We have a dynamic episode with CEO, real estate broker, podcast host, and all-around great guy Jas Takhar, a Toronto native who has been in the sales and service industry for over 26 years. Jas is a beacon of positivity and his optimism and enthusiasm explodes through the speakers!
Jas leads through education and is a prolific content factory! He's quick with words, and his slickly-produced digital content is filled with gems of advice. He's a definite "must-follow" if you haven't done so already!
With 50 realtors and 11 support staff, Jas founded REC Canada, and advises and assists hundreds of buyers, sellers, and investors yearly across the Greater Toronto Area, resulting in a total of over $2.1B in transactions. For over 5 years, Jas has successfully kept his team top 3 in the country.
An expert in helping investors build out their real estate portfolios and host of one of the top business podcasts in North America – The Jas Takhar Podcast– Jas founded his own media company, From The Ground Up Media in 2021,where he helps other real estate agents produce quality content.
In this episode, we discussed:
- Allowing yourself permission to be yourself is the key to success. - Speaking from the heart and giving a glimpse behind the curtain. - The Canadian moratorium against international investors. - Comparing supply issues in Toronto with New York and Boston. - Picking markets and asset classes that the big REITs are investing in - How Jas gravitated to producing podcasts many years ago - Repurposing content and publishing 10-12 pieces every day - Giving yourself permission to be yourself
Join Jason Muth and Attorney / Broker Rory Gill of NextHome Titletown and UrbanVillage Legal in Boston, Massachusetts for another episode of The Real Estate Law Podcast!
Follow us! NextHome Titletown Real Estate on Instagram NextHome Titletown Real Estate on Facebook NextHome Titletown Real Estate on LinkedIn Attorney Rory Gill on LinkedIn
Jas Takhar:
You can still invest into into our city and into our country. But what's happening is the down payments that are required. It just doesn't make sense for international investors because you're not able to use you know, what's probably our favorite term and why we invest into real estate is because you can use other people's money. You can leverage, right. And so and so in that sense, I actually
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Jason Muth:
Welcome to The Real Estate Law Podcast. Thank you so much for listening to us once again or watching us if that's what you're doing. I'm Jason Muth we're here with Attorney broker Rory Gill from NextHome Titletown Real Estate and UrbanVillage Legal in Boston, and Rory, we have gotten a heavy hitter on our plate right now we've gone north of the border. And we are in one of the hottest real estate markets in North America today. And that's Toronto, and we had to go right to the authority. So one of the number one brokers in the whole country and one of the top guys in Toronto. We're talking to Jas Takhar right here. Jas is a broker, a sales strategist. He is a business operator. He's a podcast host. He is an influencer. He helps hundreds and hundreds of families every year, find places to live and invest in properties. And we are so thrilled to have him here on the podcast today. So Jas, welcome to The Real Estate Law Podcast.
Jas Takhar:
I appreciate all the kind words, Jason, thank you so much. I've had an opportunity to listen to your guys podcast. And so I just wanted to say congratulations, and kudos. And I don't tell everyone that I had the time to listen to their podcast. But I really wanted to kind of see what you guys talked about in the past. And so congratulations on just putting out content because as a as a fellow content creator, I know how tough it is to get guests and book them. And then people cancel or move times and days and all that. And I apologize if my team did that to you guys, as well, because I know how hard it is. And so just kudos to you guys, man, congratulations, keep doing what you're doing, you're putting out a lot of positivity, you don't know it, because I know you can't see your listeners. But the guys and gals that are taking their dogs for a walk and driving, listening to you guys while they're driving, but we need more positivity out there, and you guys are doing a heck of a job. So congratulations to you.
Rory Gill:
Thanks. And congratulations to you. And thank you for the the model that you've created for us. I mean, you put out such a prolific amount of content across you know, you're discussing your market discussing investing strategies doing everything, and you do it so well. So thank you for that model. And anybody listening or watching this, if you want to learn more about Jas, it's gonna be pretty easy, because you have so much good content all over the place that they can't help but to stumble upon it.
Jas Takhar:
I love that you mentioned that Rory, because people always asked me at the end of these podcasts or, or like if I'm doing an event or something like where do we find your Jas. I'm like, I must not be doing a good job if you're having a hard time finding me because I'm on every single platform, right? Video, audio, written word, all of that kind of stuff. And I think in today's day and age, you got to be there, right? I mean, you know, I've been I've been in real estate now for coming up to 17 years. And when I started this organization, I mean, we were getting open rates for our email, like as high as 75-80%, like seven to eight people out of 10 were opening our emails. I just checked, and we're getting like 23-24% open rate, and that's to a cultivated, nurtured our list of emails, not a cold list that I got from the Yellow Pages, right. And so I think at 20-22%, some would consider us still rock stars, right? But I mean two, three out of 10 people that are opening our emails, where have they gone, they've gone to this device, and there are 7-8-9 platforms that they're there at. And so if you're looking for people's awareness if you need customers, and if you need someone's decision making ability, i.e. like a vote or whatever it is, you're gonna go where people are right it just doesn't make sense. I mean, here in in Canada, I always laugh with people that if you have a billboard in Nunavut, which is like, you know, one of the coldest places in Canada, a billboard of your business here in Toronto, it doesn't really make sense, right? Not being on those platforms in today. 2022 going into 2023, it just doesn't make sense anymore.
Jason Muth:
Rory, this is officially the first time we had Nunavut mentioned on this podcast, and Rory can attest to this. I have Googled so much stuff about Nunavut. I've been on Wikipedia. I've watched videos about it. And we did not talk about this before we hit record. I had this weird fascination with these cold places that are really remote. Have you been there Jas?
Jas Takhar:
No, I never have I know. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I just..what made you Google like Nunavut? I thought that was gonna go over all you guys' head. I'm gonna think of it as an insult. If you guys don't come
Jason Muth:
No! Nunavut, Yellowknife, all these places in northern Canada and the territories we have this like strange fascination with them. Rory and I've been to Canada a bunch. I mean, we love going across the border, it was so sad for a couple of years during COVID that, you know, the borders were closed. I mean, we took a trip up to the Thousand Islands area, in upstate New York. And there's there were big, big signs, like, you know, when you're driving down the corridor that kind of goes through the border be like in, I don't care what your vices water, tequila, coffee, tea, border closed, like, basically don't come here, so. it's on me. Because I'm looking forward to you guys coming over here. We drink all four of those things. Not together, but all four of them.
Rory Gill:
The one thing we won't be coming over for, though, you know, anytime soon, I think is real estate investing. So just the one kind of transnational thing I wanted to ask you about is how was the the moratorium against international investors? How is that pending on your business? I know, you're in the hottest markets in the world, but.
Jas Takhar:
Yeah, look, I mean, you can still invest into into our city and into our country. But what's happening is the down payments that are required, it just doesn't make sense for international investors, because you're not able to use you know, what's probably our favorite term and why we invest into real estate is because you can use other people's money you can leverage, right. And so and so in that sense, I actually think that our our government didn't do well, it's, it is a band aid. They tried to curb the increases in values in our city by banning, you know, putting a two year ban on on foreign investments. That doesn't even help us here locally, because it's not like there was a massive amount of foreign buyers. It really equates to two 3% on the high end, for the last like, you know, three, four decades. It's been as high as maybe 5% of the transactions, right? We have an issue here from a supply perspective, because specifically in Toronto, the city that I practice in born and raised, have 95% of my personal investments here. And then I'm gonna say about 80% of my clients' investments in the last 17 years have been in the city, to give context to to the people that haven't traveled over to Toronto, I mean, it's a 50 mile radius, what we call the Greater Toronto Area, but we're on an island. To the south of us, we have the lake, we haven't figured out what Dubai has, which is built on water on the northern part of our region, you have a legislation that was put into place in back in 2005, that doesn't allow developers to actually build on the land, there's restrictions to preserve the land. And so because of this, you don't have homes and subdivisions being built out, you have a lot of condos. Toronto in 2021, it was number two in the world with the amount of cranes that we have in the sky. Number two to Singapore. Why, again, because of the fact that we're such, we're so landlocked. But the biggest thing is, and I would love to get your guys take on on how it is in Boston, I kind of know how Manhattan is, but in Toronto, it takes 10 years for from an application to be to be put into the city for a building to when the building actually gets built. Manhattan's like three years, three and a half years, and it's a lot harder to build on in Manhattan than it is in my opinion here in the Greater Toronto Area. If we can remove some of the red tape, that's one way that we can fix some of the supply issues that we're having in Toronto.
Rory Gill:
It certainly is, you know, a supply side problem here. We're not unique in that sense. Most American cities have some degree of this problem, but like you'd said, with the geography, we can't build East. That's saltwater, you can't build on top of the ocean. So we have only three directions that we can travel in. And then we have a web of municipalities. You know, there you have the the Greater Toronto Area and the City of Toronto, which is quite large. So you can do a lot of regional planning. Where we are, we're carved up into a lot of very small municipalities that anywhere else, we're in part of the City of Boston and everyone has their own rules, timelines, personalities, and that's been the major hindrance to the development of supply that we desperately need.
Jas Takhar:
Yeah, I mean for the past at least couple of decades but that definitely the last decade it's been a bunch of band aids from the government and anybody who watches my content they know that I don't really go on government rants or anything I'm not that person to me, doesn't matter if it's blue, red, or we have an orange party here as well. Like it doesn't just matter at the end of the day, there's always ways to create wealth. But it's they're always looking at the demand side hence why they they they have this ban on foreign buyers. They're they're always coming up with housing plans that affects the demand side because they think that's what the source is. The source is the supply, but nobody wants to touch the red tape because then not as much money is being put or, you know, given around, so to speak, right. And so, look, I truly hope that someone smarter than me figures this out. I do. I do think it's a very tough thing to figure out overnight. I always just say like, why can't you just put, why can't you just sit in a hotel room for weeks on end and figure out the supply side, right, like, once we figure that out, homes will be more affordable, we can actually, in Toronto, we need approximately 50,000 households every single year for the amount of people we have coming in, like guys, we have 250,000 people coming into that 50 mile radius I spoke about year after year for the next 10 years. Like it's already been forecasted. And and that's all all colors of government, they always allow people into the country, which I think is great, right? My father and mother came from India in 1973. If they didn't allow it, I wouldn't be speaking to you today. And so and so if, if we know there's that many people coming in, we need 50,000 households every single year, the best year on record, the best year of all time was 40,000. On average, they do 32,000 homes and condos a year. So the deficit is so large, if we can just get a handle on the supply side, I think we'd be looking a lot prettier.
Jason Muth:
Yeah, to that point, I think that we're gonna have that problem anywhere. I mean, it's exacerbated in places like Toronto that's very in-demand and popular to live. Boston's another area that, you know, we have great universities, we have a diverse economy, people want to move here. You know, we're hoping that we're not pricing people completely out of the market that they they leave because there's nowhere to go. And to Rory's point, you could be in downtown Boston and basically draw a line two or three miles in any direction, and you might hit six different cities. You hit Cambridge, you hit Somerville, you hit Everett, you hit Chelsea, you can go south and hit Milton, those all would have been places that would have been part of the greater - they're part of the greater Boston area. But they would have been part of Boston, if the map wasn't carved up many, many years ago. Instead, you now have to run through all those different planning boards, and you know, ZBAs, and, you know, it could be a nightmare, all the red tape, so we definitely hear you there.
Jas Takhar:
Yeah and I think, you know, to the guy or gal that's listening right now on the treadmill, too, right? Like, if you were thinking about like, where's an opportunity lie in Boston and Toronto in any place where there's a lot of demand and not a lot of supply? Becoming an investor? Why? Because what do we know, that happens to these major cities, and again, you guys will speak to it in your area, but very similar to Manhattan, London, Paris, Hong Kong, the most downtown core areas are renter cities, right? They're not where the average person can buy. And so you want to get to those places. And Boston's obviously, because the schools and you guys, you know, the financial district, Toronto is very similar. We have some, you know, we have Canada's top schools here, we have, you know, the we have five major banks, all their head offices are here, our Bay Street equivalent to to Wall Street is all in downtown Toronto. So people work there, they need to live there, but they're not buying, they're renting. And so if us investors, and we put our investor hats on, to me, that just screams opportunity, because you're you're going to have a steady flow of customers coming to your business right now. Now, you just got to figure out how can you how can you get some capital? How can you how can you get financing, and and what strategy might work well for you, but I'm always talking about the buy and hold strategy, because over a long period of time, real estate's always done one thing and this is not 20 years, 40 years of that I'm talking about centuries, real estate will always go up, it will always go down, but it goes up and down upwards over time. Right? It's a matter of can you have the patience to hold on.
Rory Gill:
So if you were if you're working with clients in these markets, Boston, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, that are just, you know, high in demand high, you know, high expense markets, where did those clients start? I mean, I think there's a lot of good information about there on what to do if you're in Detroit, but they don't necessarily have the same volume of content for for investing in the big markets where people want to be in the investor themselves probably live.
Jas Takhar:
That's a great question. Look, I follow where the big money goes. And what I mean by that is, is where are the big REITs the real estate investment trusts parking their money, where are these, you know, big pension plans parking their money, because, you know, it's not one person it's a board but more importantly than the board they got a research crack team that is like very intensive, right? Like it's, it's why you should probably always look at investing
Jason Muth:
Yeah. Hold on for dear life is a crypto strategy anywhere near a Starbucks or even a Walmart. Why? Because they have departments that don't have three guys just on a podcast talking about talking about where they shouldn't invest, they got a team, they got algorithms they got, you know, they're looking at analytics and data. And so for me, as I start to see where these big firms and where the big money is going, and what type of strategy, it's a matter of just parking your money for the long term. Now, that's not sexy. And we just know, sexy sells, right? And so when we start to say, well buy something and close your eyes and close your ears for 10 years, and if you're really, really patient, close those ears and close those eyes for 20 years, because on average, and I know the numbers are similar in all the cities that you just mentioned, where we like, we're in the GTA, the Greater Toronto Area, every decade, every 10 years, on average, for the last 100 years, values have doubled. So the strategy that I would I would suggest to people is just buy anything in downtown X, whatever city you're in, rent it out, and just go to sleep and deal with the tenants in terms of, you know, provide them customer service. Because even in Toronto, when I say buy anything, and like like, I'm kind of joking, but not really like, what I mean by that is, is that it 20 years ago, you could have bought a parking space for $25,000 in downtown Toronto. Today it's worth $150,000. At that same time, at that same time, 17 years to be exact, when I got into the business, parking spaces in Manhattan, I think were flirting around $75,000. Go check out a parking space right now in Manhattan. It's like $300-$400,000, right? And so and so again, when I say you could have bought anything in these major cities and made money, the proof is in the pudding. As long as you held on to it, you really only only lose money in real estate, when you're when you sell and or when you're thinking about possibly refinancing because the values are not going to come in as high as you would have expected them to, right? too. But it actually works for real estate, whereas for crypto And so as long as you hold on for dear life, you'll make money in the long term in these major cities. those guys are, they're going through some pains right now. Yeah. You know, one thing I wanted to touch on when your team reached out to us for you to appear on the podcast, and I say your team, because you've built up quite an enterprise in Toronto. You know, we researched you. And you know, to your point earlier, if you can't find you online, then you're doing something wrong, because it was very, very easy to find you Jas. It's a startling amount of content that we've discovered. Somehow you're consistent with it. It's always informative. It's entertaining. You repurpose content, you know a lot of people who are listening to this podcast, they're trying to get that degree of not just influence, but realizing that they're experts, right? A lot of real estate agents, mortgage brokers, people in the trades, they want to prove that they know their stuff, right, which you obviously know your stuff. And they want to do it in a manner that people can find them. Talk about how you chose to go in that direction, why you decided to do it, and what you've learned along the way with building up your influence online.
Jas Takhar:
Yeah, so five years ago, this September, my business partner passed away very, very tragically. And he was, he was really the face of the company, maybe not as good looking as me but definitely had was just full of charisma, right? Was my senior, he really, I was under his wing for about 13 years. And he passes away. Tragically, we had a radio show, you know, a couple of years before he passed, we stopped it. So I understood the the power of media. As he passed away, there was myself and our current business partner. We've been partners now for coming up to 17 years as well. We had to make a decision like how are we going to control the narrative of the messaging that goes out to our database. Who's going to be kind of the guy who goes out, you know, the face that people are going to see? And I heard the word podcast. This is exactly now four years ago. And I was intrigued. I was like, What is this like? This was four years ago. I mean, at that time, I think maybe 10% of like North American numbers. 10% of people downloaded a podcast as high as 72% now, right, like, everyone has some type of podcasts that they listen to at least once a week. But at that time, it was new. I had no idea what it was. I googled it. Okay, this is cool. I'm not I don't like the camera. I have no experience in front of it. It kind of makes me nervous. I don't like the lens is on. But I've been in sales for 28 years coming up to that nobody's ever told me that I have like a, you know, a bad voice. Not that people call me up the most sexy and sultry voice but they didn't say you have an ugly voice and so I was like, look, at least I can do this phone thing like audio alike, I love the fact that it's free. It cost me like 25 bucks a month to download some episodes and no one can kick me off the airwaves. Like we had a radio show, so we knew how structured it was. Every 12 minutes, you got to go on ads. If you throw an F-bomb here and there, not only is the radio station coming down on you, the government's coming down on the regulatory body, right? And so once I've heard that, I started to put out some podcasts, I sent them to my clients for feedback, really, I wasn't even trying to like, like, actually see if they liked it or not. It was more of like, what did you think? How did you think I did? It was really more of that. And they started saying Jas, this is awesome. Like, you're just, you're just sitting down with people and having conversations about things that we are interested in. We want to know how to invest in more real estate, we want to know the best tips and tricks from a lawyer, we want to know the best tips and tricks from a mortgage broker. So I did that for about 17 episodes. And then I kind of got bored of my own content, there was only so much that I could do and talk about only real estate. There's also more to me, I love business. I love the industry of sales. I love the Dallas Cowboys, my favorite football team for years and years. And so I like the Toronto Raptors, that - I saw that Jason thanks. I decided to talk about those things as well, as I didn't, as I spoke more about stuff that I actually enjoyed other than real estate, I started to kind of create this tribe of people that that were attracted to similar stuff, hence why they wanted to hear more podcasts. I then had a recording with a gentleman by the name of Ryan Serhant from New York - Million Dollar Listing. My team said you got to put this on camera, I put it on camera. I brought it back to my team. There's a gentleman on my team who's really kind of my graphic designer, but he chopped it up into like three videos. I was like, that's really cool. Like, what made you do that? He's like, Well, that's what everyone's kind of doing on YouTube. I was like, can you do this on a regular basis? He's like, Yeah, just give me the videos, and I'll start chopping them up. I started putting those and to your point, I actually started repurposing it on the socials, the Instagram, the Facebook and the LinkedIn and, and you know, TikTok in today's day and age, and I started to get more awareness of people who then would go to the full podcast and watch it. Once I started to get feedback that and realize, by recording one, one doing one recording a week for 30 minutes but getting 15 to 18 pieces of content out of it. I put it on steroids. So every dollar that I had, I decided to build my own internal media squad. I got videographers, editors, graphic designers, content writers. And then I also knew and got enough feedback from my clients that they love the post-produced stuff. But did they ever like when I was just in selfie mode in my camera and giving them my raw thoughts and, and that's how now I'm probably doing? I'm probably at about consistently 10 to 12 pieces of content a day on all the platforms, YouTube podcasts, blogs, Instagram, Tik Tok YouTube shorts, that's a huge thing right. Now. And and look, I think, as I mentioned, if, if you want somebody's awareness, you gotta go where they're at. And, and I just figured out, look, look, let me just put out as much as content as I possibly can make it absolutely free. There's no cost for it. There. It's all educational, it's peeling back the curtain. So essentially, and then whoever likes what I'm saying, come on over and find out more and whoever doesn't, that's okay. I want to get to all 6.6 million people in the Greater Toronto Area. I'm just not gonna get around to all of them?
Jason Muth:
Do you plan out your content? Like, is there a strategy behind it? Or is it just, you know, off off the cuff?
Jas Takhar:
Yeah, so I recommend so I have a company, a media company, because I had so many real estate agents here in my office and just in the Toronto area asking me like what you're doing and then they wanted to hire my people. So I started a little company kind of as a side hustle for the last 14 months and I advise them to have it kind of bulk do do your your content in bulk. Pick a day in a week, pick a day, every two weeks, shoot your eight to 10 videos. Myself, I don't roll like that. There's a reason there's, your listeners can't see it. But your viewers can YouTube and there's holes in the signs. This sign was from my old office, and as I asked the contractor to bring it over it cracked. The drywall cracked. And as he was putting it together, I said, just stop. Leave it like this, because this is what entrepreneurship is. And this is kind of my brain. Not that it's on crack. It's more that the fact that I'm all over the place. And that's how I like to see content. What I do do those I have figured out ways to scale it. And so right in front of me, right here, you'll see a camera. So what's happening is my team is recording everything I'm saying, by the time we finish this, a gentleman will cut up this conversation on something that they found that was valuable. So I scaled my content from that perspective, but I don't I don't really schedule it out, Jason. I don't really I don't roll like that. I like to just like, hey, what's happening today? I got five videos in my head. Some days I got zero good thing that I did five yesterday, because I'll just take from that, right? And I also have my own podcast that I do every other week. And so I'm able to take content from there as well.
Rory Gill:
I mean, it seems like a just an extremely well-oiled version. And I mean, an extremely well-oiled version of what I tell my agents and that start with what you're doing anyway out and about when you're talking to somebody and you are providing them with an answer. Well, you can adapt that and create a short little post video and something and you know what, if that flops, nobody reads it? Oh, well, it's worth that you already put into it. But you can repurpose just your job going out and about. And it's a good way for people who are a little intimidated and where to start to get going.
Jas Takhar:
10 questions, right Rory? They're getting questions not to cut you off brother. But like, if somebody's asking you, what's the closing costs on a property? When people are asking you like, what's the best way to sell my house? What's two, three tips, you're getting these questions in your emails, your DMS, your text messages on a phone call? Write it down, get it from the dollar store. Don't overthink it, get a little book and just write down - uh, Jason asked me this question. And then 15 seconds, 30 seconds, do a little you don't need a team. Like I did all the majority of it at the startup, actually all of it at the start I was doing by myself, right? Then you can get into like, let me produce this. It's funny because most agents come to us on the media company side and they all want a show. We all want the CNN, Fox News, like CNBC kind of show. And I'm like, guys, that's not the way, like the cart in front of the horse here. But can we just can we just do a couple of videos, like just get over that hump, right? I do think as a newer agent or newer content creator, the best place to start, other than what you just mentioned, Rory is a Q+A segment. Like, literally just bring on, like, bring on Rory and ask him a bunch of questions about law, and bring on Jason and ask them about the new property that he's at. Like, and just have them tell his stories. There's. And the cool thing is, is that if I'm asking Rory questions about law, he's doing all the heavy lifting. Like, I'm just asking three open ended questions. What's, where, when, how, why? Like one of those out of those five open ended questions. He does all the heavy lifting, right. And so I think that's the best place to start. Make it 30 minutes, and then just slice it up.
Rory Gill:
Yeah, those are probably answers that we're giving every week anyway. So why not want us to put a camera in front of us. One thing maybe I can ask you just selfishly on behalf of sort of my agents is, you know how to feel comfortable putting together these bits of content, one of the best ways I had it, I worked with an agent on my team, who would FaceTime everybody all the time, just spent the whole day just constantly FaceTiming people. That's who he was. And then I said, Great, let's put together some short, just short term videos for you. And as soon as I hit record, completely frozen, didn't know what to do. And it surprised me because that was - I felt it was such a good natural fit for them. But how do we get some of these people to get started and to to get comfortable making content?
Jas Takhar:
Yeah, I wish I had kind of that one answer for you. I think what the second I figure it out, the media company that I have is gonna get into the gate triggers. And the reason I say that is because it's exactly the same thing happens. Like I'm talking to some top producers in my office. And these guys know their you know what. The second lens comes on it. Like when you said, frozen? If you look back at the recording, I have a huge smile on my face. Because I pictured these people. I think what worked well, for me, what worked well for me, and hopefully somebody can take something out of it is I just gave myself permission to be myself. When I did that the tribe and my community really came in droves. So how did I do that? I told people up front, all the insecurities that I was always hiding from people. So for example, if you and I met now, I generally don't like shaking hands for the other person because my hands are always sweaty, Kind of came out of my mommy like that and couldn't figure it out. So I like giving one of these you know what I mean? I have sometimes a lazy left eye. Tried to doctors tried to fix it told my parents can't fix it. It sometimes goes a little wonky. I sometimes have a stutter. I truly believe my brain moves a lot faster than my lips does. So I have a little stutter sometimes. I like being in a T-shirt and a hoodie in the winter. And that's how I do real estate. And so as I started to give that permission to myself to be myself, the world started to open up. Like people came out of nowhere saying, oh, you know what Jas, like we kind of noticed sometimes that your hands are sweaty, my daughter has that. Like, and we connected. You know what Jas? Like, we know that, you know, one thing that I left out, I just forgot, but I'm on the I'm born and raised in the most northern part of Toronto, which is in an area called Rexdale, where most people will tell you to, okay, when you're driving through Rexdale, lock the doors, put up the windows, it just has a stigma of it. I was really protected. Because of my upbringing, my parents sheltered me away from all the bad stuff in that area. But that's just where they moved because that's what they can afford. But I would never really tell people that - I wouldn't say Rexdale there's another city, you can that Rexdale as in, I would mention that area, it's called Etobicoke. Because I was so ashamed of it. I thought they were going to judge me that there's no way they're going to deal with somebody from this area. The second I started mentioning it, people like, oh my god, that is so different. And that's so unique. And then all these people started getting attracted to me. So to your question, Rory, and I don't know how people do it yet. So I'm not gonna fake like I know the answer. But what I would tell people, is give yourself the permission to be yourself. God knows we don't need another Jas Takhar, we generally don't need another Rory or another Jason, we already have them. And what you have, and I'm talking to the person who's watching and listening is actually the most powerful thing in content creation, which is your uniqueness. And when they meet you, if you are, if you are someone who needs to crack themselves up before a video, I understand why. But let me just leave you with this, that when they need you, if you're not prepped up like that, they're gonna think you pulled one over. You know what I mean? It's so like, Jason's hair right now looks amazing. It's slicked back. And I'm sure that's how we kind of like, you know what,
Jason Muth:
I just got a haircut this morning.
Jas Takhar:
Exactly. I can tell. I haven't. And so I know when..
Jason Muth:
It was for you Jas. I knew we had the interview, so.
Jas Takhar:
I appreciate you, brother. Like, if that's who you are, that's awesome. Because that's who they're gonna come and see. And so if you're not, like, I don't know anybody who really I make the joke. I like the sound of my own voice. But I don't know anybody who really does. Everyone - it sounds weird when you hear your own voice back. But the truth is, when they come meet you face to face, when you're showing them a home, when you're doing a closing. We're going to hear your voice, we might as well let them, let them hear it. Let them see you up front. Because the best thing in sales and I this is coming from a guy, that's all I've done, I don't boat, I don't golf, I don't do anything. Not that there's anything wrong with these things. I'm like, This is what I've always done is sales, that I've always been fighting uphill, what content creation has allowed me to do, really is allowed the viewers and my prospects to make a decision. We hate this guy who's always waving his hands and talking with so much energy, great, they're not going to waste my time, they're not going to waste their time. Or we kind of like the energy, the passion and the voice. Let's go find out some more. Now when they come into my office, I do have a little bit of leverage, like for me to call it anything else would it be lying like, I know they saw a video, and they still want to meet with me. You guys said it at the start. You said you know Jas, we saw some videos, we did some background check on you. I never had a call with you guys. I never remembered this the first time wherever speaking or seeing each other like and having a conversation. But my my content did all the talking for me. You liked what you saw, you decided to book this, if you didn't, also, none of us would be wasting our time right now. Right? And so to that salesperson, if there's any reason you want to do this, and you need to give permission to yourself to be yourself, it's because your job is going to become easier.
Jason Muth:
Yeah, well, Jas, I know, we only have you for another minute or so. And I just wanted to say that, you know, your authenticity has really come through in this interview as much as it has all the videos that we've seen online. And that's one thing I'm taking from this is that, you know, be yourself be unique, you know, speak from the heart give a glimpse behind the curtain. And those are things that work that works for any of us and people get afraid they get afraid of being vulnerable or making a mistake or stammering or anything. It doesn't matter, right? That's the whole behind the scenes stuff. It's like when we went into pandemic lockdown. Everyone's working from home and people were paranoid that a cat's going to run across like a screen. Who cares? It means you have a cat, right? You like cats, people like that.
Jas Takhar:
As long as you were wearing underwear, I think you were fine. Got it.
Jason Muth:
I have underwear on yeah, I'm gonna skip our final questions, because I know that you have a hard stop right now. But I did want to say we're gonna put all of your links and your websites and everything in our show notes. We do a great job with that once we publish the episode, people want to reach out to you jazz. It's easy to find online. But what do you think?
Jas Takhar:
I still want to give you like, like I had a blast with you guys at least throw one of the questions that you normally do on rapid fire. I won't feel like I'm part of your actual podcast if I at least didn;t get one of the answers. To answer your question really quickly though, the best place to do go is my own app like on in the app store in the Play Store, just search my first name and last name in the App Store or the Play Store. I have my own app. And hopefully I can sneak into people's home screen now.
Jason Muth:
Yeah, I saw that. What a great idea. Get a button on the iPhone, Rory, I'm gonna go to question number two that we normally ask because I think that's going to be the most poignant one for Jas, which is tell us what may happen early on in your life or career that impacts the way that you're working today.
Jas Takhar:
My father was a taxi driver his whole life. My mother was a factory worker, father had a grade eight, education mother had a grade four education, watching them work every single day and never complain about it, ever, ever, ever, out loud to their three sons could have been complaining in the room and they just, they never did it in front of us, has completely, completely made who I am as a person. Because there's just not a day that I even think about, like really complaining. Like, I'm speaking in Toronto to two guys who are in Boston right now. And we're just shooting the breeze and getting to know each other. You told me that you guys actually come to Toronto, I'm so excited that like the next time you guys come at least we can sit and have a drink and eat and so like to complain that a client didn't do a deal with me. Or my video wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be because I have some subjective opinion that it should be. It's just complete nonsense, because I actually saw how hard my father and mother had to work, which was the biggest game changer in my life.
Jason Muth:
Yeah. That's great. That's awesome. We've heard from other people also about how their family upbringing has really, you know, impacted the way they work today. Good or bad. And you know, that's a great lesson. You saw their hard work and, you know, it's really helped you formulate the career that you have today. Jas, Tequilas in Toronto. Sounds like a really good idea.
Jas Takhar:
That's a show! We might take you to make that show.
Jason Muth:
Tequilas in Toronto. You let me know. And hey, I'll be your first guest.
Jas Takhar:
Guys. Like really? If you come here and we don't have a tequila. It's like, it's an insult to me. It truly is.
Jason Muth:
I'm a man of my word. So you have my word. Jas, thank you for appearing Rory. Where can people find you if they want to reach out to you?
Rory Gill:
I don't have an app yet. But they can find me at my real estate brokerage NextHome Titletown nexthometitletown.com or my law practice UrbanVillage Legal, urbanvillagelegal.com
Jason Muth:
Awesome. And if you want to appear on the podcast want to reach out to me Jason@nexthometitletown.com is the easiest way to get a hold of me. So on behalf of Rory, Jas, thank you. This has been a pleasure. We were so honored that you're on the podcast. So thanks so much for being here. We'll have to circle back with you again in the future. Tequilas in Toronto!
Announcer:
This has been The Real Estate Law Podcast because real estate is more than just pretty pictures. And law goes well beyond the paperwork and courtroom arguments. were powered by NextHome Titletown Real Estate or Boston's progressive real estate brokerage. More at nexthometitletown.com and UrbanVillage. Legal Massachusetts real estate Council serving savvy property owners lenders and investors more at urbanvillagelegal.com. Today's conversation was not legal advice, but we hope you found it entertaining and informative. Discover more at realestatelawpodcast.com Thank you for listening