally, she gave it to me for five years.
Lauren Cohen 8:21
She was like, I just don’t want to see you anymore. Just leave.
Nadine Lajoie 8:25
Yeah. That was awful. So from there, on to the real estate, and then I really want to do a disclaimer, I’m not a CPA myself. I’m a tax consultant. I work with different CPAs Enrolled Agents and all that, and attorneys. But what I’m sharing with you today is a lot of my experience and all the hooks that I went so like that’s your client can also kind of go through the hook way easier, because now they know you.
Lauren Cohen 9:01
So that is very true. And I know you watched my webinar the other day and newer, that’s probably you were like, oh, where was she? Yeah, done this three times. Yeah.
Nadine Lajoie 9:14
And now I’m working like you with international clients. And I helped them also an international filing requirements that I want to share a little bit later. But now I have more people in Canada wants to come here in the US, they know that the real estate market is about to crash. So I’m trying to prepare a lot of clients to know their number and know their ROI and how real estate works and all those strategies. So when the market really crash in six months or in two years, we are all ready to move forward. And I’ll be able probably to refer you some clients to
Lauren Cohen 9:51
so the key is that you just mentioned strategy and be ready to move forward and a lot of prospective clients or people that are interested in making The move or like, well, the borders are closed and is now the right time to invest. And isn’t the market going to crash? Look, the truth is that for every single investor and every single client, the story is a little bit different and a little bit unique. But the key is that if you have the right professional team, you’re never going to go wrong. And you have to figure out your short term goals and your long term goals and then create a strategy so that you can get there step by step, because not every real estate investment or real estate investor is going to qualify for an immigration visa. It’s all about the structure, proving that you have a substantial investment in a non marginal business. How does that look? What does that look like? You don’t want to go back there three times. How did what in between those three times of going back What happened? Like what were you doing and what we still in the US?
Nadine Lajoie 10:54
How long ago was this? I was traveling under that 180 101 array two days going back and forth. I was still racing motorcycle at that time. So I was kind of traveling to be sure that I was here with my motorcycle, my RV and doing races. I’m a champion motorcycle racer finished third at daytona against 75 Guys.
Lauren Cohen 11:21
I mean, I’ve been on a motorcycle like three times in my life. My mouse still hurts because of the wind hitting it. That was years and years ago. Yeah. And I mean, you You must have been like completely. I mean, I know there’s a lot of women that raced motorcycles, but if you were a champion, you were like completely a unique like a trailblazer. Truly?
Nadine Lajoie 11:43
Yes, totally. Like when we started in Canada, we started a woman’s class. And a few years later, they started also in the US. And of course, I was kind of a big promoter of that, because I was semi retired for my financial business. I was dealing only with big clients who got me like my, one of my one of my big clients got me like $125,000 commission because I was able to save him $10 million in taxes. So we thought about the value you provide. And at that point, I’m like, Okay, I’m semi retired, I’m just having fun. And in the meantime, because I was traveling for my motorcycle, of course, I was visiting houses, neighborhoods to be able to deduct my trip because real estate is one of the best tax reduction strategies. Yes. And I agree the business expenses, the real estate expenses, repairs, and all that is one aspect. But you know, there is four different aspects in real estate right? There is amortization deduction, cash flow, and appreciation. Okay, we build for most people, they just know the cash flow. But once you once you add everything together in real estate, that’s one of my class that I took as a real estate investor, when I saw that slide that you can make 45% ROI return on investment with $0 cash flow. Like all the lights started to bubble in my head. I’m like, I’m loving that thing. So I studied and studied and you were asking about the strategies, and also to relate the visa. My favourite strategy was to buy multiplex I first I didn’t have enough money, I was not able to get blenders. And it’s passive income, which doesn’t qualify.
Lauren Cohen 13:50
No, no, we talked about that in the webinar pass. Yeah, income won’t work. You have to be actively involved in running a business, not a hobby, not through traditional real estate investing. Let’s create passive streams of income. That’s okay. But it’s not going to help you get the visa.
Nadine Lajoie 14:07
Yeah. So that’s why one of my friends, a fellow ontarian. lady, she went through the process maybe a year before me. So she showed me her business plan, she helped me out. And we prepare a business plan a little bit more solid than hers. And we still got denied twice.
Lauren Cohen 14:28
You know, normally your business plan would have been stellar and would have. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You did it.
Nadine Lajoie 14:37
At the same time, that was in 2008, right? 2008 to 2010. That’s where there was a lot of kind of rules or change that change. And I think I can 2012 that kind of more stabilized a little bit. So there were kind of a two four year period that even all the attorneys that I talked to, they said we got denied and we Don’t know why and all that. But, again, if I would have known you that would have been probably a way, way more here.
Lauren Cohen 15:06
Listen, we’re in a state of flux right now. And, you know, new administration always brings about change. And the last administration, I don’t think very many immigration lawyers or immigrants were very in favor of. But hopefully we have a new path to success. Nadine, I want you to talk briefly because we only have about 10 minutes left. You mentioned the four streams of income within real estate. So let’s say there’s two questions, I want to ask one, let’s say I bring you a client who wants to find strategies to save money on taxes, do you go backward and potentially refile as well as current taxes? That’s question one. And question two is, and this is for my listeners, because I have a lot of joint venture partners that listen to my podcast, do you offer a referral program since you’re not acting as a CPA, but as a tax consultant? And how does that look? So if you could answer those two questions? That would be awesome.
Nadine Lajoie 16:06
Yes. The answer is, yes, we can give a referral in a sense that I’m a business consultant first. But because we have 45, different tax strategies, 45 different experts all around the country, Canada, Europe, and now we start to get people also in Australia. So we can really help people in the business side of it. The real estate, kind of to know that number, we I have a software that I built, it can build like eight different deals, in two minutes, you can analyze your ROI, your LTV, your cap rate and straight off in two minutes.
Lauren Cohen 16:47
That’s wonderful. I mean, we have a lot of clients that need that. That’s wonderful.
Nadine Lajoie 16:51
So eight in two minutes. The other thing is the strategies. Sometimes we have to go back, not every time. Okay, we have a free questionnaire actually on my website, nadinelajoie.com. So that questionnaire takes about five, six minutes, but that will help people to discover how many of those 45 strategies can apply to you. And usually takes two three days to get the specialist we kind of have a back office, they kind of look at it, they talk to me a little bit and or they send me an email, hey, I think this strategy, you can add that up. So that’s really well done. And sometimes when we go back two or three years is because we are able to save even more taxes.
Lauren Cohen 17:40
If you can get the money, get us money for past taxes that were filed without taking advantage of all of the deductions and the savings and opportunities, then why wouldn’t we? And I think that’s that’s a great value that you bring
Nadine Lajoie 17:54
In one of the strategy, we can go back six months between taxes. So let’s say somebody sold a real estate or business in November, they had a huge capital gain. Now, because we are still in that six month period, they we can still go back and save those taxes. That’s what we call a QZ or a qof strategy. So we can go back six months, there is another strategy that’s called the m i s, and it replaced the 1031 exchange, ah, tell me about because the 1031 because the market is so high, a lot of people D cannot exert that 1031 exchange, which is a really amazing strategy to me, but because they cannot exert that they didn’t find a deal within the first 45 days or the 180 days. So that strategy to me is give people 93.5% of their money. So the strategy costs 6.5% but you are saving you 2025 30 40% in capital gains awesome. And you can reinvest in anything if you want to go from a business to retired or from a house to a business so there is no like to like investment. So for a lot of people who are on Eb five, right, they invest millions and millions of dollars in the US. But once you you start to turn over and do other strategies, maybe they can come in here with real estate and eventually invest in a laundromat, right if you have a new type Plex you cannot invest in the laundromat with the 1031. But that strategy that cost only 6.5% is open for for a transaction I would say over $700,000
Lauren Cohen 19:49
I love it. It sounds like a great fit, especially for Canadians that end up losing most of the time the 1031 exchange benefit if and when they take the money back to Canada. So that’s a great option for Canadians that are that are trying to defer or avoid or change around their tax strategy. Nadine, how do people reach you? Because certainly I think many of my listeners will want to
Nadine Lajoie 20:13
nadinelajoie.com. And if you cannot find me, just google me, Nadine racing, you’ll find me all over the place. With my motorcycle racing, and now I wrote a couple of articles about the international filing requirements to be sure that people have their 5470 250-471-8938 f bar like all kinds of numbers there. A lot of those because if not, it’s $10,000 per penalty per year. That’s why I’m so animated in helping people in my business consulting to kind of save those taxes and be sure that you are not getting caught with the international filing requirements.
Lauren Cohen 21:04
Yeah, it’s it’s definitely worth the investment in speaking with the dean and finding out if you qualify for a tax savings are a tax reduction, or whatever the case may be. Everybody needs to look at why do you need to pay the money to the IRS or the CRA or whatever your tax regulator is? So thank you, Nadine, for your time today. I’m Lauren Cohen signing off from investing across borders. As you can see, we are teaching you strategies so that you can invest live, work and play across borders and also save money on your taxes, which is an amazing strategy. Nadine, thank you. I wish you unburn weekend, and we will talk again very very soon. Okay, Bye Bye, everybody. Thank you.
